Mining Retirement Data

In the April 1 issue of Government Executive, Karen Rutzick reported on efforts at the Mine Safety and Health Administration dating back to 2004 to address a looming rise in the percentage of federal mine inspectors who would be eligible to retire. The agency decided to use the Federal Career Intern Program to quickly bring on new employees. Now the Government Accountability Office has assessed that effort in a new report to Congress.

The good news, GAO says, is that the approach seems to be working. It "has led to a number of improvements in inspector recruiting and hiring, such as being able to identify applicants with the basic skills needed to be a successful inspector early in the process and decreasing the time it takes the agency to hire new inspectors," the report says. Since MSHA began using the Federal Career Intern Program, the agency has hired 236 new coal mine inspector trainees.

But GAO says that's not good enough. MSHA's human capital plan, the watchdog agency reports, "does not include a strategic approach for addressing the large number of retirements expected in the next 5 years." More than 40 percent of inspectors will be eligible for retirement by 2012.

In a response included in the report, MSHA chief Richard E. Stickler says GAO needs to bone up on the distinction between retirement eligibility and actual rates of retirement -- especially in an age when increasing numbers of employees are covered by the Federal Employees Retirement System, which provides incentives for them to stay in their jobs longer to maximize their retirement benefits. "We again assert that being eligible to retire is much less a dominant factor than employees projected to actually retire," Stickler wrote. "Although we estimate that 40% of underground inspectors will be eligible to retire in 1-5 years, the data trends show that at most 15% actually will retire. More employees stay on the job after reaching eligibility due to the FERS benefit system and other personal decisions."