You’re fired: Trump to rid ‘worst’ federal workers, automatic raises, fat bennies
by Paul Bedard
WashingtonExaminer.com
Feb 9, 2018
President Trump plans to take the huge federal Civil Service off cruise control, ending automatic pay increases that go to 99.7 percent of the workforce, trimming fat benefit packages, and for the “worst,” rolling out his trademark phrase from The Apprentice, “You’re fired!”
In his budget, set for release Monday, his administration is planning the biggest reform to the federal workforce in decades, using models from Amazon, Google, and a handful of well-operating agencies.
Officials said the overall goal is to bring the 1950s-styled Civil Service into the digital age, introduce automation, reward “the best” with bonuses, make it easier to hire and fire, and provide “flexibility” by moving employees where they are needed and even rehiring skilled retirees.
Gone would be the automatic reward of pay “step” increases of 3 percent to 5 percent which 99.7 percent of workers get, regardless of their performance. Also targeted, said the officials, are annual reviews that now give “everybody” a grade of four or five on a scale of five. And benefits, now 47 percent higher than in the private workforce, according to a congressional report, will be trimmed.
“This is a subject that essentially people have ignored,” said a top Trump budget official at a background briefing. “The American people elected a president that promised dramatic change.”
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump called for a smaller, more efficient federal government and he repeated that in his State of the Union Address. “Tonight, I call on the Congress to empower every cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people,” he said.
Reforms have been introduced in the past but opposition from the biggest workforce in the country often puts up a good fight. This time, officials stressed that there is bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for the needed legal changes to make the reforms, backing by federal unions and even encouragement in agencies who feel bad workers are rewarded and good ones are ignored.
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