OPM issues draft of new SES framework

Federal executives have two months to help decide the future of the Senior Executive Service, under a comment period beginning this week on proposals that include bigger bonuses, stricter performance standards, and a 50 percent smaller SES.

The Office of Personnel Management Monday released its "Framework for Improving the Senior Executive Service," a draft plan for restructuring the government's top cadre of career managers for the first time since the SES was created in 1979.

Under OPM's draft, any member of the Senior Executive Service who does not have major supervisory responsibilities would be moved into a new Senior Professional Corps, which would also include current senior level and senior scientific/professional executives. Joyce Edwards, assistant director for OPM's office of executive resources, estimated that the change would cut the 8,000-member SES in half.

Other proposals include:

• Allowing bonuses of up to 30 percent of base pay, with no minimum percentage. Bonuses are currently limited to between five and 20 percent of base pay.
• De-linking senior executive pay from that of the Executive Schedule, which governs congressional, presidential and Cabinet salaries, and raising the cap on pay for members of the new Senior Civil Service from Executive Level 1 ($151,800) to the Vice President's pay level ($175,400).
• Making it easier for agencies to demote or fire poor-performing senior executives.
• Changing Presidential Rank Awards from specific cash amounts ($20,000 for distinguished rank, $10,000 for meritorious rank) to a percentage of base pay (perhaps 35 percent).
• Requiring rank award winners to have experience in more than one agency or program.
• Extending the senior executive probationary period from one year to two years.
• Replacing the annual performance appraisal and the 3-year recertification process with a 3-year performance agreement.

"The changes would retool performance management standards to increase the standards' usefulness in establishing individual and organizational accountability," Lachance said. "They would seek to enhance rewards as a balance for the increased risks executives are asked to take. They would foster development of SES candidates and continual learning for SES appointees. They would aim to facilitate self-governance within the executive corps."

But Senior Executives Association President Carol Bonosaro has said she is concerned with some of the proposed changes.

"The first question is, 'Why do we need to do this?' " Bonosaro said last month.