Administration Announces Caps on Federal Employee Merit Awards
Wednesday, June 22, 2011(National Federation of Federal Employees)
The
Office and Personnel Management and the Office
of Management and Budget recently informed
agency leadership that merit bonus awards for
federal employees would be capped starting in
FY 2012. At the senior executive level, awards
must not exceed 5 percent of an individual’s
salary.
The awards for other federal workers,
including those in General Schedule positions,
must be no more than 1 percent of an agency’s
aggregate salary for those
positions.
An internal memo
on the matter, uncovered by the Washington Post
in mid-May, states that there is a “need to
manage budget resources carefully” and it also
states a concern that “federal employees have
come to expect awards as entitlements.” The
memorandum cites the latest Federal Employee
Viewpoint Survey, which found that “only 36% of
employees believe that differences in
performance are recognized and only 43% believe
that awards reflect how well employees perform
their jobs.”
Despite the fact that a number of employees find the system to be “imperfect,” many would agree the solution is not a system where hard-earned merit awards are capped. Fortunately, the memorandum does say that all agencies are to “honor all collective bargaining obligations and discuss agency labor-management forums.” It also encourages that awards are distributed equally between managers/supervisors and nonsupervisory employees.