THE PENTAGON VS. THE CIVIL SERVICE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00530R000601530004-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 16, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: April 12, 1988
• Content Type: MISC

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Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/08/16: CIA-RDH90-00530R000601530004-8
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Senate Bill Seeks to Divorce 300,000 Workers From Personnel System
By Judith Havemann
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Defense Department, re-
flecting what many believe is a qui-
et crisis in the quality of the civil
service, is working with members
of Congress to sever 300,000 civil-
ian employees from federal person-
nel regulations. .
"Like most things that need im-
provement, if you try to for the
whole thing, you get nothing done,"
said Sen. Jeff Bingaman
cosponsor of a till to divorce the
workers from the traditional civil
service pay scale, the General
Schedule. "We're trying to begin
the process of building some flex-
THE WASHINGTON POST
A6 TUESDAY, APML 12, 1988 ..
SEN. JEFF BINGAMAN
... aim is "building some thixibility"
ibility" and will deal with any
govertunentwide problems later, he
said.
Under Bingaman's fast-track bill,
initially drafted in the Pentagon, up
to 200 top scientists and techni-
cians could be paid the market
rate?even if it exceeded the pay of
members of Congress.
Salaries for hard-to-fill jobs, such
as nuclear engineering positions,
could be raised by 60 percent to
recruit highly qualified workers.
Some employees could be given
bonuses for sticking with the gov-
emment.
Up to 1,000 military* retirees
might get to collect their refire-
meat checks while working for the
I Defense Department in high-level
;positions, a practice now prohibited.
' The Defense Department's battle
Ito break away from the federal per-
sonnel system provides fresh evi-
dence of what some characterize as
A quiet crisis in the civil service that
is leading to fragmentation of fed-
eral pay and benefits.
' Plied with evidence of agencies'
'inability to fill jobs or to compete
with private industry for top college
i graduates, the Office of Personnel
Management has approved 65 spe-
cial pay rates for 140,000 federal
jobs.
The National Bureau of Stan-
dards recently received congres-
sional approval to try a new person-
mei system; Veterans Administra-
tion medical personnel have long
been in a special pay category; the
National Institutes of Health are
pressing for pay flexibility, and a bill
to allow bonuses for FBI agents as-
signed to New York has recently
been submitted to Congress.
Union leaders blame the problem
;squarely on the destruction of the
"comparability" system under which
federal workers are supposed to be
'given annual adjustments to keep
*pay "comparable" with the private
?sector. Pull comparability has not
tbeen paid in years, and according to
the latest figures, federal workers
-lag 23.7 percent behind the private
sector.
The administration's answer to
14.he problem is not to raise wages
, across the board but to press for
adoption of a personnel system de-
monstrated at the Naval Weapons
Center in remote China Lake,
' Calif., and in San Diego.
1, Under the China Lake experi-
ment, the 18 civil service grades
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/08/16: CIA-RDP90-06530R000601530004-8
were consolidated into broad "pay
bands." Raises within the bands are
based on performance instead of
longevity. The experiment is not
supposed to cost a cent more than
the traditional system.
OPM has been seeking to impose
the China Lake system govern-
mentwide for two years, but its bill,
the Civil Service Simplification Act,
has not moved.
ReCognizing that the 'simplifica-
tion" bill was going nowhere, OPM
Director Constance Homer met
with Defense Secretary Frank C.
Carlucci and NASA Administrator
James C. Fletcher late last year to
push for implementation of the Chi-
na Lake system at the Pentagon.
and the National Aeronautics and.
Space Administration.
Staff aides to Bingaman, whose
earlier bill to improve the recruit-
ment and retention of scientists and
engineers was killed on the Senate
floor, asked the Pentagon for "draft-
ing service" in producing a bill with
a better chance this spring.
The Pentagon took the "simpli-
fication" bill, crossed out OPM and
wrote in the secretary of defense.
The special pay rates were scaled.
down from Bingaman's earlier bill.
The bill was adapted to the man-
date of the Senate Armed Services
Committee and introduced March
31 with the support of Sen. Phil
Gramm (R-Tex.). Hearings are
scheduled Wednesday and Thurs-
day; the bill is expected to be
marked up in subcommittee next
week.
Bingaman said the purpose of his
bill has been supported in the past
by Armed Services Committee
Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.). Bing-
aman said he had not yet obtained
the support of Sen. Ted Stevens
(R-Alaska), the key Republican in
the civil service area.
Sen. David H. Pryor (D-Ark.),
chairman of the subcommittee on
federal services, post office and civ-
il service,. has "concerns about the
size of the project and its Balkan-I
intim" of the work force, according'
to an aide.
House civil service subcommittee
Chairwoman Patricia Schroeder.
(D-Colo.) called the bill a "full-scale
attack on the merit system. More
flexibility is always needed, but the
Defense Department has, not won
an award for good management
lately." -