> If the government was able to fund it's IT operations at market rates, or pay outside the GS we'd all be much better off. I can't speak to market rates but t

> If the government was able to fund it's IT operations at market rates, or pay outside the GS we'd all be much better off. I can't speak to market rates but the Federal government does indeed have alternate pay schedules that they can use (in theory) for IT expertise. E.g. scientists and researches have their own specific pay grades for their work, "hourly" workers have FWS pay instead of GS, etc. You're right that the government workers are generally underpaid in my experience though. I struggle with the same thing here in DC, except that I'm trying to fill GS-5 positions to do work which involves knowing lots of policies, manual interpretation of individualized orders, and having to do all of that in a "customer service" environment.