Well over half of the employees once under the Defense Department’s ill-fated National Security Personnel System are now back on the General Schedule.
According to the latest data from the Pentagon’s NSPS Transition Office, 127,962 employees had been transitioned out of the pay-for-performance program as of Aug. 15 — more than 56 percent of the roughly 226,000 employees under the system at its peak. Of those who have transitioned, 20 percent — or 25,893 — have been placed on pay retention because they received larger raises under NSPS than they would have under GS, and their salaries fall above their new grades’ step 10 caps.
More than 92,700, or 73 percent, have had their pay bumped up to their next step level. Their raises have averaged $1,455.
That leaves as many as 40,000 NSPS employees still to be transferred to GS by the end of the month. But if the Pentagon continues at the current rate — nearly 18,000 employees were transferred between Aug. 1 and Aug. 15 — the department should easily meet that self-imposed deadline.
NSPS turns back into a pumpkin on Dec. 31, 2011. By that point, all NSPS employees have to be back on GS or another pay system.
Speaking of other pay systems, Defense is creating a new post-NSPS pay plan for more than 30 medical occupations such as psychologists, social workers, nurses, and assorted technicians and therapists. Defense wants to create this new medical pay system so those employees can keep any extra medical pay NSPS provided. (This system, by the way, would be different from the Physician and Dentist Pay Plan the Pentagon is also working on for — you guessed it — physicians and dentists.)
Medical staffers will be exempted from the transition back to GS, even if they were previously GS employees before NSPS came around. They will remain under NSPS until the new, still-unnamed, system is finished (which has to happen by the end of 2011).
A list of medical occupations under the new plan and contact information for anyone who wishes to find out more can be found here.
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I have no problem with conversion as long as the classifiers at least gave you a voice in the process. I have never had a GS core doc and when I asked for a “Desk Audit” I was told no, we don’t have time. We think you are a GS-12 without any evaluation or conversation with my supervisor. I was told, if you don’t agree you can appeal. Shouldn’t the employee at least get a voice at the lowest lever first?When doing the NSPS conversion process fast with complete disregard for what is “right”, is that not a problem? There is nothing fair about this process. So I get put on pay retention for 20 years. There is no justice in this process, but I am sure it will be real good bullet on someones evaluation.
I don’t get the math on this statement:
“That leaves as many as 40,000 NSPS employees still to be transferred to GS by the end of the month. But if the Pentagon continues at the current rate — nearly 18,000 employees were transferred between Aug. 1 and Aug. 15 — the department should easily meet that self-imposed deadline.”
If it took them 15 days to complete 18,000 and they have 15 days left in the month to do 40,000, how does that “easily” meet the deadline (40,000 minus 18,000)
@IDontGetIt: Good question — sorry, I didn’t phrase that as clearly as I should have. That 40,000 number was as of Aug. 15, not the day I posted the blog entry. (The most recent information was as of Aug. 15, and as of Friday they haven’t posted an update.) Aug. 15 to Oct. 1 is six weeks. Since they transferred 18,000 in two weeks, my guesstimate was that they could do three times that amount (roughly 54k) between Aug. 15 to Oct. 1.