OPM defends Presidential Management Intern program

Agencies are ultimately responsible for training their Presidential Management Interns and helping them prepare for a career in government, according to an official of the Office of Personnel Management. Joseph D. Stix, director of OPM's Philadelphia Service Center, defended OPM's role in administering the Presidential Management Intern (PMI) program following a recent report, which said the PMI program has strayed from its original purpose of hiring and developing future leaders. OPM's Philadelphia Service Center houses and administers the PMI program. "We continually remind agency managers that it is their responsibility to train their PMIs in areas that will help them contribute to the needs of their agency," Stix said. President Jimmy Carter issued an executive order creating the Presidential Management Intern program in 1977. His goal was to entice individuals with "exceptional management potential who have received special training in planning and managing public programs and policies" to join the federal government. A 1982 executive order expanded the PMI program to include applicants with a "clear interest in, and commitment to, a career in the analysis and management of public policies and programs," and not just those with special training in public management. Nowadays, most interns are not hired for their leadership potential, according to the report from the Merit Systems Protection Board released last week. The government hires PMIs at the GS-9 level and awards them a two-year appointment in its excepted service. To qualify, applicants must be completing, or have completed, a master's or doctoral degree. PMIs can be promoted to the GS-11 level after successfully completing their first year, but the government doesn't guarantee them a job after their initial assignment ends. In its report, MSPB praised OPM for reinvigorating the prestigious management program in the 1990s, but expressed concern that OPM and agencies are using the program to quickly fill federal jobs with highly skilled employees, instead of hiring and developing future public managers. Several current and former PMIs told GovExec.com that they agreed with MSPB's conclusion. Most said they were pleased with the program and their experiences overall, but said they wanted more management training and guidance from both OPM and agency supervisors on developing a career track within the federal government. "I think not enough people in the government really understand what the PMI program is, and thus use it as a way around a hiring freeze or to fill a vacancy," said one PMI, who asked to remain anonymous. Another PMI, who also requested anonymity, talked about what she viewed as her office's misuse of the PMI program. "The PMI program is being used by this office to hire young, motivated and typically better-educated personnel than they can normally get by advertising for a GS-7 or GS-9 entry-level position," she said. "I think there is a big hole in the PMI program, and that is training," said another PMI who just completed his two-year appointment and is staying at his agency. "The program should provide quality management training to PMIs as a group, and provide more specific training relevant to the PMI's field of work on an individual basis." Stix said OPM is working hard to ensure that agencies and managers understand the value of PMIs and to better educate the "few managers" who may not be using PMIs to their fullest potential, but emphasized that OPM can bear only so much responsibility for the program. "It is unrealistic for individuals to expect that OPM can monitor each and every PMI development plan to make sure it is being properly administered by the agency; that is the agency's responsibility," Stix said. In its report, MSPB also said OPM needs to narrow its use of the PMI program to only applicants with management and leadership potential. In response, OPM contended that hiring applicants from a wide variety of academic and social backgrounds does not undermine the management spirit of the PMI program. "I think the program will eventually show that many of the current PMIs will be the future managers, leaders, and senior policy analysts in government," Stix said, because the PMI program is a "building process" for participants. For example, PMIs may be getting more experience in analysis than in management, but they are nevertheless more likely to become managers and members of the Senior Executive Service than non-PMIs, he said. According to MSPB's report, about 30 percent of the PMIs hired between 1982 and 1989 had become supervisors, as opposed to 18 percent of non-PMIs. For the same group, more than one in 12 become members of the Senior Executive Service, compared with only one out of 100 non-PMIs. Matt Crouch, president of the Presidential Management alumni group and director of strategic planning at NASA, acknowledged that the 1982 executive order broadened the scope of the program and eliminated the public management training requirement, but said the primary focus of the program should be on grooming future government leaders with an interest in federal management. "OPM has driven a truck through the loophole [in the 1982 executive order]," said Crouch. "An applicant can have a engineering degree, but still has to have an interest in public management." Crouch called on OPM to provide more leadership to agencies on effectively implementing the PMI program, but praised OPM's Philadelphia office for revitalizing the PMI program. He said that the problem has to do with the government's approach to civil service issues in general, not necessarily the office's stewardship. "The people at OPM's PMI office are doing yeoman's work; they have worked very hard and have made great improvements to the program," Crouch said. Jayson Nunes, a management support specialist with the Social Security Administration in Boston and a former PMI, said he had a great mix of training and hands-on work as a PMI, but that each person's experience depends on the agency and office in which they are working. "The key is, as a PMI, you are learning about these programs, not running them," he said. "The time for managing comes after you have finished the PMI program."