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A comment on NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg. Parent comment

Re:NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging ... by bsilvereagle on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @09:38PM (#16057830)
> 2. normal people ask 'why are we paying people so much for doing a bad job?'

The problem is that a normal tax payer doesn't interact with the R&D scientific side of the government. To them, their local BMV office (state govt) is representative of the entire (state+federal) government bureaucracy. When reports of government pay leading/lagging private industry come out, their first thought is that BMV worker, not the PhD engineer building mine sweeping robots.

The federal government doesn't make this any better by keeping NASA on GS tables. If NASA made the jump off the GS system (the Air Force and other DoD agencies have with lab-demo [1]), I think it would go a long way in separating scientist/engineer salaries from bureaucrat salaries. Once the separation is in place, you'd think it would be easier for the R&D pay tables to get higher bumps than the normal GS tables. OPM does have special pay tables for engineers at the lower end of the GS spectrum [2] so there is some precedent for giving scientists/engineers pay priority.

The talks of a federal pay freeze in 2019 have not helped morale at all for the younger S&Es I know. It's miserable to get a 1.85% COLA increase when your peers get a 7-10% raise. Patriotism only carries you so far and it seems like the NSA is figuring this out the hard way.

[1] http://www.wpafb.af.mil/Welcome/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/...

[2] https://apps.opm.gov/SpecialRates/2018/Table041401012018.asp...

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Re:NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging ... by GlenTheMachine on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @10:29PM (#16058089)
Unfortunately, even if a lab goes off the GS scale, the top pay rate allowed by law is still the same as a GS-15 step 10. In the DC area in 2017 that was $166k and change, including locality pay. The only thing using a demo pay scale helps with is easier promotions, which is great until you get salary capped.

$166k/year isn't bad, by any means. But it isn't competitive for a PhD scientist or engineer with equivalent experience.

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Re:NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging ... by asveikau on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:17AM (#16058651)
I feel like a lot of people asking this question 2 are also in low cost of living areas. DC isn't quite San Francisco or New York but it's higher cost than average, and especially higher cost than places where people tend to complain more about federal government waste.
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Re:NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging ... by aisofteng on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @09:57PM (#16057923)
BMV stands for Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and is called the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) in some states.
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Re:NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging ... by yoklov on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @11:03PM (#16058270)
Also RMV in some states (MA, at least), Registry of Motor Vehicles
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Re:NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging ... by smhenderson on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @10:02PM (#16057943)
Or DOT, Deprtment of Transportion in others, e.g. PennDOT.
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Re:NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging ... by learc83 on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @10:45PM (#16058174)
To make things even more confusing the DOT is sometimes separate from the DMV, and sometimes not.

In Georgia we have the DOT that handles road construction etc..., and the Department of Driver Services that handles drivers licenses.

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Re:NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging ... by smhenderson on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:03AM (#16058584)
In Pennsylvania they handle both, plus tolls and even snow removal on the highways and major roads. I’d never heard of BMV before tonight and thought it was just DMV everywhere until I was twenty something.

You’re right, state bureaucracy is confusing!

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Re:NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging ... by shliachtx on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:05AM (#16058595)
To add to the alphabet soup you have DPS (Department of Public Safety) in Texas.
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Re:NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging ... by lazyasciiart on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:58AM (#16058842)
Washington DOL (Department of Licensing) checking in.
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Re:NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging ... by schoen on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @10:48PM (#16058191)
Or the MassDOT RMV in Massachusetts. (Which always has to be different, like calling itself a Commonwealth instead of a state and having a General Court instead of a state legislature.)
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