Are SEC/CFPB/FDIC/OCC Employees Exempt from Federal Raise Announced by Biden?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:We had a job graded by a “ classification specialist”. Completely useless. When I came on board, jobs in my unit were handled by a “ management analyst”.
Basically, an ex secretary who interfaces with HR for pay grades and negotiation of salary for new hires. What a joke.

So who exactly do you think should be doing this, if not "ex secretaries"?

Someone within the organization who is familiar with what each job function actually does, including the level of skill and effort required. That is not an ex-secretary.

So you propose someone like the hiring manager? The person who is looking to fill a position gets to unilaterally decide the appropriate grade and pay?

How do you think that plays out over time?

DP. I don’t think you understand the federal hiring process or the roles being discussed here.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I work for SEC- we get annual increase in PP7. It is kind of a complicated formula but works out much better than the GS pay increases.

It's better but it's not much better. The SEC doesn't get step increases and those have an average value of 1.5% per year including the years where you don't get a step increase so the SEC raise is about 1.15% better than the GS raise.

True, but the baseline starting point is way higher. This is kinda like saying that a banker/trader earning 650K only got a 1% raise while the regulator earning 200K got a 5% raise. Which would you rather be?

PP- exactly my spouse is a 15/10 and has been at the cap for years. At the SEC I am a SK 14 at the cap and make significantly more than them.

You aren't joking. That's like a 50k difference.

I work for the FDIC. The same pay grade for the job I do at the SEC pays at least $40,000 more at the top of the scale. I always thought that the federal regulators were supposed

\to be comparable in this way, but they are not.

Which pay grade?

NP. The FDIC revamped how it pays people so that if you are new to the fdic, you get paid much less than someone with the same number of total years of experience but who has been at the fdic longer. They’ve been quite explicit that this was a new policy choice they made. So the fdic no longer pays competitively for incoming folks (though it’s a bit haphazard and managers can seek policy exceptions, so some people may chime in that they are new to the fdic and doing well which may be true or may be a results of them not knowing how much their peers are making). This it wouldn’t surprise me if a person new to the fdic makes 40k less than someone new to the sec with the same number of years of experience, regardless of whether they are a 14 or 15 on fdics scale.

This is all correct but just to add to it: the policy choice was made by McWilliams with the goal of paying fdic workers less (because the way to justify paying new workers less than their peers is to weight numbers of years of experience at fdic heavily in the pay formula; in many instances, the formula results in people having salaries much lower than what they would earn at a non financial regulator). While gruenberg professes to be more friendly to workers, he has actually fully adopted this new approach to pay setting. So the fdic had largely given up on being competitive with its peers on salary unless your salary was set before this new approach to pay setting went into effect or your manager seeks a policy exception for you.

I anticipate that many will leave fdic for the cfpb, especially with the full remote option negotiated at the cfpb recently.

FDIC is already having trouble hiring qualified candidates, and the CFO blames hiring officials for the problems they created.

Fdic leadership is totally clueless on how to pay new hires properly. They’ll offer people with advanced degrees with 20 years of experience like $150k (these folks would easily be 15-10 at any agency on the gs scale) and meanwhile give a 30 year old with a college degree some nebulous title containing the word “strategy” or “operations” with a salary of $225k.

So true! Morons

Yup. Some of the titles make my laugh. There is one particular group that is all 12-15s (with both the terms in your post on the group name) and they are completely useless, but highly valued. Every interaction with them is painful and they pay 14s “management analysts” to do the job of a CG 9/11

LOL. You sound like you work where I work. We could have a good laugh together, I think. Sorry, I don't know who you are. Yup. I hear you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had a job graded by a “ classification specialist”. Completely useless. When I came on board, jobs in my unit were handled by a “ management analyst”.
Basically, an ex secretary who interfaces with HR for pay grades and negotiation of salary for new hires. What a joke.

So who exactly do you think should be doing this, if not "ex secretaries"?

Someone within the organization who is familiar with what each job function actually does, including the level of skill and effort required. That is not an ex-secretary.

So you propose someone like the hiring manager? The person who is looking to fill a position gets to unilaterally decide the appropriate grade and pay?

How do you think that plays out over time?

DP. I don’t think you understand the federal hiring process or the roles being discussed here.

I absolutely understand the federal hiring process, and specifically the hiring process at the financial regulators. And because of that, I understand the importance of HR professionals running a consistent process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had a job graded by a “ classification specialist”. Completely useless. When I came on board, jobs in my unit were handled by a “ management analyst”.
Basically, an ex secretary who interfaces with HR for pay grades and negotiation of salary for new hires. What a joke.

So who exactly do you think should be doing this, if not "ex secretaries"?

Someone within the organization who is familiar with what each job function actually does, including the level of skill and effort required. That is not an ex-secretary.

So you propose someone like the hiring manager? The person who is looking to fill a position gets to unilaterally decide the appropriate grade and pay?

How do you think that plays out over time?

DP. I don’t think you understand the federal hiring process or the roles being discussed here.

I absolutely understand the federal hiring process, and specifically the hiring process at the financial regulators. And because of that, I understand the importance of HR professionals running a consistent process.

HR "professionals" running a consistent process. That's the point. The process isn't consistent or well-run or fair.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I used to work at one of the higher paying financial regulators. This thread reminds me of why I left. Too many staff members are focused on the pay and benefits over the work. Over the years, I watched our package grow sweeter and sweeter, yet the more that was given, the more staff wanted. Interestingly, the same grumbles didn’t come from management, and they weren’t paid that much more but worked much harder. In time, I really grew tired of my smart, but entitled colleagues sucking the system dry while moaning about how “busy” they were, which was nothing but code for “leave me alone.” I wanted to be proud of my colleagues, but I found many of them disappointing.

Your complaint is true but not for everyone. I left for the private sector also but for the two years before I left, I averaged 55-60 hours per week and my salary was approximately $5k higher than the max on the gs scale. I hated how my higher paid colleagues (many at the pay cap maximum) barely seemed to do any work and in some cases were viewed by management as not capable of handling difficult assignments. So there were real issues with pay fairness. Unfortunately, the government is really bad at paying people based on merit (and when they have tried, it led to charges of racism because certain groups got rated more highly than others on average) so these across-the-board pay raises are the only thing that ever gets done.

Management also didn’t necessarily work harder. There was so much deadweight amongst management also including people who never had done anything to justify their promotion to management and were exceptionally incompetent during the 10 hours of work they did per week.

I definitely agree that there are a lot of pay-capped, 50+ folks that are staring at the clock. It’s unbelievable that they get passing grades every year and get paid $200k+. They’re also one of the groups that complain the loudest about benefits, but they have it so sweet. They could never leave and make more, in part, because they have become SO lazy. I was amazed how many colleagues, even with Ivy or Ivy-type credentials, had turned into sloths.

The problem is the union itself wants to award mediocrity. They support a system where everyone who passes gets the same raise, and they never, ever want to discuss GS step increases because they do not want employees to realize how poorly they negotiated the past couple contracts. And remember, if you do not pass an employee it’s a huge deal that requires a write up. Management has every incentive to pass everyone, because not doing so is a ton of extra work and most employees will file a grievance.

NP and I calculated it out at one point and I think the GS steps are worth about 1.5% on average so take whatever you get minus 1.5% minus the COLA and that's how much better/worse your raise is than the GS raise.

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It’s when you get to the middle of the band it’s better. When you don’t get a raise except once every few years, except the COLA.

No I calculated it as an average raise per year over a career so this includes years where a GS employee would not get a step increase. The steps themselves are worth more than 1.5% when you get them.

It still doesn’t benefit. The pay band ceilings and additional benefits just make the regulator bands more lucrative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t realize there were federal employees that didn’t get a raise. Are there other agencies besides the financial regulators where this is the case?

Yes. FDA is on the AD schedule, no raises for 3 years at a time. Brackets.

FDA isn’t on a different pay scale

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had a job graded by a “ classification specialist”. Completely useless. When I came on board, jobs in my unit were handled by a “ management analyst”.
Basically, an ex secretary who interfaces with HR for pay grades and negotiation of salary for new hires. What a joke.

So who exactly do you think should be doing this, if not "ex secretaries"?

Someone within the organization who is familiar with what each job function actually does, including the level of skill and effort required. That is not an ex-secretary.

So you propose someone like the hiring manager? The person who is looking to fill a position gets to unilaterally decide the appropriate grade and pay?

How do you think that plays out over time?

DP. I don’t think you understand the federal hiring process or the roles being discussed here.

I absolutely understand the federal hiring process, and specifically the hiring process at the financial regulators. And because of that, I understand the importance of HR professionals running a consistent process.

So you understand PP wasn’t taking about HR, but rather people embedded within particular groups (management analysts) who are effectively admins that some retirement eligible senior manager likes because s/he types their letters for them 25 years ago. They interface with HR during hiring but often don’t understand the nuances to the hiring process, creating confusion.

Also hiring managers do decide grade. I’ve worked with classification specialists to draft positions. We draft the PDs and tell them the grades we aim to achieve. They sprinkle in some words that get us where we want to be and we are largely done. During hiring, it’s the SME under the hiring manger, not HR, that typically decides the grades (when there is a range) for higher level positions.

Also if you ARE taking about HR in the context of the primary financial regulator being discussed in this thread (FDIC) and are making that statement, I know you are either in HR, or not part of the hiring process, because it’s an absolute disaster over there.

[Anonymous]

AMEN PP!! SPOT ON! The management analyst in mind seems to have been given all control over hiring in my specialized sphere.. This uneducated, overpaid dolt seems to be the gatekeeper for all hiring and administrative operations over my unit of professionals, including discipline and other very important issues.

When we last hired someone, hiring manager was only shown 3 resumes - one less qualified than the next. When hiring manager asked to see the applicants so he/she could choose a specific skill set that we needed, said management analyst he/she replied in the negative and said "pick from these three " This person is a middleman between divisions who need things and top leadership - it's pathetic. I wonder if other agencies do things this way? And, yes, this person knows nothing about the units he/she 'administers'
Ex secretary - yes. No education whatsoever - yes. And earning $ hand over fist over other skilled folks in the division.

It's the biggest racket I have ever seen.

[Anonymous]

Just of clarify: Management Analyst is a broad term used for many very valuable and skilled positions. The fact that you personally know people who’ve used it to hire unqualified people for fake positions isn’t proof that the job code itself is fake.

[Anonymous]

Of course, but in the example used above, this particular position is so that someone who is an a##kisser can get more $.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just of clarify: Management Analyst is a broad term used for many very valuable and skilled positions. The fact that you personally know people who’ve used it to hire unqualified people for fake positions isn’t proof that the job code itself is fake.

I am one of the PPs and don’t disagree with you. I was in the 300 series. It’s a great catch all series to use when the job doesn’t appropriately fit into a more specific series. The problem is that some agencies/group abuse the position to allow a grade boost when the underlying duties would not allow that grade in the present PD. The 300 series is an easy way to take that job, sprinkle in a few extra words in the KSAs, supervision, and other areas of the PD and get a higher grade.

[Anonymous]

Wow, the salary changes at the FDIC will really harm recruitment. They were always paid more than us at the Fed Board, but the pension at the Fed made up for the lower salary. Now? If FDIC is getting Fed pay but without the more lucrative pension, its a bad move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just of clarify: Management Analyst is a broad term used for many very valuable and skilled positions. The fact that you personally know people who’ve used it to hire unqualified people for fake positions isn’t proof that the job code itself is fake.

I am one of the PPs and don’t disagree with you. I was in the 300 series. It’s a great catch all series to use when the job doesn’t appropriately fit into a more specific series. The problem is that some agencies/group abuse the position to allow a grade boost when the underlying duties would not allow that grade in the present PD. The 300 series is an easy way to take that job, sprinkle in a few extra words in the KSAs, supervision, and other areas of the PD and get a higher grade.

\

Understood. I have one in my unit and the person is terrific. Analysis type work, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, the salary changes at the FDIC will really harm recruitment. They were always paid more than us at the Fed Board, but the pension at the Fed made up for the lower salary. Now? If FDIC is getting Fed pay but without the more lucrative pension, its a bad move.

Yeah not worth it to go to the fdic now. Pretty sure any other financial regulator will yield a higher offer. But most people at the fdic have been there awhile and are maxed out on the pay scale which means they’re making about $260k or more (salary plus bonus plus annual payouts for being maxed out), and those folks aren’t going anywhere! The glory days of the fdic are over though for new hires and unfortunately gruenberg seems too clueless to fix the problem. There are underlings who helped McWilliams develop the new pay scheme and I am guessing they have convinced gruenberg that it’s a wonderful new system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, the salary changes at the FDIC will really harm recruitment. They were always paid more than us at the Fed Board, but the pension at the Fed made up for the lower salary. Now? If FDIC is getting Fed pay but without the more lucrative pension, its a bad move.

Yeah not worth it to go to the fdic now. Pretty sure any other financial regulator will yield a higher offer. But most people at the fdic have been there awhile and are maxed out on the pay scale which means they’re making about $260k or more (salary plus bonus plus annual payouts for being maxed out), and those folks aren’t going anywhere! The glory days of the fdic are over though for new hires and unfortunately gruenberg seems too clueless to fix the problem. There are underlings who helped McWilliams develop the new pay scheme and I am guessing they have convinced gruenberg that it’s a wonderful new system.

Just got to fdic and thought my salary was fair....now I see that I got shafted. Should I start looking elsewhere?