Another scandalous story about the CDC courtesy Alison Young's investigative reporting in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. It's about the unequal distribution of cash bonuses and the title says it all: "Science slighted in CDC awards."
As the CDC faces morale problems and the loss of key scientific leaders, the distribution of awards provides evidence, critics say, that the Atlanta-based agency is becoming more focused on management and bureaucracy and less on its public health mission.The 72 CDC employees who received five or more awards of at least $2,500 from 2000 through July 21, primarily work in non-science jobs. Some got $30,000, $50,000 and in one case more than $140,000 in cumulative bonus cash beyond their salaries, according to the CDC's awards data, obtained by the Journal-Constitution under the Freedom of Information Act.
The CDC has about 9,000 employees, and 4,200 of them are considered scientific staffers. The highest individual annual performance bonus paid so far this year was $27,000 to a manager of a scientific division, the data show.
[snip]
By the end of this year, all but two of the directors of the CDC's eight primary scientific centers will have left the agency. Other high-profile departures include world experts in several diseases.
The agency's cash awards program is one tool in its arsenal that can be used to improve morale and stem departures. Yet the distribution of frequent large cash awards mainly to budget and administrative staff and managers is an example of how the agency has become increasingly enamored of its non-scientific staff, said three current CDC employees, who declined to speak publicly for this article.
[snip]
- Three employees --- a financial systems branch chief, a deputy director of budget and management, and another budget official --- received the most checks, at 10 awards each. Their cumulative awards totaled $35,000, $34,326 and $32,000 respectively.
- Five employees --- people working in facilities operations, budget, accounting and technical information --- received nine awards each. Their cumulative totals ranged from $25,326 to $50,565.
- Of 16 employees receiving seven or eight awards, one is a health science supervisor. The rest are financial managers, accounting staffers, or work in security or other administrative positions.
Most of these checks were special act cash awards. And some of the staffers have received three or four such checks in a single year. Atlanta Journal Constitution
The explanation of the Gerberding team is that the agency is making a tremendous effort to reorganize and the heavy lifting has fallen to the managers and fiscal officers, not the scientists. To remain competitive with the private sector, cash incentives are essential to retaining the best people. So that explains why Gerberding and her friends have gotten the lion's share, I guess.
More reporting on this topic from Sunday's New York Times:
From 2002 through mid-2006, William H. Gimson III, the agency's chief operating officer, received bonuses totaling $147,863, which included seven cash awards of more than $2,500. Mr. Gimson's bonuses were about twice the amount granted to any other C.D.C. employee, the agency's records show.
Mr. Skinner said Mr. Gimson was not immediately available for comment.
Mr. Gimson's deputy, Barbara W. Harris, received six premium bonuses of $2,500 or more from 2002 through mid-2006 for a total of $84,894, agency records show.
Mr. Skinner said Ms. Harris was also not available for comment.
Mr. Gimson and Ms. Harris are part of the federal government's Senior Executive Service, a cadre of top civil servants whose salaries are generally among the highest in government. The salaries of Mr. Gimson and Ms. Harris were not included in the records requested by The Times.
The increase in bonuses to these officials was part of a decision by the Bush administration to make transformation of the management of the centers a top priority, said Glen Nowak, chief of media relations at the centers. "If we want to retain people, we need to recognize them," Mr. Nowak said Friday in an interview. "We are operating in a highly competitive environment." (NYT)
Is this unusual? Also from the Times:
Before Dr. Gerberding's appointment, members of the C.D.C. director's inner circle rarely received premium bonuses of $2,500 or more. After her arrival, in July 2002, such cash awards increased, the records obtained by The Times show.
In 2000, officials in the office of the director, Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan, received bonuses totaling $30,000, which included eight premium bonuses of $2,500 or more. The bonuses represented 0.4 percent of all bonuses granted within the centers that year.
In 2005, the records show that officials in Dr. Gerberding's office received 60 premium bonuses totaling $515,075, or about 4 percent of all bonuses granted within the centers.
Because bonus money is limited -- about 1.5 percent of the total personnel budget, Mr. Skinner said -- the growing share of premium bonuses for Dr. Gerberding's closest advisers has meant less money is available for some scientists and other workers.
My CDC colleagues have been telling me since Gerberding came on that science was taking a back seat to management and business. The difficulty, in some cases the inability, to get on with the science is one of the chief reasons for the catastrophic exodus of senior CDC scientists in the last two years. These hard dollar data are just a reflection of that distorted emphasis.
It's the right thing to do, though, at least if you listen to Gerberding's deputy Gimson, who has received almost $150K:
A handful of these CDC senior executives have qualified, based on their performance evaluation and nomination by committees at the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for prestigious Presidential Rank Awards. Just 1 percent of all federal senior executives each year are eligible to receive one of these awards for "distinguished" service --- a prize check that is written for 35 percent of their salary. Five percent of all federal senior executives each year can receive one of these awards for "meritorious" service, and it comes with a check for 20 percent of the individual's salary.
An employee can receive each of these awards only once, and Gimson, has done that --- helping make him one of the agency's most frequent and highest recipients of various cash awards.
Since July 2002, he has received seven awards over $2,500 of various types totaling $147,863.
Gimson received a Presidential Rank Award for meritorious service in 2002 for $24,740 and one for distinguished service last fall for $55,368. The first award recognized his work in the CDC's financial management office, the second his leadership at Chief Operating Officer in helping the CDC to achieve top ratings on aspects of the President's Management Agenda.
"I really feel that it's extremely important to recognize all of our top performing employees," Gimson said. (AJC article)
I bet he thinks it's extremely important.
Scientists work for CDC (or did, anyway) because they love being where the action is in their field and because they believe in the mission of public health. Most could do much better elsewhere, even in academia (which is still a haven for people who love what they are doing and are willing to get paid less for that valuable privilege). there are still plenty of those folks in CDC but they are no longer happy in their jobs and are leaving in droves. The idea CDC can only compete with the private sector with money is symptomatic of this administration and this CDC management team. They don't believe the science or the mission is sufficient motivator. It apparently isn't for them and they are taking it away for the rest by making it difficult to do their jobs.
Everyone now has to work for CDC, Inc., the Wal-Mart of the public health world.
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My daughter, a bright and scientific minded young lady, WAS interested in entering government service via the CDC until she started to read that her heroes were leaving enmass from that very organization. That agency has lost a gifted and talented person, one who could have made a very important contribution to the health field.
I am sorry to say her interest has shifted to something a lot more lucrative... criminal justice with a biology minor. Now granted, she is only a high school senior, but if she can see the handwriting on the wall I know others who are farther along in the educational pipeline can too. I foresee serious losses in qualified scientists and research assistants continuing until this cash mongering Gerberding is put out to pasture.
Obviously, Reveres, you're looking at this problem using the wrong frame. You're assuming that undeserving, non-core function employees of the CDC are receiving bonuses. However, when the core function of the CDC is management techniques and office shifting seminars, these are exactly the people that should be rewarded. Now, if the CDC's core function was public health, one could imagine that scientists would be much more likely to receive awards.
CDC going the way of Ford and GM....
Just another example of the present confusion over management and leadership. Management works best for businesses required to 'make money,' or turn out some other tangible product that can be measured and metricked, and workers can be 'motivated' to work to plan.
Leadership works best for military goals and intellectual endeavors, where the human spirit and soul are involved and at risk, where the process, goals and results are too great and multidimensional to measure materially.
We are turning out so many MBA's intent on managing, when all of our manageable businesses are being handed off to the skilled in other countries.
We truly need many more academic, military, artistic, and governmental leaders to inspire, lead, and help us step off to new worlds. Less training in metrics, more psychology, philosophy, ethics, values, the intangibles of risk and reward. More leadership to access the best parts of human nature. Where are our Philosopher Kings when we need them?
Apparently MBA stands for Mediocre But Avaricious.
I understand that CDC is a QANGO (quasi autonomous non government organization) so it gets it's funds from, & it's managers are chosen by, politicians.
Microsoft, Google, Ford, Bell (originally) grew and prospered under the hand of innovator-scientist-technologists. Apple did not prosper when Jobs left, but resumed it's prosperous course when he returned. All of that might be anecdotal, but it sure sounds persuasive.
Of course politicians know that the most important people on the planet are the leaders. They are the people with political savvy who raise the money that gets things done.
Aren't they?
bar: I dunno. Are they?
CDC is not a QANGO. It is part of the Department of Health & HUman Services. It's location in Atlanta is a mix of political influence and historical accident. The Agency Director is appointed by the President. The Director appoints persons in the next rung of leadership (Coordinating Centers and Centers--on paper, they are the same layer, but functionally are two layers). At least in this administration, people from DHHS HQ have weighed in on decisions at the Center/Coordinating Center level and even at the Division level (the next rung down). Congress and DHHS HQ historically have had influence over the direction of Centers and usually meddled at that level, through appropriations (Congress) and usually dull-witted discretionary projects (DHHS). In this administration, the meddling has gone further into the organization and some Division-like units such as the Global AIDS Program have effectively been coopted by other agencies like State.