From our Comment of the Week, Monday Edition post, we have a new perspective on WFO at LANL:
POGO - Nov 09, 2009:
"Lifestyles of the Rich and Nuclear"
...Last week, John Fleck reported in the Albuquerque Journal that Sandia National Laboratories Director Tom Hunter makes a whopping $1.7 million per year, and that Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Director Michael Anastasio makes $800,348 per year. As Dan Hancock of the Southwest Research and Information Center pointed out, this means that Hunter makes four times as much as the President of the United States, and that Anastasio makes twice as much.
...UPDATE: NNSA contacted POGO to say that it reimbursed the lab directors at far less than the $684,181 cap, and provided these figures for the amounts that the Department of Energy contributes to certain lab directors salaries (with the rest coming from the private companies that share in the management of the labs): LANL's Michael Anastasio, $397,341; Lawrence Livermore National Lab's George Miller, $348,400; and Sandia's Tom Hunter, $366,119.
pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2009/11/lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-nuclear.html
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The LANS partners takes around a 2.5% cut of all outside WFO funding that comes into the lab. Since: (a) this is part of the "profit-fee" of the LLC, and (b) this "profit-fee" helps pay for Mike's salary (see "UPDATE" above), then...
...if you work at bringing in WFO funding to LANL, you are putting money directly into Mike's wallet!
Amazing, no? It would seem that this mixing of cash from WFOs over to the LLC "for-profit" pot and then directly into Mike's private bank account would generate lots of serious legal concerns about LANL's GOCO advantage when going after work from outside agencies.
Have any government lawyers looked closely into this matter? Do the outside government agencies fully realize that a small portion of their funds are being, in some manner, distributed directly to executives in the NNSA labs for their own private gain?
94 comments:
All program dollars generate overhead, which helps pay for general maintenance, infrastructure and other overhead costs. Those costs tend to be constant, so as program dollars decrease, the maintenance costs and other overhead costs tend to consume a larger % of the budget. If you can increase program dollars, then you have a much bigger base to work from, and the % for overhead goes down. The weapons program budget is declining, so it is in the interest of NNSA to have the weapons lab diversify their portfolio and bring in more, much more funding from non-DOE sources. A prime successful examples of this would be Sandia. NNSA decided to "incentivize" this diversification by paying the contractor fee for increasing the work-for-others program. There are certainly no legal issues with this premise, and it creates a win-win for NNSA and the contractor.
For the individual researcher, at most labs it is not only in their interest to be fully funded, but the continuation of their employment depends upon it. With declining weapons budgets, WFO is frequently the best option at LANL. The additional fee on WFO drives up the cost a little, but no DOE lab can compete on a cost basis anyway except with other DOE labs.
The fee for incremental increases in the WFO funding was discussed during both the LANL and LLNL re-bids, so this isn't new news.
That fact that a percentage of WFO dollars go directly into Anastasio's nasty little pocket to help keep his salary boosted up to that nice, fat $800,348 mark is new, 1:34.
If LANS had agreed to pay Anastasio "only" $397,341, which is the level that NNSA says they authorized, his salary would be paid out of NNSA overhead. The "new news" is that the greedy bastards at LANS decided siphon the WFO tax so that they could double Anastasio's salary.
I'm not sure that NNSA can tell their pet LLCs how much to pay their top execs. I believe LANS can pay Mikey and his buddies as much as they want to, and NNSA can't do a thing about it, not that D'Ag seems to care much. After all, he's got his captive Plutonium Plant and he's got a Bechtel Golden Parachute waiting for him.
Science and productivity (btw: how do you measure productivity when no work actually ever gets done, anyhow?) haven't mattered at LANL since 2004. Early 2004. Who cares if the LANS top executives are skimming WFO to pad their paychecks?
I accept the part where WFO is taxed to cover its share of the obscene LANL overhead. But, there is no reason why LANS and its partners should be able to add a 2.5% tax to WFO. LANS does nothing for WFO other than discourage it.
Doesn't anyone here understand how business works? Of course LANS and Anastasio, etc. get a cut of WFO -- it's part of why ULM puts in the effort to get the base contract. You can argue about the size, but you can't reasonably expect it to be zero. Sure you're not just jealous 'cause you don't get a cut too?
GOOD question, 6:22.
Let me think about it for just a minute. Ummm...
No.
Where did all the pro-LANS Rah-Rah posters go?
Or should I ask, "Where did the pro-LANS Rah-Rah poster go?"
That hit and run posting style is so transparent.
The entire premise of the argument POGO is making is stupid. They make more than Obama? Guess what, many do. Like the CEO of MacDonalds. That is how free enterprise works. Obama is not the CEO of the United States. Get a clue.
Where did all the pro-LANS Rah-Rah posters go?
Or should I ask, "Where did the pro-LANS Rah-Rah poster go?"
That hit and run posting style is so transparent.
11/10/09 6:59 PM
Their two-day limited liability contract with LANS expired. No money, no posters.
7:11,
Ah.
The Republican speaks.
All is clear now. Thanks for sharing that little nugget of wisdom with us.
"Their two-day limited liability contract with LANS expired. No money, no posters."
Do you think they fooled anyone?
7:26,
Ah.
The idiot speaks.
Thanks for highlighting the obvious.
I am not a Republican. Sorry to upset your narrow minded perceptions of the world. Everyone does not always fit into your nice, tidy, and foolish little labels.
" Of course LANS and Anastasio, etc. get a cut of WFO"
Why "of course"? For the NNSA dollars, they are actually expected to "earn" the fee award. Why is the WFO a freebie? Especially considering ULM does diddly over squat to bring the WFO money into the Lab. You really want to incentivize diversification? How about sending the 2.5% to the pockets of the people who do all the legwork to get the dollars into the Lab.
7:52,
Textbook example of protesting too much -- you are singularly unconvincing. Good luck with that.
7:11 PM - as long as the CEO is not funded by tax-money, I don't care. But if this CEO diverts money from a grant by NIH or DARPA just to fatten his paycheck without explicitly being listed on the budget of said grant, I would call that fraud.
Congratulations, 8:10. Finally, somebody gets it.
Skimming WFO to pay the fat cats is wrong.
Probably legally prosecutable.
Hmmmmm... NNSA pays a contractor to manage the Laboratory. The contractor then takes some portion of the fee provided to manage the Laboratory to compensate the Laboratory Director (among others). With the understanding that the fee comes from taxpayer dollars, why does it matter how the LLC decides to apportion its fee--even if that portion allotted to the Director's salary seems unwarranted? If we want to talk about misappropriation of taxpayer $$, let's start discussing the bail-out of financial institutions and automobile manufacturers.
--->donning Nomex suit in anticipation of responses.
"Do the outside government agencies fully realize that a small portion of their funds are being, in some manner, distributed directly to executives in the NNSA labs for their own private gain?" (COW Post)
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LANS would give a defense along the lines of the "color" of the money. That is, the 2.5% tax dollars on WFO funds that get thrown directly into the LANS "profit pot" never goes into Mike's bank account. Those WFO LLC dollars are reserved to the side and other dollars from the "profit pot" are used to pay for Mike's extra salary.
Of course, that argument relies on an accounting trick (sort of like running a double set of accounting books), but it would probably be sufficient to keep any government auditors at bay.
Still, it's clear that Mike's extra salary above the NNSA limits has to come from somewhere and the fact that the WFO projects are hit with a special 2.5% tax reserved for the LLC partners indicates a connection to the money trail. LANS couldn't pay Mike's extra salary out of the LLC "profit pot" if they didn't have a nice, fat "profit pot" to hit-up for the cash.
The real irony here revolves around the question of why Mike, rather than staff, get the extra dollars above the NNSA limits. It seems that TSMs who work hard to bring in outside funding should be the ones rewarded with a "cut of the deal". Instead, LANS takes a "private" piece of the action right off the top as soon as the money hits the lab for the LLC partners "profit pot" and then takes another, even greater, piece that is used to pay for bloated management through the extremely high lab overhead rates.
"The contractor then takes some portion of the fee provided to manage the Laboratory to compensate the Laboratory Director (among others). "
Fine as long as it is from the "FEE". They can spend the FEE how they see fit.
"But on top of that they take more
Skimming WFO to pay the fat cats is wrong."
Now that is fishy.
Thanks to me, the stockpile is safe and sound. Oh, and now that the word is out about my meager salary, it looks like LANS should double my salary to keep up with the Jones' at Sandia.
-MIKEY
"why does it matter how the LLC decides to apportion its fee--even if that portion allotted to the Director's salary seems unwarranted?"
Because this is the "Why I Hate LANS" blog :)
Well I am tired of being taxed to fund others. I am taxed for LDRD! I am taxed at a higher rate to pay for infrastructure versus the weapons programs! I am taxed to pay for New Mexico Gross Receipts Tax, even though my programs are exempt to the tax! And soon we will be taxed with increases in G&A to pay for pension shortfalls. It is really disturbing that for each dollar ($1.00) spent to perform real and meaningful technical work that it costs almost three dollars ($2.78 to be exact). So in the grand scheme of things, 2.5% is a bargin...except that it is probably over 3% when it gets hit with gross receipts tax and G&A.
The trouble is, no one in the NNSA seems to recognize the massive wasteful costs (as in waste, fraud, and abuse) that LANS brings to LANL and the destruction LANS is wreaking.
No one in DOE either.
And no one in Congress.
Either a) they're ignorant, b) they simply don't care, c) they're all idiots, or d) they're on the take too.
Maybe it's time for a Lincoln-law lawsuit against LANS?
LANL's costs are far above a competitive market rate.
We don't get much WFO work here.
This is not a surprise. Until LANL gets its costs down, it is cheaper for WFO folks to hire LANL staff rather than pay them to work at LANL.
Fixed costs at LANL are irrelevant to WFO funders.
6:06 AM - This issue is not about lab taxes nor is it about lab management fees. Universities also tax WFOs for fringe benefits (although the tax rate is much lower). This issue is about transferring funds from a third party, the WFO granting agency, dedicated to fund a specific project, to an outside organization or person (LANS, LLC and the president, resp.).
But maybe you would agree that I divert some funds from my new NIH project to pay some contractors for building a swimming pool or to invest in stocks - NOT!
NNSA approves Mike's salary as a LANL employee. They have no say over Mike's second salary as the CEO of LANS LLC. It appears that Mike's base salary includes the $400K that NNSA knows about, plus the $800K disclosed by LANS LLC for stimulus funding.
Does $1.2M really bother me in the scheme of things for corporate America? Maybe not. What bothers me is that corporate America is the new benchmark. Guys like Hecker and Browne may have had their faults, but they took the Director job out of a fundamental commitment to serving their country. It's hard to know what Mikey stands for.
A part of WFO has always been "skimmed" to pay fee at all DOE labs, because fee is a component of G&A and WFO sponsors are certainly charged G&A. They are also charged an extra 3% mandated by DOE at all Labs (with some exemptions), and now, at LANL and LLNS, they also pay an additional 2.5% that is additional fee for the contractor. The fee generated by WFO is a very small % of the total LANS fee. Sorry to disappoint many of you, but there is nothing illegal with this arrangement, and certainly no fraud.
The $800K per year is inclusive of all salary, bonus, and perks, regardless of whether reimbursed by NNSA or not. It is pretty high by DOE Lab Director standards, but obviously not nearly as high as Sandia. The Office of Science labs earn much less fee, and the Director's earn less, but they still do okay.
NNSA had no choice but to compete the LANL and LLNL contracts due to (a) poor performance by UC and (b) a mandate from Congress. In order to generate more than one bid, NNSA had to keep upping the fee. Lockheed Martin was finally drawn into the competition. If LM had won, you would still have all of that extra fee and New Mexico GR taxes added into the overhead costs at LANL, and, as demonstrated by the Sandia salaries, much of that fee would have been paid to Paul Robinson.
Would a Robinson led team do better at LANL, maybe. But they would have inherited the same NNSA structure, same huge overhead cost structure, and the same 10,000 employees that LANS inherited. No silver bullets here.
Would a Robinson led team have fought to keep and strengthen science at LANL or would it have let science evaporate and blow away in the wind along with the future of the community?
"It's hard to know what Mikey stands for." - 8:20 AM
Honestly, do you even need to go there, 8:20? It's pretty obvious what drives Mikey. Just look out in the LANL parking lot. He loves the luxury trinkets of life. He also likes having "yes-men" around him who will tell him exactly what he wants to hear.
After Pete Nanos, Mike is the worse Director in the last 60 years at the lab. LANL seems to be on a trend here with lousy Directors. It makes you wonder what our next Director will be like (shudder!!!).
A Robinson team told NNSA during the RFP lab competition that shutting down LANL for over 4 months was a big, costly mistake. Robinson has integrity. Mike & Company have absolutely none.
I would have been happy to see Paul Robinson as LANL's Director being paid over $3 million per year. At least Robinson would have been worth the money.
Mike's not worth even 2 cents. It's not about the big executive lab salaries... it's about what these people do to earn what they are paid.
1:41 Amen.
In real private industry (as contrasted with the phony LANS,LLC scam) it is customary to reward those who bring in a contract with a bonus, usually a percentage of the value of the contract. How many of you jokers landing WFO contracts are getting a bonus for your efforts? Or, are you just indentured serfs to the nobility?
"The $800K per year is inclusive of all salary, bonus, and perks, regardless of whether reimbursed by NNSA or not."
Bullshit. The AD's are making around $1.2M after bonuses are figured in. Do you really expect us to believe that Mikey's paid less than that?
NNSA had no choice but to compete the LANL and LLNL contracts due to (a) poor performance by UC and (b) a mandate from Congress.
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I am not sure what you are calling "poor performance by UC". Yes, what UC did at LANL was very limited and they could have been doing a better job. However, compared to what we have now, the twenty years I spent under UC (excluding Nanos) were scientific paradise compared to what we have now.
The "poor perfomance by UC" story was manufactured, so they could privatize the contract. It was based on the missing zip disks that never existed and the Ford mustang that was ever actually ordered.
Hecker and Browne, with all their shortcomings, were infinitely better directors than Anastasio. They were in a different league altogether, on the logarithmic scale. And, they were paid much, much less for their superior performance.
At the time when the US is nationalizing healthcare, banks, and auto companies, why should nuclear weapons be privatized? This privatization increased costs from $8M/year to $200M/year and made the work environment at LANL unbearable, while making security look very good, but only on paper. And, as we are finding out, it created a cover for the crooks with connections to triple their salaries at the expense of the US taxpayer.
"Does $1.2M really bother me in the scheme of things for corporate America? Maybe not. What bothers me is that corporate America is the new benchmark. Guys like Hecker and Browne may have had their faults, but they took the Director job out of a fundamental commitment to serving their country. It's hard to know what Mikey stands for."
11/11/09 8:20 AM
Think you hit the proverbial nail on the head, 8:20. One of the more convincing arguments for maintaining management of the Laboratory under UC (a non-profit entity) was in their doing so as a service to the country, not for profit. Safety and security issues (perceived and/or real) aside, I felt as if I was part of a more noble effort (with recognition I was earning a pretty good salary at the same time). The public service part of my job is significantly more difficult to embrace as an employee of a for-profit company. My primary focus these days is reducing the cost of doing business and earning fee.
11/11/09 5:24 PM wrote ... "My primary focus these days is reducing the cost of doing business and earning fee."
Not mine. I look for ways to make things cost more and for Mary Neu to lose her fee. She is an awful AD and is the Pete Nanos equivalent to chem-bio-ees at LANL.
Bullshit. The AD's are making around $1.2M after bonuses are figured in. Do you really expect us to believe that Mikey's paid less than that?
11/11/09 4:50 PM
Do you have any evidence to back up this ridiculous claim??
How the heck can you get away with a fee of only a 2.5% fee on WFO? At LLNL the fee on WFO is over 5%. In technical industries it tops 8%.
Also, most large technical industries charge more than 3x on direct costs such as wages/benefits. (I have seen 2.5 - 3.5 on 5-10 large contracts over the past 20 years.)
LANL is kind of remarkable at only 2.75. Given the almost unmatchable combination of technical, security and special materials; along with a uniquely educated and experienced staff and a $1 Trillion dollar investment in data, it seems like kind of a bargain. Like a University.
It was a better bargain under UC, when the labs actually functioned well, but it still seems to be a remarkable bargain.
For WFO customers that need this specific capability or one of its offshoots, it really does appear to be the bargain of the century to rapidly access a senior scientist with clearances, physical security, experience, materials, equipment, infrastructure, and support for only 2.75 the wage base. Remarkably cheap.
In the best cases, you get the data you need, and the scientific knowhow to interpret it for the price of a downtown ambulance chaser.
I noticed that LANS has moved the Sen. Udall town hall for tomorrow (Thur) from the big auditorium to the much smaller Jemez House setting.
This should make it much easier for LANS upper management to keep a close eye on all the questioners at this meeting. It will also allow them to limit the crowd to a much smaller size due to fire code restrictions. And, of course, it has been announced that this meeting with Sen. Udall will not be broadcast on Labnet or recorded, so very few people will get to directly hear what was said. How convenient for LANS.
Compare all this to to old days when St. Pete came to visit and the big auditorium in the Admin Building was pack with people and the Q&A sessions were always broadcast, recorded and replayed for staff.
My, have the times have changed at LANL!
LANS deserves an award. Rah-Rah LANS.
Bullshit. The AD's are making around $1.2M after bonuses are figured in. Do you really expect us to believe that Mikey's paid less than that?
11/11/09 4:50 PM
Yes -
Nobody who matters gives a damn about the high cost of doing business at LANL. WFO work, for them, is a pain in the ass because with WFO you get customers who actually care about cost and productivity. AND, those
customers frequently have a choice.
"I noticed that LANS has moved the Sen. Udall town hall for tomorrow (Thur) from the big auditorium to the much smaller Jemez House setting." (11:59 PM)
I have little doubt that Sen. Udall will be treated to a grand Potemkin village of happy, smiling workers engineered by capable LANS handlers for today's short visit.
As many posters have noted, the NNSA has no say in how LANS spends the fee. If they want to spend it on bonuses or salaries, they are free to do so. But how they spend that money speaks volumes about LANS. They could take that money and plow it back into the lab (most small businesses spend their fees this way). They could use it to support research that would generate IP that could in turn generate cash flow and new programs for both LANS and LANL. They could use it to give bonuses to people who bring new funding into the lab or who help the lab meet the metrics which generate the fee. The fee is really a marvelous tool that could be used to do things at LANL that need to be done (be it basic research, etc.) that the NNSA isn't interested in supporting. Any of these things could greatly boost morale and convince the staff that they and the management are on the same team.
However, LANS has apparently chosen to use the fee to line their own pockets and those of their parent companies. Consequently, they are viewed (and correctly so) as predatory management. Frankly, most of these big companies behave that way. Lockheed-Martin is just as bad (and in some ways worse) as the rest of them. The $1.75 million salary they pay the Sandia director is even more egregious than Anastasio's salary.
There is at least one way to get around this problem. What I would suggest is that laboratorry employees form a new corporation somewhat along the lines of the old SAIC where the company is owned by the employees. The next step would be to put political pressure (through the NM delegation) to rebid the contract. If the employee-owned company were to win the rebid, then they would have a chance to pass on the director's performance at the annual stockholder's meeting. In other words, the management would work for the employees rather than the other way around.
Granted, this would not be an easy thing to do. Preparing a bid for a contract the size of the one at LANL is a huge undertaking. Personally, I think it's worth a shot.
"LANL is kind of remarkable at only 2.75. Given the almost unmatchable combination of technical, security and special materials" (9:33 PM)
Yes, indeed, LANL is remarkably cheap. In fact, it is sooo cheap, we can afford to consider adding in a lot more management overhead and support costs and upping the burden rates even higher. Right?
And don't forget about adding in some more Work Free Safety Zone (WFSZ) policies to make it an even sweeter deal! They'll soon be busting down our doors to bring in the outside work.
Was that incredible 9:33 pm post written by Terry or Mikey? Hard to say, but it gives you a pretty good idea of just how out-of-touch LANS upper management is when it comes to WFOs.
When all the hidden charges are accounted for with WFOs, a factor of X 3.25 of TSM salary would be a far more accurate picture for the sponsor's total cost. However, given LANS management, I'm sure they'll soon find a way to jack up that figure even higher.
That 9:33 pm post makes me think that Bechtel must be itching to get a bigger "profit cut" off the incoming WFO projects. Watch your pockets carefully!
In all the discussion I don't understand what the fees have to do with lab taxes? The fees are "earned" by the lab-operating entity (LANS), the taxes are used by the institution (LANL) to "cover" expenses. I don't think it is permissive by LANL or LANS to mix these two sources. Or am I mistaken? If not, using taxes (e.g. from WFO projects) to boost LANS income is not really kosher.
1:07,
LANS' use of WFO taxes to pad key manager incomes conveys the clear message: "Fuck you. We're in it for the money."
In today's Udall meeting (that Ewok was too busy to attend) when someone asked Udall if he had information on the potential freeze of LANS pensions or the possibility of a RIF, Ikey "Bechtel" Richardson said "yeah we're studying it, yeah we're studying it, yeah we're studying it, yeah pensions would be $1B in the future, yeah we're studying it". Ikey couldn't even speak English in his feeble attempt to introduce Udall. Pitiful, absolutely, pitiful!!
"As many posters have noted, the NNSA has no say in how LANS spends the fee. If they want to spend it on bonuses or salaries, they are free to do so. But how they spend that money speaks volumes about LANS. They could take that money and plow it back into the lab (most small businesses spend their fees this way)."
11:15 a.m.
Some years ago, I had the opportunity to hear former Deputy Director John Mitchell respond to a question along these lines. His response, from the not-unexpected-context of a context of a for-profit entity, is understandable: "Why should we?" He went on to explain that LANS bid on the contract to earn a profit and there were no provisions in the RFP to reinvest. Hard to argue John's perspective from a capitalistic, for-profit perspective. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending LANS. But the RFP never said anything about service to the country. And, as demonstrated by our financial institutions, it is "all about me," even if the empire is fall down around my feet.
The Director did not show up for a meeting with a United States Senator??? Is that right???
9:33 PM is correct in that the multiplier in private industry is typically 2.75 to 3.25. However, what 9:33 is missing is:
a) Private industry has to pay for the land and buildings they use - LANS didn't buy the land and doesn't rent (most) of its buildings. That's a huge cost. For the most part, LANS only has to provide maintenance on the buildings, and they're doing a piss-poor job of that.
b) Private industry (typically) doesn't force administrative functions onto its highly-paid staff, things like making travel arrangements and doing secretarial work are (at least partially) supported by this overhead multiplier. LANS managers really should go to jail over all the overhead functions they've illegally forced the staff to charge direct.
c) Private industry typically supports some training functions on overhead - overhead funding for training is pretty hard to come by after LANS took over. LANS instructs the staff to charge their "regular" cost code. LANS managers really should go to jail over this.
d) Private industry provides bid and proposal funding out of this pot - LANS expects the staff to steal from other projects to pay for proposal writing costs (the LANS management really should go to jail over this).
While the multipliers are similar, what the average private industry staff member gets for this multiplier is far, far more than with LANS, including the ability to charge legally and ethically.
9:33, care to comment?
Many of the posters here have it about right. The attitude of LANS executives appears to be along the lines of:
"Fuck you... now go out and earn me some more money!".
LANL keeps hitting new lows in staff morale with each passing year of the LANS partners "for profit" management. Fortunately, the downfall is being carefully documented here on this blog so that, hopefully, it won't ever be repeated at other national labs.
Other than Bechtel's Mister "Ickey" responses about studying future layoffs and the rapid deteriorating state of the LANS TCP pension... was anything else discussed during the Udall visit? How large was the audience over at the Study Center?
Fuzzy Ewok makes over a million dollars per year as lab Director and yet he can't even make it to a big meeting with our New Mexico Senator when he visits? What a jerk! What was he doing, out shopping for a new luxury sports car?
LANL keeps hitting new lows in staff morale with each passing year of the LANS partners "for profit" management. Fortunately, the downfall is being carefully documented here on this blog so that, hopefully, it won't ever be repeated at other national labs.
11/12/09 9:07 PM
Hehhehheh. Oh please. What "documentation" are you referring to? The endless complainers, or the "I hate LANS" brigade? Each of which I am sure, are considered by the knowledgeable as expert "documenters." Get real. Nobody outside an inbred bunch of jerks on this blog cares a whit about LANS or about the nuclear weapons complex in general. They all would rather it didn't exist, but will settle for it just going away, as in off the public radar. Where it is. Look, face it: you just don't matter to anyone. Get over yourself.
9:19 pm: "Fuzzy Ewok makes over a million dollars per year as lab Director and yet he can't even make it to a big meeting with our New Mexico Senator when he visits?"
Why should he meet with Senator Asshole? Mikey is making four or five times his salary and has nothing to fear from Senator Asshole. If I were Mikey, I'd go home early and open a great bottle of wine on my sunny back deck.
"how they spend that money speaks volumes about LANS."
LANS is on par with the worst of the worst private company management teams. Think GM, Chrysler, AIG, Citigroup... Those people were also looting their companies, writing themselves obscenely huge bonuses while their companies were failing.
Now, NNSA goes on a premise that private enterprise is somehow inherently better. Baloney! If NNSA wants to talk real market economy, in the real world all those companies met their moment of truth, namely, they failed. The management teams were expunged. This is the real mechanism how private entities get to be better after a while: all the crooks manage to bankrupt their companies. Now, what would be such a moment of truth for LANS? How can they fail? And if you don't have a mechanism for them to fail, NNSA, don't talk to me about private contractors, market incentives, and all that other mumbo-jumbo crap.
Word this week is that 2.0% is going to be passed out in rasies this year. All job series; takes effect in January. As usual, 2.5% comes into the lab but the difference is held by the PAD's for promos and other worthy Friends and Family Plan causes.
"Word this week is that 2.0% is going to be passed out in rasies this year. All job series; takes effect in January. As usual, 2.5% comes into the lab but the difference is held by the PAD's for promos and other worthy Friends and Family Plan causes."
11/13/09 2:34 PM
Bet that 2% (just as a lump sum of most Laboratory worker salaries) would look pretty good to those who have lost jobs across the country in the last year. I'm as greedy as the next person and will gladly welcome as much as anyone wants to offer me (no, my name is not Mike A. nor am I one of his minions). But I'm hard-pressed to be whining about a 2% increase given the state of the economy. Of course, then there is the rationale that if we get a larger raise we can invest more in the "services" economy of northern New Mexico. Now there's some economic stimulus!
Considering how close it is to raise time, I'm amazed that the recent rash of apologists for the LANS Kalifornia Krew are posting anonymously.
As usual, 2.5% comes into the lab but the difference is held by the PAD's for promos and other worthy Friends and Family Plan causes.
11/13/09 2:34 PM
I bet if you were a SSM2 (or whatever they now call them) and were promoted to the next level for doing great work, but were told "sorry your promotion doesn't come with a raise - no money" you'd be very happy for that .5% holdback by management.
OK, 2% for the general staff and 20% for me. I like it!
- MIKEY
Enjoy that 2% raise, but stash it away in preparation for next year's layoffs. Remember when NNSA said this last Spring that they wanted to see a 5% attrition rate at the lab? Maybe they knew something we didn't...
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"Obama wants domestic spending cuts in next budget" (AP News, 11-13-09)
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration, mindful of public anxiety over the government's mushrooming debt, is shifting emphasis from big-spending policies to deficit reduction. Domestic agencies have been told to brace for a spending freeze or cuts of up to 5 percent as part of a midterm election-year push to rein in record budget shortfalls.
To give you folks a different perspective, I hired on with the Lab in 1964 as a technician at $2.03 per/hr. After working a full year, they gave me a 10 cent raise and seemed really proud of it. Of course, renting that old trailer in Espanola only cost me $30 month. Could buy Lone Star beer at 90 cents a six pack. Could get a shot of leg in return for a couple of tacos at El Paragua's Taco Stand. Those were the days.
8:15 PM, I'd be even happier if senior management actually bothered to hold a share for my promotion (and we are ALL structured series now, by the way) instead of giving it to their golf buddies.
When they say that the multiplier on salaries is 2.75, they are not telling the whole story. The taxes on workers' salaries really do not cover things that most organizations would put into overhead such as training, department meetings, computers, software, conference attendance, etc. All of that stuff is charged directly to programs at LANL. Remember that we had to charge all of our time for Admiral Butthead's stand-down to our program codes. While the DOE NW managers didn't care, the WFO sponsers were quite upset.
to 11/13/09 9:22 AM
As a "private corporation", LANS doesn't make any physical product, doesn't own any land or buildings, doesn't have to raise capital from private investors, doesn't have to complete in a marketplace with other companies.
The one and only job of LANS is to comply with whatever NNSA demands. If they comply, they get big bonuses. If they don't, they fail. The final product they ship is Compliance. This point has been repeatedly discussed here.
In light of this, it should be clear that if they go back to NNSA and try to explain to them that what NNSA is asking is suboptimal/ineffective/ludicrous, they fail.
If NNSA was to ask for more scientific breakthroughs, for new ideas in modeling nuclear weapons, climate change, spread of diseases, energy infrastructure, etc, I do believe LANS would respond by hiring good people and creating better working conditions for them.
However, NNSA is not asking for any of that. Instead, it seems to me that NNSA is just testing Compliance, by assigning LANS the most absurd tasks: "Can you make all your computers unusable? Can you make all you scientists urinate in a cup on queue? Can you take drinking water from people in the desert? Really, you can?! This is amazing!"
In a way, NNSA reminds me a child who got a new toy car with a remote. "Can it go in reverse? Sideways? Can it get through a paddle of dirt? Cool, my last car couldn't do that!"
So, I believe the real question is this: who's overseeing and grading NNSA? Why have they been allowed to run wild unchecked? This must be the job of Congress, but our elected officials haven't shown any interest/expertise/political will to really understand what NNSA has been doing and to set it straight.
I think, this is the root of the problem.
3:31 Very insightful. I think you nailed it. Scientists don't respond well to rules based upon little of no evidence or rules with no cost-benefit associated with them. To blindly accept shoes that grip and a thousand other silly LANS guidance measures, would be contrary to the scientific method. In short, it would be unethical. Fortunately, LANS has carefully selected a team for which ethics, and in particular a scientific ethic is all but absent. This fact creates a necessary tension between real scientists and NNSA/LANS management. They become, in effect, mutually exclusive. At that point, scientists leave, and LANS complies. The only real, long-term loser is the American taxpayer who is forced to pay for a bunch of drones being managed by political operators while accomplishing next to nothing. I never thought I'd see Los Alamos descend to this level, but I have. It is tragic.
I am not a scientist and I do not pretend to be one but I side with NNSA on every issue. When scientists had say in how the lab was run it got filled with spies, Mustangs got stolen, fires burned down the town, disks got stolen, secrets exchanged for drugs, and people got hurt
with lasers. None of this stuff happened at any other place. Crap like this would not be tolerated in the corps, but at LANL it went on and on. NNSA came to drain the scientific swamp. I do not know how scientists at LANL got this "question everything" attitude but it will not fly anymore. You have a job assigned to you to do you do it! What is so hard to understand about that? After seeing things like LANL, global warming, and evolution it is clear to the American people that scientists are not as smart as they think they are and really need to get over themselves. You are not f-fing paid to bitch, you are not paid to ponder sandbox crap, you are not paid to question rules,
you are not paid to think, you are paid to do a job so do your job. We are sick of this.
8:41 pm: "When scientists had say in how the lab was run it got filled with spies, Mustangs got stolen, fires burned down the town, disks got stolen, secrets exchanged for drugs, and people got hurt with lasers."
Wonderful exposition, asshole. Except that none of that actually happened, well, except for the laser thing. Anyway, you have shown yourself as the know-nothing, LANL-hating, ignorant fool you are. Try getting a life, and try actually living in reality. You might like it.
Doug, 3:31 PM ("LANL's product is now Compliance") is one of the best thought out blog posts I've seen in many months on this blog. He really does nail it. If post 3:31 PM isn't COW material, then I don't know what is.
Conversely, the post that follows at 8:41 PM ("Marine Corp Man") is so poorly thought out and just down right ugly and mean, I think it should be juxtaposed against 3:31 PM as another COW so that we can cleary see "both sides of the argument" dominating LANL at this moment.
How about it?
Ah, now you have it, 8.41 pm. The scientific culture is one of questioning, and of making decisions based on evidence, so that's the type of people LANL has recruited in the past. Now, you seem to want a culture of instant blind obedience- fine, but you've spent the last half century filling the place with people to whom this is anathema. Are you surprised many people object to such a radical shift?
As an interested outsider, it seems to me you need some honesty about the future purpose of LANL-
production, based around compliance
and standard operating procedures; or
innovation and discovery, which has historically been a large part of the mission?
These various activities are not mutually exclusive, but there is always a tension between them.
Finally, I think you are a little black-and-white in your analysis of the historic problems. There are plenty of comparable problems in tightly controlled production facilities, both in the national security and other sectors (Texas City refinery, March 2005 would be an example in the public domain)
Your reference to "the Corps" suggests a service background- does nobody ever get hurt in a training accident? Sadly, laboratory accidents, fires, laser injuries are the equivalent in scientific research. Horrible, and nobody ever sets out to cause one, but they go with the territory.
8:41 Thank you. You have made my point about how scientists and compliance-minded (admittedly) non-scientists are essentially mutually exclusive at LANS. Your lack of ethics and situational knowledge shows too. Most of the incidents you paint Los Alamos scientists with either didn't happen, or didn't happen as you described. Evidence isn't your strong suit. We (scientists) get it. Don't worry, you have a bright career as a LANS manager, NNSA bureaucrat or Pete Nanos. BTW, we agree that we are not, 'paid to bitch'. That is why I write to this blog on my own time. Out of curiosity, 8:41, what exactly do you think we scientists are paid to do at LANL?
8:41
What spies are you talking about, and who was running the lab during the period when these "spies" were hired?
You may wish to seek medical care, care of the psychiatric kind.
The facts described by 8:41 don't matter. Policy makers believe that these events happened, and further they believe that LANL scientists are sandbox oriented, arrogant, and non-responsive. Until these perceptions change, LANL's standing in Washington will not improve.
Whether you like it or not, LANS is the clean-up crew, meant to impose some order.
"...innovation and discovery, which has historically been a large part of the mission?"
A minor quibble, I would say innovation and discovery (aka R&D)have historically been THE mission.
"...LANS is the cleanup crew." If their salaries are any measure, the LANS executives are sure cleaning up.
The entire premise of the argument POGO is making is stupid. They make more than Obama? Guess what, many do. Like the CEO of MacDonalds. That is how free enterprise works.
--11/10/09 7:11 PM
Oh yea...free enterprise. That's the ticket! Everybody gets to become a millionaire and nobody gets the shaft...except of course the 98% that holds 5% of the nation's wealth and gets stuck will 100% of the national debt. Nice concept on paper I suppose, but then there's reality. 7:11PM has been inhaling too many of his own MacFarts.
8:41 pm: "When scientists had say in how the lab was run it got filled with spies, Mustangs got stolen, fires burned down the town, disks got stolen, secrets exchanged for drugs, and people got hurt with lasers."
Wonderful exposition, asshole. Except that none of that actually happened, well, except for the laser thing. --11/14/09 10:39 PM
Plenty happens behind the scenes at the Lab that shouldn't be happening, and we all damn well know it (those of us who have been around this place more than a few months). Just because it get's covered up, watered down, denied and public affaired into a dizzying spin intended to delay and confuse doesn't mean this isn't so. Pure as the driven snow we ain't! Only a Lab manager would think otherwise.
Pure as the driven snow we ain't! Only a Lab manager would think otherwise.
11/15/09 10:13 AM
And it's the lab managers who are covering everything up? I see logic isn't your forte.
"A minor quibble, I would say innovation and discovery (aka R&D)have historically been THE mission."
You would say that, and you did say that, but you would be wrong. Designing and maintaining the stockpile has historically been "THE mission."
"Oh yea...free enterprise. That's the ticket! Everybody gets to become a millionaire and nobody gets the shaft...except of course the 98% that holds 5% of the nation's wealth and gets stuck will 100% of the national debt. Nice concept on paper I suppose, but then there's reality. 7:11PM has been inhaling too many of his own MacFarts."
This is how America works. Not on paper, in practice. No one is preventing you from inventing a product everyone will buy and make lots of money yourself. Don't like it? Feel free to move to another country with a more appropriate social order. We won't miss you.
Stockpile work may have been "THE Mission" at one time, but is is now a quickly fading mission.
If LANS remains dedicated to pushing it as "THE Mission", then you had better plan on seeing the size of the LANL workforce shrink by another 40% or more over the next few years.
It sounds like even some of the town councilors are starting to have second thoughts about LANL's future. Also, note the pointed comment made by Sharon Stover near the end of this recent Monitor article:
"The Quest for Economic Vitality" - LA Monitor, Nov 9th
County councilors had widely differing perspectives Tuesday night, as they took aim at the next leg of the county’s economic journey.
...Councilor Nona Bowman and Councilor Vincent Chiravalle approached the goal from opposite sides.
“Nuclear weapons is a dying business,” she said. “Northern New Mexico’s best wealth producing employer is going to have to reinvent itself or decline.”
“Bowman’s comment could be construed as undermining the core mission of the laboratory,” Councilor Vincent Chiravalle said. “We have to be careful or we may not get anything. The result may just be reductions in the number of people working at the lab.”
...Councilor Ralph Phelps led off the discussion, saying he had struggled with the document trying to understand what he sensed was missing.
“I read the plan through a couple of times and it took me awhile to put my finger on it,” he said. “LANL dominates the economy, no secret, but only 50 percent of the employees in the county actually live in the county.”
He wanted to know more about them. “How do we fold those people into our plan?” he asked.
Councilor Stover raised a similar question.
“The lab director and a lot of people don’t choose to live in our town.
“What could be done to attract more of these people to live here?”
Monitor:
Councilor Stover raised a similar question.
“The lab director and a lot of people don’t choose to live in our town.
“What could be done to attract more of these people to live here?”
11/15/09 11:30 PM
I dunno? Maybe rename the town to "Livermore East" or "Riley-ville" and hand out knee pads to all the town citizens? That might entice these carpet-baggers to stay in town so they can lord over the local-yocals for a few extra hours each day.
From 11/15/09 11:30 PM ...
“The lab director and a lot of people don’t choose to live in our town. What could be done to attract more of these people to live here?”
Make it a PBI or a requirement for their big bonuses.
I am not a scientist and I do not pretend to be one...
True enough.
Rule followers and scientists are different.
Rule followers do what they are told.
Scientists think, not always the way command authority would have them do.
Leslie Groves, the smartest cadet even to walk through the quad, understood this.
He didn't so much command Oppy and his eclectic "Berkeley" cronies, as much as he enabled them. He certainly didn't make enemies of them.
Times are different now. Since the public perception is that the stockpile is rock solid; stewardship is a costly and troublesome formality. And thoughtful stewards can be replaced with compliant ones.
The most impacted undergraduate class at Berkeley right now is not computer science, it's beginning Mandarin. Always ahead of the curve.....
Mustangs got stolen,
Oakland, California
fires burned down the town,
disks got stolen,
secrets exchanged for drugs,
and people got hurt with lasers.
None of this stuff happened at any other place....
Ah, get out much?
Rosenberg,
Fuchs,
Philby,
Ames,
Falcon and Snowman,
Madoff,
Enron,
AIG,
Goldman Sachs,
Teapot Dome,
Zimmerman Letter,
Krupp Armaments
Doolittle Commission.
Abu Gharaib,
Kent State,
Bay of Pigs,
Gulf of Tonkin,
Galipolli,
Rodney King beating,
MLK
200 million abortions since Roe v. Wade
Chancellorsville.
General Benedict Arnold
Lots of bad stuff happens, not all of it on the Mesa --- unless the observer can't see beyond the end of his nose or he happens to be a politician that can gain a vote by character assassination.
NNSA came to drain the scientific swamp...
Oh, my conquering heros.... but removing science from the swamp helps how?
Designing and maintaining the stockpile has historically been "THE mission."
Right. And since LANL did not perform any of the production work until the 1990's, our contribution to the stockpile effort was - yeah you got it! - research and development.
Councilor Stover raised a similar question.
“The lab director and a lot of people don’t choose to live in our town.
“What could be done to attract more of these people to live here?”
11/15/09 11:30 PM
How about fixing this: No shopping. No decent restaurants. No arts. No culture. No diversity at all. Truly a stifling, and stifled, community.
You are correct 7:10, that pre-1990's weapons work was R&D.
However, I think this is equivocating the term R&D between weapons R&D and basic science R&D that I inferred from 8:18 and 3:33.
More precisely, weapons are THE mission, and other R&D is just a minor part.
"Right. And since LANL did not perform any of the production work until the 1990's, our contribution to the stockpile effort was - yeah you got it! - research and development."
Wrong. LANL had a BIG production mission during the 80's in order to supplement and provide Pu to Rocky Flats.
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