On this & that......

This column is about loss and change in the Service.

Every year it seems we lose more and more good long-time employees to retirement.  People are going out as soon as they possibly can.  If they were retiring to travel, fish or just relax I’d be standing up and cheering, saying this is the way it’s supposed to work. 

Unfortunately, for all too many retirees it’s disillusionment with the sense of where the Service is going as a whole.  It’s not the prospect of an enjoyable retirement that is driving them into the private sector (as a recent study of SB/SE exit interviews revealed).

All of us need to try and figure out how IRS as a whole can be changed to stop this stampede out the door. 

A great example of this is the recent announcement to “centralize” the Case Processing and Insolvency functions.  On the surface it looks like a good idea.  The problem is this...after months of discussion and requests from NTEU, IRS still cannot quantify how much savings will result from this plan.  IRS still cannot tell us the cost of potentially thousands of employees losing their jobs.  IRS still cannot tell us how in the heck they are going to work with customers (both inside and outside the Service) who expect quick local  service when the workload will be parceled out to 4 locations nation-wide.  I truly believe customers will be shortchanged by this. 

I do admire the ultimate goal to get more Revenue Agents, Revenue Officers and Tax Compliance Officers out in the field.  Why not ask Congress for the funding we need to do this instead of cutting needed support? 

Last thought on this.  Don’t you think if we hire more frontline employees we will need more support personnel to assist them?  Just seems like simple logic to me.

Finally, is this the beginning of the end of Partnership nationally?  This is the most glaring example of what I have been seeing as  a trend of just paying lip service to working with employees and then doing what they want.  We all knew that things would be different under Commissioner Everson, but we all hoped he would still see the value in getting pre-decisional input from NTEU.  Sadly, it appears that light is flickering out.  If that is indeed the case it’s too bad, but do not fear.  Whether it’s pre-decisional or having to use all our considerable legal and contractual clout, NTEU both nationally and locally will tirelessly defend the rights of employees and try to make sure the Service functions as well as possible (sometimes even in spite of itself).

That’s it for now.

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Congress left town for the holiday break and failed to pass legislation funding government agencies. That allowed President Bush to declare an average 2% pay raise, effective the first full pay period in 2004 (for those of us on direct deposit, that’s the February 2nd payday).  The budget bill allows a 4% pay raise.  That means we will likely see a replay of last year, when Congress acted late on the budget and passed a higher pay raise, requiring back pay to be handed out and pay adjustments far into the year. The White House could have avoided all this expensive maneuvering by giving us the average 4% raise in the budget bill, but the president and his men said no.  

Most IRS employees will see a 1.9% pay hike in the February 2nd direct deposit.  Those assigned to the Merrillville office will receive a raise of 2.17%.

We will keep you posted on the progress of the budget legislation containing the higher pay increase.




You may recall that IRS raised the accounting education requirement for Revenue Agents from 24 to 30 credit hours.  NTEU immediately challenged the management move because IRS could come up with no legitimate justification to dramatically raise this standard.  IRS used a study done by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that NTEU suspected was seriously flawed.  NTEU paid a nationally-known expert consultant to review the OPM document and he agreed with us that the study was, in fact, flawed.  You would think that would cause the management to consider a settlement of the case, right?  Wrong!  IRS decided to go out and find its own expert to support its case.  IRS, the agency that pleads poverty every time Congress complains about the lack of tax compliance work being done, spent about $250,000 for this consultant.  It is clear that IRS wants to win this case, no matter what the cost may be.

An arbitration hearing was conducted December 3rd and 4th.  This will allow a neutral third party to consider all the evidence and render a decision. Due to the complexity of this case, the ruling from the arbitrator may not be available for a few months. 

NTEU National President Colleen Kelley explains why this case is worth the money the union spent for the expert consultant (we paid much less than $250,000 for our expert)...

NTEU took this case for several reasons.  One, we believe that these extra requirements were imposed to limit the number of internal applicants who could qualify for the Revenue Agent position.  Beyond that, we want to establish that the IRS has to meet a high standard when imposing extra accounting requirements.  Otherwise, I foresee a time in the near future when they will again increase the requirements and perhaps start demanding a CPA.  Finally, if our members are going to be asked to be more qualified than any other accountant in government, then the agency should compensate them accordingly, e.g., offer a GS-12 or 13 career ladder.  Since the IRS has not done that, I see little reason for our members to support these requirements.

NTEU members throughout the IRS would be seriously damaged if the agency is allowed to up accounting requirements for no good reason.  This union is fighting the good fight on behalf of us all. Chapter 49 will let you know right away when the arbitration ruling is released.