IRS seeks to split its senior executive corps

Internal Revenue Service officials are planning to split the agency's executive corps in two, reviving an idea that the Office of Personnel Management proposed three years ago for all 7,000 senior executives in government. The IRS would create a Senior Professional Corps for top-level non-managerial positions, while maintaining a Senior Executive Corps for career officials who perform leadership duties, such as setting strategic goals and making organizational decisions. The split could serve as a test of a two-track senior career promotion system for all agencies. "This is based on the reforms that OPM proposed a few years ago," said Ron Sanders, IRS director of strategic human resources. "We've decided to exercise our streamlined demonstration authority to serve as guinea pigs for these reforms." In 1998, Office of Personnel Management officials proposed the idea of splitting the Senior Executive Service in every agency. OPM estimated that half of the current executives would remain in a senior executive corps, while the other half, who perform nonmanagerial work, would be moved into a new senior professional corps. At the time, Senior Executives Association President Carol Bonosaro questioned the need for such a change, and OPM set aside the idea. Now Bonosaro is questioning the need for the IRS' proposal. "Basically you end up with a system that will appear to be, if not in fact be, a system of the haves and the have-nots," Bonosaro said. "On its face, we don't support the proposal. But perhaps the details will belie our concerns." Sanders said current classification standards force the agency to create executive positions for people who aren't leaders but are performing top-level work requiring high compensation. For example, the IRS needs people with vast technical expertise to help guide the agency's multi-billion dollar business systems modernization. Creating executive positions for such workers swells management layers, Sanders said. When an executive position is created, the agency has to create an organizational unit for the executive to manage.

Sanders said establishing a separate track for senior professionals would help the agency keep management layers thin, as the Bush administration has ordered agencies to do. "One of the reasons we have layers is to deal with compensation issues," Sanders said. "You literally create these layers in order to pay people, when you should be able to just pay them." Bonosaro said that agencies could use the existing Senior Level or Senior Technical/Professional systems to create non-executive, high-level positions. According to OPM statistics, only 419 people across government, including 11 at the IRS, are classified in the Senior Level category. Only 280 are classified in the Senior Technical/Professional category. One reason agencies don't use the existing systems is the base pay for Senior Level and Senior Technical/Professional category positions is lower than the base pay for the Senior Executive Service. Sanders also noted that a person who oversees more than two employees couldn't be classified in a Senior Level position because some top-level professionals need to have a staff of more than two people. Creating a Senior Professional Corps would make it easier for the IRS to establish nonexecutive, well-paid positions, Sanders said. The IRS includes 236 members of the Senior Executive Service. About 170 are line executives who would see little change as a result of the proposal, Sanders said. Others, such as those who are technical experts, could be affected, though Sanders said the plan is aimed more at positions that will be created in the future.

One possibility is that the IRS will create a special bonus structure for members of the Senior Executive Corps. "The risks associated with being a senior executive are probably greater than a senior professional, so the bonus structure may be different," Sanders said. Sanders also said that people who fill Senior Professional Corps positions could become certified in executive qualifications so that the Senior Executive Corps could be open to them. People in the Senior Executive Corps could move into Professional Corps positions without such special certifications. But Bonosaro said creating two tracks would make it difficult for people to move among positions. "If the commissioner wanted to take an executive who was managing a major operation and place him or her in his office, working directly with him for six months to design a reorganization, would you have to move that person into the other track? Now you don't need to worry about that. You can be flexible." The IRS has submitted a paper explaining the basic concepts of a two-track system to OPM. Sanders said a more formal proposal will be submitted to likely OPM Director Kay Coles James, who is still awaiting Senate confirmation. In the 1998 IRS Restructuring and Reform Act, Congress gave the IRS the authority to tinker with compensation and classification systems. The IRS will ask agency executives and the Senior Executives Association to help design the new system, and a notice of the proposal will be published in the Federal Register. "Let me assure everyone who reads this we are going to involve all of the stakeholders in the design process," Sanders said.