First entrants to NSPS eligible for one-time pay bump

Eighty-five percent of Defense employees entering the department's new personnel system next month will receive a pay increase when they make the switch.

As of April 30, 11,000 Defense employees are scheduled to be paid, promoted and rated under the National Security Personnel System. Most of those will receive the pay bump as a one-time buy-in to convert from the General Schedule to the broad paybands in the new system.

The pay boost will be based on the length of time accumulated toward employees' next within-grade increase, and will be added to their base salary when they enter the system. Its workings are detailed in a handbook released by the department Monday.

NSPS is the Defense Department's ambitious and controversial program to update its personnel system. The overhaul aims to replace automatic pay increases with raises based on performance and the labor market.

WGI's are one of the automatic pay increases that NSPS will eliminate, making the buy-in the last of such increases that Defense employees moving to the new human resources system will see. From there on out, the Pentagon will require rigorous performance ratings to determine pay increases.

Defense officials have been clear to say that no employee will lose pay in the initial conversion to the system, and now it is clear many employees will gain from the switch, at least at the outset.

"The most important point to remember about conversion is that your position converts into NSPS without a loss of pay," the handbook said.

Employees must have acceptable performance ratings and be in step 9 or lower of their current grade to receive the extra money.

According to the document, employees will convert to the NSPS automatically. The department is providing an online conversion calculator, which a spokeswoman said will be available on the NSPS Web site early next week. That tool will tell employees which payband and career grouping they fall into, which will then reveal the pay ceiling for their position.

The 11,000 employees who will first move to NSPS represent a much scaled-down group. Initially, the department planned to introduce more than 60,000 employees in the first unit, but a successful lawsuit by a coalition of Defense Department unions thwarted the plan.

The 11,000 workers now in the first installment are nonbargaining unit employees. That is because a federal judge ruled that the labor relations portion of the personnel overhaul is illegal. The department has not yet filed an appeal of the decision, but officials have made it clear that one is likely.