Out With the Old

Today's civil service system might not disappear quite as quickly as the Bush administration hopes.

When the history of the Bush administration is written, it will include detailed chapters on the Sept. 11 attacks, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the effort to revamp Social Security. It's also likely to include a section on a less heralded initiative to hammer home the most far-reaching civil service changes in more than a quarter-century.

In his 2006 budget request, President Bush proposed allowing all executive branch agencies to dismantle the General Schedule pay system, tighten disciplinary rules and reduce union bargaining rights. Just days earlier, the Homeland Security Department became the first Cabinet agency to announce its plan to revamp civil service rules, using authority it won from Congress in 2002. The Defense Department, granted similar power in 2003, followed with its rules in February.

Comptroller General David M. Walker, head of the Government Accountability Office, is relieved that the administration wants to bring consistency to civil service reform. Last December, he expressed concerns about the piecemeal approach taken by DHS and Defense. What was lacking, said Walker, was a clear delineation of the "core set of values and principles" that define the civil service, "the glue that binds us together."

But other agency leaders fear they will be forced to accept DHS and Defense rules that are ill-suited to their workforces. For example, Vincent Taylor, assistant secretary for administration at the Transportation Department, says that the limits on bargaining at Defense and DHS, imposed for national security reasons, probably won't fly at the heavily unionized Federal Aviation Administration.

Walker's push for consistency in civil service reform also concerns Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness David S.C. Chu. He says that the civil service should have unifying principles, but that agency leaders should also enjoy maximum flexibility to set rules appropriate for their own staffs.

The governmentwide legislation proposed by Bush encompasses other changes Walker has sought, such as the elimination of the General Schedule-the decades-old pay and classification system-in favor of pay for performance. But GAO remains concerned about the pace of change, warning that most agencies are not ready to implement new pay systems because they have little experience with performance management and have yet to identify the size and type of workforce they will need. GAO has welcomed DHS and Defense plans to phase in performance management over several years so problems can be caught before more employees are affected.

The Bush proposal faces opposition from unions and Democrats in Congress. John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said at a January press briefing that DHS' system was "a scam to reduce overall federal pay." AFGE sued, contending the system's limits on collective bargaining violate congressional intent and its disciplinary rules deny employees due process. Democrats quickly proclaimed that Homeland Security and Defense should fully implement and test their systems before they are applied elsewhere.

More worrisome to the Bush administration, however, is the reluctance of some key Republicans. "The personnel systems at DoD and DHS are experiments," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told The Washington Post in late January. "I think it is prudent to see how these systems fare before deciding whether to expand the reforms to other federal agencies." Collins' opinion counts; she heads the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.