New rules aim at easing hiring of people with disabilities

The Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday published new rules that will make it easier for federal agencies to hire people with disabilities.

The new rules, which update regulations stemming from a 1979 executive order, will allow agencies to hire nonveterans with a physical or mental handicap into the excepted service. Agencies will not be required to request any documentation of the disability. After two years, the disabled employees may be noncompetitively transferred to competitive service positions.

Other more generous hiring rules exist to help disabled veterans find civil service jobs.

Under the old rules, disabled applicants had to receive certification from either a Veterans Affairs Department or state vocational rehabilitation agency indicating that they had either a severe physical disability, mental retardation, or a psychiatric ailment. The VA or state agency also had to certify that the disabled person was likely to succeed in the job for which he or she was applying.

It was a "fairly onerous process to put anyone through," said Ronald Sanders, OPM associate director for strategic human resources policy, in a briefing with reporters Monday.

Under the new rules, agencies do not have to request documentation of a candidate's disability, but if they choose to do so, they can seek it from the Social Security Administration, which provides benefits to disabled Americans, or from a doctor, as well as the VA or state agencies.

The new rules stem from President Bush's New Freedom Initiative, announced in August 2002, which directed federal agencies to work together in establishing a Web site aimed at helping disabled Americans find jobs. OPM Director Kay Coles James then launched a review of federal government hiring policies and felt that agencies were not hiring enough disabled workers, Sanders said.

"Our sense is that the [disability hiring authority] is being underutilized," Sanders said. "The principal reason is it's just so difficult to get certified" as disabled under the old rules.