Federal Manager's Daily Report

A separate Senate report, from the Republican staff of the Judiciary Committee, said that even in light of the recent OPM guidance, “agencies appear to be using administrative leave as a way to place employees in a catch-all limbo status rather than address personnel problems expeditiously.”

The OPM policy does not “comprehensively define the purposes for which agencies may use administrative leave nor prescribe the length of time an employee may remain in that status” and does not specify “a time period for which agencies may use administrative leave related to personnel matters.”

It said that as a result, agencies use the leave “for everything from negotiating collective bargaining agreements to returning from active military duty to investigating allegations of employee misconduct” and only a few agencies have approval requirements for administrative leave greater than a certain period.

It said that the 18 agencies that responded to queries from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who has been pressing all agencies for details of their practices, 17 spent more than $80 million to put employees on such leave for a month or more in 2014, while the other, the VA, could not calculate the value of such leave.

Further, it said that DHS had 11 employees on such leave for more than a year, while other agencies that had at least one employee in such status for at least that long included SSA, HHS, Commerce, EPA, Interior, HUD, AID and Energy.