Performance Fund Requirements Set

The DoD authorization bill grants the administration’s request to create a government-wide “human capital performance fund” to reward top-performing employees. The Office of Personnel Management would administer the fund. Agencies would have to submit plans based on “a fair, credible, and transparent employee performance appraisal system” in which employees have a role in the design and implementation. It is not known how long such a process would take; potentially no payments might be made from the fund to employees until well into 2004, if not later. Congress appears unlikely to put more than $2.5 million into the fund for fiscal 2004, which likely would do little more than cover start-up costs in any event.