Fedweek

The main House committee overseeing federal employment matters has asked agencies to explain their policies for taking disciplinary actions, the latest sign of interest in Congress to overhaul those policies. The letters ask agencies to provide their policies for taking corrective or adverse actions in response to misconduct or poor performance, including any tables of penalties they use, saying that such policies “vary significantly between federal agencies.” A similar letter went to OPM asking it to explain government-wide policies. Unlike some data gathering requests from the Oversight and Government Reform Committee that have been backed only by Republicans, the letter is signed by the panel’s bipartisan leadership. Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, recently asked OPM for data covering the last five years on how many federal employees have been fired, transferred, downgraded or had other disciplinary actions taken against them on either performance or conduct grounds. That request similarly asked for data aimed at examining how well monetary awards and within-grade increases are linked to performance. Separately, he asked individual agencies for full data on the awards and incentive payments they have made over the last 10 years.