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IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S GENERAL 

SCHEDULE (GS) A VIABLE PERSONNEL SYSTEM 

FOR THE FUTURE? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE, 

US POSTAL SERVICE AND THE CENSUS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 15, 2014 

Serial No. 113–131 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOC HASTINGS, Washington 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KERRY L. BENTIVOLIO, Michigan 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

MATTHEW A. CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

TONY CARDENAS, California 

STEVEN A. HORSFORD, Nevada 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

Vacancy 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

STEPHEN CASTOR, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE, U.S. POSTAL SERVICE AND THE CENSUS

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas, Chairman 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts, 

Ranking Minority Member 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 15, 2014 ............................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

The Hon. Katherine Archuleta, Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 4 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 7 

The Hon. Donald J. Devine, Senior Scholar, The Fund for American Studies 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 14 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 16 

Mr. Robert Goldenkoff, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 21 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 23 

Ms. Patricia J. Niehaus, National President, Federal Managers Association 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 50 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 52 

Mr. J. David Cox, Sr., National President, American Federation of Government Employees 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 64 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 66 

APPENDIX 

QFRs from J. David Cox, Sr., submitted by Rep. Farenthold .............................. 94 

QFRs from Robert Goldenkoff, submitted by Rep. Farenthold ............................ 98 

Response to QFRs from Ms. Patricia Niehaus, submitted by Rep. Farenthold .. 100 

Answers to questions from Ms. Katherine Archuleta, submitted by Rep. 

Farenthold ............................................................................................................ 101 

(1) 

IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S GENERAL 

SCHEDULE (GS) A VIABLE PERSONNEL SYSTEM FOR THE FUTURE? 

Tuesday, July 15, 2014, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE, U.S. POSTAL

SERVICE AND THE CENSUS, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Blake Farenthold 

[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Farenthold, DeSantis, Issa, and Lynch. 

Staff Present: Melissa Beaumont, Majority Assistant Clerk; 

Molly Boyl, Majority Deputy General Counsel and Parliamentarian; Linda Good, Majority Chief Clerk; Jennifer Hemingway, 

Majority Deputy Policy Director; James Robertson, Majority Senior 

Professional Staff Member; Andrew Shult, Majority Deputy Digital 

Director; Peter Warren, Majority Legislative Policy Director; Jaron 

Bourke, Minority Director of Administration; Lena Chang, Minority 

Counsel; Devon Hill, Minority Research Assistant; Julia Krieger, 

Minority New Media Press Secretary; and Mark Stephenson, Minority Director of Legislation. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. The committee will come to order. 

I would like to begin this hearing as we begin all our hearings, 

with the mission statement of the Government Oversight and Reform Committee. 

We exist to secure two fundamental principles: first, Americans 

have a right to know that the money Washington takes from them 

is well spent and, second, Americans deserve an efficient, effective 

Government that works for them. Our duty on the Oversight and 

Government Reform Committee is to protect these rights. Our solemn responsibility is to hold Government accountable to taxpayers, 

because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their 

Government. We will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen 

watchdogs to deliver the facts to the American people and bring 

genuine reform to the Federal bureaucracy. This is the mission of 

the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. 

At this point I will start with my opening statement, then we 

will go to Mr. Lynch for his, and then we will start with our witnesses. 

Much has changed since 1949, when the General Schedule was 

established to classify Federal workers according to their job duties 

2 

and to assign pay. The minimum wage was $0.70 an hour and the 

average yearly wage was just under $3,000, and the Federal Government’s workforce consisted mainly of clerical staff. 

Sixty-five years later the Government continues to classify and 

pay 80 percent of its work force using the same antiquated system, 

ignoring the realities of the current labor market. It is no wonder 

we continue to bear the burden of inefficient and unacceptable and 

unaccountable Federal Government. 

Grade inflation without a corresponding change in a worker’s 

duty has become a commonplace occurrence in Federal Government. Over the last 15 years, the number of Federal workers occupying positions in the top grade, GS–12 through GS–15, has increased by 30 percent, with salaries ranging from $75,000 to 

$157,000 a year. More than 99 percent of the GS workers are given 

a 3 percent raise based primarily on the passage of time. 

It is hard to see the fairness in the current system and bureaucratic culture that it fosters. It allows workers to simply show up 

for work and stick around for years and get wages, when those go 

over and beyond to serve the taxpayers and do a great job are 

awarded over the poor performers. No private sector company could 

survive if its HR system was run this way. 

Even Federal employees themselves recognize the flaws in the 

current system. I spoke with the local union leaders at the Corpus 

Christi Army depot in my district, and they agreed the current GS 

personnel system is outdated and needs reforming. 

In addition, the recent OPM workforce survey stated that half 

the Federal workforce has reported their pay raises did not depend 

on performance, while only 22 percent believe that performance 

and pay are linked. Way to motivate people, Uncle Sam! 

In its budget request for fiscal year 2015, President Obama stated the Federal personnel system remains inflexible and outdated 

and that ‘‘the pay and classification system needs to be updated.’’ 

He further stated, ‘‘An alternative cost-effective system needs to be 

developed that will allow the Government to compete for and reward top talent while rewarding performance.’’ 

The President and I could not agree more on this issue. Unfortunately, as with many things this President said, the sound bites 

are good, but actually implementing the policy never seems to happen as advertised. 

The OPM’s strategic plan promises the agency will serve as a 

thought leader in research and data-driven human resources management and policy decision-making. The President’s budget for the 

OPM states that it would permit the OPM programs to prioritize 

their activities in support of the OPM strategic plan. Alas, neither 

the strategic plan or the President’s budget specifically addresses 

OPM’s work to reform the pay classification system. 

Accordingly, I look forward to learning what efforts, if any, are 

underway within the OPM. The chief of human capital officer’s 

counsel and the Administration have established labor management councils to craft a proposal for submission to this committee 

that would modernize the GS. Such a program and such a proposal 

should be completed promptly and include provisions to strengthen 

the link between pay and performance. 

3 

Achieving common sense to how the Federal Government classifies, evaluates, and compensates its workforce will bring needed accountability and, I believe, much improved performance in the Federal Government. As we work to ensure a more efficient cost-effective Government to reduce the burden on American taxpayers, it 

is reasonable to expect the Federal workforce policy reflect modern 

HR practices and not one out of the 1940s. 

With this, I will now recognize the ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, for his opening statement. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for 

holding this hearing to examine the General Schedule system, 

which covers 80 percent, or 1.5 million, of the over 2 million dedicated civil servants in the Federal government. 

I also want to thank our witnesses for their willingness to come 

before this committee and share their thoughts on how to improve 

the Federal Government’s management of its own workforce. 

I am not sure that Congress has a lot of credibility with Federal 

workers these days. Throughout the past several years, Congress 

has imposed on our vastly middle-income Federal employees, the 

Federal worker pay freeze of 2011, the Federal employee pay freeze 

of 2012, the Federal employee pay freeze of 2013, unpaid furloughs, 

pay in benefit cuts; Congress has required Federal workers to contribute approximately $135 billion towards deficit reduction over 10 

years, including $21 billion as a result of the increase in retirement 

contributions for our newest Federal workers. 

As we consider issues that affect our dedicated Federal workforce, including the effectiveness of the General Schedule pay system, we must bear in mind that the critical services that Federal 

workers provide to American citizens on a daily basis are extremely 

important to our Country. Our Federal workers are the border patrol agents who work every day securing our borders, the law enforcement personnel who identify and capture terrorists, the nurses 

and doctors at the VA who care for our wounded warriors, and the 

personnel in charge of administering and providing oversight of 

multi-million and multi-billion dollar essential Government contracts. 

Today’s hearing seeks to determine the ideal and necessary attributes of a modern personnel system for a 21st century government and the increasingly complex functions that our agencies are 

expected and required to perform in service of the American people. 

Some would like to modernize the GS system. Others want to 

eliminate it and replace it with the so-called pay-for-performance 

system. We have tried that. We have tried that several times. 

In their written testimony, the Government Accountability Office 

identified eight attributes of a modern personnel system, but noted 

the difficulty in finding the right mix of attributes. Stakeholders 

disagree on the mix, and I believe that is the greatest challenge to 

modernizing our personnel system. For instance, does internal equity mean equal pay for work of equal value, continue to be a primary value or is allowing a greater degree of unequal pay, as some 

have proposed, the key to effective government? 

I think the Congress and stakeholders can all agree that a modern and effective personnel system must allow for an increasing 

focus on flexibility, accountability, and performance. 

4 

I look forward to discussing these and other issues with our witnesses this morning. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield the balance of my time. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much, Mr. Lynch. 

Additional members may have seven days to submit their opening statements for the record. 

We will now recognize our panel of witnesses. 

The Honorable Katherine Archuleta is the Director of the United 

States Office of Personnel Management; the Honorable Donald J. 

Devine is Senior Scholar at The Fund for American Studies and 

former Director of the Office of Personnel Management; Dr. Robert 

Goldenkoff is Director of Strategic Issues for the Government Accountability Office; Ms. Patricia Niehaus is the President of the 

Federal Managers Association; and Mr. David Cox, Sr. Is the National President of the American Federation of Government Employees. 

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn before 

they testify. 

Would you please rise and raise your right hand? 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth? 

[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.] 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Let the record reflect that all witnesses have 

answered in the affirmative. 

Thank you and please be seated. 

Pursuant to our normal procedure in this committee, and most 

committees here on the House, we ask that each of our witnesses 

limit their opening statement or testimony to five minutes so we 

will have time to question you on the issues that we are concerned 

about and that your testimony raises. So we will get started with 

Ms. Archuleta. 

You are recognized for five minutes, ma’am. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE KATHERINE ARCHULETA 

Ms. ARCHULETA. Chairman Farenthold, Ranking Member Lynch, 

and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity 

to testify before you today regarding management of the Federal 

workforce. 

For over 65 years, the GS has been the primary classification 

and pay system through which the Federal Government has been 

able to attract and retain a skilled workforce, while also ensuring 

fairness and accountability. Of course, our Federal civilian workforce is much different than it was 65 years ago and is continuing 

to change. Today’s knowledge-based economy requires different and 

more advanced skills and experience in order to meet the challenges we face. 

There have been concerns regarding whether current personnel 

systems are up to date and flexible enough to meet changing needs. 

To ensure we have the workforce with the right skills to meet the 

challenges we face, an examination of our human capital management system is needed. In addition to this examination, which is 

5 

a key part of the President’s Management Agenda, OPM also actively works to assist Federal departments and agencies in ensuring that they are able to recruit, retain, and train highly qualified 

workers. Both OPM and agencies have responsibility for implementing the GS classification system in accordance with principles 

set forth in law. 

While each agency has the responsibility to administer the classification system for its own positions, OPM is responsible for monitoring agency programs to determine whether they are consistent 

with Government-wide standards. This effort includes active outreach to agencies such as formal guidance, as well as quarterly policy forms. 

Agencies can also receive one-on-one assistance to address specific issues with items like series designation and the crafting of effective position descriptions. As part of the Government-wide strategy on gender pay equality, OPM will also continue to work with 

agencies to ensure compliance with the principle of equal pay for 

equal work. These outreach and education efforts are critical to ensuring that agencies have and are aware of tools necessary to properly apply classification policies. 

Agencies also have maximum flexibility to design and operate 

performance appraisal systems which are aligned to their organizational goals and are focused on achieving results. OPM issues regulations and provides guidance to support agencies and their managers in using the tools they have to carry out effective performance management, including ensuring that awards are based on 

merit and performance. This Administration has put limits on 

award spending in place that have required agencies to more rigorously scrutinize awards programs, and we continue to work to 

make sure that awards are targeted to those employees who are 

most deserving of recognition. 

Communication between managers and employees is essential to 

the performance management process. One of the principles of the 

Federal merit system is that employees who cannot or will not improve their performance should be terminated. Managers must use 

these tools they have available to hold poor performers accountable, 

support training and development opportunities as needed, and 

take necessary action if employees do not improve. 

One of my top priorities is for OPM to provide leadership in helping agencies attract and retain a skilled and diverse workforce for 

the 21st century. This includes ensuring an inclusive work environment where employees are fully engaged and energized to put forth 

their best efforts, achieve their agency’s mission, and remain committed to public service. 

The People and Culture pillar of the President’s Management 

Agenda includes goals to help agencies create a culture of excellence and engagement that enables the highest possible performance from employees; assist agencies in building a strong, worldclass Federal management team; and help agencies hire the best 

talent from all segments of society. This includes working with 

agencies to better use data from the Employee Viewpoint Survey 

to shape how we manage our employees and increase accountability, identify innovative strategies to capitalize on the executive 

talent we have today, and build the executive workforce we need 

6 

for the future and untie the knots in Federal human capital management. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Archuleta follows:] 

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Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you. 

Mr. Devine, we will go ahead and let you have your opening 

statement and testimony. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DONALD J. DEVINE 

Mr. DEVINE. Okay. I guess the first question is what is somebody 

who was OPM director 30 years ago doing here. I had a very different kind of experience. The President named Ronald Reagan, 

who came in, he said he was going to cut Federal spending and 

functions. But he wasn’t doing it to save money, he was doing it 

to reorient priorities. The Federal Government was doing too much 

and not doing it well, and his changes were to make fundamental 

reforms of Government. He asked me to take the job and I said, 

what do you want me to do? He said, I want you to cut 100,000 

non-Defense employees, I want you to reduce the bloated benefits, 

and I want you to make them work harder. I said, thanks a lot, 

going to make a lot of friends in this job. 

I always remember what Harry Truman used to say: You need 

a friend in Washington doing the tough job, buy a dog. So I bought 

two to be on the safe side. 

But in fact we did reduce 100,000 non-Defense slots, mostly by 

attrition. We did change the retirement system, the health system, 

saved $6 billion in those days. It’s about $60 billion today. And we 

did put in a pay-for-performance system, and I think people do 

work harder and work better. 

I could say yes to President Reagan because I knew something 

he didn’t, which was that Jimmy Carter run for President to reform the Civil Service, and I knew my predecessor, the first director of OPM. Scotty Campbell was actually my professor at Syracuse 

University when I was there, so I knew what he was doing. And 

they created a wonderful system. Unfortunately for them, they lost 

the next election, so they didn’t have time to implement it. But 

they had it all ready for me and I just kind of picked it all up and 

made some changes. 

And the incredible thing is all our indicators, and I put in a lot 

of ways to try to measure this, it worked. I think it worked for four 

years or so. But it is very hard. I think Ms. Niehaus’s testimony 

is very good about how tough this really is to do. Making a Government bureaucracy, especially one as large as this, work is really 

tough business, and if people aren’t on top of it all the time it won’t 

work. And that means you have to have the President interested 

in this. Jimmy Carter was very interested, President Reagan was 

constantly supporting me in making these changes. We had monthly, sometimes biweekly, meetings of the assistant secretaries for 

administration. You have to keep the pressure on to make this bureaucracy work. 

But the basic fact is it is doing too many things. Professor Paul 

Wright, he is a progressive conservative. He is a top public administration figure in the Country, done several major studies on the 

bureaucracy. He says the Federal Government is so bureaucratized 

now that it cannot faithfully execute its laws, which is what the 

Constitution says is the job. 

I just think the only solution is to really take this seriously. The 

Government is poorly organized; it is doing too many things. The 

15 

programs conflict with each other; we have too many levels. Part 

of the problem is the personnel system that works, but a bigger 

part of it, and that is really Congress’s job and the President’s job, 

is to try to make this thing work. Right now we talk about 2 million Federal employees. There are 19 million. Seventeen million of 

them are contractors. We don’t even think about them in terms of 

running the system, mostly. 

And a lot of the problem is we are asking the Federal employees 

to do impossible jobs. Take the VA I mentioned in my testimony 

here. We set up an impossible system. They have waiting lists because the way it is set up requires the managers to do. 

Anyway, my only point is I would argue you need to look big at 

the whole fundamental thing and maybe get together, as my good 

friend Edgar Winsky did with the democratic chairman at the time, 

and try to fix this Government up again. 

Thanks for having me. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Devine follows:] 

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Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much, Mr. Devine. 

Mr. Goldenkoff. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT GOLDENKOFF 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Chairman Farenthold, Ranking Member 

Lynch, and members of the subcommittee. I am pleased to be here 

today to discuss the viability of the General Schedule personnel 

system, as well as other issues facing the Federal workforce, and 

what can be done to ensure a top-notch Civil Service going forward. 

Today’s hearing is very timely, as the General Schedule will 

mark its 65th anniversary this October. Almost since its inception 

in 1949, questions have been raised about its ability to keep pace 

with the evolving complexity and nature of Federal work. This 

hearing provides an important opportunity to focus on whether or 

not is aging well. 

High performing organizations have found that the full live cycle 

of human capital management activities, from recruitment to retirement, need to be fully aligned with the cost-effective achievement of an organization’s mission. However, as you well know, Federal human capital management has been on our high-risk list 

since 2001. Over the years, Congress, OPM, and individual agencies have taken steps to improve the Government’s human capital 

efforts; however, more work is needed in a number of key areas. 

In my remarks today I will focus on improving the design, management, and oversight of the classification system. I will also discuss other areas where reforms are needed, including creating a results-oriented Federal pay system, strengthening performance 

management in dealing with poor performers, addressing missioncritical skills gaps, and developing strategies to help agencies meet 

their missions in an era of highly constrained resources. 

With respect to the General Schedule, we have long been concerned that defining a job and determining the appropriate pay 

was complicated by the classification process and standards which 

we said were outdated and not applicable to current jobs and work. 

What is more, in our ongoing research, we found that the implementation of the General Schedule needs to more fully reflect the 

eight attributes of a modern, effective classification system that we 

identified based on conversations with subject matter experts, and 

those strategies include: flexibility, transparency, simplicity, and 

several others. 

One reason for this disconnect is the inherent tension among 

some of the attributes, where achieving one attribute can come at 

the expense of another. Going forward, OPM and stakeholders will 

need to find the optimal balance among these eight attributes. Further, OPM has not conducted oversight of agency classification programs since the 1980s, even though it is required by law to conduct 

occasional reviews. OPM officials told us that they rely on agencies 

to conduct their own oversight, and have not reviewed those oversight efforts in part because of a reduction in the number of OPM’s 

classification specialists. 

With respect to pay, we believe that implementing a more market-based and more performance-oriented pay system is both doable and desirable, but it certainly won’t be easy. For one thing, 

it will require shifting from an organizational culture where comVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:36 Sep 22, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\89728.TXT APRIL
22 

pensation is based on position and longevity to one that is performance-oriented, affordable, and sustainable. Key to a more resultsoriented approach to pay is a credible and effective performance 

management system, but this too has been a challenge for many 

Federal agencies. OPM and agencies also need to address impediments to dealing with poor performers, such as the duration and 

complexity of the process. 

With respect to closing mission-critical skills gaps, under OPM’s 

leadership, a working group identified six mission-critical occupations, including cybersecurity and acquisition, and designated key 

Federal officials to lead remedial efforts for each. Going forward, 

additional progress will depend on the extent to which OPM both 

sustains its current efforts to address these six initial occupations, 

as well as develops a predictive capacity to identify and address 

newly emerging skills gaps in the future. 

The management challenges I have highlighted this morning are 

all exacerbated by the fiscal constraints all agencies are facing. But 

the good news is that the human capital officials we spoke with 

from across the Government told us that this difficult environment 

has triggered a willingness to consider creative and non-traditional 

strategies for addressing them. The strategies include strengthening coordination of the Federal human capital community, using 

enterprise solutions to address shared challenges, and creating 

more agile talent management. 

In closing, the Government has improved its human capital efforts, but the job is far from over. Further progress will require 

continued collaboration between OPM, individual agencies, and 

stakeholders, as well as continued congressional oversight to hold 

agencies accountable for results. 

Chairman Farenthold, Ranking Member Lynch, members of the 

subcommittee, this concludes my prepared statement and I would 

be pleased to respond to any questions that you might have. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Goldenkoff follows:] 

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Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Niehaus. 

STATEMENT OF PATRICIA J. NIEHAUS 

Ms. NIEHAUS. Chairman Farenthold, Ranking Member Lynch, 

and members of the subcommittee, in addition to being the National President of the Federal Managers Association, I am also the 

Chief of Labor and Employee Management Relations at Travis Air 

Force Base in California. 

Thank you for allowing me to present FMA’s views to you today. 

As stakeholders in the General Schedule, we appreciate the opportunity to testify. Please note that I am here on my own time and 

of my own volition, representing the views of FMA, and I do not 

speak on behalf of the Air Force. 

Since its inception, the General Schedule has been hailed as the 

cornerstone of the Federal workforce. However, the Federal Government has evolved and the General Schedule has not kept up. It 

is FMA’s stance that changes do need to take place. 

Pay-for-performance is a system that businesses in the private 

sector have utilized successfully for a long time. FMA believes the 

General Schedule should be utilized as a stepping stone to create 

a more evolved system that focuses on pay-for-performance and reflects the needs of the present Federal workforce. 

Transparency, fairness, and objectivity need to be core elements 

that comprise any personnel system. FMA urges a departure from 

the rigid approach of the current General Schedule to a classification and pay system that reflects the diverse missions of agencies 

across the Federal Government. The current General Schedule system of classification and pay setting should be revised to more easily accommodate changing missions. The system would function 

more efficiently by allowing flexibility to significantly change positions as needed to accomplish the mission of the agency. 

The current system promotes a workforce based on longevity 

rather than performance. The highest performing employee should 

be rewarded with the highest rates of pay. Those employees who 

fall below the curve in terms of overall performance should not be 

rewarded at the same level. Where is the incentive in performing 

better than your colleagues when little is done to recognize additional efforts? 

While it certainly had its faults, the National Security Personnel 

System, which DOD used for five years, had many admirable aspects and improvements on the General Schedule. Under NSPS, an 

employee’s pay raise, promotion, or demotion was much less inhibited than the current General Schedule rules permit. 

FMA supports the premise of holding Federal employees accountable for performing their jobs effectively and efficiently, and rewarding them accordingly. Under the General Schedule, an employee may start out as a GS–5, but demonstrate the skills and 

abilities to work at a higher grade. Because of the current time and 

grade requirements, that employee must wait at least a year before 

being promoted to the next higher grade, and then another year before progressing onward in his or her career. 

Evaluation and pay banding under NSPS for employees where 

evaluated and paid based on the job they were capably performing 

51 

makes more sense and would encourage retention and recruitment. 

I know of many instances where highly qualified employees accepted lower graded jobs to get into the system, but then were discouraged from staying in the Federal workforce because of the rigid 

time and grade requirements imposed by the General Schedule. 

A shift in the culture of any organization cannot occur without 

interactive, ongoing training process that brings together the managers responsible for implementing the personnel system and the 

employees they supervise. Implementation trumps design is the 

biggest factor in a system’s ultimate success or failure. With the 

upheaval any major change brings to a new pay or performance 

system, it is necessary to remain committed to the change long 

enough to make it work. 

FMA calls for the introduction of legislation that requires agencies to provide interactive, instructor-based training on management topics ranging from mentorship and career development to 

hostile work environments and poor performers. Training is critical 

to ensuring a successful implementation of any new program. 

If the Federal Government is to stand as the employer of choice, 

we must recognize that the Government’s most important resources 

are the men and women who devote their lives to the public good. 

Full buy-in from all stakeholders, particularly front-line managers 

who are tasked with implementing any changes to the General 

Schedule, is vital. It is also important to listen and act when feedback is given. 

The current form of the General Schedule is outdated and does 

not reflect the demands of the Federal workforce. Its one-size-fitsall format is not conducive to the continuing evolution and multifaceted mission of the Federal Government. A system needs to 

emerge that responds appropriately to these challenges. In the end, 

it is imperative that any system stand by the principles of transparency, fairness, and objectivity. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to express our views, and 

I am happy to address any questions you may have. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Niehaus follows:] 

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Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much, Ms. Niehaus. 

Mr. Cox. 

STATEMENT OF J. DAVID COX, SR. 

Mr. COX. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lynch, members of 

the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

Starting with the three-year pay freeze initiated by President 

Obama, which first took effect in 2010, these years have been relentless and unjustifiably harsh towards Federal employees and 

their families. Federal workers hired in 2013 are forced to pay an 

extra 2.3 percent of salary for their pensions because their salaries 

were used to pay for the 2012 extension of unemployment insurance. And those starting this year must pay an extra 3.6 percent 

of their salary because of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. They 

are paying more not because the system was underfunded, but because their salaries are a convenient ATM for budget agreements. 

Let me try to put that sacrifice into concrete terms. 

Mr. Chairman, right now, at Corpus Christi Army Depot, they 

are hiring a chemical engineering employee with a starting salary 

of $36,000 a year. That new employee will be paying $1300 more 

a year annually for his or her pension than someone in the exact 

same job in the same installation hired in 2012 or before. 

Congressman Lynch, the Boston VA Medical Center is hiring a respiratory therapist at a starting salary of $52,000 per year. That 

new employee will pay almost $1900 more per year than someone 

in the exact same job in the same hospital hired before 2012 or before. 

How these employees ever going to be able to participate in the 

Employees Thrift Savings Plan is beyond my comprehension. The 

phony argument for forcing increased retirement contributions is 

that doing so brings us in line with the private sector. But according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 96 percent of private sector 

defined benefit plans don’t charge employees one red cent. 

If this policy is not modified or repealed, it will impoverish an 

entire generation of Federal employees. Meanwhile, the salary gap 

continues to worsen. Each year OPM calculates gaps between Federal and private sector salaries on a city-by-city and job-by-job 

basis using BLS data. In spite of an ongoing campaign to discredit 

their findings by various right-wing think tanks, the data tell a 

consistent story: they show Federal salaries are an average of 35 

percent lower. 

If the purpose of the pay freeze was to extend the pain of the recession to an engineering technician at the Corpus Christi Coast 

Guard or to a claims representative at the Brockton Social Security 

Office, then it was a resounding success, sirs. Between the pay 

freeze, temporary layoffs from sequestration, and the shutdown, we 

heard from members who fell behind on their rent, who were about 

to have their cars repossessed, or were not able to pay for their 

childcare. Worst were the calls from those in danger of losing their 

jobs because falling behind on bills threatened their security clearances. Last fall’s 16-day Government shutdown was the financial 

last straw for many workers. While everyone eventually got back 

pay after it was over, the delay in getting their paychecks had a 

lasting consequences for many workers. 

65 

These are real people who suffer real harm, not pawns on a political chessboard. It is not right, and we all know it. 

Fortunately for the American citizens, Federal employees are a 

devoted and resilient bunch. They are sick and tired of being a political punching bag and ATM, but they love their Country, they 

love their jobs, and they are profoundly devoted to the agencies 

that they work for and their missions. Austerity budgets make it 

all but impossible for Federal workers to keep up productivity and 

carry out their missions. Whether it is Border Patrol agents without enough staff to keep drug smugglers out of the Country, or 

USDA’s plans to speed up the line at chicken processing plants so 

Federal inspectors can guaranty food safety, or VA doctors with patient loads of 2,000 instead of the best practice standard of 1200, 

sequestration’s cost-cuttings reduces productivity and services. 

Mr. Chairman, my written statement includes many other issues 

and I would be glad to answer any questions. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Cox follows:] 

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Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much, Mr. Cox. 

I will start with my five minutes. 

I appreciate the passion that you have for your members in the 

Federal workforce, and I do think that we need to be looking for 

ways to work with a budget. Unfortunately, it does look like the 

Federal workforce are the go-to people to balance the budget on, 

but that is where the bulk of the Federal dollars are spent, so that 

is why we are looking. 

I do want to point out you mentioned most Federal employees 

have a defined benefit plan, and you were comparing that to the 

private sector. Of the Fortune 100 companies now, I think only 

three of them still have a defined benefit plan; everybody has gone 

to a defined contribution plan. I just wanted to point on that fact. 

I want to go on with some more questions. 

Mr. Goldenkoff, in your written testimony, you talk about the 

wait times at the Department of Veterans Affair, management of 

only gas operations at the Department of Interior, IT management 

and Social Security acquisition management at DOD and Homeland Security all share a common problem: the breakdown of personnel policies such as performance management. 

How do we fix this? How do we create a system that rewards productivity, but don’t, in the process, create something like in the VA, 

where there are checklists that encourage employees to keep paper 

lists so they meet their goals? How do we deal with this in a Federal environment where we have fairness in due process claims? In 

the private sector you just fire somebody who you think is cheating. 

How do we fix this? How do we do this in the Federal Government? 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. The short answer is it is complicated, but it 

has to be addressed systemically, and one of the problems is that 

in the past we have tried to address it piecemeal, looking at the 

pay system, looking at the classification system, looking at the performance management system. The thing is it is all interrelated. It 

has to be treated as a matrix, as a system, and we are just not 

doing that. 

For example, starting with the classification system, as we all 

know, at 65 years old we are trying to accomplish the Federal Government’s mission by essentially driving a Studebaker when we 

need Smart cars. If we start with that, but also the Federal classification system affects so many other things; pay and performance 

management. There are skills gaps. So all the different stakeholders, OPM, Congress, labor unions, different interest groups, 

really need to come together and figure out what are the problems, 

what can be addressed by agencies administratively, what needs to 

be addressed by statute, set priorities, set time frames. That is the 

first start, and we are just not doing that. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Let’s ask Ms. Archuleta. 

Where are you guys going on this? What are you all doing and 

what do you all need to get there? 

Ms. ARCHULETA. Mr. Chairman, thank you. The President, since 

2012, has recommended that there be established a panel or commission to review Civil Service with the specific purpose of reform. 

I think the GAO’s statement is a very important one in that in 

looking at the Civil Service system you can’t look at it piece by 

78 

piece; you have to look at classification, you have to look at pay, 

you have to look at performance. 

OPM, right now, stands ready and is willing to help in every one 

of those major areas, but we recognize that the system that was established 65 years ago does need reform, and that is why the President has suggested that a commission be established to look at this 

very carefully and to assess all of the impacts of putting this whole 

system—— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Is that something you all could do yourselves, 

without having to do a commission, or at least come up with something to start with? 

Ms. ARCHULETA. We would hope that we could join with Congress, with academics, with experts, with labor and management to 

take a look at this together. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Great. 

Ms. Niehaus, I want to get back to the initial question I asked 

Mr. Goldenkoff. What do you see as the solution to the system of 

creating a goals-oriented, results-oriented compensation system, 

and not creating an incentive for fraud like we apparently have 

seen at the VA? 

Ms. NIEHAUS. I agree with Mr. Goldenkoff that it has to be a 

wholesale system. You have to address every aspect of the system 

in order to bring it up to date and make it more usable and more 

responsive, and I think that oversight is the answer. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Well, I see that I am out of time. I think we 

have a few enough members here we will get to a second, maybe 

third round of questioning, so I am going to go ahead and let Mr. 

Lynch do his questions, and we will move back over to our side of 

the aisle after that. 

You have five minutes, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again I want to 

thank you for your thoughtful comments in working with us. 

You know, I agree with one of the things that Mr. Devine pointed 

out, that we are asking so much of our Federal employees. We are 

asking them to do a lot more than we asked them 30 years ago. 

And when I look at the FDA, we are asking the scientists, they are 

Federal employees, but they are scientists and PhDs and MDs, to 

evaluate these new pharmaceuticals coming online and trying to 

figure out what is safe to sell to the public. We look at the FCC 

with the explosion on social media, all these other issues regarding 

privacy. The burden on those Federal employees to get it right is 

enormous. 

The SEC. I sit on the Financial Services Committee as well, and 

trying to deal with these complex derivatives and also deal with 

the international monetary system and the reverberations around 

the world of some of these practices, it is a tremendous burden on 

these Federal employees. And here we are, as Mr. Cox points out, 

trying to hire a chemical engineer at $36,000 a year. Even a brand 

new chemical engineer coming out of college is going to have a bagful of student loans that $36,000 a year is not going to get it. 

And at my own VA in Boston, I have three VA hospitals in my 

district, we are having a hard time keeping docs. We have a lot of 

vacancies there because we can’t get doctors because the competition from the private sector is just pulling them away; nurses, docs, 

79 

therapists. We can’t pay them enough to keep them in the system, 

so we are losing our best and it is just a tug of war to try to keep 

them. 

Even our own offices. I don’t know how it is for Mr. Farenthold, 

but in my office the average is three or four years I will keep an 

employee. Once they understand the financial services system—— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. That is twice what I get. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. 

Once they get a little bit of experience working on the Financial 

Services Committee, they are off. Some of them, one of them just 

left for the Treasury over at NSA now because they can pay more 

money than we can. One of them went to Bloomberg, one of them 

just went to Fidelity, making exponentially more money than they 

are for the Federal Government. So that is the challenge here. 

And I am blessed to have the great employees I have at the VA 

that are willing to do that work. A lot of them are veterans themselves. So we have a real challenge here. 

And Government, by its nature, is very conservative. We don’t 

change much. We got rid of the powdered wigs. That is about it. 

Meanwhile, the velocity of change in society with all of these 

things, with the FDA, FCC, SEC, that is at breakneck speed. 

And there has been a lot of talk here about poor performers, and 

we had the Merit System Protection Board do a study back in 2009 

to try to address the issue of poor performers, and there was a 

quote in the report to the President that I will read now. It says, 

‘‘The greatest challenge for addressing poor performers in the Government did not come from responsibilities set forth in Title V. Addressing poor performers by merely changing a law that sets forth 

how to demote or remove a poor performer is not a feasible solution. Rather, the Government must concentrate on managing the 

performance of its employees.’’ 

That is sort of what Mr. Devine was getting at and also I think 

each of you have raised that issue. So, first of all, do you agree 

with that conclusion and would you agree that at least part of the 

solution is we have to manage our employees better to incentivize 

high performance, rather than just saying, okay, this person is not 

measuring up to the bar and we are going to cut them loose? That 

doesn’t seem to be a feasible approach, given the fact that we have 

so many of these employees. 

Ms. Archuleta? 

Ms. ARCHULETA. Thank you, congressman. I agree with you, we 

have to take action before a problem begins, and that really requires, as you mentioned, top management being very strongly involved in the management of the employees and the performance 

management system. 

It also means that we have to have strong appraisal programs; 

that both the employer and the employee fully understand the performance standards that are set for success. And OPM can help because it takes training of these supervisors and the rating officers 

to make sure that they understand how we need to hold employees 

accountable. And I believe that employees want exactly that. This 

is not something that they are resisting. In fact, they want to know 

exactly what they are expected to do and how they will be assessed 

on their performance. 

80 

And our ability to support departments and agencies is one that 

we are strengthening at OPM and one that I am very much focused 

on in terms of my commitment to the President and his management agenda. 

Mr. LYNCH. I think I am running out of time. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. We will get around to a second round of questions. 

Mr. LYNCH. All right. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I think we have enough time before votes that 

we will be able to cover this matter thoroughly. 

We will now go to the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from So Cal, Mr. Issa. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. Devine, I am from the land of Reagan, and I think back to 

that era when a former union leader was President and he found 

himself with highly unionized air traffic controllers who simply 

wouldn’t do their job, and he was forced to fire them all. You remember that period, don’t you? 

Mr. DEVINE. They called him the Teflon President. All the grease 

went on me. 

Mr. ISSA. You know, you don’t use oil on Teflon. 

But I want to go down that line of questioning primarily for 

yourself and Mr. Goldenkoff. We now have a situation in which a 

1949 law designed to protect or to take politics, if you will, out of 

public service was strengthened. Basically, that is it. And in 1949 

how many labor unions were there in the Federal workforce? The 

answer is zero. 1963 was when President Kennedy decided that by 

executive order he would open the door for something that FDR 

said was wrong and should never happen. 

So I guess one of the first questions I have is as we are looking 

at the double layer of civil service protection and union protection, 

aren’t we inherently—and we deal with the Postal Service on top 

of that in this committee—aren’t we inherently dealing with a system that guarantees—Mr. Devine, I will take your experience— 

that in fact we fire or demote or eliminate less under-performers 

and outright bad workers than you would if you had only one, but 

not both, of those systems in place? 

Mr. DEVINE. Actually, Jimmy Carter, when he submitted the 

Civil Service Reform Act, he only had a Civil Service system, he did 

not originally propose to have that dual system; that was added by 

Congress as the Act was being considered. It makes no sense to 

have two systems like this. Do you want to have a grievance system? That makes some sense. You want to have a Civil Service system? That makes some sense. 

But to have two of them makes no sense. But that is what we 

have, and we should have one or the other. I mean, the fact is we 

came up with two good Civil Service systems to replace that. 

Jimmy Carter, and I give him all the credit for this, he came up 

with it. That Civil Service Reform Act, as it was passed originally, 

worked. It only worked for a couple of years, but it worked. I think 

the National Security Appraisal system worked. Both of them were 

stopped because people weren’t willing to put the effort into it. 

Again, Ms. Niehaus, I think in her testimony, shows how tough 

that is to keep that going. So naturally the normal thing is, well, 

81 

you know, let it go. I quoted Jimmy Carter when he looked over 

the Civil Service Reform Act beforehand, he said, this is boring 

stuff. I mean, it is boring stuff; members of the committee know 

better than anybody. But it is critical stuff and it is very hard to 

make it happen in a political environment. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, Mr. Goldenkoff, I would like to call on you because you are looking at this in a slightly different way. Roughly 

two-thirds of people who call themselves Federal workers, not contractors, wear no uniform; and roughly one-third, just a round 

number, wear the uniform of the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, 

or Coast Guard, Merchant Marine. In a sense, we provide this double layer of union membership, in most cases, or associations that 

act like unions, and/or civil service protection to those two-thirds 

and we provide absolutely nothing to the men and women who put 

themselves literally in harm’s way in the most explicit sense. 

If we are going to look at civil service reform/unionization, isn’t 

the model, to a certain extent, the apolitical organizations like the 

Army, the Navy, the Marines who have merit systems for promotions, have evaluations, have a series throughout their careers, 

but ultimately can be quickly eliminated for crimes, quickly eliminated for dramatic under-performance, and, in fact, historically are 

not promoted if they are marginal players? 

Would you like to comment on that? Then I will open it up to 

anyone else. Because it is amazing to me that the people who literally can get shot at, blown up, and killed for a living have the 

greatest risk of, if you will, if they fail to perform, losing their jobs, 

while civilians, often in the same theaters making more money, 

have no such risk. 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. I think we need to be careful about any comparisons between the civilian workforce and the uniformed workforce. But focusing directly on the civilian workforce—— 

Mr. ISSA. How about when you are a major working at the Pentagon doing the exact job that a civilian at the Pentagon is doing? 

Why wouldn’t there be some comparison? One is union represented 

and can’t lose their job; the other is often doing the job that the 

civilian simply never gets around to, and that is why DOD pulls 

them in to do these jobs. We have had hearing after hearing that 

said that over the years. 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Well, for the civilian workforce, we are not excusing poor performance as Director Archuleta has said. 

Mr. ISSA. I don’t know. This committee has repeatedly seen that 

we give promotions to people who are negligent or outright criminal repeatedly, even after the misconduct is discovered. This is a 

place where the EPA director didn’t have a problem until after a 

fake CIA agent at EPA had retired and was still using a slot, finally discovering that he had been paid for nine years not to work. 

Or in fact paying people who are in nursing homes full pay and 

benefits for years, and not firing the person who wrote the falsified 

check. 

Do you have any question but that in the uniform service, if 

somebody kept somebody on the payroll for nine years, knowing, in 

fact, they were in a nursing home, that that lieutenant, captain, 

major, or colonel wouldn’t be outright fired for doing that, and isn’t 

that appropriate? 

82 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. Well, of course, and that should be. And no 

one is saying that that performance is appropriate for the civilian 

workforce as well. In both cases there is no excuse for poor performance or under-performance. 

Mr. ISSA. There is no excuse. I appreciate that, but there is no 

excuse, but there is also no repercussions. 

Mr. GOLDENKOFF. And there should be. And that is, with the performance management system, why it needs to be much more effective. And what it comes down to, might be painting with a broad 

brush here, but in many cases there are issues with the process; 

it can sometimes be cumbersome. There are a lot of protections 

built into it to protect it from things like politicization and arbitrary and capricious management. 

But in a lot of these cases, if managers would only be managers 

and do their jobs, a lot of these problems would go away; and we 

are not seeing that, and it is what Ranking Member Lynch said, 

the problem often is with managers not doing their jobs effectively. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Devine, I will let you close. You know, that was 

a wonderful tirade on managers, but aren’t managers also part of 

the Federal workforce that, in fact, find themselves keeping their 

jobs even while not managing? So isn’t it two steps? The managers 

are being blamed for not firing the rank and file who simply do little or nothing in some cases, but we have the same protection, 

seemingly, for those managers. 

Mr. DEVINE. I have all the sympathy in the world for the managers. They are in an impossible system. As you said, they are in 

a dual system, and any manager that fights this is a hero in my 

book; and several of them have gone up to the Court of Appeals 

and done it. But the basic fact is I recommend, I didn’t come across 

this until after my testimony, Helen Ruben, is a professor at State 

University New York at Albany. OPM was kind enough, I don’t 

know if you were there or before, to give the data to her and compare it to GAO’s comparison. 

The fundamental tool of personnel management is a performance 

appraisal system. Thirteen percent of the agencies only met the 

GAO standard, and only 80 percent of the GAO standard. That 

means that 87 percent of the agencies are not evaluating their people on a meaningful basis. Everybody is getting the same ratings. 

It can’t work without the appraisal system, and I know managers 

hate to evaluate people. I know people hate to get evaluated, but 

that is what happens in the rest of the world. We have to do it in 

the civil service too. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your indulgence. 

Mr. Lynch, I thank you for your indulgence. 

And I only meant to use the military because in fact every enlisted man, once he becomes an NCO, and every officer sees performance management reports that are part of their permanent 

record. It is not an option to ever serve 90 days or more under any 

command and not have one of those, and I think that is what 

makes the difference in the military, is they do force their managers and their managers’ boss to score the performance of every 

man and woman in uniform. 

Thank you. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

83 

We will now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. DeSantis, 

for five minutes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Archuleta, I read about the strides that the Federal Government has made with gender pay gap, down to 11 percent difference 

in the GS ranks. The most recent numbers I have seen from the 

White House are roughly 20 percent, almost twice as high. So is 

it an accurate statement to say that the White House performs 

worse than the agencies that comprise the Executive Branch in 

terms of the gender pay gap? 

Ms. ARCHULETA. I think the White House is working very hard 

to close the gap. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, I appreciate that, but at this point they are 

laggards, is it fair to say that? 

Ms. ARCHULETA. I believe part of that, Mr. Congressman, is that 

there have been much younger—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. Can you just answer the question yes or no? You 

are trying to explain it, but is it true that they are lagging behind 

where the Federal Government is in terms of the individual agencies? 

Ms. ARCHULETA. I believe they are working hard to close the gender gap. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. Well, I will take that as a yes. 

Mr. Cox, I just wanted to clarify. You talked about the pay freeze 

instituted by President Obama. Are you testifying here today that 

since that pay freeze was initiated that no Federal employee has 

seen an increase in their pay? 

Mr. COX. I am saying that they have not seen the cost of living 

adjustments for three years, sir. You know that they got the—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. So they have received—— 

Mr. COX. They got the within rate increase—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. But they have received step increases as appropriate? 

Mr. COX. If they were due them, yes, sir. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And merit increases. And then there have been 

individual bonuses. I mean, we have seen bonuses given out to employees who have admitted to misconduct in the EPA. We have 

seen bonus payments in the IRS. I take your point on that, but I 

just don’t want to leave the impression that somehow they were denied the ability to move ahead in their career simply because of the 

President’s order. 

Mr. Devine, I appreciated your comments to start, talking about 

reducing the size and scope of Government. There is a political 

component of that. I think that unleashes positive energy in our 

Country, more freedom. I think we would be better off. But even 

if you are somebody who is a liberal and believes in activist Government, we have a problem that this Government is just not accountable and is not susceptible of proper congressional oversight. 

We don’t know how many agencies there are; we don’t know what 

they are doing. So I think there should be some bipartisan agreement that we need to have a more accountable system. 

Let me ask you to chime in about this dealing with people who 

perform poorly, because when I was in the Navy on active duty, if 

you performed poorly, particularly as a junior enlisted, they could 

84 

be summarily processed out with a negative administrative discharge from the service, and the idea was you have to perform, otherwise we are going to find somebody else. So in the civil system 

that clearly is not the case. 

We have had people testify before our Oversight Committee who 

have admitted to serious misconduct and yet they still end up 

working for the agencies. This drags on months and months, sometimes years. So how would you say how should we in Congress be 

looking at that issue of accountability within the system and how 

would you address the difference between the civilian and the military? 

Mr. DEVINE. I would put back into effect the National Security 

Appraisal system or go back to the Civil Service Reform Act. Go 

back to the managers. I mean, it was Congress, not under your 

control, but it was Congress that got rid of the pay-for-performance 

system for managers. The problem is the system. We can’t expect 

the managers to operate in a system that doesn’t work. It needs 

radical reform. 

Jimmy Carter believed in big government as much as anybody in 

the world, all right? But he knew that it wasn’t working, so he put 

a tremendous amount of energy into trying to set up a system that 

worked; and, in my opinion, it did. People can differ with that, certainly, but in my opinion it did. I think what Ms. Niehaus says 

with the problems they had with the Air Force or whatever, they 

had problems with it, but of course it is going to have problems. 

You have to work on it. 

But that means it has to start with Congress and the President. 

You have to say this is a serious system; it is hard to do, but we 

have to do it. And I know the politics of things today is very difficult, but you could start working on this committee now. This is 

where it came from before, with people as far apart as you are, and 

I can guarantee you that; they were in charge then. I mean, I think 

you have to seriously look at reforming this whole system. It is 

easy to blame them, and blame certainly can go around, but the 

problem is the system makes no sense and it has to be fixed. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, I appreciate those comments. A lot of my 

constituents are frustrated as taxpayers. They want their dollars 

used well. If someone is not doing the job, they want that to be 

done in an effective way. So I appreciate those comments and I 

yield back. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. 

I want to talk a little bit, for my five minutes here, about working with the Government and passion for your job. I have always 

told my children pick a job doing something that you like, and then 

it isn’t like work. It worked for me. Once I got fed up with being 

a lawyer, I went and became a computer consultant. Computers do 

what you tell them and your clients, as lawyers, don’t always. Then 

I got interested in politics, went into talk radio and wanted to 

make a difference, and realized I was kind of a brick thrower on 

the radio; maybe I would do better running for office. And here I 

am. 

I don’t think anybody, as a child, sits and says, well, I want to 

be a bureaucrat in the Federal Government, but that is what they 

end up. What robs the Federal workforce of their passion? You go 

85 

to work for the EPA because you care about the environment. You 

study forestry and go to work for the National Park Service because you love the outdoors. You go to work at the Corpus Christi 

Army Depot because you are good with your hands; you want to 

help the military, you want to fix helicopters. You go to work at 

the VA because you want to help people. But all of a sudden you 

get caught and mired up in something. 

I don’t understand how some of the folks at the VA get to sleep 

at night knowing what a backlog there is. Why aren’t they saying 

I am going to stay an extra hour, I am going to work a little bit 

harder and get this backlog done? What kind of system have we 

created where just doing the barest minimum is acceptable? 

I am going to start with Ms. Niehaus and Mr. Cox. What have 

we done to rob the people that are working of the passion to do the 

best job possible? 

Ms. NIEHAUS. I have to say that part of it is feeling, as Mr. Cox 

said earlier, that the Federal employee is the ATM for the budget 

system. That is tremendously de-motivating for employees to feel 

like they are not being recognized. It is also, I think, de-motivating 

for an employee to be in a pass/fail performance system. If you 

have an employee who is a stellar employee, who still has that passion, who works that extra hour, who goes that extra mile, and the 

person sitting next to them comes in and does the job they are paid 

to do and they do it well, but they just do what they are paid to 

do, they don’t go that extra mile, they get exactly the same performance rate. They get the same paycheck. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. So in the private sector, when it comes time 

to tighten the belt, and I have had to do that a couple of times in 

my computer company, the person that gets to stay is the person 

that works the extra hour. 

Mr. Devine, do you want to address that question a little? Do you 

have any thoughts on that now that you are kind of on the outside 

looking in? 

Mr. DEVINE. I think it goes back to performance. I live in the 

Washington area. I know many, many Federal employees. They 

know the system doesn’t work. They know that if you perform well 

you don’t get paid better. That can be discouraging. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. The 2013 Federal Employees Viewpoint Survey found that only 28 percent of Federal employees agreed their 

work unit takes steps to deal with poor performers who cannot or 

will not improve. That is a decrease from 2012 results. 

Ms. Archuleta, is there anything the OPM can do to help? 

Ms. ARCHULETA. I think the EVS also showed that the employees, when asked about were they willing to do even more, the fact 

of the matter is that I believe, and I have literally spent the last 

eight months talking to employees across the Country, is that they 

are very engaged. Are they satisfied with pay? Do they have concerns about how they are evaluated? That is true, and OPM is 

working very hard with top managers to make sure that they understand their responsibilities in appraising performance and certainly the issues of classification. However, when I speak to employees and talk about the work that they do, I do see that passion. 

I do see that commitment to what they have taken on, and I would 

be very reluctant to use a broad brush to paint all employees with 

86 

one color of enthusiasm. I believe that there is great enthusiasm 

among Government employees who every day provide service to the 

American people. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Some of the comparisons are drawn between 

what you can make in the private sector and what is made in the 

Federal Government, and it is hard to compare apples to apples. 

Federal Government, a lot of the jobs have a defined benefits retirement plan, which, as we know, is very uncommon in the private 

sector. You do have a lot more due process and protections and job 

security there. So I guess it is difficult to get an apples to apples 

comparison. 

Is there something that can be structured to where we are paying the employees what they could get? I had a receptionist that 

worked for me for a very short period of time because she got mad 

that I paid the computer techs, who went out and fixed computers, 

more than I paid her. She was mad about that. Well, they had a 

higher skill set and were doing a different job. So how can we create a systems where we are competitive or similar to the private 

sector and compare those apples to apples, make sure we are getting the compensation we need, but not overpaying them if we take 

in all of the perks that are associated with a Government job? 

Ms. ARCHULETA. I believe that all of your panelists have mentioned the fact that we really need to take a look at the whole system. And it is not just about pay, but certainly the classification. 

I think it is time, after 65 years, to begin to look at all parts of 

the Civil Service reform with input from the Congress, from the 

President and his Administration, from labor and experts in the 

field. I think there is time to step back and take a look at that. 

In the meantime we need to enforce and to support the system 

that we have right now, and that is OPM’s job to make sure that 

managers are held responsible, employees understand their responsibilities, and that there are performance management tools available to both so that they can perform to the level the American 

people expect. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right, thank you very much. 

I see I have gone a little bit over time. 

Mr. Lynch, you have been a little outnumbered on our side of the 

aisle, so I will give you your five minutes and I will be loose with 

the gavel if you have some more you want to go along with. 

Mr. LYNCH. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. 

I do want to just talk a little bit about some of the things we talk 

about, the backlog of the VA. Now, I understand that that is an 

embarrassment and that we need to fix that, but I do want to drill 

down on that a little bit. You know, at my VA hospitals, I have 

three of them, as I said, in my district, and what we try to do in 

Division 1 was get rid of that backlog by telling any veteran that 

was waiting for an appointment at the VA that if we couldn’t give 

them an appointment within 14 days, they could go to any private 

hospital in the area, and we have some good ones in the Boston 

area, and I represent Boston, Quincy, and Brockton, and we have 

a lot of good hospitals in there, great teaching hospitals, worldclass hospitals. 

So we told our veterans that if we can’t treat you in 14 days, you 

go to Mass General or Tufts or Quincy Medical Center or Good SaVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:36 Sep 22, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\89728.TXT APRIL
87 

maritan Hospital down in Brockton. You know what the veterans 

said? No thanks. No thanks, we’ll wait for the VA. Almost 70 percent of our veterans said we want to be treated at the VA; we are 

veterans. And we appreciate the camaraderie, the esprit de corps, 

the way we are being treated at the VA. 

So even though we gave everybody the opportunity to go to the 

private sector, go to private hospitals, they valued what they were 

getting at the VA; and that is a sign of success that 70 percent of 

them wanted to stay at the VA because they love the way the VA 

docs and nurses and therapists and staff are treating them. So just 

saying there is a backlog doesn’t explain everything. 

The other fact of the matter is that we had 3 million men and 

women in uniform serve in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last few 

years, last 10, 11 years; and that has created a problem as well 

that the demand for services at the VA has created a real crunch 

and a real struggle for them to meet the need, as well as the fact 

that many of our World War II and Korea veterans are at that age, 

for the first time in their lives they have to rely on someone else 

to care for them. So that explains some of what is going on at the 

VA as well. 

I spend a fair amount of time at the VA in my district and they 

are doing a hell of a job, and I just hate to see them get beat up 

all the time. 

The other thing I wanted to talk about is it is true that President 

Kennedy changed the way we do things with the fact that unions 

now represent Government employees, but I do want to make one 

important distinction here. When we allow Federal employees to 

become unionized, we strip away their right to strike. So any worker who is out there who feels that they are unfairly treated, that 

their job is dangerous, that they are upset about the working conditions, their pay scale, I was an iron worker and I will confess I was 

a union president for the iron workers, and if I felt that the men 

and women on my job were in a dangerous situation, I would pull 

them off in a heart beat, I would shut that job down. Federal workers don’t have that opportunity; they have to keep working. They 

have to keep working. They can complain, they have the right to 

complain, they didn’t take that way, but we take a lot away from 

those Federal employees when we allow them to become unionized. 

The other thing is I appreciate the comparison between the military and the civilians, but I do want to point out where one instance in our recent history where that overlapped, and that was 

when—I was elected on September 11, 2011 in the Democratic primary, so when I came to Washington it was a new place here, and 

we had anthrax attacks in some of the Government buildings, as 

well as the Brentwood postal facility in Brentwood that services the 

D.C. area. 

So even though it is a union environment, they don’t have the 

right to strike, the postal employees; we had two of our great postal 

workers, Thomas Morris and Joseph Curseen, who died of anthrax 

inhalation; it was in the mail. So the unions, at that time, were 

pressed with the dilemma that do we send our workers in there. 

We are talking about letter carriers, clerks, mail handlers, supervisors, postmasters, all of them represented by unions and associations. Do they send their workers in there to go to work? Because 

88 

coming out of that Postal Service, if you have anthrax on your 

clothes, you are bringing it home to your family. 

So a lot of those postal workers had a dilemma of do we go to 

work. Do we go to work? Do we keep the mail going? A lot of people 

were concerned that if the mail did not get delivered to every home 

and business in America six days a week, that the economy would 

shut down at that time. 

Well, the postal workers stepped up. Every mail handler, every 

clerk, every letter carrier, every supervisor, every postmaster 

showed up for work. Even though that anthrax was in those facilities, they kept going to work. And, in my mind, that reflects the 

patriotism that we see in our military. No less. It reflects the passion that they had for their job and the duty that they feel they 

owe to this Country. Those are postal workers, those aren’t necessarily regarded as uniformed employees, as the comparison was 

made by the committee chairman. 

But I do see that in many of our workers at the Federal level 

and I think it is important for us to—and I agree with Mr. Devine 

on this point and Ms. Niehaus, that we try to elevate that work 

that they are doing and encourage that higher level of performance, 

but in a way that I think balances out across job levels, that we 

don’t end up with the situation we had with NSPS, which is also 

in Ms. Niehaus’s testimony, where it was very subjective, very arbitrary. Under the pay-for-performance standard, it paid very well to 

be white and male. That would work for me as a worker, but I 

know there are a whole lot of people out there it wouldn’t work for. 

So when we had pay-for-performance, if you were white and 

male, you were very highly likely to get a bonus. It didn’t work so 

well for a lot of other folks. So I am just very leery about going— 

and, Ms. Niehaus, the reason you haven’t been asked so many 

questions is you are so smart. I honestly believe that. But you do, 

in your testimony, point out the gaps in that program that we had 

on pay-for-performance, and I just think there has to be a better 

way. We can’t just go back to that. We can’t just institutionalize 

inequality in our hiring system and in our job performance and job 

rating system. We can’t just take a giant step back in time to that 

problem. I think we are making progress here, but you need to 

make a whole lot more. 

I am way over on my time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. 

We will now go to the gentleman from Florida for his second 

round of questionings. Mr. DeSantis, you are recognized for five 

minutes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think one of the issues that I have noticed is it seems to me 

the 19th century basically had a spoil system, and your guy got in, 

his people would be there, and that is how the Government operated; and there were a whole host of problems with that, of course. 

But the one thing you did have was honesty. I mean, you knew 

what you were going to get with that. 

Then we moved away from that and said, you know, we actually 

need the Government to be administered by neutral professionals, 

and that is kind of the civil service system was born. 

89 

The issue, though, that I have seen in this term of mine is a lot 

of these folks are not necessarily neutral, and we, on this committee, have dealt with misconduct at the IRS. And if you look at 

the activity of somebody like a Lois Lerner, I mean, she is clearly 

operating as a partisan operative, not as somebody who is simply 

neutral applying the law. Whether she wanted to refer Senator 

Grassley for an audit, whether she was saying that the Tea Party 

was dangerous, whether she was rooting on Democratic Senate 

candidates, whether any time somebody would raise issues on the 

Democratic side, you could see her starting to move, even having 

meetings with the Department of Justice about whether you could 

criminally prosecute some of these 501(c)(4) groups. 

But then that is not it. You look at how the EPA works with 

some of the environmental leftists. There is a very close relationship there. The FEC, we have had a woman who had to resign because she violated the Hatch Act by campaigning for the President’s re-election. And oh, by the way, today it is reported that we 

tried to get her emails and her hard drive supposedly has gone the 

way of the buffalo, so I guess these things just happen any time 

Congress is interested. 

So I wanted to ask you, Mr. Devine, is this a legitimate concern 

that we have kind of a veneer of objectivity, but in some of the activities, particularly with the IRS, you clearly don’t have evenhanded treatment given to American citizens? 

Mr. DEVINE. I agree. I mean, people who were oriented to serve 

in Government and come more from one kind of persuasion than 

another. We have done studies of this. So there is kind of a natural 

part of this, and that is why you need some kind of appraisal system to what is going on there to try to keep it somewhat neutral. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Did you, when you came in with President 

Reagan, it is one thing to have a persuasion or the other. There 

are a lot of people who disagree with me who are honorable, do a 

good job. But did you see anything in those days that would rival, 

say, the conduct of a Lois Lerner, where the official conduct was 

done in a way that was partisan in nature? 

Mr. DEVINE. Well, Congressman Lynch mentioned that you are 

not allowed to strike when you become a worker. When I was 

there, they did go on strike. And I will say that most people of the 

other party wanted to let them get away with it. You mentioned 

not taking jobs. We had job actions all over the place. Now, admittedly, we came in there with an agenda that the workforce didn’t 

like, but, no, there is an attitude, a kind of way of thinking of the 

average person in the Federal workforce. I don’t think there is 

much you can do about it except make sure that they don’t act on 

it; and that means you have to have good management and it 

means you have to have good structure, and the fact is we don’t. 

Just preparing for this, over the weekend, in The Washington 

Post, Center of Disease Control is sending deadly pathogens to the 

Country, all right? They have been doing it for 10 years. All right? 

In the same paper, the National Institutes of Health improperly 

stores vials of incurable small pox without having it under control. 

The Washington Navy Yard has 160 cameras that try to find the 

guy who shouldn’t have gotten through the security system in the 

first place. Department of Health and Human Services, the same 

90 

weekend, they can’t find the numbers for the Obamacare sign-up, 

so they are just not going to report them anymore. 

I mean, the VA, for all the good Mr. Lynch talks that they do, 

the fact of the matter is that 70 percent won’t go to another hospital of the 15 percent of veterans who go to veterans hospital. 

Most veterans do not go to veterans hospital; overwhelmingly, 

about 85 percent don’t. 

Mr. DESANTIS. I appreciate that very much. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for pursuing this. When you look at 

somebody like a Lerner, like we have documented on the full committee, Dave Camp sends a letter, saying hey, preserve these 

emails and then we find out that, 10 days later, her hard drive 

mysteriously crashes, supposedly. These emails are not recoverable. 

Now there are two Federal judges who don’t think that that is a 

very good explanation; they are demanding answers in court within 

the month. I think that that is good. 

But then, just last week, we find out that that within days of the 

draft IG report that substantiated the targeting being circulated at 

the IRS, Lerner writes to the IT technician saying, well, you know, 

Congress will look at these emails, so we need to be careful of what 

these say; could we instant message and that not be searchable? 

This is very problematic, so I think that there are whole host of 

issues, but certainly that accountability is important. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you. You have given me a business idea 

for when I retire from Congress. Backup solutions for the Federal 

Government could potentially be pretty lucrative. 

I am going to do one more quick round. I am going to bat a little 

bit of cleanup here and hit a couple of questions I wanted to get 

answers to, then see if Mr. Lynch has any that he wanted, then 

we will let you guys go. 

Mr. Cox, I wanted to visit with you about how your union is seeing the pay-for-performance working. Are there any facilities where 

you have employees, you all represent, that are using pay-for-performance, and how is that working? 

Mr. COX. The pay-for-performance systems that were in place 

with NSPS that Congress scrapped because there were so many 

problems with it, as Mr. Lynch pointed out, there was a lot of discrimination that came out very clear; it was a very subjective type 

system, so we have not seen good examples of pay-for-performance. 

I actually believe if you look at the VA and the system that they 

had for their medical center directors and the pay-for-performance, 

it certainly created a very convoluted system that gave us the backlog, sir. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Do you think there is any situation in which 

a pay-for-performance would work? Do you think something that 

could be crafted could work within the Federal workforce? 

Mr. COX. I think that if Congress would allow the Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act that was passed in the 1990s to actually be implemented and the Federal employees were given the locality, the cost of living adjustments, and that there was full implementation of that, that we would see a lot more improvement 

throughout the Country with Federal employees and the pay and 

some of the—— 

91 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. So that is adjusting it for localities. But 

wouldn’t you agree that the highest performing employees should 

be rewarded with the highest rates of pay and the lowest performing employees should be a little worried about their jobs? 

Mr. COX. There are many, many systems in the Federal Government to reward employees with step increases, to give them bonuses, and many things of that nature. Sir, frequently, when I 

come to Congress, when I come to many meetings, we talk continuously about the poor performers in the Federal Government. I believe most employees, a high percentage, go to work every day with 

that passion and do that job. I was a registered nurse in the VA 

and I loved it every day of my life to go and to care for those veterans. Most people are doing that. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Well, there is no question the bad apples are 

the ones that get all the publicity. But we need to get rid of those 

bad apples, I think, so they don’t spoil the whole bunch. It is the 

people who lose their hard drive or the people who keep secret lists 

that have shaken the American people’s faith in the Government. 

You guys, more than anybody else, should want to get rid of those 

people, I would think. 

Mr. COX. Sir, there are many, many procedures within the federal regulations, as well as in contracts, to terminate Federal employees and remove Federal employees. I deal with that on a regular basis. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Let me ask you one more question. Your testimony discusses the effect of the temporary freeze. I would like to 

know how many AFGE members have left the Federal workforce 

as a result of their unhappiness with the temporary freeze on the 

January adjustment. Is it a big number? 

Mr. COX. We have seen a larger number of Federal employees 

leaving the Federal Government through retirements, through 

other jobs simply because, yes, the pay freeze has been in effect for 

three years. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. But you don’t have numbers or percentages? 

Mr. COX. I don’t have specific data, no, sir. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. Thank you. 

Ms. Archuleta, I wanted to address one more topic, and that is 

the probationary period. Typically, there is a one year probationary 

period for employees. I think that is probably reasonable for somebody who comes in as a data entry clerk or an entry level job. But 

there are some types of jobs that you are not even completed with 

your training for that job within a year. Do you have any thoughts 

on that? Do you think it would be appropriate to adjust the probationary period to begin not at the time of hiring, but at the time 

you complete your training and actually begin your job? 

Ms. ARCHULETA. It is true, sir, that, as you stated, there is a probationary period of one year for both GS and SES. I believe that, 

in looking at civil service reform, that that would be an issue that 

would be obviously ready for observation and discussion. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Lynch, did you have some cleanup you needed to do as well? 

Mr. LYNCH. Yes, just a little bit. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

92 

Ms. Archuleta, let’s stay with you. On average, how long does it 

take to remove a person for poor performance, if you go through 

this whole system? 

Ms. ARCHULETA. It could take anywhere from 60 to 120 days, 

around that, dependent upon whether the evaluations have been 

complete as that employee has been moving through the system. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. 

Ms. ARCHULETA. If they are not completed, obviously, it could 

take longer. 

Mr. LYNCH. Ms. Niehaus, do you think there are ways we could 

streamline that whole process? 

Ms. NIEHAUS. I think that based on a lot of the MSPB case law, 

rather than the regulations that OPM is responsible for, it actually 

takes a lot longer to prepare a case. Once you have actually hit the 

removal stage, the appeals go fairly quickly, but I know our attorneys are very exacting in wanting to make sure that every loophole 

is closed when we do remove an employee for performance; and it 

does take a lot longer than to remove an employee for misconduct, 

because you are required to give them an opportunity to improve. 

Mr. LYNCH. Right. Right. I understand that. Okay, thank you. 

Ms. NIEHAUS. But, by and large, I think the majority of Federal 

employees are good employees. They come to work, they work hard. 

I know the people at Travis Air Force Base, the people at Corpus 

Christi, I toured that facility last year and met with a lot of them, 

they come to work to support the war effort; they come to work to 

support the military or the VA. 

Mr. LYNCH. I appreciate that. Thank you. I am out of time. 

Mr. Cox, would you support pay-for-performance for members of 

Congress? I think our popularity is about 4 percent right now. I 

think that a lot of Americans would like to see Congress put on a 

pay-for-performance standard as well. I am not going to force you 

to answer. 

Mr. COX. I will yield that to the American public. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Thank you. 

Lastly, I just want to ask unanimous consent if we could enter 

into the record this report addressing poor performers in the law. 

It is a report to the President and the Congress of the United 

States by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Without objection, so ordered. 

We have a copy. 

Mr. LYNCH. All right. Thank you, sir. 

I yield back. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. 

I would like to thank our witnesses for participating. Your input 

has been very helpful. Hopefully we will continue to make some 

progress on this and Congress will be able to perform on this one. 

Again, thank you, and we stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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