Major changes are on the way for the Department of Homeland Security. The administration isn't stopping there; these new proposals, which would run the government more like a private business, are being considered for the entire federal bureaucracy.
Per the Washington Post:
The new system will replace the half-century-old General Schedule, with its familiar 15 pay grades and raises based on time in a job, and install a system that more directly bases pay on occupation and annual performance evaluations, officials said. The new system has taken two years to develop and will require at least four more to implement, they said.
Under the new plan, employees will be grouped into eight to 12 clusters based on occupation. Salary ranges will be based, in part, on geographic location and annual market surveys by a new compensation committee of what similar employees earn in the private sector and other government entities. Within each occupational cluster, workers will be assigned to one of four salary ranges, or "pay bands," based on their skill level and experience.
"We really have created a system that rewards performance, not longevity," OPM Director Kay Coles James said in a briefing for reporters. "It can truly serve as a model for the rest of the federal government."
No employees will lose their jobs or see a reduction in pay during the transition to the new system, officials said. About 10,000 employees, including those at DHS headquarters and at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will switch over to the new evaluation system this fall, but will not see their first raises -- or lack of them -- until January 2006.
An additional 12,000 DHS workers, including non-uniformed members of the Secret Service and civilian employees of the Coast Guard, will switch to the system in January 2007, receiving their first pay adjustments in January 2008. The rest of the affected DHS workers will make the switch in 2008 and begin receiving raises in January 2009.