Lawmakers urge Pentagon to hold off on new pay policy

Three House lawmakers are urging the Pentagon to ensure that employees working under a new personnel system receive the compensation next year that they anticipated.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Reps. Tom Davis, R-Va., Frank Wolf, R-Va., and James Moran, D-Va., expressed concern over a new policy that will change the way some Defense Department employees will receive the 2008 governmentwide pay and cost-of-living increase.

"We have been contacted by numerous constituents gravely concerned about a recent announcement that they will not be receiving the across-the-board pay raise with other federal employees due to their transfer into [the] National Security Personnel System," the lawmakers wrote.

The Pentagon last month announced that 110,000 employees working under the first wave of NSPS, known as Spiral 1, will receive half of the 2008 pay increase as an adjustment to their base salary, provided they earn an acceptable performance rating. The other half will be added to performance pay pools and distributed based on quality of work, the department said.

The lawmakers noted in the letter that their concern is not over NSPS in general or over other efforts to compensate employees based on performance. Rather, they noted, the concerns stem from the fact that "these employees . . . reportedly were informed from the outset that for the first year in NSPS they would at least receive their base pay increase."

According to one Spiral 1.1 employee, who spoke under condition of anonymity, many NSPS employees had expected to receive the normal across-the-board pay increase in January as well as an additional performance raise, as was the case for 2007 payouts.

Some have expressed concern that under the new policy, many NSPS employees who received good performance reviews would receive a raise lower than those on the General Schedule. That could be even more of the case in 2009, when the full governmentwide increase will be allocated to performance pay pools and distributed based on performance.

"It would be difficult if not impossible to recruit or retain employees if they could not rely on their promised salaries," the lawmakers wrote. "But an even more difficult task will be meeting the cost of replacing employees or increasing hiring efforts in general if employees do not have confidence in the personnel system."

NSPS spokeswoman Joyce Frank said Tuesday that the department had not officially received the lawmakers' letter and therefore could not comment on it. "When we receive it, we will look into the concerns raised by the representatives," she said.

Frank added, however, that the department is capable of making meaningful and fair distinctions in performance and is ready to take the next step toward a more credible and robust pay system. "NSPS actually offers employees opportunities for greater increases than before," she said.

The department plans to add an additional 90,000 nonbargaining unit employees to the personnel system in fiscal 2008. Eventually, the system is slated to encompass 700,000 civilian employees.