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Washington, D.C.— The prospective loss of nearly 2,000 scientific and technical employees of the Department of Energy (DOE) over the next five years “should serve as yet another wake-up call” to the need for improved federal pay and adequate agency funding, the head of the union representing DOE employees said today.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) cited media reports of an analysis by the DOE Office of Inspector General as “underscoring the increasing importance among all federal agencies” of the need for comprehensive plans to address personnel needs in coming years.

In the case of DOE, the inspector general’s report is quoted as saying that over the past six years, the agency has lost an average of 320 specialized employees per year, while hiring an annual average of only 97 specialized employees during the same period. Of DOE’s 9,900 permanent employees, its inspector general said, about 4,600 have scientific and technical backgrounds.

Kelley, who is a member of the Federal Salary Council and a leading advocate of higher pay as the key to making federal service more competitive with private sector employers, emphasized the report’s contention that DOE has failed to develop and use not only a comprehensive workforce plan, but existing human resource flexibilities, including recruitment and retention bonuses and similar measures, as well.

“Without a more comprehensive and proactive approach to human capital issues,” the DOE OIG report said, “the department cannot ensure that the scientific and technical resources needed will be available to meet its mission requirements.”

While agencies may be interested in using available recruitment and retention programs, they often are precluded from doing so because of limited funding, Kelley said. The NTEU president made that point in recent congressional testimony, noting that “it makes no sense” to have recruitment and retention programs in place, then make them all but unusable because there is no money to fund them.

Still, Kelley said, the linchpin to making federal employment more competitive and attractive is higher pay. She urged again full implementation of the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act (FEPCA), a law calling for the closing, in stages over 10 years, of the continuing gap between public and private sector pay.

NTEU is the nation’s largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments, including some 2,100 in DOE.