Federal Manager's Daily Report

About three-fourths of career senior executives get the

highest rating available to them in their performance

evaluation systems, according to the most recent Office of

Personnel Management data, covering fiscal 2002. The 74.6

percent figure is down from 83.7 percent in fiscal 2001, in

part reflecting the Office of Personnel Management’s

pressure on agencies to use their SES performance ratings

systems to make better distinctions in performance.

SES rating systems typically use either three, four or

five levels. Among agencies using three levels, 99.6

percent of execs were rated at the top level in 2002.

Agencies with three-level systems include Defense,

Transportation, Interior and Health and Human Services.

Those agencies, along with Education, Housing and Urban

Development, State, Social Security Administration and

Nuclear Regulatory Commission, all rated at least 95

percent of their execs at the highest level in 2002. In

contrast, Energy gave top ratings to just 18.4 percent,

Office of Management and Budget to just 24.5 percent and

Agriculture to 34.5 percent. The Federal Emergency

Management Agency gave top ratings to none of its 28

career SESers.

The overall percentage of career SESers getting a

performance bonus held about steady between 2001 and 2002,

51.9 to 49.2 percent, and so did the average amount,

$12,324 to $12,444. However, bonus policies varied among

agencies, with the General Services Administration,

Labor and OPM granting bonuses to more than 90 percent,

while Defense granted them to 20.5 percent even though

96.5 percent of its execs got top ratings. FEMA granted

performance bonuses to 14.5 percent even though none of

them got top ratings.

OPM recently asked agencies to compile and report their

fiscal 2003 SES ratings data.

There are about 5600 career SES members.