White House Including Political Appointees in Bonus Program

The Bush administration confirmed Wednesday that it is reinstating a controversial bonus program under which high-ranking political appointees would be eligible for annual awards of $10,000 or more -- a practice banned in 1994 amid concerns of possible abuse.

The White House played down the action, likening federal “performance-based awards” to those offered in the private sector, while critics said the move further revealed President Bush’s misplaced priorities and his disdain for career civil servants.

Under a March 29 directive issued without fanfare by White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., about 2,000 political appointees throughout the administration became eligible for such bonuses, joining the 1.8 million employees in the federal workforce.

“This policy is a restoration of a long-standing bipartisan policy that has been pursued by multiple American administrations because

But because all bonuses come from the same pool of funds in each department’s personnel budget, and because higher-ranking political appointees traditionally receive larger payments, there will be less bonus money available for the lower-ranking civil servants, said Paul C. Light, director of the Center for Public Service at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan Washington public policy center.

“It’s zero-sum. It’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he said.

Disclosure of the bonus program by the New York Times on Wednesday came at a particularly inauspicious moment for Bush.

Only last week, he cited the cost of the war on terrorism as he disclosed that he would set pay increases for federal employees at 3.1%, instead of the 4.1% sought by Congress. Several weeks earlier, he announced plans to allow the private sector to compete for nearly half of the nation’s federal civilian jobs, a move that enraged labor unions and their Democratic allies in Congress.

News of the bonus program’s revival prompted 90 House Democrats to accuse Bush, in a group letter organized by Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), of possessing “a tin ear for the economic concerns of average Americans.”

In a sign that at least some in the administration regard the issue as a potential political hot potato, one agency spokeswoman, requesting anonymity, said her boss, a Cabinet secretary, has decided that the department will not award bonuses to political appointees.

“It’s just a difficult precedent to set,” she said.

Officials at the Department of Energy also have not handed out any bonuses, according to spokeswoman Jeanne Lopatto. “Obviously, we’re aware of the memo,” she said. “But our evaluation process is not finished yet.”

One agency that has awarded bonuses is the Department of Justice, where many employees have worked long hours on counter-terrorism efforts.

Of 121 eligible political appointees, only 10 have received bonuses, according to a senior Justice Department official. They all have been at Justice for a year or more, and no bonus exceeded $5,000.

“At Justice, you’ve got a lot of people working around the clock after 9/11,” said one administration official. “This is a decision being made department by department.”

No White House employee will receive a bonus, Fleischer said.

The bonus program for senior political appointees had existed at least three decades until it was terminated eight years ago by President Bill Clinton, in part because of a furor over awards given in the waning days of the outgoing Bush administration.

Clinton’s action was part of an initiative to bring about what he vowed would be a highly ethical administration.

“They wanted to be different, and they started out on a high horse. They imposed tougher ethics rules, tougher post-employment lobbying rules, tougher disclosure rules,” Light recalled.

Leon E. Panetta, who was Clinton’s chief of staff when the decision was made, said: “My view was this was subject to too much abuse. If you have a political appointee making a decision as to who’s going to get bonuses, there’s a temptation to basically help your friends.”

In his memo, Card emphasized that all awards must be based on “substantial work achievements that go well beyond the performance of routine duties.”

According to an Office of Personnel Management official, the larger a proposed bonus, the higher the level of approval would be required.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said proposed bonuses of $10,000 or more must be approved by cabinet-level officials or the department head.

Awards of $25,000 or higher must be approved by the White House.

Eligible political appointees include senior attorneys, top policy advisors and confidential aides -- none of whom require Senate confirmation. Many of them earn from $115,000 to $140,000.

Department heads and other senior officials who must undergo Senate confirmation are not eligible, Fleischer said.

In 2000, 430,000 civil servants received bonuses, averaging $880 each, with a total federal outlay of about $380 million, Light said.

He acknowledged that the federal pay scale remains woefully behind the private sector but said that payments to political appointees “look and smell bad. They smack of favoritism.” Many of the newly eligible, he said, are “little more than bag carriers for the higher political appointees,” people who probably worked for the election of the president.

But Fleischer defended the bonus program.

“It’s an incentive for the ... hardest-working employees who are able to do the most concrete, measurable work on behalf of the taxpayers, an incentive program to give them bonuses, much like everybody receives in the private sector,” Fleischer said.