GovernmentExecutive.com

A New Hampshire Democrat is set to introduce an amendment to the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill requiring the Pentagon to return employees covered under the National Security Personnel System to the General Schedule within one year unless the Defense secretary can demonstrate improvements to NSPS, union officials said on Monday.

The amendment by Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., would apply similar restrictions to the pay-for-performance system that covers Defense Department intelligence employees, the union representatives said. Shea-Porter's office could not immediately be reached for comment.

The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the National Federation of Federal Employees and the American Federation of Government Employees confirmed that Shea-Porter planned to introduce the amendment on Tuesday during a House Armed Services Committee markup of the authorization bill.

"NSPS has dramatically undermined both the strategic interests of the Defense Department and the well-being of its workforce," wrote Richard Brown, president of NFFE, in a letter to Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas, chairman of the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee, backing the language.

The amendment would have four provisions, IFPTE President Greg Junemann wrote in a letter to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., supporting the measure.

It would guarantee that employees covered under NSPS received the full, governmentwide pay raise given to federal employees under the General Schedule system annually. Currently, NSPS employees receive 60 percent of that pay adjustment. It also would prohibit the Defense Department from covering newly hired employees under NSPS. In addition, the department would be banned from classifying any jobs as being covered by NSPS as of June 16, 2009. And finally, NSPS employees would be returned to the General Schedule system within one year of the measure's passage unless the Defense secretary reported to Congress within six months that substantial improvements had been made to the pay-for-performance system.

That last provision is particularly important, as a Government Accountability Office official testified during an April 1 hearing that the law creating NSPS does not include specific provisions governing how the system would be repealed.

The Obama administration announced in March that it was suspending conversions of new employees into NSPS and ordered a review of the system. The three-person team appointed to conduct that review will hold meetings on June 25 and 26 to collect feedback about NSPS, and is due to make reports to the Defense Business Board this summer and to the Defense Department as a whole in the fall.

An e-mail to members of the coalition that sued the Defense Department in 2005 to halt implementation of NSPS said the Shea-Porter amendment also would place restrictions on the Defense Civilian Intelligence Personnel System, but did not provide further details.

A spokesman for the House Armed Services Committee said that because the amendment had not been introduced, its text was not yet available.