The Office of Personnel Management warned agencies last week that they should be vigilant against attempts to “slip” political appointees into competitive and senior management career positions in the federal government as election season approaches.
In a memo to agency heads, OPM's Deputy Director for Meritocratic Systems Accountability and Compliance, Mark Lambert, and Deputy Director for Workforce Policy and Innovation, Veronica Hinton, addressed the controversial practice, which is legal, albeit with a strict set of regulations to ensure political appointees are qualified for the jobs they're meant to fill.
“In this presidential election year, we remind agency heads of their need to ensure that all personnel actions are free from political influence or other improper conduct and comply with all relevant civil service laws, rules, and regulations,” they wrote. “All official personnel records should clearly document continued adherence to federal meritocracy principles and freedom from prohibited personnel practices.”
OPM conducts reviews of all agency appointments of current or former political appointees to competitive service and nonpolitical excepted service positions prior to their implementation. Prior to 2010, the Personnel Office only conducted these reviews during presidential election years, but this was changed due to bipartisan resistance to the practice of undercover investigations in Congress.
Since then, OPM has frequently reminded that hiring of political appointees must be done on a meritocratic basis, and in 2022, the agency developed a checklist of tasks that agencies should complete when preparing to submit hiring proposals for OPM review.
A GAO audit of political appointees from 2016 through January 2021, spanning the final days of the Obama Administration and the entire Trump Administration, found that OPM denied about 20% of personnel change requests. But 23% of the changes (37 in total) were made before OPM's approval was sought, violating government policy. Ten of those hires were ultimately determined to be inappropriate, requiring agencies to take steps to address OPM's concerns.
The OPM memo is accompanied by a list of “dos and don'ts” that agencies should follow when considering hiring political appointees into more permanent roles.
“OPM strives to ensure that meritocratic principles of fair and open competition are upheld. [during the hiring process]”With this in mind, the two most common reasons OPM would not approve a selection are that the new position appears to be designed exclusively for the individual being selected and/or that competition is inappropriately restricted,” the memo states.
The Personnel Office emphasized that it will publicly advertise jobs through USAJOBS when filling vacancies from outside an agency's existing workforce, will follow regulations governing the hiring of employees from other Federal agencies, and will work with the Chief Human Resources Officer and the Director of Personnel to ensure that hiring decisions follow merit-based principles and obtain all necessary internal agency approvals before seeking approval from OPM.
Conversely, OPM recommended two pitfalls agencies should avoid during the process.
“Do not create or announce competitive or excepted service vacancies for the sole purpose of selecting a current or former political appointee, Schedule C employee, or non-career SES member,” the agencies wrote. “Do not remove Schedule C or non-career SES elements from a position solely to appoint an incumbent to competitive or excepted service.”
