Large CDC bonuses go frequently to financial staff, administrative managers

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Large CDC bonuses go frequently to financial staff, administrative

managers

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By ALISON YOUNG

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 09/17/06

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees receiving

the most frequent large cash awards and performance bonuses are not

scientists, but mostly budget analysts, accountants, computer

experts and other administrative managers, according to an analysis

of the awards by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

As the CDC faces morale problems and the loss of key scientific

leaders, the distribution of the Atlanta-based agency's awards and

bonuses provides evidence, critics say, that the agency is becoming

more focused on agency management and bureaucracy and less on its

public health mission.

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The 72 CDC employees who received five or more awards of at least

$2,500 from 2000 through July 21, primarily work in non-science

jobs. Some got $30,000, $50,000 and in one case more than $140,000

in cumulative bonus cash beyond their salaries, according to the

CDC's awards data, obtained by the Journal-Constitution under the

Freedom of Information Act.

The CDC has about 9,000 employees, and 4,200 of them are considered

scientific staff. Among the agency's senior executives, the highest

individual annual performance bonus paid so far this year was

$27,000 to a manager of a scientific division, the data show.

CDC Director Gerberding was unavailable for comment Friday and

Saturday. Other CDC officials said the agency is examining its

system of awarding employees for fairness, appropriateness and

transparency.

" We want to make sure that the system we have in place is equitable

and that it rewards everyone, if in fact they are eligible for the

award and if in fact they're deserving of it, " said spokesman Tom

Skinner. " We are looking at the system and anything we can do to

make it better. "

Low morale and an exodus of key leaders and scientists from CDC

since 2004 has caused significant concern among several of the

agency's former directors and drawn the attention of a Congressional

committee. The fear is that turmoil within the agency may be harming

its ability to handle public health emergencies — from bioterrorism

attacks, to an influenza pandemic to the toll of obesity, the

Journal-Constitution reported last Sunday.

By the end of this year, all but two of the directors of CDC's eight

primary scientific centers will have left the agency. Other high-

profile departures include world experts in several diseases.

The agency's cash awards program is one tool in its arsenal that can

be used to improve morale and stem departures. Yet the distribution

of frequent large cash awards mainly to budget and administrative

staff and managers, is an example of how the agency has become

increasingly enamored with its non-scientific staff, said three

current CDC employees, who declined to speak publicly for this

article. Last year a CDC poll of its employees, called Pulse Check,

found that one of their top concerns was the " loss of public health

focus/mission in exchange for inappropriate business focus. "

Awards based on several factors

Giving cash awards and performance bonuses is a longstanding

practice in the federal government, though it has received increased

emphasis in recent years.

" The government is trying hard to move to a performance-sensitive

compensation system, " said Palguta, vice president of the

Partnership for Public Service, an independent nonprofit Washington-

based group that specializes in federal work force issues. " The

notion is that employees should be compensated not for breathing,

but rather for what they contribute to the organization and their

level of performance. "

Skinner and other CDC officials said there may be several reasons

that frequent, large awards are skewed in favor of financial staff

and administrative managers.

One theory is that not all front-line managers may be aware of or

regularly use the awards. Another theory is that the President's

Management Agenda for all federal agencies has stressed improving

the performance of budget systems, technology and the like.

" There wasn't a parallel big initiative on the science side, " said

Glen Nowak, another CDC spokesman. " That probably is a contributing

factor here. "

Another factor, agency officials said, is that about 800 of the

CDC's 4,200 scientific employees are members of the U.S. Public

Health Service Commissioned Corps, a uniformed service that operates

under a different personnel system and is not eligible for the

awards. A group of about 600 " distinguished " scientists are in

another employee classification that did not become eligible for

annual performance awards until last fall, they said.

Cash awards given to CDC and other federal employees break into two

general categories: special act cash awards that reward an

individual or a group for specific accomplishment or activity; and

annual performance bonuses, tied to an employee's overall

performance rating and involve a percentage of the person's salary

that varies in size and availability depending on how the employee

is classified.

The CDC distributed about 2,500 special act and performance awards

worth at least $2,500 since 2000 to about 1,450 individuals. About

560 employees received two or more of these awards, and 72 of them

received five or more awards, according to the CDC data.

Three employees — a financial systems branch chief, a deputy

director of budget and management, and another budget official —

received the most checks, at 10 awards each. Their cumulative awards

totaled $35,000, $34,326 and $32,000 respectively.

Five employees — people working in facilities operations, budget,

accounting and technical information — received nine awards each.

Their cumulative totals ranged from $25,326 to $50,565.

Of 16 employees receiving seven or eight awards, one is a health

science supervisor. The rest are financial managers, accounting

staff, or work in security or other administrative positions.

Most of these checks were special act cash awards. And some of them

have received three or four such checks in a single year.

Palguta said it seemed unusual for employees to receive multiple

cash awards for acts that are supposed to be " above and beyond "

their normal duties.

" Sometimes employees may see one over a five-year period. If they're

really exceptional, maybe they'll see one for every two or three

years, " he said. " But if somebody were to receive two cash awards a

year and each year for a five year period, that would be higher than

average I'd say. "

Despite requests for more details on the awards, CDC officials did

not release copies of the award nomination and justification forms

for the most frequent recipients of high awards. The newspaper also

sought the information in its Freedom of Information Act request

filed on July 3.

Gerberding has received two $5,000 special act cash awards since

becoming director of the agency in July 2002: one in February 2005

and the other in December 2005. A CDC spokesman said he did not have

details of those awards.

Bill Gimson, CDC's Chief Operating Officer, said he didn't know

whether CDC's practice of giving multiple special act cash awards to

some of its employees is unusual. But he said the agency will be

looking into that question. " We are constantly attempting to

reevaluate and evaluate how equitable " the awards are, he said.

" The CDC budget and accounting staff for the last four years have

been implementing a major $60 million accounting system, " Gimson

said, which may explain why so many of those employees have been

frequent recipients of special act cash awards.

Biggest checks go to top execs

The highest single checks in most years have been in the form of

annual performance bonuses to CDC staff who are part of an elite

federal employee classification, called the senior executive

service. There are about 30 such employees at CDC, including Gimson

and Gerberding. These executives, as in all agencies, can qualify

for an annual performance bonus of up to 12 percent of their base

salaries, which at CDC range from $109,808 to $165,200. Across all

federal agencies, about 55 percent of senior executives receive some

level of annual performance award.

Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association,

which represents career federal executives in all agencies, said the

performance bonus system is meant to ensure government can attract

and retain top talent.

" The people who do the work these executives do in the private

sector and even the nonprofit world can earn at least 150 percent of

what these people earn in government, " she said. " Having said that,

they don't come into government because of the pay. "

In 2005, eight of CDC's senior executives received annual

performance bonuses of $15,000 or more. Another eight received

bonuses of $11,000 to $15,000.

A handful of these CDC senior executives have qualified, based on

their performance evaluation and nomination by committees at CDC and

the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for prestigious

Presidential Rank Awards. Just 1 percent of all federal senior

executives each year receive one of these awards for " distinguished "

service – a prize check that is written for 35 percent of their

salary. Five percent of all federal senior executives each year

receive one of these awards for " meritorious " service, and it comes

with a check for 20 percent of the individual's salary.

An employee can receive each of these awards only once, and Gimson,

has done that – helping make him one of the agency's most frequent

and highest recipients of various cash awards.

Since July 2002 he has received seven awards over $2,500 of various

types totaling $147,863.

Gimson received his first Presidential Rank Award in 2002 for

$24,740 and another last fall for $55,368. The first award

recognized his work in CDC's financial management office; the second

his leadership at Chief Operating Officer in helping CDC to achieve

top ratings on aspects of the President's Management Agenda.

" I really feel that it's extremely important to recognize all of out

top performing employees, " Gimson said. And that means staff that

work in science, programs, management and administrative areas, he

said.

Since they became eligible for annual performance awards in October

2005, CDC employees who are classified as " distinguished " scientists

started receiving some large individual checks beginning this spring.

Dr. received a performance bonus in March, for $27,000

for his outstanding performance as director of CDC's division of

sexually transmitted disease prevention.

" I think it's incredibly important in an organizational environment

to be appreciated, " said . He said that as a manager, cash

awards of varying types help make sure employees know their hard

work is being recognized. " Some of our biggest awards have been to

people who stepped into acting positions and are basically doing a

job and a half or two jobs. I can't pay them two salaries. ly,

some of them deserve it. "

At least 19 CDC employees like who are classified

as " distinguished " scientists have received performance bonuses of

$10,000 or more so far this year; and six of them received between

$20,000-$27,000 each.

The CDC spends about $865 million on salaries and benefits in a

year. Last year, the agency paid out about $15 million in awards of

all types and amounts. Awards and performance bonuses have

consistently represented about 1.6 percent of CDC's salary and

benefits costs since 2000, said Nowak, the CDC spokesman.

Nowak said about 56 percent of all awards of $2,500 or more go

toward the agency's scientific staff. CDC officials, however, did

not respond to the newspaper's requests for details of how they

arrived at that number given that the agency's database doesn't

clearly deliniate between the categories and some staff titles are

ambiguous.