OPM has proposed to amend its regulations governing recruitment and selection through competitive examination in order to clarify the distinctions between, on one hand, objections and pass, and on the other, suitability determinations.
Merit Systems Protection Board decisions from 2000 and 2001 erased the distinction between the two regulatory schemes to some extent, OPM noted.
In a notice in the September 2 Federal Register, OPM proposed to revise these regulations to clarify that neither an agency’s objections nor its pass over requests constitute suitability actions and that decisions on these objections or pass over requests similarly are not suitability actions.
It clarified that an objection is a request to remove a candidate from consideration on a particular certificate, and a pass-over request is an objection filed against a preference eligible that results in the selection of a non-preference eligible.
OPM said it has the authority to rule on any objection or pass over request filed by a federal agency seeking to fill vacancies for such positions.
In recent years, OPM has delegated examining authority to federal agencies to adjudicate most objections and pass-over requests.
Although the statutory schemes related to suitability determinations and pass-overs or objections are separate and distinct from each other, OPM said it has, in the recent past, unintentionally mingled the two, possibly giving rise to the impression that the pass-over regulations and the suitability regulations were interconnected in some way.
