Fedweek

The main House committee overseeing the federal workforce has asked OPM to produce a wide range of data on various forms of compensation, what could be prelude to further attempts to tie compensation more closely to performance and to limit payment of awards in general. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee requested information for each of the past five years including: the numbers and percentages of employees who: received awards or bonuses, regular step increases or performance-based step increases; received ratings of level one or two, whether they received regular step increases and whether they were transferred to another position; had their pay frozen or reduced due to poor performance or misconduct; were fired for performance or conduct reasons, broken out by during the probationary period and afterward; and earning more than $100,000 and more than $150,000 and the occupations of those employees. Also requested were specifics on the lowest, average and highest cash awards paid; the average yearly increase, including regular raises, in both dollar and percentage terms; specifics of SES performance awards and disciplinary actions; and the value of benefits, including health insurance, retirement and others.