The Office of Personnel Management is concerned that the government is handing out too many recruitment, retention and relocation incentives and wants agencies to do a better job monitoring their use.

In a Feb. 3 memo posted online yesterday, OPM Director John Berry noted that the government is paying more employees larger incentives in recent years. In 2008, the government paid employees 39,512 incentives worth more than $284 million. That is a 21 percent increase in the number of incentives and a 37 percent increase in the total costs of incentives over 2007. OPM has just begun collecting statistics on incentive use in 2009.

With unemployment still near 10 percent, and with the private-sector job market remaining sluggish, Berry thinks the government may not have to pay so many incentives to attract and retain talented workers.

"I remain concerned about the continued growth in [incentive] payments given recent labor market conditions," Berry wrote.

Berry said OPM plans to create more guidance and tools to help agencies write stronger justifications for authorizing the use of incentives, and improve their plans for using them. Agencies should also create better systems to monitor the use of incentives that focus on their costs and benefits, he told chief human capital officers.

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