AFSA FCS Vice President Update October 19, 2006 AFSAnet

AFSA FCS Vice President Update: October 19, 2006

Each Spring and Fall FCS AFSA is allowed to table a maximum of 3 proposals to management, based on member input (which is always requested) or our perception of member needs. On September 29, we did table 3 proposals as follows:

(1) The Senior Foreign Service Pay Policy (see OurPlace/CS/FS Human Resources/Policies/p. 2 Senior Foreign Service Pay Policy Mar 2005 revised April 2006) allows the SFS Selection and Promotion Board to place SFS officers in level 0 with no pay adjustment or bonus. This is below level 1 which is “roughly analogous to ‘Fully Successful’ in the SES system”, so the implication is that those placed in level 0 were less than “Fully Successful”. This is not in terms of their actual adjectival ratings by their rating and reviewing officers who managed them during the appraisal period but rather in terms of the Board’s assessment of their performance based on the narratives by their rating and reviewing officers, etc. and the so-called “strategic crosswalk” that is used by the SFS Board to assess performance and results relative to work plans and the ITA strategic plan. AFSA had in its Spring 2006 mid-term proposals already raised the need to review the SFS pay policy and had received proposals and made counter-proposals to management in September 2006. These proposals and counter-proposals basically sought three reforms:

Because management had not yet responded to AFSA’s counter-proposal on these three points by September 30 nor before the 2006 Board met, we incorporated them into the Fall 2006 mid-terms. Management did indicate that it provided clarification (a) to the SFS Board in the technical briefing, but management did again not allow FCS AFSA access to the technical briefing at which this clarification was said to have taken place. AFSA also wanted the clarification written into the Precepts and SFS Pay Policy for future SFS Boards, so all three requests remain essentially open.

(2) The second mid-term request concerns the Residential Transaction Allowance (RTA) under 14 FAM 630 and FTR 302.3-101. This allowance was first extended in 1995 to the Foreign Service for permanent changes of duty station (PCS vs. TDY) from foreign postings to domestic postings more than 50 miles from a previous domestic posting, i.e., largely affecting FCSOs who were assigned to ODO EACs outside Washington, D.C. area (which predominantly tended to be the original posting for most). The FAM regulations, however, are not restricted to outside of the Washington D.C. area nor are they restricted in terms of duration of assignment with respect to eligibility.

Commerce management, however, has recently denied RTA to an officer who chose a PCS (rather than TDY) assignment to Washington, D.C. for long-term (more than 6 months) language training on the grounds that it had a “policy” (never publicized or posted) of denying the RTA allowance to officers in training assignments of less than a year. This Commerce “policy” is in AFSA’s view both contrary to the Collective Bargaining Agreement (which calls for changes in policy to be notified to AFSA, which this one never was since 1995) and contrary to the regulations (14 FAM 630 and the FTR make no mention of training assignments of less than a year being a criterion of non-eligibility for this interagency agreed-upon allowance).

Our second mid-term proposal therefore simply requests that Commerce adhere to the FAM. Alternatively, Commerce could amend its adherence and publicize such amendment if it properly notified AFSA as well.

(3) The third mid-term request concerned the PAR (Personnel Audit Report) which is provided to the Boards to summarize an officer’s work history in FCS. The PAR was first introduced last year and several officers complained to AFSA and OFSHR that their PARs did not reflect their actual work history because its formulation was based solely on official records of assignment, which often in the case of TDY assignments or details do not make transparent actual place of assignment and actual work. For example, if an officer who left Rio de Janeiro for an onward assignment to Tokyo via Japanese language training at FSI in Washington, D.C. and they chose TDY rather than PCS for per diem purposes, their PAR for that year would continue to show them as being in Rio de Janeiro rather than studying Japanese at FSI. This would be technically correct but for common sense purposes of the Board easily seeing where the officer was and what he/she was doing, it doesn’t make sense, so our third mid-term seeks some change in the policy and/or technology of generating the PAR to get back to common sense.

In the Director General’s email of October 4 (subject greetings), he announced the introduction at Commerce of the “Balanced Scorecard” – “a management system that aligns our key objectives, initiatives, and performance measures to four critical perspectives: customer/stakeholder; financial stewardship; internal processes; and people and tools.” He further stated “Business systems and processes will be built and aligned to facilitate us accomplishing our strategic themes and objectives. Individual performance plans and awards will be linked to our strategy. The Scorecard will guide decision making throughout our organization.” Finally, he noted that “To find out more click on Our Place – Commercial Service – CS Forums – Strategic Planning – Balanced Scorecard.”

In addition, OIO received a briefing on the Balanced Scorecard last Friday, October the 13th (coincidence?).

There are still some interesting gray areas in the Balanced Scorecard. At the DG’s first all hands meeting when this new strategy was unveiled, I had already asked the question as to whether the scorecard or report card would be organizational only or also descend to the individual performance plan and appraisal level. At that time, the response appeared to be yes both, and the DG’s recent email implies that as well. Informally, however, as we learned at the recent briefing and the response to the AFSA rep’s question about individual performance plans, it was indicated that the development of the Balanced Scorecard had not yet gone below the “strategic” level to reach individual performance plans or measures, and it was stressed that management wanted to avoid additional layers of performance measures and reporting.

Since none of the other Foreign Service agencies are using the Balanced Scorecard (though it was said that State Department might be looking at it), FCS AFSA has consistently wanted to know whether the Balanced Scorecard would be implemented for the Foreign Commercial Service not just the Civil Service and whether its implementation would or would not entail notification to AFSA under the Collective Bargaining Agreement as a change in the conditions of employment and specifically as affecting the Foreign Service work plans and appraisals as well as the so-called “strategic crosswalk” involving the ITA strategic plan (currently limited to SFS Pay for Performance but may be extended to FS-1s and below as a result of Foreign Service Modernization, which has yet to pass on the Hill). The jury may be still out on this. Informally again – and certainly subject to change – management seemed to at first say yes it is notifiable but now appears to be saying it may not be and may not necessarily affect the FS performance system. If any officers have views on this, you are encouraged to communicate with us and replying to this AFSANET directly, and as Israel message noted by sending questions to CSBalancedScorecard@mail.doc.gov.