3. The PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENT EVALUATION COMMITTEE (PAEC)

The PAEC reviews individuals in positions at the grade 13 and above, and considers individuals for promotions to the grade 14 and above. As specified in the PAEC Charter the PAEC "reviews separately each individual, Federal scientist or Trust Fund Principal Investigator, grade 13 or above, at least once every five years, as required by SI regulations. Additionally, institutional employees who are being nominated for promotion to Grade 14, and who serve as Principal Investigators on grants providing at least 50% of their salary, will also be subject to PAEC review." All employees must be reviewed by PAEC for promotion to grade 15 or above. Dan Schwartz suggested future discussion on the fairness of requiring this for employees who were not civil servants and did not serve as Principal Investigators on grants providing at least 50% of their salary.

While the responsibiliy and accountability for promotions should be with supervisors, the PAEC provides the opportunity for advancement even when supervisors may not be proactive. Some Council members perceive the PAEC to thus be potentially a good avenue for neutralizing some of the gender biases identified by the Gender Equity Committee report.

Given that Performance Appraisal and Planning (PAPs) all take place in December, the PAEC should be much earlier in the cycle, and should always be complete in plenty of time for December. Council notes that a late PAEC meeting can delay Merit Step Increase promotion by a year or even more, significantly impacting employee's lives. Current PAEC results are already several months delayed.

4. Discussion with Laura Conway, SAO Human Resources Director

Laura highlighted that the PAEC does and should grade on a variety of accomplishments: scientific, refereeing/editorial, meetings/conferences, committees internal and external, EPO activities, etc. Pat Slane points out the the criteria for promotion are unkown, and asked whether PAEC members even know. Laura suggested that criteria were clear, and available at the OPM website. (Ed. notes: On this topic, see Recommendation 5 in the SAO Science Commission (PDF) report of 2002.)

Giovanni recalled that the OPM 'point system' by category was onerous and inappropriate, so the SAO PAEC had in the past adopted their own quantitative system, comparing employees to others at their same grade level. Some Council members noted that PAEC reports are usually sanitized, which can make it difficult for the employee to respond appropriately. Pat Slane and Dan Schwartz called for PAEC criteria to be clearly outlined and made available locally.

Bill Forman suggested that supervisors who are tardy in signing off on PAEC recommendations should be held accountable, perhaps as an element on their own PAPs. Dan Schwartz said that supervisor training would help highlight the importance of this activity. Laura Conway agreed, adding that she wished such training were mandatory since few supervisors attend!

Divisions have different procedures for getting supervisor's PAP packages forwarded to HR, but this is specifically the job of each division administrator. The Council suggested that it would benefit SAO scientists to receive notification when their reviews are completed, and that these notification might include a description of pursuant supervisor duties. Laura felt that the additional workload to send these emails would be prohibitive, especially for the large number of PAPs. Laura stated that the SAO Council should make clear to supervisors that these management responsibilities are serious, impact lives, and are also critical elements. Employees also have a role to play in investigating problems or delays: ask your supervisor about any such problems.

5. Status of Gender Equity Committee (GEC) Request for HR Data

Laura stated that data for the GEC would be provided in March of 2005, which is what HR had always told the GRC. (Ed. note: the SAO Council minutes of June 4, 2004 mentions November of 2004 as an earliest date.)

Everyone agreed that dissemination of the relevant HR (e.g., grade, salary, promotion) data must protect confidentiality. Laura suggested that the data may need to be distilled or presented as a narrative. The Council questioned which and how much of the HR data were confidential. The HR Director stated that she did not know, but that "basic law and federal law and SI policy" will make it "obvious". However, due to the size of the task, she has not yet compiled or reviewed the relevant data yet to make any such judgment. Laura was confident that the requested data would be provided as advertised in March 2005. However, she could not recall specifically what was in the GEC request, because it has been several months since her last review of it.

Rosanne pointed out that alleviating gender inequity becomes a Catch-22 unless institutions can compile the data necessary to characterize the problem. She points out that MIT and other institutions have had very similar issues, but were able to surmount them.

The Council notes record of earlier estimates by HR for provision of these important data to the CfA Gender Equity committee (c.f. item 9 in the SAO Council minutes of Oct 7, 2003 ). Council raised the issue of slow response with Patricia Kennedy-Graham (Deputy Director for Administration) who, at the Council's January 2005 meeting, stated that she was looking into this matter. While a wide allowance for delays (esp. due to the difficult PeopleSoft implementation) has tempered the urgency of previous requests, the Council is now greatly concerned that lack of these data is seriously delaying an extremely important (and high profile) study from being completed.

7. Future meetings

Tuesday, March 1 2005, 10am.