The committee also approved S-2148, the “Senior Executive Service Diversity Assurance Act,” which would re-establish the “senior executive resources office” at OPM and seeks to increase race and gender diversity in the SES.
The office would be charged with setting regulations and providing guidance for the structure, management, and composition of the SES, as well as making statistics on career reserved positions publicly accessible online.
The bill also requires agencies to establish one or more SES evaluation panels with respect to any SES positions for which a vacancy announcement is posted in order to review the qualifications of each candidate for a position which is to be filled by a career appointee, and certify to such an executive resources board the names of the best qualified candidates.
The bill, introduced by Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, who chairs the Senate’s federal workforce subcommittee, mirrors legislation from Rep. Danny Davis, the chair of the House federal workforce committee.
An earlier version of Davis’s bill would have mandated that executive resources boards consist of three employees, with at least one a minority and one a woman, but that provision was stripped in the face of Justice Department objections concerning quotas.
