United States
Office of Personnel Management




Office of Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness
Digest of Significant Classification Decisions and Opinions
December 2001
Article No. 27-08


Standards:Medical Equipment Repairer, 4805 (June 1974)
	Electronics Technician, GS-856 (December 1965)
Factor:	N/A
Issue:	Distinguishing between Federal Wage System (FWS) and 
	General Schedule (GS) Positions 

Identification of the Classification Issue

The appellant’s position was classified as Medical Equipment Repairer, 4805.  He 
believed it should be classified as Electronics Technician, GS-856.  

Resolution

The appellant was responsible for maintaining, repairing, and troubleshooting 
medical equipment, and modifying such equipment as requested by the 
manufacturer.  The 4805 job grading standard specifically covers installing, 
modifying, troubleshooting, maintaining, testing, calibrating, and repairing 
medical, laboratory, and dental equipment (electronic, electrical, and mechanical).  
It excludes technicians who perform such work incidental to the development and 
evaluation of medical equipment.  Development and evaluation are engineering 
functions.  Even though installation, maintenance, repair, and testing are 
mentioned in the GS-856 standard, it is the design, development, and evaluation 
work that is considered paramount and that controls the pay category.  For 
example, regular and significant technical evaluations, development of specialized 
circuits or components, and complex modifications to standard electronic designs 
are hallmarks of electronics technician work.  While electronics technicians may 
combine their knowledge of electronic theory and the ability to use their hands 
and tools to carry out their assignments, the knowledge of electronic theory is the 
paramount requirement of the work and the manual dexterity and skill are 
secondary.

The appellant’s regular and recurring work assignments and the limited degree to 
which he performed modification work did not require the knowledge and 
abilities of an electronics technician.  Rather, his duties involved the repair and 
maintenance of medical equipment used in patient diagnosis and treatment.  OPM 
concluded that the paramount requirement of the appellant’s job was the 
performance of work that required the application of knowledge and experience 
typical of the Federal Wage System, and sustained the agency’s classification to 
the 4805 occupation.  

“Back to the Basics”

The Introduction to the Position Classification Standards (Introduction) says that 
a position is exempt from the General Schedule if its primary duty involves the 
performance of physical work which requires knowledge or experience of a trade, 
craft, or manual labor nature.  The Introduction further states that a position is 
subject to the General Schedule, even if it requires physical work, if its primary 
duty requires knowledge or experience of an administrative, clerical, scientific, 
artistic, or technical nature not related to trade, craft, or manual-labor work.

The nature of Federal Wage System work has changed somewhat as repair tools 
and equipment have become computerized, to the point that some FWS 
employees may do very limited “manual” labor in the traditional sense of that 
term.  However, the basic purpose of troubleshooting, testing, calibrating, and 
repairing remains the same.  The primary determinant of pay category is the 
knowledge and experience required to perform the work, not the types of tools 
used.


Link to C-4805-11-02


Digest of Significant Classification Decisions and Opinions, No. 27, December 2001