>>Not nearly as good as you made out, but I got a $2300 bonus and a 4.4% raise.
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>I've never heard of a government employer giving bonuses before (in Canada). Is this common in the US? I work for a hospital here... while is isn't directly for the government, it still is in the public service. I would imagine if the hospital gaves bonuses there would be a big newspaper story about patients going without treatment and someone would can canned.

The bonuses are only that big if you get an "outstanding" managerial rating. If you get a level of "meets or exceeds requirements" you get a few $100, and if get you get "below average" performance you get no bonus at all. It's much like the private sector now, where the gov't is trying to give better incentives for productivity. They also have made it much easier to fire slackers, another good idea.

This is fairly new & progressive policy in the US. Mostly it began from the Al Gore "reinventing government" years of the 1990s, and the Bush people are continuing the ideas.