National Security Personnel System (NSPS)

Update

Brent Beason

Outline (Part 1)• NSPS Regulation

• General Comments

• Management Rights

• Management Rights (Continued)

• Work Force Shaping

• Reassignment

• Mandatory Removal Offenses

• DoD Implementing Issuances

• MSPB and NSLRB

Outline (Part 2)• Costs ??? • EEO & Grievances Disputes• Eng. & Scientific Pay Bands• Initial Conversion • Performance Based Pay• Pay Rate Ranges• Adjusting Pay Rate Ranges• What have you done lately?• Performance & Behavior Accountability

NSPS Regulation• DoD issued proposed rules for NSPS by

publishing them in the Federal Register on 14 Feb 2005

• The proposed rules are modifications to chapter 5 of the Code of Federal Regulations

• There is a 30 day window to submit comments

• DoD characterizes this top level regulation as an “Enabling Regulation”

General Comments• The NSPS enabling regulation appears to be written by

a very talented team of Labor Law Attorney’s and Personnel Specialists

• The regulation effectively eliminates Unions for DoD employees

• Empowers the Secretary of Defense as the CEO of DoD, without the typical board of Directors (By that I mean, complete authority to run DoD without inside or outside intervention)

• This quote is typical of the spirit of the regulation: “The Secretary has the sole, exclusive and un-reviewable discretion to take whatever actions may be necessary to carry out the Department’s Mission”

Management Rights

• Expands the list of nonnegotiable rights ‘to include numbers, types, and grades of employees and the technology, methods and means of performing work”

• Includes “the right to determine mission, budget, organization, and internal security practices, and the right to hire, assign, and direct employees, and contract out”

Management Rights (Continued)

• Right to “assign employees to meet any operational demand”

• Right to “take whatever other action may be necessary to carry out the Department’s Mission”

• Right to determine “the types, pay schedules, pay bands and grades of employees or positions assigned to any organizational subdivision, work project or tour of duty”

Work Force Shaping

• Provides “authority to reduce, realign, and reorganize workforce in a manner consistent with a performance based HR System”

• RIF Retention Lists based on the following priority:– Tenure Group (Career or Term)– Veteran’s Preference– Individual Performance Rating– Length of Service

• Can target specific organizational groups of employees and positions

Reassignment

• “DoD may set pay anywhere within the assigned band when an employee is reassigned, either voluntarily or involuntarily, to a position in a comparable pay band”

Mandatory Removal Offenses• Empowers Secretary to determine what

conduct and unacceptable behavior would be sufficient to warrant mandatory on the spot removal from Federal Service

• “The Secretary has the sole, exclusive, and un-reviewable discretion to identify offenses that have a direct and substantial adverse impact on the Dept’s National Security Mission”

DoD Implementing Issuances

• DoD will specify the type and range of difficulty and responsibility; qualifications or competencies; or other characteristics of the work encompassed by the Pay Band

• This will apply to each career group, occupational series, and pay band / schedule

MSPB and NSLRB

• Creates Nation Security Labor Relations Board with jurisdiction for labor disputes

– 3 members appointed by the Secretary

• Creates new substantive standards that limit how MSPB adjudicates DoD cases

– i.e. Decisions will accommodate DoD’s critical National Security Mission

• In either case, the Secretary can overrule and decision he determines to have an adverse impact on the department’s mission

Costs ???• NSLRB Startup Costs

– 158 Million through FY 2008– Less than 100M per year

• $??? DoD expects to incur an initial payroll cost related to a WGI “Buyout” Conversion

• $??? PEO Implementation & Operational Costs– To execute the system design process, training,

outreach, collaboration, modification of IT Systems (Personnel and Payroll)

EEO & Grievance Disputes

• EEO Complaints - “Proposed Regulations do not alter the substance of existing law regarding actions involving discrimination”

• Grievances & Disputes, MSPB & NSLRB (formally FLRA) - Limits employee’s ability to recover their Attorney’s Fees, if the employee was actually able to prevail

Eng. & Scientific Career GroupBand 1 - Entry/DevelopmentalBand 2 - Full PerformanceBand 3 - Senior Expert

Eng. & Scientific Supv. & Mgrs. Group

Pay Band 1Pay Band 2Pay Band 3

Initial Conversion

• “Initial entry into NSPS will ensure that each employee is placed in appropriate pay band without loss of pay”

Performance Based Pay• Annual Performance Based Pay will be

limited to the moneys set aside into a pay pool

• Pay can go up or down via a basic rate adjustment, a bonus or both

• Extraordinary Pay Increase (EPI) Option available for employees selected by management to receive a raise greater than the one afforded by the normal pay pool shares

Pay Rate Ranges

• System will employ minimum and maximum rates for each pay band or schedule

• The rate for each band in each Career Group will be based on labor market rates (recruitment and retention information, mission requirements, operational needs, and overall budgetary constraints)

• DoD will set local market supplements to basic pay (i.e. locality pay)

Adjusting Pay Rate Ranges• In determining the annual pay rate changes

(plus or minus), “DoD may consider mission requirements, labor market conditions, availability of funds, pay adjustments received by employees of other Federal Agencies, and any other relevant factors”

• “DoD may establish different rate ranges and provide different rate range adjustments for different pay bands”

• DoD may adjust the minimum and maximum rates of a pay band by different percentages”

What have you done lately?

• Employees with Unacceptable Performance Ratings will not receive a positive pay adjustment, and very well may receive a negative adjustment

• Reduction in pay, based upon unacceptable performance, NTE 10%, unless a larger reduction is needed to place an employee at the maximum rate of the lower band

Performance & Behavior Accountability

• Ties behavior to performance rating– Includes (actions, attitudes, manner of

completion, and / or conduct or professional demeanor

• Teamwork / Cooperation Factor will be part of standards

• May include observable or verifiable descriptions of manner, quality, quantity, timeliness and cost effectiveness