"1998 restructuring. It gave the IRS 40 slots ... Congress did not re-up this authority in 2013"
That's 15 years of "streamlined critical pay" authority. And it appears that some number of these slots continued to exist until recently. Two decades of special authority to modernize this software, and nothing to show for it, except perhaps some patents...
Nowhere it says that these slots were created to modernize software. These 40 slots are total amount of people (out of 80K employees) that could be paid above government rates.
These slots were used to fill 168 positions over the 15 years.[1]
That's 15 years of "streamlined critical pay" authority. And it appears that some number of these slots continued to exist until recently. Two decades of special authority to modernize this software, and nothing to show for it, except perhaps some patents...
At some point you have to cut your loses.