MSPB Joins Concerns about Appeals Restrictions

The main agency handling appeals of personnel actions against federal employees has itself joined the expressions of concern about changing rights and procedures for SES members at VA, as provided in a reform billthat has been signed into law (P.L. 113-146). Under the new law, senior execs will be subject to firing or demotion from the SES into the GS on either performance or conduct grounds and will have only seven days, rather than 30, to file an appeal. An MSPB hearing officer will have to issue a decision within three weeks after that (processing appeals takes on average three months)—if that deadline is missed, the agency decision will stand. Further, there is to be no appeal from the hearing officer’s decision to the MSPB board. The bipartisan board’s three members said in a letter to Obama—who put all of them in thosepositions—that the ban on reviewing the decisions might not stand up to legal challenge and “could set a very dangerous precedent” of barring officials from carrying out their duties. Numerous employee organizations and legal experts have said the changes could spread to other agencies and other levels of employees. The law requires MSPB, which is digging out from a huge backlog of furlough-related appeals, to issue policies shortly on how it will comply.