NASA Personnel

By the end of fiscal year 1996, NASA will be about halfway to its goal of reducing its workforce from 25,000 full-time-equivalent employees to about 17,500. NASA's success is due mainly to the use of buyouts to encourage employees to voluntarily resign or retire from the government. About two-thirds of the 4,000 people who left NASA in 1994 and 1995 took buyouts. Voluntary attrition should meet NASA's downsizing goals through fiscal year 1998, but the agency doubts whether attrition would provide sufficient personnel losses by fiscal year 1999. Thus, NASA intends to start planning for a reduction-in-force during fiscal year 1998 if not enough NASA employees are retiring or resigning voluntarily. NASA's ability to reach its goal of 17,500 employees is subject to major uncertainties, including the shifting of program management from headquarters to field centers and the award of a single prime contract for managing the space shuttle at Kennedy Space Center. Because of questions about NASA's ability to achieve major personnel reductions to meet likely future budgets, Congress may want to consider requiring NASA to submit a workforce-restructuring plan for achieving its fiscal year 2000 goal.

GAO found that: (1) NASA has reduced its fiscal year (FY) 2000 full-time equivalent (FTE) goal by more than 3,000 personnel; (2) NASA has provided eligible employees with voluntary separation incentive payments in exchange for their voluntary retirement or resignation; (3) two-thirds of the employees that left NASA in 1994 and 1995 took buyouts; (4) NASA will not be able to reduce its personnel levels by FY 2000 without invoking involuntarily separation measures; (5) NASA is relying on normal attrition, limited hiring, and redeployment to ensure a proper mix of skills throughout the agency; (6) NASA is shifting its program management control from headquarters to field centers and is using a single prime contractor to manage its space shuttle program at Kennedy Space Center; and (7) NASA would like to develop space science institutes to improve the quality of its science programs, but these efforts have been largely abandoned due to concerns regarding the transfer of NASA employees to institute positions.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone: