ML22230A071
| ML22230A071 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 01/25/1978 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Tran-M780125 | |
| Download: ML22230A071 (26) | |
Text
,BETUR TO SECRETARfAT RECORDS NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF:
COMMISSION MEETING BRIEFING ON SUPERGRADE STUDY Place -
Washington, D. C.
Date -
Wednesday, 25 January 1978 ACE - FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
Official Reporters 444 North Capitol Street Washington, D.C. 20001 NATlONWICE COVERAGE *DAILY Pages 1 -
22 Telephone:
(202) 347-3700
(_
(
DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the. United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on January 25, 1978 in the Commission 1s offices at 1717 H Street, N. l1/., \\,Jashington, D. C.
The meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informationa1 purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressions' of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determinations or
- beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with th.e Commission in any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement or argtmient contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
CR 6175 RO-TAPE 2
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25 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIQN, BRIEFING *oN SUPERGRADE STUDY Room 1130 1717 H Street; N. W.
Washington, D} C.
I Wednesday, 25 1January 1978 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, 'at 2:20.p.m.
I BEFORE:
DR. JOSEPH A. HENDRIE, Chairman PETER A. BRADFORD, Commissioner VICTOR GILINSKY, Commissioner RICHARDT.. KENNEDY, Commissioner 1
jeri-all er 6175 NRC BUD 2
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P R O C E E D I N G S CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Suppose we get started on our briefing on the supergrade study.
Lee}'*just go ahead.
MR. GOSSICK:
Mr. Chairman, just a few words of background before Mr. Donoghue actually giv~s you the briefing on the study that has just recently been completed.
Almost from the very day that NRC was created, we were sort of arguing with 0MB as to whether or not we had a sufficient number of supergrades for the staffing of the organization.
I And that argument continued on int.to, well into -1976.
Toward the middle or latter part of '76, 0MB directe a study to b.e.",made jointly between 0MB, NRC 'c:tii.d ERDA to look I
at the question of supergrades; how they we~e utilized, how many we should have.
I I m~ght say that ERDA had taken a posi-tion that they didn't need to go to 0MB for *ceilirg on super-
. grade numbers; they would just establish wh~tever they needed.
But nevertheless, they had under :consideration over there -- what was it?
I_guess about 3S positions that we had been trying to upgrade.
This joint study was completed and~:the report was made. available in November of 1976.
One of,the recommendations in that study was that we do a job on the benchmark positions that we had and to a supergrade audit of each pos~tion.
The OMB-ERDA-NRC study was much more_ general in:c:nature to find out
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the general background and situation with r~gard to the utili-zation of supergrades and concluded that we !were in bad shape I
with regard to benchmarks and also that we needed ah audit of all the positions.
So it was the implementation of those 0MB recommend-I ations that led to the study that you will about this afternoon.
I think with that I will ask Danny to take it up and give the presentation, introduce the representatives of the contracting firm that are here with us today to accompl.J,-sh the study.
MR. DONOGHUE:
The contractor selected for the study was DAMANS Associates and we have with us Mr. Casanave, the president of DAMANS Associates; Sam Wolk and Gil Schulkind, who were responsible for the conduct of the audits with several I
other associates.
And they will be pleased~to.answer any ques-tions that the Commission may have* *with:crespect to the study, the methodology and how they did it.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to introduce to the Commission Tammy Kruger, who has just been selected as the deputy director of Division of Organization of ~ersonnel.
The~St~~y was received approxima~ely at the close I
of the last year, the end of last year~
CoFies were made avai-lable of the executive summary to the ~ommission.about I
a week and a half ago.
Mr. Gossick and myself met with the I
I directors of the offices on Friday in whichiwe discussed the i
study, the results of the study, and provided to each office
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director a copy of the executive summary and a copy of the position evaluations that related to his specific office so that the individuals who are affected by the study at this time I
have been copies of the individual evaluations~
I think there are a couple of things I want to point out at the outset.
Number one, these are contractor recommend-ations.
These are not necessarily the position that the agency has to take or should take.
And th~y are subject to further review by the Staff and to some other additional review which I will discuss briefly a little later,i and which will be I
the subject of a paper that we expect to send to the Cornmis~
I sion early next week reflecting actions that the Staff believes I
ought to be taken following receipt of this 1report.
It's in the proc~ss now of being reviewed by all the offices so that we can everybody's viewpoint -- everybodyts;viewpoint can be adequately considered.and the Commission can be fully aware of the positions of individual office directors.
I might add, at the present time'that we seem to have no real substantial problem in what we*are proposing, and I will briefly allude to that during the course of this brief-ing.
I The contractor's staff who did th.e audit were out-I standing individuals well-recognized in the,classification personnel classification community.
They met the target dates and they did a rather comprehensive report.
In general, I
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would say the overall results were good.
The technical jobs held up very well.
The administrative and non-technical jobs were areas where the contractor tended to find some softness in the classification procedures and in several cases recommend ed downgradings from the present allocated position.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
May I ask you, what is this I
measured against?
That standards throughout the government?
I MR. DONOGHUE:
It was measured against, first of all,. the benchmarks that were developed by NRC which were really in some respects the carryover from the former AEC.
AEC's classification concept was based on a factor evaluation I
of benchmark positions which would be the criteria against I
which all other positions are measured.
Prior to going ahead with this contract, the personnel staff with some outside assistance developed a series of benchmarks which we felt would be:representative of the supergrade jobs in which a factor evaluation could be made.
It's also based on the comparison with other similar civil service jobs and also based on the independent, expert I
opinion of the classifiers, which in this case were the con-tractor classifiers.
Would that be a fair statement, Sam, of how you did it?
~R. WOLK:
Right.
CHAIRMAN GILINSKY:
So it's really consistency with
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our own system.
I MR. DONOGHUE:
That's right.
But our own system has to maintain a consistency with the civil service standards.
Even though we are independent of it, we still have -- under the. Act we still have a responsibility to pay no more or :.~i'.:.c::.:*<::;
classify a job at no different grade than a,similar job would be classified: in* __ the regular civil service series.
MR. GOSSICK:
Correct me if I'm ~rong.
As opposed to our situation where we do have benchmark:positions*for now, range of jobs, the Civil Service Commission'literally do not have such benchmarks.
MR. DONOGHUE:
That's correct.
MR. GOSSICK:
Individually the Commission themselve, I
as I understand it, look at each and every ~upergrade position; but there is no general penchmark standard --
MR. DONOGHUE~
Or no classification standard agains I
which they apply it.
MR. GOSSICK:
But as Danny says, we still have to be consistent with the_ general results of their,* you~.know, administering of the supergrade level posit+/-ons in the govern-ment.
MR. DONOGHUE:
The results are summarized on that chart up there that shows that DAMANS audited 245 positions; I
I that is, 205 were existing supergrade posit~ons~and 40 were positions that had been proposed for consideration as
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supergrades.
They determined that 17 positions of the 245 audi ted~..were not supportable as supergrades.
So they validated a number of 228 positions,.*which compared t<? our 0MB ceiling is 210 at the present time.
In other words, they ~re saying the net effect is that we should have a ceiling of at least 228.
Now we are reviewing the:-:-- the ONP staff is reviewing this independently to determine whether or not we agree with the final recommendations of the :audit team*aand it is possible the numbers may be higher because there,-- there's two supergrades, as an example, are presently assigned overseas Joetta Becker and Morris Rosen who have retreat rights back to the Staff and Joetta Becker is going to exerlcise hers this year and Rosen -- he's up for consideration whether to extend or not extend, I think during the summer.
But in any event --
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Do we pay their salaries?
MR. DONOGHUE:
No, sir.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Well, what you are saying is that we haveLto hold them --
MR. DONOGHUE:
Hold those two positions, yes, sir.
MR. GOSSICK:
But they don't bring their position
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MR. DONOGHUE:
No, they don't br~ng their position back with them but the!l'.'e:.has to be a supergrade available for them to move into.
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Of the promotions recommended, they recommended two positions be elevated from GS-17*.to.:..18; 5 from :/16*'.to.:.17; and 30 positions from *.:15s to* *16s.
Now that's really the critical line in the sense from OMB's point,of view they are I
concerned about a ceiling -- the number as opposed to -,..,,,
what grades you may give within that*: -16 to -18 series.
Of the downgradings recommended,,they recommended 9:.positions which are currently 18s be -17s; 5 from* "17s to 16s;. and 7 positions which are currently evaluated at :16s be reduced to in one case a-14 and in the qther cases to 15s.
That's also the critical line too because it affects the over-all ceiling allocation.
Of the 7 positions, 3 are not pre-sently encumbered; in other words, there are 3 vaeancies.
Four are, so there's 4 people who.will be a~fected by being reduced from a supergrade status.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
If we acqept the --
MR. DONOGHUE:
If we accept the recommendations.
Next slide, please.
(Slide.)
This report gives rise in our view to several issues that we wilL.be sending p.::paper down to the :commission_ on which we think both the Staff and the Commis'.sion have to I
consider in terms of what further actions we, may take.
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Number one is at what point should we approac 0MB for additional positions.
I And there are.some pros and cons
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on obviously until we have done our own anatysis we shouldn't do anything with respect to 0MB.
It also raises the point at what point should we make the study available to 0MB and to I
the congressional committees, independent of our.own further evaluations.
It also raises the issue of at what point should we make ~romotions.
Should we wait until a full -evaluation until all appeal rights that we are proposi~g are exhausted or should we move after a Staff evaluation is completed and we agree that the number is r,:i.gh:t or not r,:i.ght.
And the same thing would be true with re~pect.to upgradings.
At what point should we make these u:pgradings and we will :be addressing i.n a paper the pros and cons of that for the Cqmmission's consi-deration.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Could you :stop for just a second?
MR. DONOGHUE:
Sure.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
When you speak of promotions, Dan, this wouldn't necessarily mean the individual now occupy~
ing the job at a lower_ grade would automatic.ally be promoted
- to a h~gher_grade?
MR. DONOGHUE:
No, sir; only if he had met all the other qualifications.~t th~ time.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
Right.
So*; first:p:tp(;:! ::~<:
job has to be classified at a higher level, which it now is,
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25 9-A but then one has to ascertain whether the individual is qualified for it at that level.
case if he has been occupying it?
Isn't there a prima facie MR. DONOGHUE:
I think there is.
If he is perform-ing satisfactorily and he has performed for the year, which is our normal time, he would be entitled, I think, at that point in time to the upgrading.
The larger issue, of course, is in a sense the more difficult one is what to do with downgrading.
As we see it,*::.there are probably three options that the Commission can I
consider; that,is, we. can obviously downgrade immediately afte an evaluation is concluded; we could wait until afte:r;-:we have approached 0MB and see what our final ceiling looks like; we could adopt what they call "a red circle po+icy" of deferring any downgradings, which would be consistent with the guidance that the Civil Service Commission has provided to the other civilian agencies, although it's applied in:the. grades 1-15, that downgradings resulting from reorganizations or.reclassi-fication of positions should be deferred until at least December, 1979.
The CSC is anticipating that Congress will act favorably on the President's recommendation 1that downgradings through no fault of the encumbent be deferrE$d:::during the encumbency of that person and that the downgrading would be I
affected when the individual leaves that position.so that the
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25 10 next person would come into it at a later time.
And, of course, the other thing is that the Commis-sion could decide that they should move promptly on downgrad-ing.
But these will be discussed with the pros and cons.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
On "no smoking," can you discuss that?
MR. DONOGHUE:
Well, this paper will lay it out in a little more detail.
COMMISSIONER KENNEDY:
As to the "red circle policy,"
you are assuming, I guess, that our situation is similar'.:.
enough to that which the Civil Service Commission is acting on that we could act this way?
MR. DONOGHUE:
Yes, sir.
The Commission has the inherent authority to make that decision because of our accepted statu~ anyw~y but_ it certainly -- anything that is more consistent with *the:,civil Service, the stronger our own position woul~ be.
One of the safeguards we intend 1/2o build into it is a position evaluation review committee.
- In other words, after the-recommendations of the contractor are evaluated by the ONP staff and they make a recommendation that a position should be affected one way or the other, the office director and the indi~id~al concerned then can consider whether or not they want to appeal that determination.
And in order to assure a fairness and an opportunit
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25 11 for a real management review, normally Mr. ~ossick hastthe final determination on supergrades, the allocation at what level supergrades should be made at the p~esent time.
Because of the complexity of this issue and the fact that there are so many affected, and to assure that ther~would be a consist-ency in that everybody affected would get t~e fullest share of due process, we will probably be recommending to him that a personnel position evaluation review.i:committee composed of 3 to 5 senior staff members, not part of personnel, review the individual cases and make a recommendation to Mr. Gossick who then would make a final determination.
Now one of the boys in Panels has raised the ques-tion of whether or not the final determination on grades.
affecting individuals reporting to the *commission should be made by the EDO or whether it should be made by -- reserved entirely to the Commission.
The EDO at the:present time does allocate all, you know, final.grades, it is :delegated as part of the personnel responsibilities to the EDO.
That's a ques-tion we will address andj.. of~course; it is ~bviously one that the Commission will have to decide.
The report itself also pointed up some other weak-nesses within our supergrade evaluation system and has recommended that we take steps to improve our factor evalu-ation system, to improve and probably enlarge the number of benchmarks against which we presently have Jand then to really
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25 12 validate:.tli.em'~.completely against any Civil Service guides and positions.
And we will be discussing that.,
The other thing that was obvious, both to the Staff I
and, I thinR, to the contractors, in doing this audit, that too ~any ~eople do not understand how to wrtte a job descrip-tion and how to grade a job description and really do not have I
a full and complete understanding of the agency's personnel job evaluation system.
And this is both at 1 the senior and lower levels.
And we would recommend that we need an intensiv training course both for managers and for others in this area and that we will be discussing the impact of that in the paper.
Essentially this is what the study has disclosed and this is generally the approach we are going to take and as I indicated we will be coming down specifically for address ing these in more detail with what we see as the merits and demerits. *of each way of proceeding.
Tri.is is a very important action,,I think, to the Commission and to the Staff and it's orie obviously that has generated a great deal of interest because it personally affects so many people.
But I think, number one, it should be borne in mind that these evaluations, no:rnatter what the I
outcome, is not a reflection on the individual concerned the individual just happens to be in a job that based on classification standards is evaluated as ha~ing this degree of_ responsibili tyc*.arid;::*should be graded at that level.
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But nevertheless, it's very difficult for the individual to separate himself from the job itself.
But this is in no-,way a downgrading and no way should be considered an indictment or a detraction of the individual concerned.
It's really the way the system works and really defines what his level ought to be based oti his share of responsibilities.
And I think that covers it, Lee, unLess-you have something further.to add.
MR. GOSSICK:
No, I think that tQere is one aspect that you might just like to hear the contractor's impressions as to some of the sort of unique aspects of the NRC operation, which I believe played a fairly. significant role in the deter-mination of grade levels and the number of ~ositions -- coming from people who have looked at a large number of other organi-zations.
Sam, I think that you covered this the other day, would you like to speak to this for just a ~oment.
MR. WOLK:
Yes, I would be very happy to.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
You know, the Commission hears the occasional accolade of being the highest~graded operation in the Federal Government -- I'm not sure that that's true,.,bu I
I suspect we tend, on average, to have a hi~h-grade structure.
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And I 1 d be interested in your view on that ~nd its appropriate ness.
MR. WOLK:
Wel, I think I'd agree that the
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25 14 Commission does have a high~grade structurer~Incomparison to other ~gericies that we have seen, *1 t' s pretty rich.
That doesn't mean it's wrong.
This agency is. un~que, as most agencies are, and the factors that we found that were impres-I sive to us in terms. of the, particularly, th~ technical jobs, when you loo];<:., at the complexity of the program, the impacts of the program, the sensitivity of the program, it can't help but make a m~jor impact on many, many jobs.
And we were curious, for example, as to why so many times had we run across one review after another review, review of review of review of the same thing; but we can under stand why, having studied the agency and seen the necessity for safety and safeguards and public health and things like that you can't let any stone be unturned.
~nd this has a major impact on the jobs that we saw.
Now, unfortunately, it didn't impact on all jobs.
I We did downgrade some of the administrative.
1 an¢ support posi-tions because the same carryover doesn't always apply to those kinds of positions -- and I'm not sure we are ready to stand up and say, yes, NRC is correctly classified and the number of the supe!grades that they have is correc~.
And I'm not sure we could even a~gue with 0MB on it.
And I think that for this reason:
As you pointed, or a question was raised about what did we use to evaluate the job'.:.
We used your own system.
Sti, in a sense, it was self~servi~g.
Mayb~ if there was a
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25 15 dif~erent -- I won't say different system -- but maybe if there were better benchmarks, more distinct demarcations between jobs, we might not come out with the same grades.
It is hard to tell.
I think we would, but right now I 1 think the system is somewhat suspect because there isn't this -- we can't have a degree of certainty that we are really marking the difference, if I can put it that way, between the factors.
There are four factors in this system: technical knowledge, administrative responsibilities,:cc:immitments, and context.
Now there is one factor that we think maybe should be built in -- it's::_built:.iri:ih. a way but it doesn't come out clear.
That's this matter of complexity of the program.
This is important in many jobs.
In some jobs, it is.the most import-ant thing.
But beyond that, in each of these factors to dis-tinguish between the high rating:::.ahd the i:ow.::1.rating is sometime I
very difficult.
The two extremes were diffi¢ult to distinguish at times.
So when we found some of these jobs we validated, some of these grades, it was because we were using your own I
system.
And no one is arguing with that; you had to do some-thing and you started out and got 13 benchmarks to start with, that's fine.
That is better than what AEC had because their system was_ geared to field jobs, unlike your :mostly Washington-oriented organization.
We think there ought to be perha~s 2 4 to 3 0.,..,
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There ought to be more in the legal field, in the administrative and support fields, and in the tech clearers, (?)
the¥0 could be better defined.
And involving the managers in doing this, I think will not get them to understand the system but make them a part of it.
And I think thii is how AEC starte many years ago, they involved the managers in deciding them-selves, How do you rank these jobs?
What's the importance of this factor over that factor, and so on.
And then it gets into the matter of the writing of the job descriptions.
Job descriptions are more than just an 11 instrument to put a;,:,number and, therefore, a pay scale.
It 12
- should be used by all of management to help in training, in 13 14 career development, in placement, in organizational analysis; it can be used for many purposes.
It's not just a matter of 15 putting something on paper.and getting a grade and then you 16 have got a s~lary.
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That's sort of some.general remarks, Mr. Chairman, 18 and Mr. Schulkirid is here with me, Mr. Casanave; we would be 19
. glad to answer any questions.
We have enjoyed, really have 20 21 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 enjoyed this experience.
I've told Lee and others that every-body in NRC was most cooperative to the folks that we had, and they didn't hide anything -- well, maybe once in a while they tried to snow us, but we are pretty wise old heads and sometime we could see through it, and if we didn't, well, that's part of the. game, too.
But they were most cooperative.
Anything
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10 17 we wanted to look, to talk about, to go back and review, they were always available and we had very great cooperation, and we are glad to have been able to do it, and hope we can be of service again.
Any time if you have questions now, be glad to answer them, or any time later.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
0ne thing that caught my eye, you remarked that one of the difficulties coming off an AEC system was that it had ~~:the AEC system was slanted toward the field operations, whereas we are very much a headquarters-concentrated agency.
On the other harid, we do have five 11 regional offices; there are a few supergrade positions out in 12 those offices and I wonder if you see any particular difficulty 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 in evaluating those jobs fairly against the main group now in headquarters.
MR. WOLK:
Well, no, we didn't.
As you know, we only looked at the regional director or deputy, if there was one, in those five regions.
Looked at all of them.
In fact, we raised two of the regional directors; suggested they become 17s to equal the others.
Not because they were all regional directors, but we found enough in there to throw them into the next point range.
We didn't have too much difficulty, there was some.
Mr. Schulkind, as a matter of fact, was out in Dalla and San.Francisco and might like to make a remark or two about that.
He personally saw those two men, or those two offices, and might want to say something about it.
18 Do you want to step up here?
2 MR. SCHULKIND:
Well, again, these are highly 3
'judgmental kinds of elements.
We don't have any.benchmarks for i.
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25 field-type.positions"even including the 13 that have been developed.
So_ we applied judgment in terms of comparison with other jobs we had reviewed within NRC and based in part on our knowle~ge of what jobs are classified in other federal agencies, in our own expertence.
So this is our best professional judg-ment based on a rather imperfect instrument, imperfect measure-ment-tools to use, but I think we*can still stand benind them with some reasonable degree of assurance that they are accept-
'able'.
MR. WOLK:
One thing we do know,
- Mr. Chairman,
- is that the personnel office has been busy devising benchmarks for all positions at Grade,15 and below; and that would include the field of Inspection and Enforcement -- that's *the whole field anyway.
But the, same thing can be done at the supergrade level.
As Mr. Schulkind points out, we made do*with what we had and.we did find in each of those two cases,,.,sometfu.ing a little different that we thought was worthy of higher point score.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Dick, I can_ see yom.~are study-i~g.the charts.
COMMISSIQNER KENNEDY:*
I appreciate very-mu.ch the work done.
I must. say the clarify of the presentation as well.
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19 MR. WOLK:
Thank you, sir; sure appreciate it.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Very good report.
Very straight-MR. WOLK:
We try to make it that way and we hope 5
we have been of service, that was our aim, and we hope we can 6
be of other service.
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Did you come away with any sense of how the salaryyscales compared ~::::~are:*:he~e as7pompared to private industry for comparable technicai activities?
MR. WOLK:
We didn't look at that at all, Mr. Commissioner.
If you want my personal opinion, just personal, having been in_government work and seeing *other pay systems, I.think right now, generally speaking, that government 14
'pay scales are very, very_ generous.
I don't think~.;we have 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 a~y.thing to be ashamed of.
Now I say that because I can remember back, let's say, in the late '50s~ I ~as director of college relations for the Civil Service Commission the first time, and we used to.* go out and recruit people, and we apologized, you know, you can't get rich in the government-type of thing.
Then we sudden:ly.y* realized that that I s a bad way to put it.
So we started to tell.the young people, particularl
.at the* college level,. we didn
- t say any.:tn+/-;rg about salary*, we
-said, if you want a chance to work intthe most exciting place, the most unique place,.the place where you *can only get this Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 kind of experience, then.come on in.
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7 20 We played down, because -it was hoU,:t:ight, I think, to play up the thing that hurt us at that time.
But.since that time, salary scales have come up tremendously.
And *I don't think the. government has to take a.. back seat to private industr or anyone else, universities.
I think th~ tables have been turned because recru+/-tment now is generally easy, at all levels.
Now, some categories it is still* going. to be 8
difficult.
It's still hard to find the exotic physicist, for 9
10 11 12 example, or something like.
But, in general, government is doing very well recruiting because it has an extremely competitive pay scale,,good package of fringes, you can't beat it, and ther& is the other -- it is the nature of the work to 13 be done.
Where else could someone dcwthis kind of thing that 14 15, 16 17 18 19 20 2J 22 23 24 you are doing here.
Yeah, you could work*for VEPCO or PEPCO, but that*~ rtot the same.
You might make twice as much money, but the challenge and the excitement, the unique n~iu~e of it, I think is enough to attract a lot of people.
And the monetary*
difference is very small, net difference, let's put it that way, is very small.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
So I don't know if that helps answer your question, put, for example, I j.ust asked the question when w~ fi'rst came here,' *when we first started the survey, what's the turnover rate?
I've fo?="g.otten* the answer but it was very,* very low in NRC.
You haw.every little attrition, particularly as you go up the.iinef'.-
25 it.gets less and less and less.
You know, at the lower levels;
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25 21 it's always high.
But NRC has got an excellent..;.._ maybe you would rather have a higher rate of turnover, I don't know.
But I don't think you have anything to be ashamed of, whether you get cut. in number of supergrades or not.
I*think you and other technical agencies have something to draw people into, from universities and private sector.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
Is this a study that we were required to undertake?
MR. GOSSICK:
Yes.
COMMISSIONER BRADFORD:
By OMB?
That's right.
And earlier, about a year ago, discussion of whether to try to do it in-house on our own or to do it by contract, as we have ended up doing.
I might add that I think we are far better off having it done by a contractor.
I think the objectivity and the results generally, while certainly not agreed to by everybody, will be better accepted by our own people as well as the OMBers and the people on the Hill.
I think if we came in with this kind of a result, having done it ourself, I think they'd say, well, what did you expect?
MR. WOLK: The other thing that's true, Mr. Chairman I think to my knowledge, this is the first time I've ever heard of a:complete audit of all supergrades in one agency at one tim.
I don't know of any other agency that has done it.
So that speaks in your behalf, too.
I don ' t think ::-::-.:*)ERDA hasn' t done it yet that I
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25 22 know of.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Well, we try to lead the pack MR. GOSSICK:
As Mr. Donoghue says, we will be c:orhir.ig down with a paper on some of the issues.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Yes, sir, we will look forward to that.
MR. GOSSICK:
You can, I think, expect to hear s~parately, independently from some of the people, particularly at:.Commission level, 'that have been affected.:.*We thought it was important that you hear what we told all of the chiefs last Friday.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Well, very good.
Thank you, Lee.
(Whereupon, at 3:08 p.m., the briefing was concluded.)
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