About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 1 (April 17, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govcryt0001 and id is 1 raw text is: April 17, 2020 Defense Primer: Department of Defense Civilian Employees The foundation for the modem federal civil service, which includes defense civilians, is the statutory Merit System Principles found in Title 5 of the U.S. Code. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) oversees the s ystem Historically, by the 1830s, challenges in hiring and managing govement civilians hadbecome severe when the spoils system, in which each presidential administration replaced the federal workforce with its political supporters or party members, sparked increased interest in reform. Post-civilwarefforts to eliminate the spoils systemwere underway in the Congress when a catalyst for immediate change arose fromPres ident Garfield's as sassination in 1881 by a disgruntled supporter who was denied ajob in the President's administration. Beginning in 1883, the Congress periodically passed civil service reformbills for almost a century before establishing the current federal civil service in 1978. DOD civilians are appointed to the federal civil service to perfonna federal function under the supervision of another federal employee or an appropriate federal official. DOD may employ individuals in the various federal civil service employment classes consistent with its yearly appropriation for direct hire employees. Indirect-hire, government contractor, and non-appropriated fund employees are not members of the federal civil service. DOD civilians may exercise management or supervisory authority over service members when authorized, but they do not have command or military justice authority over them There are three classes of federalcivil service appointments under Title 5 of the U.S. Code: competitive service, excepted service, and senior executive service (SES). The competitive service consists of all federalcivil service positions that are not specifically excluded byOPM, statute, or the President. The majority of federal employees and over 80 percent of DOD civilians are appointed in the competitive service. The excepted s ervice consists of all federal civil service positions that are notincluded in the competitive service or SES. SES positions are those with high-level managerial, supervisory, and policy making responsibilities. TheSES makes up less thanone percent of the federal civil service. A SES pos ition in DOD is often analogous to a flag or general officer military position, but it does notinclude command authority. The generallaw governing DOD civilians is found in Titles 5 and 29 of the U.S. Code, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, among others, and their as sociated federal regulations. Title 5 identifies 14 Prohibited Personnel Practices which complement the Merit SystemPrinciples. Some of the federal entities overseeing mostDOD civilians include the: Office of PersonnelManagement (OPM); Merit Systems ProtectionBoard (MSPB); Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC); Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA); and Office of Special Counsel (OSC). The FLRA oversees DOD civilians who are members of a collective bargaining unit (union). Because OPM does not typically have juris diction over elements of the U.S. Intelligence Conmrunity (IC), OSC does not have jurisdiction over IC elements in DOD and, with the exception of preference eligible veterans with more than one year of federal civilian service, MSPB does not have jurisdiction over the DOD civilian intelligence workforce. Specific law and policies governing DOD civilians are found in Title 10 of the U.S. Code and defense or military department directives, instructions, and manuals. TheDOD official with direct responsibility for DOD civilians is the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD(P&R)), who also serves as DOD's ChiefHuman CapitalOfficer (CHCO) (10 U.S.C. § 136; 5 U.S.C. § 1402). C, iflu'as DOD appropriates funds each year for DOD civilians based on the number of direct-hire Full-Time Equivalent (FFE) units needed to meet its requirements (1 unit equals 2080 hours per year). The actualnumber of DOD civilians typically fluctuates fromthe budgeted FIEnumber. The Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) reported 755,386 total DOD civilians as of September 30,2019. Table 1 includes the FY2020 authorized and FY 2021 requested DOD FFE units. Table I. DOD Direct-Hire FTE DOD FY 2020 FY 2021 Percent Component Authorized Requested Change Defense 217,300 210,400 -4.00% Army 180,800 186,100 2.90% Navy 207,000 208,900 0.90% Air Force 169,800 168,100 - 1.00% Total 774,900 773,600 -0.20% Source: DOD Budget Overview for FY 202 1, p. 2-8, available at https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy20 21 /fy2021 Budget Request Overview Bodc.pdf. Note: FTE numbers rounded by source. A A '2 k xa h: \5 A k k yg

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most