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Washington—There are no secrets to attracting, developing and retaining key employees in public service, the head of the nation’s largest independent union of federal employees has told the independent Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Oversight Board.

In testimony submitted to a meeting of the nine-member board today, President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said what is required is for the IRS to move away from practices that tell employees their efforts are not valued and to embrace practices that carry the message that their commitment to the agency’s mission is recognized and appreciated.

The latter category, she said, includes making sure the IRS is effectively led at every level, that employees have opportunities for meaningful input into decisions that affect them, and that the workforce enjoys a fair compensation system that is credible and transparent and which generates teamwork. That calls for fair and competitive pay.

“These are the thing I believe will have the most impact on the quality of applicants and the motivation, performance, loyalty and success of federal workers,” President Kelley said.

The Oversight Board meeting was focused on how the federal government, and in particular the IRS, can best attract, develop and retain qualified employees.

President Kelley warned of the existence of a variety of practices—not only in the IRS but across government—that present “a host of difficult challenges” for agencies, including several that are widespread.

These include efforts to privatize an increasingly large number of government functions; inadequate salaries that lag far behind those in the private sector; and a continued unwillingness of many federal agencies to utilize existing authorities and administrative personnel rules to help retain thousands of dedicated, skilled public servants and their institutional knowledge.

President Kelley emphasized NTEU’s long-standing opposition to the agency’s use of private companies to collect taxes. “This misguided proposal,” she said, “is a waste of taxpayer dollars, invites overly aggressive collection techniques, jeopardizes the financial privacy of American taxpayers and may ultimately serve to undermine efforts to close the tax gap.” The gap between taxes owed and paid currently is put at more than $300 billion, and is growing annually.

Kelley reiterated NTEU’s strong support for S. 335, introduced by Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), which would force the IRS to immediately and permanently suspend its use of private tax collectors and prohibit the use of any IRS funds for that purpose.

The submitted testimony also asked serious questions about the administration drive to establish untested pay-for-performance systems in place of the General Schedule pay system. “There is no hard evidence that these alternative systems work,” President Kelley said. “To the contrary, there is some evidence that they do not work.”

Including at the IRS where a paybanding system is in place for IRS managers. This system is widely disliked by the managers who must work under it and has been criticized by the agency’s inspector general who concluded that the system discourages both managers and non-managers from applying for managerial positions.

And she called on the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to do far more to encourage agencies to use existing flexibilities such as telecommuting; special salary rates; recruitment and retention bonuses; cash and time off awards for notable performance; and student loan repayment programs.

As the largest independent federal union, NTEU represents150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.