NSPS Schedule Sketched

DoD says it has begun to work on how to apply its national security personnel system to employees under the wage system while it continues to phase in the program for its general schedule employees. The next phase will put about 66,000 GS employees into the NSPS over a four-month period starting in January; those employees will join about 12,000 converted earlier this year. The Air Force for example will convert another 11,000 employees effective October 15 and its remaining 26,000 in the current phase in January. The Army has said it will split its 14,000 in the upcoming phase into November and January groups. Officials have set no timetable for bringing wage grade employees in the system, but at a Senate hearing they indicated that conversion of employees in DoD laboratories, who already are under an alternative personnel system, won’t even be considered until at least 2008. A federal court has blocked the labor relations, adverse action and appeal rights provisions of the system, so those in the first two phases of NSPS are not subject to those provisions. The case is on appeal but the appeals court is not expected to rule until next year.