FederalDaily - March 20, 2007
Federal Workforce: Older, More Educated
The federal workforce is getting smaller while the average federal worker these days is older, more
educated and staying on the job longer than in the past, said a new analysis by the Congressional Budget
Office (CBO). Those trends are part of a research paper that looked at some of the characteristics
of employees who currently make up the salaried full-time permanent federal civilian workforce. Notably,
the federal workforce has shrunk in the past few years, to about 2.7 million civilian workers—or
just a little smaller than the size of the federal workforce in the mid-1970s. The report analyzed
the roughly 1.4 million salaried workers, not including employees of the Postal Service, who fill full-time
permanent positions in the executive branch—basically the government’s white-collar employees,
CBO said. The report did not attempt to make comparisons between the federal workforce and the private
sector. However, in general the report noted that federal workers tend to be older, more experienced
and more highly educated when compared to their private-sector counterparts. General Schedule employees
averaged an annual salary of about $63,000 (scheduled annual basic pay, $56,000, plus locality pay
of $8,000) compared to non-GS workers, who averaged about $82,000.
To see more, go to: www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/78xx/doc7874/03-15-Federal_Personnel.pdf
Union Critical of OPM Proposal on MSPB
The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) is sharply critical of a new Office of Personnel Management
(OPM) proposal to dramatically reduce the scope of jurisdiction of the Merit Systems Protection Board
(MSPB). The proposed changes would limit the authority of MSPB to reverse an agency or OPM suitability
determination or action, said NTEU President Colleen Kelley on March 16. Changes also would bar MSPB
from considering any mitigating factor not deemed pertinent by OPM, Kelley said. She offered her assessment
in comments filed in response to an OPM Federal Register notice of its intention to amend
its regulations regarding federal employment suitability. Kelley warned that “OPM appears to
be transforming the MSPB from a legitimate reviewing authority into a rubber-stamp, according only
the patina of due process.” On the plus side, Kelley applauded OPM's decision to adopt additional
procedural protections for persons subject to an unfavorable suitability decision or action. To see
more, go to: www.nteu.org.
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CRS Urges Caution Over EPA Closings
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not adequately prepared for the consequences of its
plan to close several of its 26 regional libraries, said a new report by the Congressional Research
Service. Critics are concerned over the disposition of some library collections and how the agency
will choose between retention, dispersal to other libraries or disposal, said the report released this
month. Although EPA’s library restructuring plan provides guidelines for these decisions, it
does not include a mechanism to oversee how they are applied or a means through which the public can
comment on collections decisions, the report said. Questions have been raised as to whether some materials
that may be of value to certain users could be permanently discarded and no longer available in any
format, the report said. There also are questions about the accessibility of EPA’s collections
while physical documents are being converted into electronic format. “Of the collections that
are retained, it is uncertain which materials will be converted to electronic format and made available
through the Internet, or physically archived,” the report said. To see more, go to: http://cnie.org/NLE/CRSreports/07Jan/RS22533.pdf
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