October 16, 2000
THOMPSON LEGISLATION GIVES
GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE NEW FLEXIBILITY IN SHAPING WORKFORCE
New Law Will Allow Comptroller General to
Reshape GAO
Washington, DC - The President on Friday signed
legislation introduced by Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) to give the
General Accounting Office new personnel flexibilities to allow it
to shape its workforce to meet 21st century needs.
"The government has increasingly had difficulty hiring the
right people to do the jobs it needs done,"said Senator
Thompson, Chairman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs.
"This legislation gives GAO the ability to do that."
H.R. 4642, companion legislation to a bill
introduced by Senator Thompson in May of this year (S.2595), will
assist GAO in its efforts to hire and retain the workforce it
needs to meet the needs of Congress and assure the economy and
efficiency of the government’s operations. The new law will
allow GAO to:
Offer voluntary early retirement to selected
individual employees for the purposes of realigning the agency’s
workforce;
Offer separation payment to employees for
realignment purposes;
Appoint and reassign scientific and
technical staff to senior-level positions with the same pay,
rights, and other attributes as members of the Senior
Executive Service; and
Realign GAO’s current workforce by
considering factors such as employees’ knowledge, skills,
and performance without the requirement to focus primarily on
employees’ length of service. This change would retain
current statutory rights for military veterans while allowing
GAO to maintain a high quality and diverse workforce.
This legislation addresses growing concerns that
the federal government is facing an employment crisis. Reports
consistently show that the federal government’s workforce is in
trouble. As Comptroller General David Walker said in a recent Government
Executive article, "The federal government faces a human
capital crisis of significant proportions. The federal workforce
is smaller. It is older. It is, in many cases, out of shape and
faces serious succession planning and skills imbalance
challenges."
"David Walker says he wants GAO to be the
‘model’ for the federal government," said Senator
Thompson. "GAO’s experience in using these personnel tools
can help us in the Congress evaluate whether these and other
reforms would be useful in improving our management of the federal
government’s entire workforce."
The Senate bill, S. 595, was introduced on May
18, 2000, by Senators Thompson and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT). Reps.
Dan Burton (IN) and Henry Waxman (CA), Chairman and Ranking Member
of the House Government Reform Committee, worked on the
legislation in the House.
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