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Federal employees with professional or doctorate degrees earn about 23 percent less than those with the same degrees in the private sector, according to a new report by the Congressional Budget Office.

The report, released Monday, found that overall, federal employees are paid an average of 16 percent more in pay and benefits than their private sector counterparts. Federal employees with a high school diploma, for example, earned 21 percent more than private sector employees with similar education levels, while federal workers with a bachelors degree earned about the same as those in the private sector. Federal workers in those two groups also enjoyed better benefits than those in the private sector, with benefits 72 percent higher for federal employees with a high school diploma and 46 percent higher for federal employees with a bachelor's degree.

But federal workers with professional, masters or doctorate-level degrees earned an average of about 23 percent less than their private sector counterparts, the study found. Average benefits for professional and doctorate-level employees were about the same in the two sectors.

CBO used data for 2005 through 2010 reported by a sample of households and employers to estimate differences between the cost of wages and benefits for federal employees and the cost of wages and benefits for similar private-sector employees.

CBO's study also noted that studies of federal pay like one by the American Enterprise Institute, which claimed that federal workers earn 61 percent more in pay, benefits and extra job security than their private counterparts, "overstates the differences between the cost of employing federal workers and similar private sector workers because the dispersion of wages (the range from low to high wages) differs between those two groups."

Meanwhile, the most common occupations within the Defense Department and the government at large were information technology workers as well as program analysts, program administrators and criminal investigators.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, agreed with the conclusion that highly-educated workers earn significantly less than their private counterparts, but cautioned against accepting other segments of the CBO report. "CBO is clearly the expert on Congressional budget scoring, but pay comparisons are not its principal expertise; that is the expertise of the Bureau of Labor Statistics," she said, noting that BLS data have shown a consistent pay gap of 26 percent in favor of the private sector when comparing similar public and private sector jobs.

Kelley also questioned the other segments of the study, and whether Congress would want to cut the salaries of the lowest paid workers by the amounts the report claims are overpaid. "That would mean cutting the salary of a clerk earning $20,000 a year by 20 percent down to $16,000 while increasing the salary of a highly-paid manager making $200,000 by 20 percent to $240,000," she said.

What are your thoughts on the study, as it compares to other studies on federal pay, including BLS data and the report by the American Enterprise Institute?

Are you eager to share your thoughts about your boss, your pay and benefits, telework or the use of technology and collaboration tools, with your agency leadership?

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry announced Friday that the 2012 Federal Employee Viewpoint survey will, for the first time, be open to all permanent, full and part-time employees. This means more than 1.8 million federal employees will be invited to give their opinions, more than triple the number of employees surveyed in 2011.

"While a governmentwide census will not be conducted every year, having large numbers of respondents will allow agencies the opportunity to analyze results and develop action plans at lower levels in the organization this year."

The annual survey assesses governmentwide worker satisfaction and includes results based on individual agencies, demographics and private sector comparisons. The data also are analyzed by the Partnership for Public Services in their "Best Places to Work in the Federal Government" report.

Administration of the next employee survey is scheduled to begin in April, and Berry encouraged agency chief human capital officers to champion the 2012 survey to "ensure that your employees feel their voices are heard and their opinions will drive continuing improvement in the culture in their agency."

Federal employees, retirees and their families will soon be able to securely access their personal health data from the websites of their health plans, thanks to the rollout of new Blue Button technology, the Office of Personnel Management announced Wednesday.

While most federal health plans already offer some form of personal health records to their members, the new Blue Button technology will allow federal patients to have complete control over their health information and enable them to share the data with their health care providers, caregivers and other people they trust.

"Adding Blue Button will make these records more readable, more accessible and more useful to patients and families," OPM Director John Berry said in a statement. "This easy access to lab results, medication and problem lists, allergies, appointment data and wellness reminders makes care both easier and better."

Blue Button technology allows patients to see, download and keep their personal health data by clicking the blue button on a secure Internet site. The files are delivered in text files that can be downloaded, read, stored and printed on any computer without special software.

Blue Button technology already has been adopted by some 500,000 veterans, service members and Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services in just 14 months.

"Blue button empowers hundreds of thousands of patients with their own data," said federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra in a statement. "We want federal employees, their families and the general public to benefit from easy access to Blue Button downloads as it rapidly scales to become a routine service in the care delivery system."

A report issued by OPM in September found that 97 percent of all federal health carriers were offering some form of personal health records to their members. In addition, about three-quarters of federal health plan carriers already include medical claims or health record information in those personal health records, the report found.

OPM asked federal health insurance carriers in a Dec. 19 letter to research the Blue Button functionality and supply OPM with documentation on a strategy to implement the technology by March 15.

For more information on the Blue Button, click here.

The Office of Personnel Management has sent to Congress a new strategic plan for improving retirement services and reducing the retirement backlog, a large part of which focuses on hiring new staff and upgrading technology.

The plan, unveiled Wednesday, involves a multifaceted approach that includes hiring 56 new legal administrative specialists and 20 new customer service specialists, expanding workers' hours and the use of overtime through employee incentives and upgrading technology.

The technology piece of the plan focuses on pursing a long-term data flow strategy, exploring a short-term strategy to leverage work agencies do now and reviewing and upgrading systems used by the legal administrative team.

OPM said the goal of the plan is to eliminate the claims backlog, which was 48,478 claims as of Dec. 31, within 18 months and process 90 percent of all new claims within 60 days of receipt from the agencies. Currently, the average time to process a new retirement claim is 156 days, according to the plan.

OPM's Retirement Systems Modernization project failed in 2008, and after struggling to address the claims backlog, OPM Director John Berry terminated the program in spring 2011.

"Prior efforts to improve the administration of retirement programs over the past 20 years have focused almost exclusively on automation and IT improvements," the plan states. "While IT remains a component of the long-term solution, it cannot be the only the strategy."

Federal employees have been under a two-year freeze to annual across-the-board pay increases since last year, and the prospects for next year are not looking much brighter: President Obama is set to propose a 0.5 percent pay increase as part of his 2013 budget proposal, the Washington Post reports.

According to two senior administration officials familiar with the plans, Obama will propose the 0.5 percent pay increase for federal workers in his 2013 budget proposal, set to be released in February. The pay increase would be the first automatic, across-the-board pay increase for feds since Obama ordered a two-year pay freeze in late 2010.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have called for extending the two-year pay freeze for an additional year and even up to an additional three years. They also have proposed eliminating step increases, cutting the workforce by 10 percent through attrition and cutting some federal retirement benefits.

"A permanent pay freeze is not an acceptable policy," one senior administration official told the Post on Friday. "While modest, a 0.5 percent increase reflects the belt-tightening we must do in these difficult times."

The modest increase in federal pay would save about $28 billion over the next decade and $2 billion in fiscal 2013 under the caps authorized by budget control measures passed last summer, officials said.

Federal employees would still be eligible for other pay increases, such as those for longevity, performance and promotions, as has been the case during the current two-year federal pay freeze.

What are your thoughts on the proposed 0.5 percent pay increase for 2013?

Federal pay in 2011 grew at its slowest pace in one decade, in part due to a partial pay freeze. But overall, federal IT workers are still faring better than their counterparts in the private sector, most of whom have seen flat salaries over the past two years.

A recent analysis by USA Today found that federal pay rose an average of 1.3 percent for fiscal 2011, according to newly released federal data. The wages of private sector workers rose 1.2 percent during that period, the same rate as state and local government pay growth, the analysis found.

The federal pay numbers are the first full budget-year results since President Obama froze across-the-board automatic pay increases for federal workers in 2011 and 2012. Federal employees are still eligible for other pay increases, however, such as those for longevity, performance and promotions.

Average pay for federal IT workers rose more than the overall average for federal workers, USA Today found. For example, computer engineers saw an increase of 3.7 percent in fiscal 2011, with the average pay rate coming in at $102,912. Computer clerks and assistants saw an average increase of 1.7 percent, with average salaries coming in at $39,173, the analysis found.

USA Today also found that federal workers made an average of $75,296 last year, plus $28,323 in medical, pension and other benefits. That figure is about 60 percent more than the average private sector wage, though many experts argue that the difference is a result of higher levels of education and professional jobs in the federal workforce.

Still, even comparing USA Today's analysis of federal IT workers with the most recent IT salary survey by Dice.com, federal IT pros still come out on top. For example, Dice's 2010-2011 annual salary survey found that private sector technology salaries increased by an average of only 0.7 percent, to $79,384 last year.

Some IT managers are among the highest paid employees in the federal government, with a few making more than $200,000 per year, according to an analysis by WikiOrgCharts.com.

The analysis found that the top 1,000 federal salaries in 2011 ranged from $216,345 to $350,000, with the list topped mostly by professionals in the medical or legal fields. Only five federal IT managers made the top 1,000 list.

The highest federal earner in IT was Glenn Valcour, an IT manager at the Farm Credit Administration, who made $241,583 in 2011, earning him a spot at number 279. Three IT managers at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation made the top 1,000 list, with salaries ranging from $216,680 to $238,325. Charles Boucher, an IT manager at the Securities and Exchange Commission, took the 510th spot, with a salary of $230,700 in 2011.

Topping the 2011 list of top earners was Dr. Electron Kebebew, a medical officer at the National Institutes of Health, who earned $350,000 this year. The top 50 federal earners were all in the medical field, mostly working at NIH. Other top earners included employees at the Farm Credit Administration, FDIC and SEC.

WikiOrgCharts, which is a cloud-based tool for business networking, sought the salary information through a Freedom of Information Act request and developed a crowdsourced database that contains profiles of 1.2 million federal employees.

What are your thoughts on the top earners list? Should IT managers have held more of the top spots, particularly given the high salaries and steep competition with the private sector?

Retaining top employees is a key concern among federal chief human capital officers in the coming year, even more important than hiring new workers and upgrading HR technology systems.

A new survey of CHCOs by Federal News Radio found that most are more concerned about pay freezes and reductions in employee benefits than they are with overall cuts to agency budgets. But CHCOs also indicated that supervisor training and technology upgrades may also be delayed as they try to stretch tight budgets.

For example, 40 percent of survey respondents said the biggest HR challenge for their agency was the federal pay freeze and cuts to employee benefits, making it difficult to recruit and retain key talent. Hiring freezes compound this challenge, as agencies cannot backfill positions left vacant by retiring and unsatisfied workers, CHCOs noted.

Still, 20 percent of CHCOs said cumbersome technology is their chief concern for 2012. "It's way past time for more consolidation of services and investment in technology," one respondent said.

Hiring reform also is a key concern among CHCOs, with 60 percent saying that recent hiring reforms by the Obama administration to cut down federal hiring times have helped only "moderately." Cumbersome HR technology systems have been a major factor in impeding hiring reforms, and current laws and regulations still prevent agencies from fully modeling private industry hiring standards, the survey found.

What are some of the top personnel concerns for your agency in the coming year?

Overall federal employee satisfaction has declined slightly since 2010, and satisfaction levels continue to trail behind the private sector, according to the new Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service.

The results showed a governmentwide employee satisfaction score of 64 out of 100 for 2011, representing a 1.5 percent decrease from 2010, but still 5.7 percent higher than 2003 when the rankings were first published. Federal employees' satisfaction levels continue to lag behind the private sector, which had a satisfaction index score of 70 out of 100 this year, a slight drop from 70.6 in 2010, the study found.

The "results show a decline in employee satisfaction compared to 2010, but not as big a drop as one might have expected given the difficult economic and political climate that has led to a federal pay freeze, the possibility of reduced worker benefits, threats of government shutdowns and the certainty of significant agency budget reductions," the report states.

Of the 33 large agencies, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took the top spot, moving up two slots from 2010. The FDIC unseated the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which ranked second this year after holding the top spot three times in a row, and the Government Accountability Office ranked third. The Smithsonian Institution and NASA rounded out the top five.

Among small agencies, the Surface Transportation Board ranked first for the third survey in a row, and reached the all-time high Best Places to Work employee satisfaction score of 91.1 out of 100.

The National Archives and Records Administration was the lowest-rated large agency for the second straight year, while the departments of Housing and Urban Development and Homeland Security also received low scores. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Federal Election Commission were ranked at the bottom among small agencies.

Meanwhile, the survey found that leadership continues to be the key driver of employee satisfaction, meaning many agencies can turn their scores around by focusing on effective leadership. Other key factors influencing satisfaction were a belief by employees that their skills were well-suited to their agency's mission and a satisfaction with pay.

"The rise in employee satisfaction at some agencies suggests that a determined focus on good management can have a positive impact in the workplace even in tough times," the report states.

A blueprint to define cybersecurity work and develop cybersecurity talent in the workforce is now available for public comment.

The Cybersecurity Workforce Framework by the National Initiative on Cybersecurity Education, a nationally coordinated effort focused on cybersecurity awareness and training, provides both public and private organizations a common strategy for building, training and retaining cybersecurity talent.

"Today, there is little consistency in how cybersecurity work is defined or described throughout the federal government and the nation," the framework states. "The absence of a common language to discuss and understand the work and skill requirements of cybersecurity professionals hinders our nation's ability to baseline capabilities, identify skill gaps, develop cybersecurity talent in the current workforce and prepare the pipeline of future talent."

The framework organizes jobs into seven categories, grouping together employees and work that share common functions. The framework also gives job title examples for each category. The seven categories are:

• Securely provision -- workers who conceptualize, design and build secure IT systems;
• Operate and maintain -- workers who are responsible for providing support, administration and maintenance necessary to ensure effective and efficient IT system performance and security;
• Protect and defend -- a specialty area for those responsible for identifying, analyzing and mitigating threats to internal IT systems or networks;
• Investigate -- workers responsible for investigating cyber events and/or crimes of IT systems, networks and digital evidence;
• Operate and collect -- professionals responsible for collecting cybersecurity information to be used in developing intelligence;
• Analyze -- professionals responsible for highly specialized review and evaluation of incoming cybersecurity information to determine its usefulness for intelligence; and
• Support -- workers who provide support so that others may effectively conduct cybersecurity work.

In 2010, the Obama administration launched the NICE initiative to bolster cyber awareness, education and training. The program is led by the National Institute for Standards and Technology, but also includes other agencies like the Homeland Security Department and Office of Personnel Management.

The framework "has been developed largely with input from the federal government, but that is not sufficient," the framework states. "We need to ensure that this framework can be adopted and used across the nation in both the public and private sectors."

Comments on the NICE framework will be accepted through Dec. 16 and can be e-mailed to NICEFrameworkComments@nist.gov.