Dec 15, 2007

More reasons behind LANS' interest in RIFing, NOW

Supplied by a reader. These do not include, of course, the budget shortfall caused by the $79 million annual award fee, the additional $55 million annual GRT payments to the state, and the $41 million LANS-approved KSL "slush fund" (this year's figure, LANS has not announced what next year's KSL bonus will be).

-Gus

___________________________________________

Managers on the top tier have tripled since LANS came in. On the
second tier there are four times the amount of managers. On page
7 of the Mercer Human Resource Report it states that LANS
Managers earn 130% above the market value than any one else in
the country.

Report:

Mercer Human Resource Report
Date: March 3, 2007
Title: Total Compensation Design and .....
Prepared for LANS

By: Marsh and McLennan Company

LANS Line Management Structure:
Accounting Manager
Assoc Center Dir
Assoc Director
Associate Deputy Dir
Associate Director
Benefit Plans Manager
Budgeting Group Leader
Budgeting Manager
Center Director
Center Leader
Chief Info Officer
Construction Manager
Dep Principal Associate
Dep Program Dir
Dep Project Dir
Deputy Associate Dir
Deputy Center Dir
Deputy Center Leader
Deputy Chief Information Officer
Deputy Director
Deputy Division Ldr
Deputy Group Leader
Deputy Lab Counsel
Deputy Office Dir
Deputy Office Leader
Deputy Oper Manager
Deputy Proj Director
Director
Division Leader
Executive Director
Executive Staff Dir
Facility Ops Manager
Finance/compliance Manager
General Counsel
Group Leader
Group Leader/fac Mgr
Office Director
Office Leader
Operations Manager
Principal Assoc Dir
Principal Dep Associate
Program Director
Program Manager
Project Controls Manager
Project Director
Project Manager
Property Mgmt Manager
Team Leader
Technical Director

LANS is anxious for a RIF because they over employed their own
people that have been displaced from other locations. They're
hiding behind the budget crises because Congress does not realize
the amount of key personnel brought in since last June 2006.

LANS new hires impacted the budget with their salaries,
relocation costs, expedited security clearances, etc.

Re-location Expenses:

Conservative Estimate: Approximately 1,000 Bechtel (BWXT, etc)
employees have come to LANL. $30,000 (Conservative No.) X 1,000
New Employees = $30 Million Dollars

TSM = $300K X1000 = $300 Million Dollars (Fully burden cost)

The current budget can not sustain this level of new hires with
their salaries, relocation costs, security clearances, etc.

They are staying at LANL at a minimum of one year. Several
managers including Doris Heim, Mallory, etc. are leaving in
December.

Expedited Security Clearances:

The expedited security clearances requested by LANL for incoming
LANS (Bechtel, BWXT, etc) personnel has risen. The price for
these types of clearances is approximately $25K - $35K.

Qualifications are questionable:

They're bumping existing employees for these management jobs,
paying travel expenses, being paid above market and don’t have
the educational background.

Benefits:

Brett Knapp, Principal Associate Director double insurance

How many key personnel managers are getting double insurance
coverage? Which means paying for their family out of state and
for the manager in state?

It's not the drug use question that was bothering people so much
as it was that they were also subject to questions about their
sex life, finances, and politics. I believe that religion was
left out, though not many people have anything to hide in that dept.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

all the morons in Washington have to do is look at the numbers of Bechtel and Pantex managers who have arrived in Los Alamos since June 2006. It's so blatant it isn't funny...

Anonymous said...

" Mercer Human Resource Report
Date: March 3, 2007
Title: Total Compensation Design "

Someone needs to post this Mercer report as a PDF on the web so we can read it and verify the claims.

Anonymous said...

Most of these positions predate LANS.

Anonymous said...

" Conservative Estimate: Approximately 1,000 Bechtel (BWXT, etc) employees have come to LANL."

I've seen this stated several times now on this blog. Where is the data to verify this number? I find it very hard to believe. If 1000 new Bechtel employees came into LANL after June 1 '06, the housing market here in Los Alamos would have skyrocketed upwards like that of SoCal during the housing boom. It did not.

Anonymous said...

Wow, it must be good to be King/Queen, eh Terry? Mikex2? Sue? Mary? Scott? Jan? et al? RIF the work force so you that you all can live like royalty. Congress and DOE and NNSA can shove it up their rears the next time they question the workforce.

Anonymous said...

"...the housing market here in Los Alamos would have skyrocketed upwards like that of SoCal during the housing boom. It did not."

I would be very surprised to find that 1,000 Bechtel/BWXT et al people have taken jobs at LANL. Several dozen, yes. A thousand? No.

Also, I wouldn't expect any one of them that might have any inkling of the future of LANL with a reduced workforce would've bought homes in Los Alamos. More likely than not, they would've bought or rented homes in Santa Fe.

Anonymous said...

I believe that the correct number of new Bechtel is about 30. BUT! pre-LANS we had the ADs, now we have 16. The number of division and groups have increased more than two-fold.

Each AD and DD needs a staff of at least one Deputy, an ADMIN, hot and cold running secretaries, a Chief of Staff, a Financial Analyst, etc.

While most of these people came from within the existing staff, they all needed salary increases AND they are ALL on overhead.

Frankly, most of them do little more than attend meetings and exchange Email with each other.
As far as I can tell, none of these new positions have done anything to bring in new funding.

Much of what they do in fact makes more work for the direct-funded personnel. We would be better off if most of these managers and their bloated staff would just stay home. We can direct-deposit their paychecks.

Anonymous said...

If the total number of new hires from LANS parent organizations is less than 175, that's even worse than 1000 new hires. Why? With LANS costing $175M (Fee, GRT, pension contribution) on average, every new LANS manager costs the LANL budget greater than $1M per year - exclusive of salary, however obscene.

New LANS manager salaries aren't counted in the $175M LANS cost penalty.

NONE of these new LANS managers are earning their salaries plus their portion of >$1M in LANS management contract sunk costs by improving LANL efficiency.

Voluntary and involuntary layoffs, Concur system, Oracle, new CYA contracting rules, JB weld, overflowing toilets, convoy training, highly paid staff emptying their own trash, new team leader positions, laptop pool fiasco, and the astronomical growth of upper management; NOTHING LANS has done has improved LANL's efficiency. NOTHING. Period.

Anonymous said...

9:00 am, is it fair to say you're not impressed with LANS?

Anonymous said...

"Much of what they do in fact makes more work for the direct-funded personnel. We would be better off if most of these managers and their bloated staff would just stay home. We can direct-deposit their paychecks." (12/16/07 6:57 AM)

Amen to that, 6:57 AM! Think of the increase in work efficiency that would result. And the morale boost, that would be priceless.

The direct funded staff at LANL need only a DL, a GL, and a couple of good secretaries to help keep the offices running smoothly. It's time to turn the clock back to the old days at LANL when management structure was far more streamlined and efficient.

More management layers and allied support staff is not the answer to problems at LANL. It's the heart of the problem.

Anonymous said...

12/15/07 7:40PM
U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) has a copy of the Mercer Human Resource Report along with the old and new management structure. Do the math and it tells it all!

Anonymous said...

12/16/07 6:57 AM
You continue to be so naive and/or stupid. Just as an example-Security Systems, SAFE-S3. P2S is a sub-contractor to a partner of LANS. Approximately 26 P2S employees are employed. There are many other groups like this.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous at 12/16/07 3:03 PM seems to be talking, but not making a point.

I think that a "group" of only 26 people is by itself evidence that there is too much management overhead at LANL!

And, PS Division is the repository of the chronically unemployable at LANL.

Anonymous said...

12/16/07 3:57 PM

12/16/07 6:57 AM
I believe that the correct number of new Bechtel is about 30.

That's the point!

Anonymous said...

Yes, it is well known throughout LANL that PS Division is one of the worst. They don't contribute anything but they do suck money out of the system and obstruct work.

Anonymous said...

3:57 pm: Who said anything about PS Division? 3:03 was talking about a LANL subcontractor called P2S, working for SAFE Div. Try to keep up.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps one of the reasons behind LANS' interest in RIFing, NOW came to them on Dec 5th:

http://www.lanlclassactionsettlement.com/faq.htm

Settlement Update (DECEMBER 13, 2007)

The Court has granted Final Approval of the Settlement and all appeals have been resolved. Pursuant to the terms of the Settlement Agreement, the Claims Administrator prepared a final list of all Claiming Settlement Class members, and provided that list to the Laboratory on December 5, 2007. The Laboratory has ten days to provide certain data regarding the salary history of the Claiming Settlement Class members to the Claims Administrator, who will then transmit those data to Dr. Janice Madden. The Claims Administrator and Dr. Madden will then calculate the amounts due to each Claiming Settlement Class member in accordance with the Plan of Allocation.

Makes one wonder if this list will constitute the first pass of the follow-on phase(s) of the RIF.