New System Won’t Cut Pay, DoD Says

The Defense Department has said employees “will not lose any pay” on conversion to the new pay and personnel system it is designing for itself. In a question-and-answer sheet it prepared on the new system-which could be months more in initial development and several years in implementation-DoD said, as it has in the past, that the new system “will likely include” pay banding (the consolidation of existing pay bands into a few broad bands) and pay-for-performance. “Pay banding and pay for performance will result in greater compensation for individual performance – for merit – rather than for tenure. Under NSPS, your annual pay adjustments will be based on your performance rather than on longevity, and you will have more control over the rate at which you move through your pay band,” the document says. The law creating the system specifies that DoD must make available for salaries of employees under the revised system at least as much money as it would have paid under its traditional pay systems.