Senators concerned by veterans’ preference loopholes

Two senators voiced concern Thursday over loopholes in policies giving veterans preference for federal jobs.

By law, veterans are given a leg up when competing in federal agencies for open jobs and for keeping their jobs during reductions in force. But some agencies may be employing a type of "designer RIF," where managers target certain employees for layoffs outside the civil service's merit rules by forcing them to move locations, or to quit their jobs, the senators said.

"I have heard from employees … that their agencies appear to use involuntary reassignments to circumvent veterans' preference in a RIF," said Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, at a hearing Thursday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia. Akaka is the ranking member of that subcommittee.

Richard Weidman, director of government relations for Vietnam Veterans of America, told the panel that there are numerous incidents in which veterans inappropriately lose their jobs through involuntary repositioning, such as "taking somebody who has family ties for four generations in the state of Ohio and repositioning them" to another state, knowing they will not move.

Government officials, however, said they do not think the practice is a major problem. Dan Blair, deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management, told the subcommittee that he was not aware of any widespread use of involuntary repositioning, and that such a move would likely be a prohibited personnel practice.

Akaka requested that a meeting of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council be held to discuss the problem.

He and subcommittee chairman George Voinovich, R-Ohio, also asked how the Outstanding Scholar program, a hiring authority that allows agencies to give students with a 3.5 grade point average an advantage in applying for jobs, affects veterans' preference.

Weidman and representatives from the American Legion and Disabled American Veterans expressed their strong dislike of the program.

"I'm against the Outstanding Scholar program," said Joseph Sharpe, deputy director of the economics division at the American Legion. "I know too many military folks that can't get into the federal government."

The Merit Systems Protection Board, a quasi-judicial body that handles federal workplace disputes, ruled in the fall of 2005 that hiring an employee through the Outstanding Scholar program over a veteran violates veterans' preference rules. OPM, however, asked MSPB to reconsider its ruling, and the board's decision is pending.

Blair said he could not fully comment on the program because of the ongoing litigation, but asked the senators to consider the numbers: for every one person hired through the Outstanding Scholar program, 43 are hired as a result of veterans' preference.

"We see the two coexisting within the same framework, though there are some natural tensions between the two," Blair said.

Despite criticism over this and the involuntary repositioning, both senators commended the representation of veterans in the government.

"The numbers that you give me are very impressive," Voinovich said. Veterans make up about a quarter of the federal workforce.

The senator offered a suggestion for increasing compliance with veterans' preference rules: include observance of veterans' preference as a category for ratings under the Defense and Homeland Security departments' new pay-for-performance systems.

"They should be measured on it and if they don't meet the standard, they get docked for it," Voinovich said.

Voinovich and Akaka said they will write a letter to OPM Director Linda Springer to follow up on their concerns.