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