Nuclear agency needs more insights into its workforce recruitment efforts, GAO says

The agency tasked with maintaining the security of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and responding to nuclear emergencies remains understaffed, a new Government Accountability Office report claims. 

The watchdog examined ongoing staffing challenges within the National Nuclear Security Administration in the report released Wednesday, finding that while officials have worked to fill vacancies, they are still submitting budget requests below the workforce levels needed. 

The staffing challenges within the NNSA are not new, as attrition levels have been higher than the federal government’s from fiscal 2013 to 2022. The agency conducted a report with the Office of Personnel Management in 2018 that determined it needed a 20% increase in its workforce, roughly 320 full-time employees, to be able to maintain its mission requirements. 

That report was followed by another in 2020, conducted by its Office of Cost Estimating and Program Evaluation, that estimated it needed an additional 684 employees, a 41% increase, by fiscal 2026. 

“Many NNSA officials we interviewed agreed with the studies’ findings and told us that the agency’s federal workforce is understaffed, leading to challenges completing work and retaining staff,” the report said. “For example, officials from the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation stated that the office has faced challenges retaining staff in science and other technical positions due to the overwhelming workload caused by not having enough staff.”

Those shortages not only include challenges for agency functions, but also for maintaining the NNSA’s more than 55,000 management and operating contractor employees. GAO officials noted that an April 2020 NNSA internal review found “that NNSA program offices were not adequately resourced to provide effective technical and programmatic oversight of contractors for two nuclear weapon modernization programs.”

A second GAO report, also released Wednesday, found that contractor attrition had spiked for the NNSA in fiscal 2021 and 2022 at higher rates when compared to the rest of the federal government, due in part to the time it takes the agency to approve contract changes for compensation or benefits needed for contractors to remain competitive in workforce recruitment and retention. 

“NNSA officials aim to issue decisions about such requests within 60 days, but NNSA does not formally track review times. Such tracking would help NNSA determine if it is meeting its timeline or if it needs to adjust its review process,” GAO officials said.

To improve recruiting and retention of its own employees, NNSA officials have submitted a fiscal 2025 budget request for 345 more employees than outlined its fiscal 2019 request, but are still roughly 300 employees below the needs detailed in the 2020 report. 

NNSA’s planned fiscal 2026 staffing estimate, included in the fiscal 2025 request, still remains 200 employees below the figures outlined in the 2020 report. 

Agency officials told the GAO that certain factors have prevented them from requesting full staff budgets, including a statutory cap on employees instituted as part of sequestration efforts between fiscal 2014 and 2022, certain budget limits established by the Energy Department and Office of Management and Budget and the hiring and training challenges of adding the required staff in a single year. 

But GAO officials found that while NNSA has also received fewer appropriations from Congress than it has requested from fiscal 2013 to 2023, the agency has also not completed integrating detailed workforce planning into its budget process, though CEPE officials are working to establish an ongoing process, starting with the fiscal 2026 budget. 

NNSA officials have also utilized tools like incentive payments and excepted service authority — which allows them to hire without having to adhere to certain competitive examining procedures or other requirements. 

But GAO also recommended that the agency’s Office of Human Resources collaborate with program, functional, mission-enabling and field offices to better share information systemwide about recruiting and retention challenges; that the agency should use outcome-based performance measures to regularly assess the results of its efforts; and that the NNSA Office of Learning and Career Management should set up a process to monitor action implementation derived from Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey results.

NNSA officials agreed in principle with the three recommendations and said they would take steps to address them.

Regarding the report on contractor recruitment and retainment, GAO recommended that NNSA track the time it takes to review official human resources requests and adjust processes as needed and that the Associate Administrator for NNSA's Office of Partnership and Acquisition Service should fully assess and identify the information needed to contractor recruitment and retention efforts. 

NNSA officials concurred with both recommendations and said they would take steps to address them.