Return to the "POINTER VIEW"August 31, 2001
Return to the "POINTER VIEW"
August 31, 2001
By Irene Brown
Editor
A legislative package, called the "Freedom to Manage Act" by President Bush, includes measures to increase the use of pay banding, hiring bonuses and other workforce restructuring tools, Office of Management and Budget officials said August 21. The legislation will be sent to Congress after the Labor Day holiday.
"The president coined this approach ‘Freedom to Manage,’ because he said it will help get the obstacles out of the way for managers," officials explained.
The package includes proposals for a variety of pilot and demonstration projects experimenting with pay banding, performance bonuses and other variations on the traditional general schedule grade and step system, Sean O’Keefe, OMB deputy director said during an August 22 press conference in Washington.
"The initiative also proposes that Congress enact a kind of fast track authority that sets a deadline for lawmakers to reaffirm or repeal statutes that place unnecessary curbs on what agencies can do," O’Keefe explained. "If Congress fails to act by the deadline, the statute would be scratched from the books."
The OMB deputy stressed that this initiative is not a civil service reform proposal.
"When people hear civil service reform, they envision major changes," O’Keefe said. "We are simply identifying a range of personnel management initiatives which we hope will improve the personnel management system."
Most supporters of federal managers had general praise for the initiative.
"We welcome anything that would make it easier for federal managers to do their jobs," said Michael Styles, national president of the Federal Managers Association. "In particular, I’d like to see more use of pay banding and less use of outdated regulations that hobble the current civil service system."