OPM withdraws rule that would have allowed faster promotions

The Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday axed a proposal to drop requirements that federal employees must serve in certain pay grades for one year before becoming eligible for promotion. But the agency did not rule out canceling time-in-grade requirements in the future.

"After carefully considering all of the comments, OPM has determined that it would be more productive to consider the merits of the time-in-grade issue as part of a more comprehensive review of pay, performance and staffing issues than to regulate this particular issue in piecemeal fashion," the agency wrote in a notice published in the Federal Register on Tuesday.

Currently, federal employees who are in positions that are General Schedule 5 or higher must serve 52 weeks in that job before they are eligible for promotion to a higher grade, no matter their qualifications or performance. They also must demonstrate that they meet the requirements for the new position.

The Bush administration proposed lifting the time-in-grade requirement, and a rule doing so was scheduled to take effect on March 9. But the Obama administration asked agencies to spend an additional 60 days considering regulations the Bush administration had initiated but not yet implemented, delaying the rule's effective date. In May, OPM extended the comment period on the time-in-grade regulation to allow additional time for consideration.

The National Treasury Employees Union objected strongly to the proposed change, arguing the Bush administration moved forward without consulting employee groups, and that eliminating waiting times for promotions would give managers too much discretion in the promotion process.

"Many managers are not well-trained, and pay or promotion schemes instituted without training, objective criteria and adequate oversight can lead -- and have led -- to favoritism, nepotism and actual illegal discrimination, as well as the widespread perception of discriminatory implementation," NTEU President Colleen Kelley wrote to OPM.

Kelley praised the agency on Tuesday for reconsidering the change, and for favoring a comprehensive approach to personnel reform. Max Stier, president of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, said it is important for OPM to hold wide-ranging conversations about civil service reform before deciding on specific changes.

"There's no doubt that a broader reform is necessary, and [eliminating time-in-grade requirements] may or may not be the right component, depending on what else is done with the entire system," Stier said. "I think it makes sense to hold off."