The Foreign Service Journal, February 2007

Washington, D.C. (This problem does not affect Senior Foreign Ser- vice members, who are already in a pay-for-performance system.) Thus, employees at a 20-percent hardship post earn little more than their state- side colleagues. And colleagues at lesser hardship and non-hardship posts actually take a pay cut when serving abroad. State and AFSA have been work- ing to fix this problem since 2001, but the key stumbling block has been the Office of Management and Budget at the White House. To their great credit, Secretary Rice’s management team (led by Under Secretary for Management Henrietta Fore) ac- complished what Secretary Powell was never able to do: secure White House support for funding the clos- ing of this pay gap. Unfortunately, the initial White House-supported legislative fix contained several “poi- son pills” which seriously delayed its consideration on Capitol Hill. First, the White House, after five years of opposition, only agreed to support overseas comparability pay in the context of a plan to convert the entire Foreign Service to a pay-for- performance system that would abol- ish the long-standing annual “step” increases in pay to all employees. The new system would start by estab- lishing a worldwide base salary sched- ule equal to what employees serving in Washington, D.C., currently earn (thus bringing overseas base pay up to domestic levels) and would add yearly performance-pay adjustments for some, but not all, employees. However, the initial White House draft legislation contained no guaran- tee that annual “performance pay” adjustments would actually be paid (unlike traditional step increases, which are funded automatically). The danger of this oversight is clear. In 2005, USAID and IBB Senior For- eign Service members already work- ing under a pay-for-performance sys- tem did not get their raise due to “lack of funding.” Ultimately, the increases were provided (and made retroactive) — but not until late in the year. AFSA and the Bureau of Human Resources, working with key mem- bers in the Senate and House, were able to secure agreement on a revised proposal that would guarantee the funding of annual performance-pay salary adjustments. Second, the White House initially insisted that the Secretary of State be given unlimited “sole and exclusive discretion” over who received salary adjustments under the new system. Thus, instead of basing annual pay adjustments on rank-order merit lists produced by Foreign Service selec- tion boards, management could “cherry-pick” by awarding pay in- creases on the basis of political or personal favoritism. Here, too, AFSA and the Bureau of Human Re- sources, working with Congress, were able to secure agreement on a revised proposal that would guarantee a strictly merit-based process that also preserved the statutory rights of Foreign Service members — through their bargaining agent, AFSA — to have a say over the procedures for administering the new system. Unfortunately, it took many months of discussions to get these “poison pills” removed. Time ran out on the pre-election legislative calendar, and the 109th Congress adjourned in December 2006 without passing the bill. As of this writing, it is not clear when the new, Democratic-con- trolled 110th Congress will take up this vital issue. Until it does, Foreign Service members will continue to take a nearly 19-percent cut in base pay when serving abroad — amount- ing to one year’s lost pay for every five years spent overseas. Overhauling FSO Hiring On Dec. 12, 2006, a front-page Washington Post article reported that State was changing the 70-year-old Foreign Service written exam for selecting FSO generalists. In a tele- gram explaining the decision, Director General Staples said that the tradition- al paper-and-pencil written exam will be replaced by a shorter, computer- based test that will be administered five times a year. Unlike the current exam, the new test will not be the sole criterion for advancing to the oral assessment stage. Instead, applicants will also submit a “structured resumé.” If the applicant passes the written exam, a screening panel would then review both the test score and the resumé for evidence of “special qualities or experience that are particularly important to Foreign Service work.” Those applicants deemed to qualify would advance to the oral assess- ment. The DG maintains that this “Total Candidate” approach will be faster, will permit a more thorough assess- ment of candidate qualifications, and will allow State to “continue to look for the best and brightest, and preserve our demanding standards.” Initial reaction was mixed. AFSA 46 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 Sec. Rice’s “global repositioning initiative” was reminiscent of the decision to take positions from Western Europe to staff the new embassies after the Soviet Union collapsed.