COMPENSATION FOR HIGH-RANKING AGENCY OFFICERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85B01152R001001300012-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 12
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP85B0l 152R001001300012-2
Compensation for High-Ranking
Agency Officers
It is easy for the victim of an inequitable plan to be
critical of that plan. The unsound reasoning and
perforation of Personnel's supergrade pay dicta makes
criticism so much easier. In fact, the latest Personnel
issuance makes one wonder whether the uninformed public
isn't correct: isn't the Government bureaucracy terrible,
and aren't the supergrade bureaucrats overpaid?
It is relatively easy to be constructive, if critical,
in commenting upon the Personnel paper on compensation. It
starts with no statement of broad objectives (and likely
stems from none); what are the objectives and principles of
executive compensation? How do the various cited options
measure up to these goals? and, Are there options untabled
which are better optimized for an agreed-upon set of goals.
For completeness, consider the purpose of compensation:
to positively reinforce contributions to the Agency and,
thereby, to motivate employees to make such contributions.
Of course, this is simplistic, an abstraction, and ignores
the difficulties in measuring finely the contributions and
the utility of the reinforcements. taut, difficulties in
operationalizing the goal do not invalidate it. The
relative merits of compensation alternatives must be tested
against this goal.; no plan can be acceptable which ignores
the goal.
From the fundamental goal, and the set of constraints
which pertain to Government service, a set of principles can
be derived. In the interests of brevity, their derivation
is the reader's exercise. Not surprisingly, the principles
are familiar ones:
P-1. No penalty should attach to earlier election
to Senior Service... no former peer whom you
out-performed in competive evaluation can be
better compensated, except by virtue of re-
evaluation and more recent superior
UNCLASSIFIED
Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP85B0l 152R001001300012-2
 Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP85B0l 152R001001300012-2
P--2.
Senior
non-SS
should
Service
Service compensation should exceed
compensation... and this excess
be clearly perceived by both Senior
personnel and non-SS personnel
P-3.
The compensation of higher-grade Senior
Service personnel should exceed that of
lower-grades ... and this excess should be
clearly perceived by all
P-4.
If inequities exist, they should result from
actions outside the Agency's control (as) for
example a Congressionally imposed pay cap ...
from which principle follows the
acceptability, in extremis,
salaries)
of "asterisked"
P-5.
Our Agency should not compare unfavorably to
other agencies
Agreement on these principles re-introduces rationality into
evaluating the various Senior Service compensation
alternatives. An evaluation of the options presented in
EXCOM 002-83 indicates that the OGC proposal, establishment
of a separate Agency SS pay scale, comes closest to meeting
all the principles. The OGC proposal clearly subscribes to
the first four principles; only P--5 may be in question due
to our relative paucity of SIS-4 and above. Proposal 0,
presumptively the recommendation of the Office of Personnel.,
violates all principles and is, by definition, the worst of
the proposals. Clearly, there is no optimal. solution; but,
with poetic license, the Personnel recommendation is
"pessima1".
Of the options tabled in EXCOM 002-83, it is
recommended that option B (OGC's) be accepted. Further, it
is recommended that the formula by which it has been
calculated be accepted: (roughly) provide a "just-
noticeable-difference" between GS--15/10 and SIS-1 and divide
the remainder of range to the cap into five more or less
equal intervals. Accepting the formula will prevent
annually the overtaxing of the Office of Personnel.
(Recall) twice before just-published S1S rates had to be
hastily revised after a pay-cap elevation.)
An equally acceptable alternative has been proposed by
D/090: that we redress the mal-distribution of SIS levels
by coming into conformity, say, with NSA. This proposal
subscribes to the fifth prinicple, while largely satisfying
the first four.
Finally, it is appropriate to comment on the
UNCLASSIFIED
Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP85B0l 152R001001300012-2
 Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP85B01152R001001300012-2
performance of the Office of Personnel as manifest by their
published analysis. It stinks! The analysis isn't! The
even-handedness ain't! No amount of "windfall" compensation
makes it palatable. Perhaps it's time to recognize the
symptoms of an organization overcome by its admitteldy
difficult job. Perhaps it's time to staff the Office of
Personnel with our best and brightest, rather than its
current complement. People are our scarcest resource; they
deserve the best.
UNCLASSIFIED
Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP85B01152R001001300012-2
 Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP85BO1152RO01001300012-2
If we rationalize the system, won't the step from
GS-15/1 to SIS-1, $14,000) be "too large"?
No, the promotion to "General. Officer" is perhaps
the most significant we have to offer. It is the
most carefully considered promotion step. It is
the transition separately governed by "supergrade
ceiling".
Isn't the increment larger than any other?
On a percentage basis it is not much larger, for
example than two--grade promotions 7--9-11 which are
widely used in other agencies. In other agencies,
too, a person in a job of higher grade for 120
days receives promotion to that grade (commonly
not, but possibly more than a two-'-grade jump).
Why is the jump so large?
Because the spread from GS-15/1 to GS-15/10 is so
large.
UNCLASSIFIED
Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP85BO1152R001001300012-2