Published by the National Treasury Employees Union, Chapter 46    Serving IRS Employees of North Texas                         November/December 2008
   
     
    Bargaining to begin on the IRS's proposal to change the Case Assignment Grading System for Revenue Officers.

NTEU is preparing for bargaining on the IRS's proposal to change the Revenue Officer (RO) Case Assignment Grading (CAG) system and the establishment of standardized post-assignment grading for Grades 9, 11, 12, and 13 RO case work.  NTEU has tentatively scheduled bargaining on this initiative for October 2008.

According to the IRS, this initiative was created after IRS analysis of the components currently used to assign case grades for ROs.  The multiple systems currently utilized for case grading and assignment (RWMS, IDS, IDRS, Entity, ICS, etc.) were developed independently and at different times and as a result are neither standardized nor do they interact effectively.  In addition, the IRS indicated a need to include the RO Grade 13 case work in case assignment grading.

The justification provided by the IRS is that the scope of the initiative is limited to improving the accuracy of assigning correctly graded work to appropriately graded and skilled staff.  The objectives of initiative are improving case grading accuracy, systemic grading of all cases, standardized post-assignment grading, and reduction or elimination of systemic grade increases once a case has been assigned to the field.

The IRS anticipates that realigning the CAG under this initiative will provide benefits such as avoiding redundant programming efforts and costs, improving the consistency of manual application of the CAG, reducing the number of cases requiring manual grading, improving the accuracy of systemic grading, and reducing the number of cases graded inaccurately both pre- and post-assignment.


    
     
     

Labor Recognition  Event held at 1100 Commerce.  See page 5 for more pictures.
 
      This IRS initiative sounds well and good on the surface.  However, after you get past the first read of this proposal, it is just compounding the problems of our ROs.  In addition to having unrealistic performance expectations concerning the amount of "proper" work inventory and timely actions required to be performed on these cases, this initiative looks like a perfect way to systematically lower the grade of cases being worked by the ROs.  This is just another in a long line of check list procedures that do not allow for any judgment in making the case grading determination.  It seems that the IRS is determined to make that square peg fit into a round hole.  The only benefit from this initiative is making the manager's job easier at the detriment of the ROs.  Hidden within the  
     
     

See CAG on Page 5
 
     

In This Issue:

  • John's Column -- Page 2
  • Legislative -- Page 3
  • Assistant Chief's Word -- Page 3
  • Chapter 46 Open House -- Page 6
  • Thumbs Up/Down -- Page 6
 
     
 
   
   

NTEU Mission:  To Organize Federal Employees To Work Together To Ensure That Every Federal Employee Is Treated With Dignity And Respect.

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