THE REGRESSIVE ERA:

Name That Civil Service Proposal: If It's Not 'Pay for Performance,' What Is It? (Stephen Barr, June 13, 2005, Washington Post)

The president's top adviser on federal management policy is not sure that he likes the buzz phrase "pay for performance."

In a recent interview, Clay Johnson III , deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, said: "There is a tendency to view civil service modernization as pay for performance. That is a bad term."

Johnson said the phrase makes it sound as though government employees are part of a retail or sales staff rather than public servants who have taken on the difficult task of devising ways to measure the performance of their organization and link agency goals to the job performance of each employee.

"Pay for performance sounds like we are on the commission basis here. We're not," he said. "It suggests that the entire raise is going to be based on performance. It's not."

He added: "There is a tendency to view this as all about pay for performance, which means we are salesmen. We're not."

The Bush administration's plan calls for tossing out the 15-grade General Schedule and replacing it with broad salary ranges, called "pay bands." Salaries would be set according to occupation and local and national labor market rates. Job performance ratings would play a key role in raises. The idea, officials have said, is to get away from across-the-board raises for all employees, regardless of job performance, and give a bigger share of pay raises to the best workers.

Bringing market forces to bear on government sinecures is quintessentially Third Way.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 13, 2005 6:19 AM