The Department of Defense has announced that it completed the first performance-based payouts for the first group of employees — spiral 1.1 – to enroll in the National Security Personnel System.
The first round of data do not support union arguments that performance ratings would be used to tar large segments of the workforce as underperforming and deny pay increases. Only 0.3 percent received the lowest rating and thus did not receive any 2007 pay raise.
While there are no within-grade increases under NSPS, employees with a rating of level 2 or above — 97 percent of spiral 1.1 — received the equivalent of the January 2007 general schedule pay adjustment of 2.2 percent divided between a bonus and base salary adjustment.
Just over 64 percent of the 11,000 employees in the first rollout were rated at "valued performers," another 30 percent of spiral 1.1 received a rating of 4, while 3.8 percent received a rating of 5, the highest. Those rated a level 3 and above received performance-based payouts whose value varied according to the pay pools used, but which ranged from roughly 2 to 6 percent of salary.
