White House Opposes Administrative Leave Restrictions

The Obama administration has objected to a move in Congress to restrict use of administrative leave, paid time away from the workplace commonly used when employees are being investigated for possible disciplinary actions. The opposition came in comments on the House version of the annual DoD authorization bill, now undergoing floor voting. The bill would generally ban any agency from putting employees on administrative leave in disciplinary cases for more than 14 days in a one-year period; similar language is in a separate House-passed bill and in a recently introduced Senate bill of VA personnel reforms. A White House statement said the provision “substantially limits federal agencies’ discretion, would be administratively burdensome, and, in many cases, would not allow time for the agency to thoroughly investigate and adjudicate issues in a legally defensible manner due to many factors.” The language “could also pose safety and national security issues, as it would restrain an agency’s use of administrative leave in conjunction with a proposed adverse action and where an agency believes the employee may otherwise pose a threat to safety and security in the workplace, or to the proper safeguarding of sensitive information or operations.” The administration also opposed a provision in the DoD bill–also recently passed as a separate bill by the House–to require that adverse findings in disciplinary investigations become a part of an employee’s record if the employee resigns in the meantime, and that agencies would have to review prior personnel files when considering hiring a former federal employee. That “would be difficult to implement because it is unclear what would be expected of an agency under these circumstances since they are often precluded from taking any disciplinary action against individuals who are no longer employed by the agency.” It said the result would be “placing a notation in an individual’s official personnel file based on what may be an incomplete investigation, and without a full determination by the agency that an adverse personnel action would have been warranted.”