The Office of Personnel Management has published final rules describing the responsibility of individual agencies to reimburse the Treasury for payments made to employees, former employees, or applicants for Federal employment because of actual or alleged violations of Federal antidiscrimination laws, Federal whistleblower protection laws, and retaliation claims arising from those laws.
The provision was part of the 2002 “No FEAR” Act, which also included requirements that agencies post information about such claims against them on their web sites, and increase their efforts to educate employees about their rights under those laws, among other changes.
The act did not change the underlying laws, but sought to pressure agency management into better compliance with discrimination and whistleblower law by raising the level of publicity and putting a financial responsibility on management of the employing agency, rather than having the costs associated with losing such cases absorbed by general Treasury funds. Under the OPM rules, published in the May 10 Federal Register, agencies must reimburse the Treasury’s judgment fund within a “reasonable time” of a judgment being made against them under those laws. Such costs might include back pay, compensatory damages and other financial awards to the prevailing employee.
