I was unaware that the federal government paid bonuses of any kind to federal employees and I’ve got to admit that I was horrified by the notion. At RealClearPolicy Adam Andrzejewski explains:
The U.S. Government doled out $1.5 billion in recruitment, retention, incentive, relocation, and performance bonuses last year (FY2016), but disclosed only 330,000 bonuses totaling $351 million. Performance bonuses of nearly $1.1 billion were withheld from disclosure, which is prohibited by anti-transparency language contained within the government-union contracts.
In our OpenTheBooks.com Oversight Report — Mapping the Swamp, A Study of the Administrative State, we mapped the 2 million disclosed federal bureaucrats by work location ZIP code. Search any ZIP code across America to review the name, agency, title, salary, and bonus of the administrative state. Just click a pin and scroll down to see the results that render in the chart beneath the map.
The largest federal bonus last year, $141,525, didn’t go to a rocket scientist or a doctor researching a cancer cure; it went to Bart Ferrell, a Human Resources Manager in charge of processing payroll at the Presidio Trust. This small land management agency, located in San Francisco, California, is the developer of the former military base.
Read the whole thing and weep. The entire situation is outrageous and, worse, lacking in transparency. If there’s one reform that’s necessary and pressing it is civil service reform.
I don’t know whether bonuses paid to military members is included in the figures. We pay extensive amounts to induce people to remain in service, particularly those in critical occupational specialties. And there are bonuses, available to uniformed and civilian personnel, for suggestions that save the government money. We don’t award bonuses in my current job but do award “performance” step increases–permanent raises in salary–every two years to those whose performance is deemed worthy of such recognition. But performance bonuses for the top X percent (less than 20, certainly) are not uncommon in some agencies.
What bugs me is that it’s obviously a way to evade the civil service pay grades. Either they ought to abolish the pay grades outright or they ought to adhere to them. Paying bonuses, incentives, etc. is both a racket and a ratchet. It boosts federal pay without adequate scrutiny.
Interesting. I received a bonus two different years as a DoD civil servant in the intelligence community – one year was a time-off award (essentially extra paid vacation hours) and another year a $1200 cash award.
Looking at the site, I don’t see that our small corner of the bonus pile is represented.
I can’t speak for anything outside of my experience – however, for my program, bonuses were paid out of a pool that each major organization received and they were competitive based on evaluations. They were designed to be a performance incentive in a system where compensation is based solely on position grade and seniority. In reality, the bonuses went to employees with the best leaders – leaders who took the time write good evaluations. Many didn’t because outside of the bonuses, evaluations had little importance.
That’s why I say it’s a racket.
As a physician, I got a bonus every year I was in. Even with the bonus, pay was still about half of what i would have made as a civilian. They were trying to keep specialists in by offering bonuses. More broadly, I don’t really see how you can have a one pay scale fits everyone, everywhere. If you need to have civil service workers in areas where the cost of living is very high, how else do you compensate for that? That said, no reason to hide them.
Steve