FAA executives paid less than controllers

Some senior managers at the Federal Aviation Administration are earning less money than the air traffic controllers that they oversee, a situation that has prompted two legislators to call for an investigation of the agency.

In a letter dated Oct. 11, Reps. Frank Wolf, R-Va., and Donald Manzullo, D-Ill., asked Kenneth Mead, inspector general at the Transportation Department, to look into pay parity issues in the air traffic division of the FAA. Wolf chairs the House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee. Manzullo is ranking member of that subcommittee.

Questions of pay equity originally came up in 1997, during negotiations between FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NACTA) over a collective bargaining agreement. When the bargaining agreement was signed in 1998, union members won a collective $200 million raise over three years, adding as much as $10,000 a year to the salaries of controllers in high-traffic centers.

According to the letter, managers, supervisors and specialists in field facilities were covered by the pay provisions in the collective bargaining agreement, but executives holding those same positions in headquarters and in nine regional offices were excluded from the deal.

As a result of the agreement, some air traffic controllers in field offices are now making more money than their regional managers, who are members of the Senior Executive Service.

In 1997, "it was understood that managers and supervisors should be paid more than the field-level controller work force, in order to maintain incentives for career progression," Wolf and Manzullo wrote in their letter. Nonetheless, "FAA's system does appear to be contrary to the expert advice provided not only internally, but also by outside contract, and the prediction of low morale and other serious impacts appears to have become reality," the legislators contended.