my background: over 40 years working DoD including federal employee and private industry

I worked w literally thousands of people working DoD programs. Mostly civilians but many military

IMO, there are three big problems

1. It is very hard to fire unproductive people in federal govt

2. There has been significant grade creep over time (higher grade level for same type of work)

3. It is easy in federal govt to gravitate to an administrative job that deals w an overwhelming number of rules but adds virtually nothing to productivity and leadership



2014 data above

There are 1.8 million federal employees (full time, permanent, 2014 data)



A general comment. I saw many more cases of people being over paid (compared to their skills) in federal govt positions than private industry.


The average federal worker in 2016 earned $86,365. With benefits, the total compensation was $123,160.

The average nonfederal pay in the nation was $58,726, with total compensation at $69,901.

That spread seems too high, but it is hard to make comparisons over such large mixes of jobs and geographical locations.

Like good officers vs knuckleheads, and the way that most if not all of the LE folks here in the forums are of the good variety, I've no doubt that the DennisMs and TMats amongst us here are good at their jobs, honorable in carrying out their duties, and more likely than not carry out a useful function.

But, I'd wager you guys are the exception, not the standard.

Mission creep and bureaucratic bloat are as real as the air we breathe, and it's a very real problem in need of being addressed, including wages, benefits, and retirement packages.

That all such expenses only equal x% of government spending means nothing in and of itself, especially where every single % is millions upon millions of real taxpayer dollars.

when I worked for the DOD I got paid so little it was almost not worth driving to work for.
It was not long that I took another job.
600 people applied for 10 jobs back then.
They ended up taking 30 of us. I suppose they figured a lot of us would not stay.

USAF Civil Service percentage numbers are low because they employ a crap-load of contractors, most of which are paid 50% to 75% of equivalent GS-xx rate to do a job. BTDT.

My last duty station in the military before I retired we had a ton of GS civilian employees in our command. The military folks busted their asses and the GS civilians sat around all day on facebook or sitting at each others desks visiting.

When you needed something from them all they had were a million excuses as to why they could not do it for you.

I really got soured on the government civilian workforce and is the reason I didn't apply or look for any GS jobs when I retired.

My son is a government contractor and I can't believe the hours he is forced to work and the amount of work he has to accomplish each day to be successful. Makes half the money of a GS worker and works 10 times as hard.

I retired on the blue side(WG) as a WS-15.

Simple answer.

Keep the President, Congress, the cabinet members themselves and the military command in DC, and scatter the rest of the USG to the ends of the country, and pay them all the same. Set up most of federal offices in the 'flyover country' where costs are low and jobs are scarce. Instead of building and owning edifice buildings, prioritize rentals of converted empty factories where available.

Benefits:

1) boost employment where there has been years of decline. Aka 'Trump country'
2) cut costs
3) reduce congestion in the BosWash corridor
4) reduce risks from one-strike attacks

In the 1800s there was no telegraph, let alone telephone, let alone computing, let alone Internet, let alone videoconferencing, so of course everything had to be administered from the same town. Time to drag the bureaucracy at least into the 20th century.

If the flat pay incents some to move from the urban centers to the flyover states, so be it. That'd reduce congestion in other cities as well.

Regarding the federal civilian workforce, I think it's a mixed bag. Outside of DC, it's been my experience that most civilian employees work pretty hard for average pay. Within the DC beltway, it's completely different at many agencies. You often see a disproportionate number of senior positions. Many positions within the DC area are classified at a higher grade than civilian positions at the same agencies units in the field. What would be GS6 to GS9 work at my current command is often GS11/12 work at our HQ in DC. Of course, there are many differences in management practices between government agencies. This also extends to how matters of performance and discipline are handled.

My brother Steve has been a federal employee since 1992 or so. He's one step below an SES at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. He works his ass off, at least 50 hours a week and probably has 6 months of accumulated leave he never gets to use because, as he says, "the bad guys don't care if you have leave coming".

On the veterinary side, a GS position is a mixed blessing. You're usually not in a primary medical position (which is the sweet spot, IMO) caring for gov't dogs and base family pets. You're a supervisor of federal employees, who are #@$% near impossible to fire if they're a useless lump, and if you work on the food safety side (thank you, if you do this), you don't control much of your shift schedule or when you're off/on (meaning that if the chicken plant wants to work New Years, you gonna work. You might get extra pay, but you workin'.)

I've been tempted to look at it previously, and they start you at GS12 or above generally due to education requirements, but working with bureaucrats and federal union folks doesn't trip my trigger, so I always quietly move back to the private sector and take the crap that goes with that in exchange for puppy breath and kittens.

Federal Law Enforcement Officers make an additional 25% from numbers on that table.

I've seen the good and the bad, both in public and private sectors as an employee and manager. There are outstanding folks who give 110% and there are jackwad lazy incompetent bastards who should be keelhauled. Singling out government employees seems myopic at best and biased at worse. That said, the DC cabal is disgusting with their grade creep and heavy percentage of "nothing added here" types.

On my team of about 20 federal workers I would say 5-7 actually pull their weight and are above average to great at their jobs. Another 5-7 are just average to slightly below average. And the rest are the over the age of 50 government schlubs who could care less about anything but adding more time to their FERS retirement. They consistently contribute around half or less of the amount of work as the rest of us and the work they do is God-awful.

Which is funny to me how the millenial generation, which I am not btw, gets such a bad rap. I assure you the "GUBMINT" types who are the most worthless are members of the distinguished baby boomer generation. If you want to talk about entitled, look no further.

My friend is a GS-14 at Social Security and he said they have the same problem over there. The best hires are the ones under 30. A lot of the older ones were "good old boy" system hires (when that was the norm). He said things have changed A LOT over the years at SSA (he's been there since the 80s). He said back in the day they would take 3 or 4 hour lunches, some guys would just go home and come back at random times throughout the day. Now they have cameras and they fire people all the time for timecard fraud.