Letters

I enjoyed your article "Performance Pay Perils" (February). I champion linking pay with performance, however, most government performance pay plans fall far short when it actually comes time to pay. I am under the pay banding system established by the Federal Aviation Administration and it is a classic example of how pay banding fails.

Performance is encouraged, not rewarded with pay. With the FAA pay banding system, like many performance-based systems, there are too many ways to circumvent awarding pay increases. I consider myself one of the top performers in my office, yet I have not received a pay raise since joining the agency two years ago. In addition, I've already been informed it is unlikely I will see a pay raise before fall 2005.

I bought into the concept of pay banding when I was recruited for my position because the potential salary for "journeyman" level was significantly higher than the General Schedule pay system. I have always been aggressive and industrious in the performance of my duties and knew that I would be an excellent candidate for pay increases based on my performance.

It looked good on paper, but the pay scale is no longer quite so attractive as I realize I have more than $20,000 ahead of me in my pay band and no way to reach the top.

There always seems to be an excuse for why pay raises cannot be given; for example, there is no money in the budget or it would cause dissension among employees if only 2 percent were awarded a pay increase.

The pay banding system works well for newly hired employees as they quickly advance to the journeyman level. While this is great for new hires, this is discouraging for employees hired at a higher pay level. For example, I was hired at a higher salary commensurate with my experience. Others hired at the same time, with less experience, were paid less. Since then, though, the employees hired at a lower pay level have received "automatic" pay increases and have now reached, and in some cases surpassed, my current pay level.

I am now about $10,000 short of where I would have been on the GS pay scale had I remained with my previous employer. I have little faith in the pay banding system as I have seen many of its shortcomings. Will the new system be any better? I think not. I doubt I'll see the day when a government performance-based plan lives up to its name.

James Ouellette
Boston

It might work well in private enterprise, where a company is designed to manufacture and market cars or appliances, for example, and many like jobs exist. But passage of this bill for the Defense Department only displays the ignorance of personnel chief David Chu, et al., of Defense procedures.

Gayle Hamblin
GS-14, Navy
Pensacola, Fla.