The recently announced reorganization at the IRS could serve
as a testing ground for agency efforts to reshape their
workforces as technology and missions shift. Outside bodies
ranging from good government groups to the Office of
Management and Budget have been telling agencies they need
to be quicker on their feet on that score, but managers
often say they are hamstrung by agency personnel rules and
union contracts.
The IRS has said it wants to cut about 2,400 clerical jobs
no longer needed because of improved automation, such as
electronic filing of tax returns, while adding about 2,200
auditors, criminal investigators and tax collectors. While
the net effect on employment is roughly a wash, few of the
employees filling the jobs to be cut are qualified to fill
the jobs to be created, meaning that the IRS could have to
conduct a reduction-in-force, an often complex, lengthy and
contentious process.
Meanwhile, the National Treasury Employees Union is seeking
bargaining, arguing that recent projections by the General
Accounting Office show lower rates of electronic tax filing
than the IRS is counting on. NTEU also will push to have
affected employees retrained. The union likely will take
its case to Capitol Hill-and possibly to the courts-as well.
It was similar difficulties in reorganizing for changed
missions that led the Defense and Homeland Security
departments to seek and obtain alternative personnel
policies, including certain restrictions on the role of
unions. The IRS also is operating under an alternative
personnel system, created in 1998, but the IRS does not
have as wide a scope of management authority as DoD and DHS.
