Executive Branch Civilian Employment

In GUNNER'S VIEW there are serious issues in the Federal Civil Service System. To start with in a lot of government agencies there is an excess of bureaucrats and a shortage of "worker bee's". Secondly, one of the primary jobs of the Federal Government appears to be taking our young men and women and turning them into disabled veterans. Now I understand these youngsters volunteer for military service - I did - and they become disabled in the process of doing what they volunteered to do. However, it seems to me that when it comes time to employ these veterans, both healthy and disabled, the government tends to ignore them. In GUNNER'S VIEW at least 25% of all civil service positions should be held by veterans, and 25% of those should be disabled veterans.

The following information is for FY 06, which is the most recent data OPM has on the internet to date. It lists the Executive Branch Departments by number of civilian employees, number of veterans and number of disabled veterans. I've listed them by % of veterans, not by total employees or alphabetically.

1. Department of the Air Force: 158,887 employees; 66,162 vets (45.3%); 15,561 disabled vets (23.5%)
2. Department of the Navy: 173,616 employees; 64,734 vets (37.3%); 11,716 disabled vets (18.1%)
3. Department of the Army: 238,885 employees; 88,229 vets (36.9%); 23,226 disabled vets (26.3%)
4. Other Department of Defense: 667,786 employees; 245,750 vets (36.8%); 56,540 disabled vets (23%)
5. Department of Transportation: 53,828 employees; 16,273 vets (30.2%); 2,347 disabled vets (14.4%)
6. Department of Veteran Affairs: 239,312 employees; 63,684 vets (26.6%); 17,109 disabled vets (26.9%)
7. Department of Homeland Security: 168,506 employees; 39,645 vets (23.5%); 5,945 disabled vets (15%)
8. Department of Energy: 14,993 employees; 3,081 vets (20.6%); 909 disabled vets (17%)
9. Department of Justice: 105,670 employees; 19,292 vets (18.3%); 2,406 disabled vets (12.5%)
10. Department of Labor: 15,324 employees; 2,657 vets (17.3%); 770 disabled vets (29%)
11. Department of the Interior: 73,073 employees; 11,807 vets (16.2%); 2,104 disabled vets (17.8%)
12. Department of State: 10,124 employees; 1,615 vets (16%); 304 disabled vets (18.8%)
13. Department of Housing & Urban Development: 9,813 employees; 1,355 vets (13.8%); 355 disabled vets (24.7%)
14. Department of Commerce: 40, 527 employees; 4,769 vets (11.8%); 704 disabled vets (14.8%)
15. Department of Agriculture: 105,431 employees; 11,990 vets (11.4%); 1,995 disabled vets (16.6%)
16. Independent Agencies: 168,628 employees; 19,081 vets (11.3%); 3,683 disabled vets (19.3%)
17. Department of the Treasury: 106,583 employees; 10,659 vets (10%); 1,888 disabled vets (17.7%)
18. Department of Education: 4,331 employees; 354 vets (8.2%); 83 disabled vets (23.4%)
19. Department of Health & Human Services: 63,290 employees; 4,965 vets (7.8%); 525 disabled vets (18.3%)

Overall, the Executive Branch of our government employs 1,848,339 civilians. Of these, 457,028 (24.7%) are veterans. Of the vets, 97,649 (21.4%) are disabled veterans.

There are certain Federal statutes governing civilian employment by the Federal government. By and large these statutes are ignored by the bureaucrats. One act, in particular, The Veterans Preference Act of 1944, as amended, allows the following:
a. Preference in hiring applies to permanent and temporary positions in the competitive and excepted services of the executive branch. Preference does not apply to positions in the Senior Executive Service or to executive branch positions for which Senate confirmation is required. The legislative and judicial branches of the Federal Government also are exempt from the Veterans' Preference Act unless the positions are in the competitive service (Government Printing Office, for example) or have been made subject to the Act by another law.
b. Preference applies in hiring from civil service examinations conducted by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and agencies under delegated examining authority, for most excepted service jobs including Veterans Recreuitment Appointments (VRA), and when agencies make temporary, term, and overseas limited appointments. Veterans' preference does not apply to promotion, reassignment, change to lower grade, transfer or reinstatement.
c. Veterans' preference does not require an agency to use any particular appointment process. Agencies have broad authority under law to hire from any appropriate source of eligibles including special appointing authorities. An agency may consider candidates already in the civil service from an agency-developed merit promotion list or it may reassign a current employee, transfer an employee from another agency, or reinstate a former Federal employee. In addition, agencies are required to give priority to displaced employees before using civil service examinations and similar hiring methods. (it has been both my personal and professional experience that many bureaucrats comply with the bolded sentence if it allows them to ignore veterans preference.)
Additional information on veterans preference may be found at http://www.opm.gov/veterans/html/vetguide.asp

There are a number of discrepancies in the hiring process that I'm aware of, but that I cannot document. However, "Under title 5 U.S.C. 3307, agencies are authorized to establish a maximum entry age for original appointment to law enforcement officer, firefighter, and U.S. Park Police positions. A maximum entry age has also been established under this statutory provision for original appointment to air traffic controller positions at terminals and centers. Information about maximum entry age limits will be provided to applicants by the employing agencies." (Source is OPM Policies and Instructions) The maximum age limitation, as I understand it, is 38. Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge once told me that the maximum age of 38 was established, for law enforcement, to ensure only those applicants who were physically qualified could apply. My response was "(Expletive deleted), the AFGE (American Federation of Government Employees) or some other union had that age limit established to preclude retired military personnel from applying for those positions. Who, Mr. Secretary, do you want protecting your headquarters, a bunch of 22 year olds with college degrees or a bunch of 39 year olds with 20 years service as Military or Air Policemen?"

I'm under the impression that the FAA has set the same age registriction for Air Traffic Controllers for the same reason.

"The law requires agencies to credit uniformed (military) service of non-retirees as civilian service. For military retirees, the law only allows credit for service in the armed forces during a war, service in a campaign for which a campaign badge is awarded or when the retirement is based on disability resulting from an armed conflict or in the line of duty during a period of war." http://www.opm.gov/fedregis/2002/66-0040837-a.htm In essence, if an MP or ATC or whatever, retires from the military, with 20 years service, today AND since Title 38 United States Code 101(33) states that the Persian Gulf War ran from 2 Aug 1990 to a date prescribed by Presidential proclamation or law, than upon completion of the mandatory period of probation the military retiree should be credited with 18 years, 9 months, and 19 days seniority. The unions are not big fans of that.

So, the bottom line is simple. Revamp the civil service (not gonna happen). Fire/Demote/Fine hiring managers who are not in compliance with OPM (not gonna happen). File a grievance with OPM, which is allowed by statute (your decision). File a lawsuit in Federal Court aganinst the specific Federal Agency AND the individual hiring manager, for violation of Title 5 United States Code, Section whatever (your decision).

Since there isn't enough space on the Internet or enough time for me to do all the research required, I'll leave you here with the knowledge that the states with the largest numbers of Federal civil servants are CA (140,000), DC (139,000), VA (121,000), TX, (114,000) and MD (103,000).

May the Lord keep you safe.
Gunner Sends