Rants vs. Reason

I have received hundreds of incoming emails in response to my articles suggesting that federal civilian workers are overcompensated (see here and here).

Many emails have been rants claiming that I'm an idiot or don't know what I'm talking about. Very few of those opposed to my arguments expressed any interest or curiosity in the actual underlying government data.

Some emails have been supportive. Here are two that suggest reasons why federal pay has been growing much more quickly than private pay.

This one came from a federal worker in Maryland:

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your 13 August opinion piece in the Washington Post--thanks!! As a senior military officer in a command that employs a large number of civilians, I have become increasingly frustrated at the excesses of the civil service system. Not only have the salaries gone up through the cost of living increases, we're also paying more because of little control on promotions which has resulted in significant "grade creep." Until your article, however, I continued to hear the confusing mantra that our civil servants were underpaid. I am grateful because you have provided me with some ammunition for my next command personnel discussion.

Here's another from a retired federal worker in Virginia:

I would like to offer what I think are contributing explanations for the problem of excessive pay and benefits among the members of the Federal workforce.

First, the most salient explanation for overgrading in the Federal civil service is the conflict of interest posed by having the personnel function embedded within each Federal agency. Directors of personnel of Federal agencies report directly to their respective agency heads, all of whom have a vested interest in having as high a graded workforce as possible. Reporting to the directors of personnel are specialists called position classifiers. To be cynical about it, the responsibility of the classifiers is to write job descriptions that justify whatever grade levels that their respective managements want the jobs under them to have. In short, classifiers are wordsmiths who rationalize with contrived language raising position grades, almost never lowering grades. The result is that, over time, Federal job grades (and often titles) bear little relation to the real duties and responsibilities of the jobs to which they are applied. (Classifiers are a kind of inside joke among Federal employees.)

The remedy, it is obvious, is to take the personnel function out of the agencies and place it solely in an independent agency responsible to the White House, at least indirectly. Once that is accomplished, all the jobs in the Federal workforce should be reclassified and given realistic and appropriate grade/pay levels.

Read more public comments on my arguments here, here, and here.