Agencies told to let career employees monitor political job vacancies
A new report recommends that senior career employees should be responsible for enforcing a law that requires agencies to inform Congress of vacancies in presidentially appointed jobs.
The General Accounting Office found that new political appointees, who may not be familiar with the requirements of the 1998 Federal Vacancies Reform Act, often assume responsibility for compliance with the law. Instead, agencies should tap senior career employees, who typically remain in government longer than appointees, to carry out the law's requirements, the report (GAO-03-806) recommended.
"The agencies we visited had a number of examples in which political employees, such as White House liaisons, responsible for certain Vacancies Reform Act requirements, left and it took their replacements a while to get up to speed because of the press of other matters with, for example, long delays in reporting vacancy events resulting," the report said.
Under the 1998 law, agencies are required to inform Congress and GAO whenever positions that require presidential appointment and Senate confirmation become vacant or are filled on a temporary basis. The legislation also mandates notification if a nomination to fill one of the vacancies is sent to the Senate, or if the nomination is rejected, withdrawn or returned. Under the act, vacancies can be filled for up to 210 days by acting officials.
From January 2002 to May of this year, GAO reviewed compliance with the Vacancies Reform Act at six departments, including Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Transportation and Treasury. The watchdog agency found that compliance with the law varied among the departments. To ensure timely reporting, GAO said that, in addition to assigning duties to senior managers, all agencies should clearly identify who is responsible for enforcing the law's requirements and establish written procedures for carrying out the requirements.
According to the report, the Commerce Department offered a successful example of how an experienced career employee handled responsibilities under the Vacancies Reform Act. "The career employee said she has been at the agency for an extended period and has been responsible for reporting Vacancies Reform Act events since the act's effective date in 1998," the GAO report said.
Since the law took effect, agencies have struggled to comply with its requirements, according to GAO. In June 2001, at the request of former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., GAO released its survey of 62 federal agencies and found that 19 percent of all vacancies and 24 percent of all acting appointments had not been reported. When vacancy notifications were sent, GAO discovered they arrived more than four weeks late at least half of the time.
GAO recommended that the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, which is responsible for politically appointed positions governmentwide, encourage all agencies to follow the report's recommendations.
In response to the report, the Office of the Counsel to the President agreed with the recommendations, but said the administration would prefer that GAO oversee implementation at the agencies. GAO said it continues to believe that "it is appropriate for the Office of Presidential Personnel to encourage agencies to implement key elements."