Performance-Based Pay In Govt?

[kernwatch]

Former Chief-of-Common-Council-Staff Paul Wolf has a thought-provoking blog entitled BuffaloIdeas.com.

Here is his latest post, worthy of very serious consideration in City Hall . . as well as within BMHA, a longtime patronage-driven "poverty industry" where he is now 'lead-attorney'.

http://www.buffaloideas.com/buffaloi....html#comments
December 09, 2008

Performance Based Pay In Government?
The City of Rochester, NY has implemented performance based pay for non-union employees. This is quite a change as many governmental employees are never evaluated for their job performance.

When I served as Chief of Staff to the Buffalo Common Council, I created an evaluation form and asked Councilmembers and the staff I managed to evaluate my performance. I honestly wanted to know how I was performing. The reluctance I got from many Councilmembers and some of my staff to complete the evaluation was quite interesting.

Some staff members did not feel it was their place to evaluate me. I explained that their feedback was important to me as a leader and important to my continued development and growth. Some were concerned that I could retaliate towards them if I did not like what they said. I assured them that I wanted the truth and had no intention of retaliating, in fact they could fill the evaluation out without disclosing their name. Some staffers were worried that once an evaluation of me was completed the next step would be to evaluate them, which they wanted no part of.

I actually had a Councilmember call me into his office and ask me what the heck I was trying to do with this evaluation form. He didn't like it and was especially concerned about the legal ramifications of my receiving a good evaluation if a decision was made in the future to remove me. Unfortuantely in the world of politics, documented job performance was a concern.

I give the Mayor of Rochester credit for bringing about performance evaluations. Below is a letter the Mayor of Rochester wrote to the news media regarding his performance based pay program. What do you think about the idea of performance based pay in government. Do you undergo a performance evaluation in your job? Do performance based evaluations in your experience work?

December 7, 2008


From Rochester Mayor Duffy:
Rochester's merit pay plan rewards city's top performers
Mayor Robert Duffy, Guest essayist

Recently, we enacted a major change in city government. Perhaps for the first time ever, most non-union, non-uniformed city employee salary increases were based on work performance following a thorough management review.

Heretofore, pay increments were pretty much the same for all employees, with each employee receiving a fixed increase based on a cursory review of that employee's effort, results or accomplishments.

I was determined to change that after taking office. I have always felt that such a system is not fair to taxpayers and not fair to high-performing employees whose work output and results netted them the same increases as poorly performing employees.

For the most part, many city workers have never been given a formal review by their managers. Some employees tell us they have never had an evaluation since coming on the job. It is hard to imagine such a process in the private sector. So why should government be outside the merit system?

Instead, we took the same pool of money — not a dollar more — that was approved in July 2008 for pay increments, and awarded that money based on performance to employees.

The increment comes in two forms: a raise in pay according to the steps system contained in the budget, and, for some, a performance increment ranging from $500 to $5,000. Some employees received a raise and/or a performance increment, and some received no increase at all. More than 17 percent didn't receive a raise or increment out of 356 employees.

Unfortunately, some news items characterized this as the city paying "bonuses" to city workers. Let me set the record straight.



These are not "bonuses." These are scheduled raises and performance pay budgeted during the last fiscal year. Instead of the status quo, the same pool of money was divided up differently based on an employee's review and his or her results instead of the status quo. Sixty-one employees did not receive performance awards.


Taxpayers will save money. The payroll will actually be $56,000 lighter next year, as not all managers used their allotments. And because the incentive increments are not part of the employee's base salary, and do not get carried over to future years, we anticipate this will save us an additional $150,000 from the old way of doing business.


The group of employees affected by this plan has not had a pay increase since July 2007. And in fact, this same group of workers last year had medical benefits reduced and now pays more for health insurance.

Some may say that city employees should not get any increases in these tough budget times. These increases are for the current year's budget and were due to take effect this past July. Next year, we may well have to do further cost-cutting.

But it is essential for all residents to have the best talent working for them. Members of this management group are not paid overtime and often earn less than the union members who report to them, once state-mandated overtime and benefits kick in.

The city of Rochester now has the fewest number of full-time employees since the Truman administration, but at the same time, we have more uniformed police than at any point in our history.

We did this strategically, as public safety is paramount. So that leaves other functions of city government to make do with fewer employees. It is important to keep high-performing employees motivated to continue to do more with less.

Pay-for-performance is not controversial in the private sector. It is a fact of life for most. But it is controversial in government. Nationally, only a handful of municipalities does this. It is easier and less controversial to do nothing. If we continued with business as usual, there would be no story whatsoever.

We promised to change government when we came into office, and this is another example of taking on the status quo and making needed changes in the public sector.

Finally, I have to say this is yet another example of a peculiar negativity I see coming from some in this community. I hear criticism of the current state of affairs, and simultaneously I hear criticism for the attempts to change the current state. The Midtown revitalization is a great example of that. Doing nothing with nine acres of our downtown was decried, and yet voices are criticizing the demolition of Midtown and the building of PAETEC.

Change in the status quo is often considered the wrong political thing to do, but in this case, it is the right public policy thing to do. Change is painful but necessary. With the state ready to make big cutbacks, the needs of cities such as Rochester have never been more severe. It is clear that we must solve our own problems and find ways to not pass on the increased costs of government in the form of higher taxes.

We can and must hold the line on taxes and still provide great customer service. This means changing the status quo, and the pay for performance plan is a breakthrough step in that direction.

Duffy is mayor of Rochester.

[jolopy]

How can I contact you Kerwatch?

[Dougles]

I think this is a great idea! It should be part of ALL govt and schools! You think you deserve a Pension or raise??? You better work for it!!

[dgrzeb]

It IS a very good idea , I believe also that pensions should be totally based on a job title "base pay" , not the "construed" overtime that some unions are able to manipulate with some of their fellow worker's help & make 3-4 times their base pay & then collect pensions based on that inflated figure...........would save 100's of millions across the state..........

[Dougles]

It IS a very good idea , I believe also that pensions should be totally based on a job title "base pay" , not the "construed" overtime that some unions are able to manipulate with some of their fellow worker's help & make 3-4 times their base pay & then collect pensions based on that inflated figure...........would save 100's of millions across the state..........

Or get rid of them all together and save the State 130 BILLION, that's $8666.66 per tax payer

[dgrzeb]

Or get rid of them all together and save the State 130 BILLION, that's $8666.66 per tax payer

doug , can't get rid of everyone , there are many services that are needed & required , it's the manipulating & the loopholes some of these unions aspire to keep using that really hurt & "tax" the system , along with the unfair share that the 51st state of the USA (NYC) gets as opposed to the rest of the state (mainly us in WNY)...........

[Dougles]

doug , can't get rid of everyone , there are many services that are needed & required , it's the manipulating & the loopholes some of these unions aspire to keep using that really hurt & "tax" the system , along with the unfair share that the 51st state of the USA (NYC) gets as opposed to the rest of the state (mainly us in WNY)...........

.

Oh i wasn't saying getting rid of everyone, just their pensions!

This would work well with only 7,895,254 people in NYS and over 1,200,000 working for NYS and the local GOVT!!!

[WNYresident]

.

Oh i wasn't saying getting rid of everyone, just their pensions!

This would work well with only 7,895,254 people in NYS and over 1,200,000 working for NYS and the local GOVT!!!

HOW MANY work for us? 1,200,000? Where the hell are they all. Colored jump suits for all of them

[Surfing USA]

How can I contact you Kerwatch?

You can contact him by clicking on the AIM logo under his name or by going to his member profile page and clicking on "Contact Info."

http://www.speakupwny.com/forums/member.php?u=192

[Dougles]

HOW MANY work for us? 1,200,000? Where the hell are they all. Colored jump suits for all of them

NOticed i said work for NYS not "US"!!!

[WNYresident]

I had a postal worker stop at my shop a few weeks ago. Earlier that day one of the people I work with made a comment how pokey ass slow some of the workers are at the Galleria drive post office. So I asked the guy that stopped in. Why are some postal workers so slow it looks like they are in a time warp...

His exact answer was... if you work too hard they will just give you more work to do. They purposily go at their own pace.

[Dougles]

I had a postal worker stop at my shop a few weeks ago. Earlier that day one of the people I work with made a comment how pokey ass slow some of the workers are at the Galleria drive post office. So I asked the guy that stopped in. Why are some postal workers so slow it looks like they are in a time warp...

His exact answer was... if you work too hard they will just give you more work to do. They purposily go at their own pace.

HOW DARE YOU!!! They deserve those over infalted wages, salaries and bennies!!

[4music]

I had a postal worker stop at my shop a few weeks ago. Earlier that day one of the people I work with made a comment how pokey ass slow some of the workers are at the Galleria drive post office. So I asked the guy that stopped in. Why are some postal workers so slow it looks like they are in a time warp...

His exact answer was... if you work too hard they will just give you more work to do. They purposily go at their own pace.

This kind of thinking really makes me sick. There were a select few in my place some years ago that had this thinking (they were longtimers) and I told a few off one time. In essence I told them that while they sit on their a**** their work gets doled out to other people. Well someone complained to the union about me and my comment (they complained that I was "harassing them") and I stood up to the union too. I told them people are tired of doing other slackers work. There was nothing the union could do to me other than give me a warning (like I was scared ) and eventually the slackers transferred out once management started to monitor work flow and they were put on report. So they are probably retired by now or slacking off elsewhere.

Fortunately the new hires in my area are really hard workers and don't have this kind of thinking.

[WNYresident]

This kind of thinking really makes me sick. There were a select few in my place some years ago that had this thinking (they were longtimers) and I told a few off one time. In essence I told them that while they sit on their a**** their work gets doled out to other people. Well someone complained to the union about me and my comment (they complained that I was "harassing them") and I stood up to the union too. I told them people are tired of doing other slackers work. There was nothing the union could do to me other than give me a warning (like I was scared ) and eventually the slackers transferred out once management started to monitor work flow and they were put on report. So they are probably retired by now or slacking off elsewhere.

Fortunately the new hires in my area are really hard workers and don't have this kind of thinking.

When the postal worker told me that I was like "WHAT?"... he was serious. AND when I mean slow.. I mean slow. If I worked that slow I would never make any money

[Save Us]

When the postal worker told me that I was like "WHAT?"... he was serious. AND when I mean slow.. I mean slow. If I worked that slow I would never make any money

Can you possibly fathom what it is going to be like when Obama socializes with is billiondollar works projects....

We are totally screwed.

PS knew somebody in the plumbing dept of amherst,, they wouldn't fix something because then they couldn't maintenance it on a daily basis.