OPM Considers SES Overhaul

According to a new draft proposal, the Clinton Administration is looking to revamp the Senior Executive Service by reducing its numbers, increasing bonuses and making it easier for agencies to get rid of poor-performing executives.

In a March 16 memorandum to the President's Management Council obtained by Government Executive, Office of Personnel Management director Janice Lachance presented proposals OPM is considering that would involve the most sweeping changes to the SES since the government's elite cadre of career leaders was established in 1979. The council and OPM will meet this year to review SES reform.

Senior Executives Association President Carol Bonosaro said she has many concerns about OPM's proposal.

"Without a clear purpose or guiding principles, we found it very difficult to understand the nature of the concerns that gave rise to many of the proposals," Bonosaro said. "The first question is, 'Why do we need to do this?' "

Under OPM's "SES Improvement Framework," virtually all positions above General Schedule grade 15 would be classified under a "Senior Civil Service." The new echelon would include all members of the SES along with those in the Senior Level and Senior Scientific/Professional systems. The new classification would expand the membership of the Senior Level and Senior Scientific groups. But OPM would simultaneously shrink the SES by limiting it to those who direct the work of an organizational unit; are held accountable for program success; monitor and evaluate progress toward organizational goals, supervise the work of employees other than personal assistants; and make important policy decisions.

To "strengthen systems for holding executives accountable for results," OPM proposes to replace recertification and performance evaluation requirements with a three-year performance agreement and annual progress reviews. At the end of each executive's three-year agreement, agencies would "determine whether the executive should be continued in current position, reassigned or removed," according to OPM's proposal. OPM says it would emphasize results over processes in the evaluations.

Bonosaro cautioned that OPM must make sure executives have the control over their programs that would allow agencies to hold the executives accountable for results. She said systems in New Zealand and Australia make top managers responsible for results, but also grant their top public servants greater authority than their American counterparts.

Under the new system, agencies would be able to award executives performance bonuses of up to 30 percent of base pay. Currently, bonuses are limited to between 5 percent and 20 percent of base pay. In addition, agencies would be free from performance bonus pools, which would allow them to decide on a case-by-case basis how much money would be available for bonuses. OPM also says the cap on Senior Civil Service members' pay may need to be raised from Executive Level 1 ($151,800) to the Vice President's pay level ($175,400).

OPM would revamp the Presidential Rank Awards program, which honors the top achievers in the SES annually with $20,000 awards for distinguished service and $10,000 awards for meritorious service. In a Feb. 25 draft, OPM proposed eliminating the meritorious service awards and awarding distinguished service honors only once every four years. But in its most recent draft, OPM suggests keeping both annual awards, but making the meritorious honors an agency-based award, not a presidential honor. OPM also proposes changing the distinguished awards to a percentage of base pay, perhaps 35 percent, and revising the criteria for winning the award to better reflect the new executive core qualifications for SES members.

Bonosaro wrote a letter last fall to Joyce Edwards, director of OPM's office of executive resources, arguing that the new qualifications, which include "business acumen" and "effective use of information technology," should not be used as criteria for the awards.

"We believe it is demeaning to the awards to limit them to the exhibition of competencies that have been the operational buzzwords for only a brief period of time. We ... trust that a set of criteria can be devised that, while emphasizing important management concepts, do not disregard lifetimes of achievement that may not precisely fit the mold of that which is desirable or in vogue today."

OPM also proposed making it easier to get rid of poor-performing executives by modifying guaranteed placement requirements for SES members. And the agency wants to expand the SES probationary period from one year to two years.

Additional OPM proposals include:

• Replacing limited term and limited emergency appointments with a single, non-competitive three-year term appointment, with two-year extension authority.
• Requiring SESers to work in more than one agency or program before they can be paid above ES-3.
• Providing for mobility bonuses for interagency transfers.
• Opening new executive training facilities in Charlottesville, Va., and Shepherdstown, W.Va.
• Modifying the statutory requirement that only 10 percent of the SES can be non-career executives so that it includes all Senior Civil Service positions. OPM also wants to eliminate the requirement that agencies maintain set levels of career-reserved positions.

Bonosaro said the Senior Executives Association will hold a summit later this year to determine what, if any, changes its members think need to be made to the SES system.