Group Recommends Switch to Pay Banding

The National Academy of Public Administration, an advisory group of experts whose views often carry much weight on civil service issues, has recommended switching the entire general schedule to a pay banding arrangement, in which grades are combined and managers have greater leeway in setting starting salaries and in advancing employees for performance or other reasons. NAPA in a recent report recommended a five-year changeover to pay bands that would be “aligned with prevailing market pay rates, for several broad occupation groups” and with raises based on labor market conditions. Locality pay should continue “in some situations” but it will be less prominent once salary bands are better aligned to labor markets, the group said, and pay-for-performance decisions “should be based on salary budgets, performance ratings and agency policies.” The recommendation comes at a time when two major departments, Defense and Homeland Security, are working to draft new personnel systems that will feature pay banding with pay-for-performance as central elements-although federal unions and some in Congress question the government’s ability to perform the kind of job market surveys that would be needed and say its performance measures are not reliable enough to link pay more closely to performance.