Reduced Number of Employees

In delaying the start of NSPS, the Pentagon also cut down the number of employees involved in Spiral 1.1 from 65,000 to 11,000. The rating cycle for those employees will continue through October and DoD expects their pay to be affected—primarily, by emphasizing performance in a pay banding system—in January 2007 as previously planned. Also, DoD pushed back the launch of the next two phases, Spirals 1.2 and 1.3—previously planned for spring and fall of this year, respectively—until October 2006 and January 2007, respectively. DoD earlier announced that some 48,000 employees would be in Spiral 1.2 and another roughly 160,000 in Spiral 1.3, but it now says that the military services and agencies are working to identify activities to participate in each of those spirals—suggesting that the numbers in those phases also could be reduced.