Highest civil service award no longer limited to SES members

The next round of nominees for the Presidential Rank Award may include scientists, engineers and attorneys, not just executives, and the Office of Personnel Management is gearing up for the change.

On Tuesday, OPM published interim rules in the Federal Register adding senior career employees who are not executives to the pool of eligible award recipients, a change from previous rules, which limited the awards to the Senior Executive Service.

The Presidential Rank Award is the government's highest award for civil servants. Senior management officials at federal agencies nominate executives for the awards, while panels of private citizens choose the winners. The panels' selections then go to the president for his approval.

Until now, the award was limited to only 1 percent of the approximately 6,000 career members of the Senior Executive Service. Last year 345 SES members received the award.

The fiscal 2002 Treasury-Postal appropriations bill included a provision for widening the pool of those eligible to include career employees and scientific professionals classified above GS-15. Such employees are paid under either the Senior Level (SL) pay system or the Scientific and Professional (ST) pay system. They include high-level assistants, attorneys, scientists and engineers. According to OPM statistics, 728 federal employees were paid under the SL and ST pay systems as of March 2002.

"It's a way to recognize, in the same way that you recognize extraordinary leadership accomplishments, senior employees who have made extraordinary scientific accomplishments," said a senior OPM official.

The Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive carries with it a cash award of 35 percent of an executive's salary. Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Executive awardees get a cash award equal to 20 percent of salary.

The new rules become effective Sept. 12. The 2003 award cycle, during which federal officials can nominate senior career and scientific professionals for the award, begins in the next few weeks.

Comments on the rule must be submitted by Oct. 15. Send your comments to: