Pay
Discrepancies May Be Dissuading Career Civil Servants
From Rising in IG Ranks
By
Stephen Barr
Thursday, February 23, 2006; Page B02
Nikki
L. Tinsley, inspector general at the Environmental
Protection Agency, believes that the career civil service can
provide presidents with experienced and nonpartisan appointees for
the IG ranks.
But
Tinsley, a 35-year public servant who will retire in early March, is
concerned that pay inequities will discourage members of the career
Senior Executive Service from seeking IG jobs. Because of
compensation policy changes made in fiscal 2004, inspectors general
who choose to retain their career status are paid $142,500, but
other members of the SES can receive annual salaries of up to
$165,200.
In
Tinsley's office, the top SES aide earns $23,000 more than she does,
Tinsley said. In addition to the pay comparability issue, IGs drawn
from the ranks of the SES have not been eligible for bonuses since
1984. The double whammy can be costly, as much as $80,500 a year,
she estimated.
"When you talk to career people about could I recommend you . . . to
be the IG, they say, 'Why? Why would I want to do that?'
" she said.
The
pay comparability issue extends beyond the ranks of IGs, Tinsley
said. "Executive pay is broken. Most people who come into the
federal government, depending on their level, make less than the
people that work for them. I don't know if it is bad, but when the
executive [pay] schedule was created, that's not the way it was."
IGs
who are presidential appointees but not career SES members are paid
$143,000, according to a pay scale adjusted annually by Congress. As
in Tinsley's case, they can have employees on their staffs who earn
more because of their expertise or performance.
When
the SES was created in 1978, Congress permitted federal executives
selected for presidential appointments to retain their career status
so that they could make the transition without fear of losing their
pay, leave or retirement benefits. The arrangement also was intended
as a way to make a broad pool of managers available to the White
House for possible appointments.
But
a change in law, as part of the fiscal 2004 defense authorization,
"has had an unintended effect on inspectors general," Tinsley said.
The law eliminated locality pay for the SES and made SES annual pay
raises dependent on performance evaluations.
The
notion that IGs would get performance evaluations from their agency
heads raised issues of fairness and possible conflicts of interest,
because IGs investigate their agencies for waste, fraud and abuse
and make recommendations to improve management practices. Their jobs
are supposed to be seen as independent and able to withstand
political pressure.
Tinsley, who was confirmed as the EPA's IG in 1998, said she is one
of seven career IGs who have had their pay frozen, with consequences
for their pensions, since the 2004 statutory change. "We were all at
the top of the pay scale when we accepted these positions. . . . We
got our pay increases, and that didn't require any input from our
administrators or secretaries. So it is sort of a conundrum."
Tinsley has served as chairman of the human resources committee for
the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, an IG group.
Her panel has appealed to the Office of Management and Budget and
the Office of Personnel Management to raise the pay of all IGs to a
level that would address inequities and to allow them to receive
bonuses that represent an average of those received by other federal
executives in their agency.
Serving the president as an IG has been an honor, Tinsley said, and
working to improve federal operations provides great job
satisfaction. But IG pay policy needs to be modified so that raises
are permitted, she said.
"I
had an employee who got a less-than-satisfactory appraisal, and she
got a pay raise," Tinsley said, laughing. "I just couldn't believe
it. How could this be?"