Performance Pay Push

Time and time again, expert observers have looked at the performance pay movement in the federal government and warned that the idea will fall flat without sufficient funding.

Those concerns, however, might be misplaced, according to a report from the Office of Personnel Management. That report on workforce statistics, also known as The Fact Book, shows that the government has been steadily increasing the amount of money it spends on performance bonuses.

In fiscal 1999, the government spent a little more than $435 million on individual performance bonuses for non-Senior Executive Service employees. In fiscal 2002, that number had increased to more than $922 million. In fiscal 2003, combined individual bonuses hit $1 billion for the first time.

The average award increased slightly-from $851 in 1999 to $858 in 2003. The bonuses increased, however, as a percentage of total salary spending. In 1999, bonuses represented 0.55 percent of total salaries. In 2003, they were worth almost 1 percent of total salaries.

Another measure of performance management, however, showed less of a boost. The amount of money spent on quality step increases--adjustments to an employee's base salary--has fluctuated greatly between fiscal 1998 and fiscal 2003. In 1998, the government spent $47.4 million on more than 61,000 quality step increases. That number bounced around and then hit a 10-year high in fiscal 2001-$51 million spent on about 59,000 increases. Spending on quality step increases was below that mark in fiscal 2002 and 2003 ($48 million and $49 million), but the number of employees receiving increases actually jumped to 61,100 in 2003.

Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced legislation Monday to repeal the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision.

The Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision are part of Social Security law and can reduce the amount of benefits a retiree or a spouse receive if one of the spouses also is receiving a civil service pension. Congress passed the GPO in 1977.

The 1983 Windfall Elimination Provision reduces Social Security benefits for CSRS retirees who have spent the bulk of their careers working for the government and part of their careers working in a job covered by Social Security.

These laws have been the target of lawmakers in the past-Collins and Feinstein previously attempted to do away with the two Social Security rules in 2003.

The Federally Employed Women organization applauded the senators for their renewed effort and promised their support.

"GPO and WEP repeal is among the top legislative goals for federally employed women during this congressional session," FEW President Patricia Wolfe said. "Both the GPO and WEP lower the retirement income of federal employees by altering the Social Security benefit formula for certain groups. What is particularly egregious is that spousal and retirement benefits are reduced for Americans simply because they worked for the federal government."