It's the GS10-15 (BTW, I'm not up on my GS acronyms so please bear with me) plum jobs. To just claim they are only farming out the low level work is the straw man argument
First off GS 15 is the top of the GS scale before they step over into the SES. Typically, a GS 10 would be comparative to an O3 in the military and GS 14-15 to Lt. Col. Within these GS numbers are a second factor deciding pay, and that is the step factor. There are 10 steps within each GS scale. I have sold homes to GS7's and to GS 15's, their pay scale ranges widely...@70k+. many of the GS7's are recent college grads and they make only in the 40K range. The GS 15 people, are in their 40's and have spent 20+ yrs in their career field PLUS they traditionally hold at least a Master's degree. A GS 15 makes about 135K in the DC area. The SES level is @145k+. Making 135K sounds great if you live in Iowa, but if you live in DC making 135K is not the same.
This of course also brings me back to the apples to apples if you are comparing salaries because it is not only the job type, but where the employee is employed. Nobody thinks twice about teachers making more in NJ than NC, because COL is dramatically different, and that is taken into account.
For GS positions, the majority of them are centered in metropolitan areas, thus the salaries will mimic the areas. There are few GS positions in the mid-west, i.e. Idaho, Wyoming, N Dak., S. D., etc where the median salaries are lower, but were taken in account with this study due to it being from a national standpoint. This skews the pay scales for each part.
I am not a union supporter because I disagree with their theory that they have better people...last time I checked the guy in Ohio that builds a Honda, is non-unionized, and I highly doubt any consumer would say Honda builds a poor quality vehicle.
The difference in this scenario, is that the GS positions are being offered for the high majority to educated white collar employees. They are viewed as management. This skews the system, because we are talking about comparing a system that is mostly white collared against a system that has both white and blue collared workers. I would prefer if they did a study, where they said let's compare x educated w/ x experience in govt to private.
Now let's also address the irony of this article. As I pointed out earlier, a GS position is truly comparable to the military system. When you retire out of the military, and take a job in the govt, you traditionally slide straight over into a system that is equivalent pay wise to what you made as a military member. The irony is, yr after yr, studies prove that military members make less than their civilian counterparts. However, in this situation, they are saying that now they make more, even though they are making almost an identical salary as they did prior to retiring.
As for fed. employees. their pay raises for yrs have been held to 0.5% below COL increase, which means every yr they stay they are losing money. The military's pay raise is 1.0% above COL.
Clinton shrunk the Government?
Actually Clinton decided to convert these GS jobs that I am speaking of from Govt to contractor. Obama has decided to reverse this situation.
Don't you remember how people balked when he said he reduced the size of the federal govt? Yep, he did, he did it by playing the musical chairs game. He took them off of the federal payrolls and put them into the private sector.
Clinton, did not shrink the military. The RIFS began in 1991 under Bush 41 and ended in 93. Clinton was the guy who gave the military big time pay increases, probably the biggest in history. I remember that for a couple of yrs. targeted yr groups/ranks got @10% increases.
In full disclosure, I did not vote for Clinton. I saw the RIFs and the pay raises, like I see them now, more of an action of the MOCs because they hold the purse strings for DOD.
You've also candidly pointed out some of the "perks" offered that cost more and are example of waste.
No argument, and I believe it is waste that they can easily get rid of, if they used common sense. Hey, I'll be honest another waste in the fed program is the credit card situation...yr after yr we hear about the waste because some dishonest employees abuse the system. When the credit card program started yrs ago in the military, it was horrendous, but at least in all of the squadrons that Bullet worked in, they got smart. They took your govt issued credit card and locked it in a vault until you were going TDY and when you returned it was collected again. In the govt it sits in your wallet 24/7/365 regardless if you even have a job that requires you to go TDY. Then, they sit in shock and go OMG, people are using the credit card for their personal trips!
I disagree, can you post some supporting info on this? I think if you factor everything in, the Government only pays more because of benefits and maxing out pay
I can only state from anecdotal information within our social circle, that I know the contract is usually 2x the amount. For example, our DD's best friends father is the Executive VP for a defense contracting company. He has told us that the avg contract is about 250K per yr that the govt pays for that position, and the avg salary is @ 130K per yr. Another client of mine works as the HR director for a different defense contractor and she has said the exact same thing. 3 of our friends who worked for various contractors (RAND, SAIC and Booze Allen) left these companies to open their own firms. Why? Because they saw the exact same thing occur and decided that they would rather be the one keeping the money and filling the position with someone else, than being the person that filled the job.
I can't say that this occurs across the nation, but it does here.
On the contrary, that money was to shore up the unfunded union NEA pensions and payback to Unions. Plain and simple, teachers were still laid off
This maybe true for your area, but in NoVA, and our county, it was announced that because of this bail out, it allowed the county to keep teachers afterall since it reduced the deficit in their budget.
I am not a fan of the NEA. IMHO, what they recently did in NJ made me repulsed. The long and the short of it is Christie told them we are asking you to not take a pay raise this yr because the budget deficit, and if they demand it, the students are the ones that will pay for it. NEA told him to shove it, and that they would pay the raise.
Here's a link to some of it
http://www.dakotavoice.com/2010/06/gov-christie-unions-vs-education/
Here's a video clip that to me really shows the greed within the NEA.
http://www.thefoxnation.com/health-care/2010/07/29/watch-chris-christie-tells-truth-nbc-news-shocked
This was in one fell swoop, a growing of the Government and more of a reason for downsizing the military budget. JMHO
Again, I am not disagreeing at all. I have said multiple times I oppose this, but my reasons for opposing this differ from yours. I don't see that the GS system is out of line with the "real" world in pay scale or the majority of their benefits.
Here is the GS scale. If you take the time to look at it, I highly doubt you would disagree with me
http://www.opm.gov/oca/10tables/pdf/gs.pdf (before placing in locality pay) In DC, that is about 24% of the salary base.
I have also linked an open job from USAjobs.gov.
http://jobview.usajobs.gov/GetJob.a...b&FedEmp=N&FedPub=Y&AVSDM=2010-07-28+00:03:00 This is a starting GS 11 position. Note under the requirements you must have a bachelor's degree AND at least 24 hours toward a higher degree. All for the salary range of 85-115K. For the non-college grad with work experience or recent college grad here is an employment opportunity
http://jobview.usajobs.gov/GetJob.a...b&FedEmp=N&FedPub=Y&AVSDM=2010-08-19+00:03:00 Salary is between 34 -44 K a yr. I just don't see that is insane or out of balance for Washington DC.
I can tell you that at Bullet's office they are doing the conversion right now, the majority of the contractors are being cut by more than 25K to go to the GS position. Will they take it? Yes, because the economy stinks right now, but that doesn't mean they won't be looking for a new job somewhere else. The reason for them taking such a drastic cut is some of them have been with their contracting company for 15+ yrs, in essence the govt can reduce their costs by cutting the most experienced employees and bringing in new blood that will work for less...something that is very commonplace in the civilian world.