Congress Questions Pay Restructuring at GAO

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201438.html

Congress Questions Pay Restructuring at GAO

By Stephen Barr
Wednesday, May 23, 2007; Page D04

Hit with tough criticism that he had misled Congress, David M. Walker, the head of the Government Accountability Office, yesterday said he regretted that he had not done a better job of explaining and keeping lawmakers up to speed on the agency's new pay system.

Walker testified before a rare joint hearing of the House and Senate federal workforce subcommittees, which are led by Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) and Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii). The chairmen said they called the hearing because of complaints they had received from GAO employees.

The hearing underscored the difficult nature of overhauling pay and personnel systems, especially when employees are skeptical of changes they see as putting annual raises and credits toward retirement at risk.


GAO chief David M. Walker says he withheld inflation adjustments from employees whose pay was judged to be above market.
Photo Credit: Bloomberg News Photo

In their opening remarks, Davis and Akaka cited statements by Walker that promised an annual pay raise designed to protect GAO employees from inflation. But 308 employees did not receive a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) last year because a compensation study determined they were overpaid, Davis said.

Walker said he intended to provide COLAs when he testified on Capitol Hill in 2003 but learned the next year from the pay study that about 25 percent of GAO employees deserved an opportunity for higher pay and that about 10 percent were being paid more than the market rate. In November 2005, Walker said, he told GAO employees that some would not receive a COLA because of a restructuring of "pay bands," or broad salary ranges, and because of the findings of the compensation study.

"In retrospect, we should have advised the Congress and others sooner that we did not view my prior statements as applying to employees who were paid above-market levels. I'm sorry that we did not do that," Walker said.

FULL story at link.