Personnel Practices

Presidential Transition Conversions and Appointments: Changes Needed Gao ID: GGD-94-66 May 31, 1994

During a presidential transition or a large turnover of Members of Congress, political appointees at federal agencies as well as White House and congressional employees sometimes apply for and receive career appointments in the competitive or Senior Executive Service. Such appointments are sensitive. The political nature of the individuals' past assignments creates concern about whether they had an unfair advantage in the merit system selection process, even the appearance of which could compromise the integrity of the civil service system. From January 1992 through March 1993, 25 federal agencies GAO surveyed reported 121 conversions and noncompetitive appointments. GAO also reviews allegations by federal workers and others about potentially improper career appointments of political appointees, agency reorganizations, and rule changes.

GAO found that: (1) 25 of the 33 federal departments and agencies surveyed had 121 conversions and noncompetitive appointments from January 1992 through March 1993; (2) all of the conversions and appointments met basic procedural requirements, but in nine cases, the appointees may have received preferential treatment; (3) six of the appointments were exempt from the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) preappointment review because the employees had reinstatement rights earned through their prior career status or were being appointed to the excepted service; (4) the other noncompetitive appointments under the Ramspeck Act were also not subject to any preappointment review; (5) eight additional cases involved noncompetitive appointees returned to congressional service for brief periods of time and OPM ordered two of these persons removed from their positions; (6) OPM suspended SES processing during the 1992 presidential transition at only five agencies where the agency head was resigning because neither the White House nor the transition team requested other suspensions; (7) 76 allegations of improper personnel practices were substantiated and 163 were unsubstantiated; and (8) 52 other allegations involving a variety of practices were referred to the appropriate agency inspectors general for their review.

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.

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