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GAO-08-920R 1 (2008-09-10)

handle is hein.gao/gaobaanjq0001 and id is 1 raw text is: I m GAO -- A countablty * Integrity * Reliability United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548 September 10, 2008 Congressional Requesters Subject: NASA Workforce: Briefing on National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Use of Term Appointments Congress expanded the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ability to use term appointments to fill civil service positions in 2004. NASA sought this flexibility to ensure that it could hire and retain the workforce it desired. In a joint explanatory statement accompanying the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008 (Pub. L. No. 110-161), you asked us to review NASA's use of term appointments for civil servant positions. We briefed the committees on the results of our review. This report summarizes that briefing, which is reprinted in full as an enclosure. As agreed to by the committees, this concludes our work performed under this mandate. Summary Since receiving its expanded human capital flexibilities, NASA has steadily increased its use of term appointments when hiring new employees. Subsequently, NASA has increased the number of conversions from term to career or career-conditional appointments. From 2003 through 2007, the majority of employees who separated from NASA voluntarily retired. Less than 1 percent separated because the employee's appointment expired. NASA's goal is to evolve to a science and engineering workforce that at a minimum is comprised of 15 percent term/temporary appointments by 2013. However, NASA centers are given the option to use term appointments for other positions. Background Over the past few years, GAO and others in the federal government have underscored the importance of human capital management and strategic workforce planning. Federal agencies, as a whole, face new and increasingly complex challenges in the 21st century and must transform their organizations to meet the challenges of long-term fiscal constraints, changing demographics, evolving governance models, and other factors. This involves developing a strategic approach to human capital management that integrates human capital efforts with their missions and program goals, which we have recently reported federal agencies typically lack. In response to an increased governmentwide focus on strategic human capital management, NASA has taken several steps to improve its human capital management. These include steps such as requesting and receiving additional human capital flexibilities through the NASA Flexibility Act of 2004 (Pub. L. No. 108-201) (Flexibility GAO-08-920R NASA's Use of Term Appointments Page 1

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