The House is expected to vote this week on the 2010 defense authorization

bill including an amendment that could mean the end of

the pay-for-performance system within one year -- a change affecting

approximately 200,000 federal employees.

If enacted, the amendment -- which was unanimously approved last

week by the House Armed Services Committee --  would:

• restore full nationwide adjustment to those federal employees working under

  National Security Personnel System (NSPS) -- which is currently 60% vs.

  100% for General Schedule (GS); 

• prohibit new hires from being put into NSPS;    

• prohibit any reclassification of positions to NSPS as of June 16, 2009 (DoD

  has suspended conversion of current DoD employees from GS into NSPS but is

  continuing to place new employees into NSPS), and   

• mandate that within one year of enactment the Secretary of Defense shall

  convert all NSPS employees back to the General Schedule.

"NSPS has been a failure," said Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H.,

the amendment's sponsor.   "The majority of employees in NSPS prefer

the prior system, and numerous studies have shown that the implementation of

NSPS has been plagued by inequities in how employees are compensated and

rated."

The

National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) and other unions

representing employees in DoD have sought to repeal NSPS since it was

first authorized by Congress in 2003.

style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial', 'sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">"Since its

implementation, NSPS has dramatically undermined both the strategic interests of

the DoD and the wellbeing of its workforce," said NFFE National President

Richard N. Brown.  ""With worker morale reaching an unprecedented low, the

time has come to abandon this ill-conceived plan, which has wasted billions of

taxpayers' dollars."

Many of the employees in NSPS do not believe that the system rates and

compensates them fairly for their job performance.  There has also been

concern that race is still a factor in NSPS to determine

compensation.  FederalTimes.com recently produced an href="http://militarytimes.com/nsps/" target=_blank>interactive

chart which allows readers to use any combination of

demographic criteria to find the average rating, pay raise, bonus and total

payout for different groups in NSPS.

The Debate Continues

While President Obama has previously stated he wanted to review and even

perhaps alter or repeal NSPS, administration officials have also indicated

as recently as May 29 that the White House wants to implement a

pay-for-performance system for all federal employees.

In today's Washington Post, Federal Diary columnist Joe Davison

describes href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR2009062202978_pf.html"

target=_blank>how performance pay for federal employees is still a matter of

debate: 

Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag "hinted that

current pay-for-performance systems may not survive the Obama administration

review in their present form. 'The Administration will not support any pay

system that is unfair or has the effect of suppressing wages or discriminating

against employees,' Orszag wrote."