Rebuilding at NASA

s NASA prepares to send people to Mars, it will be offering better pay and perks to its staff back on Earth. Recently won bonuses to lure new hires and help them relocate could rise as high as a year's salary, and some especially coveted staffers could be paid as much as Vice President Dick Cheney. The new authorities, granted under a law passed in January, are far more modest than those given recently to the Defense and Homeland Security departments, but NASA will take them, and gladly, says Vicki Novak, the agency's chief human capital officer. "There is no one provision that is the silver bullet," she says. "But the combination gives us a lot of flexibility to attract new talent, retain new talent and streamline hiring."

Unlike the Defense and Homeland Security personnel reforms, the 2004 NASA Workforce Flexibility Act won support from agency unions. Labor leaders managed to reserve most of the bonus pool for nonmanagers, block an employee-exchange program with the private sector and stave off switching to a pay-for-performance system. NASA managers weren't happy to make those concessions, but they welcomed the legislation in light of the challenges created by a downsized workforce with a large contingent approaching retirement age.

Like many agencies, NASA reduced staff during the 1990s without much thought to shaping a workforce to fit the future. As a result, the agency now has 19,000 people, about 25 percent less than a decade ago. Nearly 30 percent of those who remain are eligible to retire in the next five years, and only about 1,000 are under age 30.

The downsizing was part of former NASA chief Daniel Goldin's plan to make the agency "faster, better and cheaper." But by the time Goldin left in 2001, even he admitted that the cutbacks had gone too far. NASA was losing the battle to retain its workforce in the face of stiff competition from the private sector for top scientists and engineers.

After the space shuttle Columbia disaster last year that killed seven astronauts, the agency's largest union, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, blamed a "combination of budget cuts, workforce downsizing and contracting out of key NASA operations" for hurting "the safety of NASA's manned space program, its ability to retain and pass along core technical knowledge, and its oversight of the contractor workforce."

Personnel reform will allow NASA to at least make a start at redressing the consequences of downsizing by paying top recruits better than in the past. The flexibility law will boost recruitment and relocation bonuses to as much as 25 percent of salary for each year that a prospective employee agrees to work for the agency. For a four-year agreement, the agency will pay a bonus equal to 100 percent of starting salary. Unlike other agencies, NASA now can include locality pay when making the bonus calculation. Managers will be able to pay bonuses in one lump sum or in installments.

In addition, NASA now can pay travel expenses for applicants and can offer mid-career hires extra vacation time. For jobs deemed critical, the agency will be able to pay 10 workers as much as the vice president makes: $186,300 a year. Other salaries will remain in line with the General Schedule system.

The agency also will be able to offer scholarships to promising science and engineering students. NASA will pay for one year of schooling (with a maximum of four years) for every two years the student agrees to work for the agency after graduation. These provisions will go a long way in helping NASA hire first-rate scientists and engineers, says Novak.

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., sponsored the flexibility bill. Voinovich says it became law at just the right time, the same month that President Bush proposed to send a human explorer to Mars. "Fulfilling President Bush's vision for NASA means making sure the best and brightest minds view it as a premier place to work," he says. "NASA's [current] personnel policies are dated and are holding the agency back."

"Events of the past year have highlighted NASA's need to attract and retain the best workforce imaginable. And yet NASA is on the brink of losing the talent it already has," says Boehlert, citing the Columbia disaster.

IFPTE, which represents some 8,000 NASA workers, also claimed victory when the bill became law. The union worked with Boehlert to remove language that would have allowed NASA to set up a broad demonstration project that might have led the agency to scrap the General Schedule and adopt a pay-for-performance compensation system.

The union also fought off a provision that would have allowed NASA to enlist private sector workers under an exchange program without putting them on the federal rolls. Those hired under the program would have been temporary, term-limited employees paid by NASA but outside the GS system. "We viewed that as a revolving door-type policy, an opportunity for contractors to gain inside information on contracting opportunities," says Matt Biggs, IFPTE legislative director. NASA unions also saw the provision as a way to hire new staff without providing them the rights and privileges afforded to civil servants.

Unions also convinced Congress to restrict the percentage of bonus money going to supervisors to 25 percent, with the other three-quarters allotted for rank-and-file scientists and engineers. Each year, the agency will have to include in its budget request a specific amount set aside for bonuses.

Before it can move forward with any of its new authorities, NASA will have to win approval from the Office of Personnel Management for a new plan to identify current strengths and weaknesses of the workforce and guide hiring. Congress will have three months to review the plan after OPM approves it. Novak expects to begin implementing the workforce flexibility act by early next summer.