IT pay study will cost agencies

The CIO Council wants agencies to help pay for a study of compensation in

the information technology work force.

A study by the National Academy of Public Administration will be the

first independent study to review pay discrepancies between federal and

private-sector workers, according to Jim Flyzik, vice chairman of the council

and chief information officer at the Treasury Department, speaking last

month at the Information Processing Interagency Conference in Orlando, Fla.

The CIO Council's IT Workforce Committee has commissioned the study,

but agencies are being encouraged to help fund it, said Ira Hobbs, co-chairman

of the work force committee and deputy CIO at the Agriculture Department.

The USDA and the State Department have pitched in, but others will have

to help, said Fernando Burbano, CIO at State.

The committee has been working with the Office of Personnel Management

to find ways to improve federal recruitment and retention of IT personnel

by raising salaries and expanding job opportunities.

The NAPA/CIO Council study will be independent of a similar study at

OPM, but the three groups are working closely together. The OPM study is

looking at offering special salary rates for federal IT jobs and will make

its recommendations to the CIO Council this fall.

The recommendations, which will take effect January 2001, will incorporate

issues such as whether salary adjustments need to be made on a nationwide

basis or just in certain locations, according to Henry Romero, associate

director for work force, compensation and performance at OPM, speaking at

the FOSE conference in Washington, D.C., last month.