Anonymously contributed:
According to planned overhead taxes in FY13, my program costs go down significantly. The CFO people tell me that the rate change is caused by the fact that NIF will finally have to pay its fair share in taxes. Has anyone else noticed this change and received the same answer? Do you think it will really happen?
15 comments:
Don't worry, the LLNS management will simply find other ways to keep boosting overhead taxes on programs.
They'll see the reduction in NIF taxes as their window of opportunity to take even more for their bloated coffers of managerial bureaucracy. Haven't you people learned anything by now?
If they don't lower rates, Work For Others is never going to grow.
The only way to reduce overhead at Livermore is to eliminate NIF, which is overhead in it's purest form.
If they don't lower rates, Work For Others is never going to grow. (7:33 pm)
Uh, sorry, but I think that's the whole idea.
Neither NNSA nor the "for profit" partners likes dealing with WFOs, which they see as "messy". They prefer the easier path of weapons funding for refurbishment and big construction projects. When you think of the NNSA labs of the future, think Pantex.
Neither NNSA nor the "for profit" partners likes dealing with WFOs...
Yeah, Sandia has really hated growing WFO to be half their budget pie. Having another $80M a year for LDRD must be killing them. All that messiness.
Yeah, Sandia has really hated growing WFO to be half their budget pie. Having another $80M a year for LDRD must be killing them. All that messiness.
June 21, 2011 9:50 PM
Sandia has managers who don't see themselves as mere appendages of NNSA. And, they aren't managed by a construction company. If you like doing WFO, LANL and LLNL are not the places for you.
I couldn't agree more strongly with 8:04 AM. It seems to me that the strong influence of NNSA at LANL and LLNL make them very poor institutions for doing WFO projects. NNSA wants to kill most of it off.
Sandia started down the WFO growth path years ago. Because of that decision, it depends much less on the "sugar daddy" money coming from NNSA. Sandia is a far better institution for doing this type of work and their lab culture strongly supports it, unlike the managers at both LANL and LLNL.
It appears that NNSA and Bechtel want LANL to be "Pantex-ized" over time. It's not clear to me were, exactly, LLNL fits into NNSA plans for the future.
WFO has been sucking at the .... of the nuclear weapons programs for more than 20 years. Now that they are being asked to contribute their fair share to the costs of doing business, they scream "Foul play." So long suckers, see if you can build this kind of infrastructure and high-tech facilities on your own nickel!!
5:30 pm
You need to get your facts straight. Show one example that you can document where WFO does not pay its fair share of operating costs. If your point is that NNSA makes it so difficult for WFO to build infrastructure at NNSA locations -- you are spot on.
Show one example that you can document where WFO does not pay its fair share of operating costs.
I agree. Their fair share is zero when they can just "leverage" capabilities maintained by major programs.
It has been concerning on whether to stay or not at the laboratory. Our cost are just too high and as a PI I feel I do not get any assistance. I actually had a program manager in washington tell me that he/she does not like talking to managers, but wants to talk to PIs. We are the ones with the ideas and knowledge. I even had a program manager neglect his/her job and I almost lost out on a $200K project. When is there going to be accountability at this laboratory ? When did we stop caring about science and making the US strong ?
Latest rumor is there will be an early retirement buyout this fall at LLNL. Is this how the costs will be reduced?
NIF has been told in previous years that it was time to pay its full share, but EM was always able to change that decision. The bottom line is that NIF cannot support itself now and perhaps ever. Don't count your chickesn before they hatch. NIF will get a break in 2012 also, and it will be at the expense of the rest of us.
"Latest rumor is there will be an early retirement buyout this fall at LLNL. Is this how the costs will be reduced?
June 25, 2011 2:53 PM"
I really don't see how people keep hoping that there will be a buyout. Wake up, the re-write of the contract after the 2007 layoffs made it cheaper to do it for the 200 series. Does LLNS (or LANS) want to shift people from their payroll onto their TCP1 plans? Would UC give permission to give age/service credits to those who chose TCP2 and incur the burden on their retirement plan? Face it, it is easier and cheaper just to kick us out the door. Those retirement incentives are from an era that is long gone and will never return. But if by some magic an incentive should occur, don't get between me and the door, I'll run over or though you.
How do you know if a lab employee is in denial and still doesn't "get it" since the Bechtel LLCs took over?
Easy! These are the people who go around talking about the possibility of a "buyout" anytime the lab has budget problems. As 10:53 says, those days are long over and will never return. It's easy for the new LLCs to just go ahead and fire you for cause, the "cause" being that you have no funding!
Post a Comment