New OPM Director Wants to 'Get Some Stuff Done' Quickly

John Berry, the new director of the Office of Personnel Management, has ambitious plans to improve conditions for federal government employees and those who want to work for it.

In a wide-ranging meeting with a small group of reporters in his office this morning, Berry, who has been in office six weeks, listed three-short term and three long-term goals for his administration.

He said he’s “going to try to get some stuff done here as fast as we can.”

His short term goals are reforming the government’s recruiting and hiring practices, improving work life and workplace conditions and pushing increased federal employment opportunities for veterans.

Berry said he hopes “to get some points on the board” within a year on those three items.

Over the longer term, he wants to increase diversity within the federal workforce, control health care costs for federal employees while maintaining benefits and reform the federal pay system.

Berry said he knows progress on these “often intractable issues” won’t come quickly or easily.

“I don’t kid myself. I didn’t come to this town yesterday,” he said. They are often pushed aside because “they are perceived as too hard.”

The federal pay system, he added, has “become Balkanized to the point of risking failure.” Currently, much of the government remains under the General Schedule, or GS, system, while some agencies, notably the Defense Department, have moved to a pay-for-performance system.

He would like to see a single, government-wide pay system, though he acknowledges that might be hard to achieved because it would require congressional approval. And although federal unions have spoken harshly against current pay for performance programs, Berry said some elements of linking pay to performance would be in any new system.

“I’ll go a step further, the president has made it clear to me that there will be no overall reform unless that is part of it,” he said, referring to employee performance appraisal and accountability.

“It’s got to be part of the deal. If it ain’t part of the deal, there is no deal.”

Any reform of the pay system should include three elements, he said: implementing a performance evaluation program that rewards outstanding work and gets rid of non-performers, training, and providing federal workers comparable pay to private sector employees in similar positions.

Several times during the meeting, Berry said he had spoken to President Obama about his plans and received his backing.

Berry also said that his short term goal to improve recruitment and the worklife of federal employees would include domestic benefits for same sex couples. He said the White House and OPM agreed with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s decision to offer equal benefits to same sex unions.

“The president is strongly supportive of State’s program,” Berry said.

By Eric Pianin  |  May 27, 2009; 5:22 PM ET
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