Bagnall: After Phoenix, what will it take to build a new payroll system?

Can it be done? Can the federal government build a new pay system from scratch, even as it’s engaged in a herculean effort to fix a Phoenix platform that is careening out of control?
The answer, of course, is yes. This isn’t metaphysics, merely a laborious process of aligning pay rules with a computerized system for calculating what should appear on employees’ pay stubs.
But whatever path government and its unions select for rebuilding, the decision has to come quickly. The kno