GovernmentExecutive.com

One of the many problems with using performance bonuses in the federal pay system is that they have essentially the same short term impact as base salary increases. Legislators and government overseers only look at annual appropriations and don't look at the long term compounding affect that base salary increases have. If the long term impact was truly taken into consideration, performance bonuses could be in the range of 5% to 7% of pay as a trade-off for a 1% salary increase, and still be cheaper than the salary increase in the long run. With this short-range vision, its no wonder that base salary increases make up such a large part of the annual pay appropriations, and that lump sum performance pay is so small.

Anonymous Policy Analyst  | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 |  11:15 AM

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Average and median are different things. Median means half of the people got more, half less. Example if 4 people get $100 and one gets 24,600, the median is $100 and the average is $5000. When the average is significantly higher than the median, it means bonuses are distributed
with a few pepole getting big amounts.

engineer  | Wednesday, June 18, 2008 |  04:51 PM

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My previous supervisor RETURNED the entire awards budget at the end of the year. Wanted to save money. The bean counters were even stunned. "You have ZERO employees who did a good job?" they asked. He got mangled by his supervisor. After that, he gave money out to his favorites, regardless of what anyone was doing. There is no oversight and no accountability. It's like a living Dilbert cartoon.

Anonymous  | Wednesday, June 18, 2008 |  02:23 PM

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The award system in the Federal government is a farce. Stop it. A waste of the taxpayers' money.

I work for a Navy command. Last summer the 20+ people in our group saw their bonuses cut in half. No explanation from our fearless leaders. Everything is a big secret.

The water cooler word is that it all went to a few sexy young things. Is this practice for NSPS.

Wise Old Owl  | Wednesday, June 18, 2008 |  01:27 PM

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You're right, this doesn't add up -- because as recently as 2005 the Congressional Budget Office reported that more than half of all Federal employees received cash awards, and that the average amount was $1300. It may be that the author of this article is referring only to performance-based awards, which are directly linked to performance ratings. But many agencies don't even have programs like this in place, preferring instead to use the more straightforward cash awards program to recognize employees.

So while this makes for a catchy headline, it likely doesn't tell the whole story. Federal compensation is an exceptionally complex subject -- one that few journalists, in DC or elsewhere, genuinely seem to understand.

Skepticus  | Wednesday, June 18, 2008 |  12:15 PM

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