Two members of the House Armed Services Committee, its chairman and
the readiness subcommittee leader, are urging Defense Secretary Robert
M.
Gates to stop converting civilian federal employees to DoD's new personnel system, the National Security Personnel System.
Congressmen Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and Rep. Solomon P.
Ortiz (D-Tex.) wrote Secretary Gates in a Feb. 13 letter saying that NSPS has resulted in
"widespread
distrust and discontent within the ranks of the hundreds of thousands
of dedicated DOD employees."
It looks like Congress has been reading OhMyGov!'s coverage of this issue over the past year. Or perhaps they finally caught wind of the fact most feds hate NSPS.
In retort, Pentagon officials stated they are evaluating the request from Congress - a political way of saying they are ignoring it while researching whether or not these two representatives have the authority to stop the conversion and cause a political fallout. Regardless, since most DoD employees are already under NSPS, halting the conversion now is akin to cutting the Oscars after the Best Movie, Best Supporting Actor/Actress, and Best Actor/Actress awards are already handed out. Few really care anymore.
About 205,000 employees now are paid under NSPS, and Pentagon spokesman Les Melnyk said the last 3,600 will be converted to what many feel is the "dark side" this spring. Last fall, DoD caved to pressure from unions and abandoned efforts to tranfer 225,000 bargaining unit employees into the pay system.
"NSPS is the biggest affront to the federal workforce in modern
history, and it is killing morale within the department," said Richard
N. Brown,
president of the National Federation of Federal Employees. "The
overwhelming majority of Defense workers despise NSPS. Repealing NSPS
is our top
legislative priority. We want it gone this year."
The NSPS is part of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plan to
change the way the Pentagon does business to better meet new
challenges, and replaces the 50-year-old General Schedule (GS)
personnel ranking system with broad pay bands. While it's unlikely NSPS will be disbanded altogether, President Obama did say during the campaign the he would "strongly consider a complete repeal" or a major overhaul of the system.
But given the tight economic times, would the public perceive excessive government waste in spending years to convert to one system only to spend tens of millions more to convert the workforce right back to the old one? If so, that perception would roadblock any repeal of NSPS.
Read More:
[+] NSPS surveys reveal excessive waste, identity loss, mistrust, racism, and unfair ratings
[+] TOP STORY: Report Reveals Dissatisfaction and Mistrust with DoD's New Personnel System
[+] Unions Win! Pentagon Drops Plans to Convert Union Employees to NSPS
[+] Veteran’s Health Administration to join agencies in pay-for-performance pilot
[+] The National Security Personnel System (NSPS): New Insight from our DoD Readers