A heavy mobile equipment repairer at area maintenance support activity (AMSA) 154 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, secures planetary gears on a vehicle. Army Reserve AMSA shops and ECSs are primarily staffed by military technicians. MilTechs perform vital roles across the Army Reserve. These dual-status technicians are required to serve in the Army Reserve as a condition of their civilian employment. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. Image: Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Crystal Harlow
The MSPB has issued two rulings on the scope of its authority, including holding that it has jurisdiction to hear appeals of personnel actions brought by hybrid state-federal National Guard technicians.
In that case, No. 2024 MSPB 4, the board overturned one of its hearing officers who concluded that the MSPB’s authority over federal agencies did not extend to a National Guard or to its officials. The hearing officer further held that a National Guard can act only through authority of a state adjutant general, who is a state official, not a federal official.
However, the MSPB said that National Guard technicians are excepted service federal employees, not state employees, and also cited a 2017 defense budget law giving them the right appeal challenge federal personnel actions. That law further requires a National Guard to “defend any administrative complaint, grievance, claim, or action,” to “promptly implement all aspects of any final administrative order, judgement, or decision,” and to pay for any settlement, judgment, or costs arising from such an action, it said.
“This language effectively authorizes the Board to enforce orders against the various National Guards,” it said in sending the case back to the hearing officer for a decision.
In the other case, 2024 MSPB 5, the board rejected a challenge to the authority of its hearing officers on grounds that they are not Presidentially appointed and subject to removal at will. MSPB hearing officers can be removed only for “such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service” and MSPB board members can be removed by the President only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
The board held that those protections arise from the law that created it, the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, and that it has no power to invalidate provisions of that law on constitutional grounds.
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