United States

Office of Personnel Management

Office of Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness

Digest of Significant Classification Decisions and Opinions

December 1990

No. 14-01

Standards:	Budget Analysis Series, GS-0560 (July 1981) and

Budget Clerical and Assistance Series, GS-0561 (March 1983)

Factor:	Series selection

Issue:	Whether work was properly covered by the GS-0560 or GS-0561 series

Identification of the Classification Issue

This issue arose in an Office of Personnel Management region's consideration of a classification appeal. The appellant performed various budget functions and other duties. Her budget functions included developing the part of her unit's annual budget and projected budget for the next 3-10 years that concerned supplies, equipment, travel, training, contract maintenance, and other such matters. The issue was whether these functions were properly covered by the Budget Analysis Series, GS-0560, or by the Budget Clerical and Assistance Series, GS-0561.

Resolution

To be placed in the two-grade-interval GS-0560 series rather than the one-grade-interval GS- 0561 series, budget work must clearly and primarily require a high level of skill in analytical reasoning combined with a thorough knowledge of the underlying principles, methods, and techniques of budgeting equivalent to that acquired through a pertinent baccalaureate education.

The appellant and her agency made various positive statements relating to her analytical skills and knowledge of budget methods and techniques. With respect to these statements, some skill and knowledge as described in the preceding paragraph may have been desirable in performing the appellant's budget work. Further, she may have possessed some such skills and knowledges. However, her budget work did not clearly and primarily require all the skill and knowledge discussed in the preceding paragraph, as indicated by the following points:

1.	The appeal file and an audit provided many examples of the appellant's methods and techniques. These examples indicated that she used cost-benefit analysis, management by objectives (MBO), depreciation, and inventory replacement theory in her work. However, she did not regularly use the more complex aspects of these four techniques, where those aspects clearly required a high order of analytical skill and thorough knowledge of underlying budgeting principles. Further, she did not regularly use program evaluation review technique (PERT), decision theory, linear programming, probability theory, linear regression, or amortization. Finally, she did not regularly use any other formal budgeting method or technique that clearly required great analytical skill plus thorough knowledge of underlying budgeting principles.

2.	The appellant's budget was roughly $500,000, a relatively modest amount in the context of an agency budget. Her unit was fairly small, and the budget she worked with was only part of the total unit budget. Though her budget involved many line items, it involved only about 25 object classes. Finally, though the appellant made budget projections for several years in advance, her unit's program was funded on a yearly basis. These and other points indicated that her budget involved a relative lack of scope and complexity.

Based on the above analysis, the appellant's budget work could not be placed in the GS-0560 series. This conclusion was supported by exclusion 5 of the GS-0560 standard. According to the exclusion, nontrainee positions evaluated below GS-9 are excluded from the GS-0560 series. The appellant's was a nontrainee position. The Office of Personnel Management's classification decision found that it was properly graded at GS-7 whether the criteria in the GS-0560 or GS- 0561 standard were applied.

The appellant's budget work resembled that described in the series definition of the GS-0561 standard. For example, her work required practical understanding and skill in applying administrative rules, regulations, and procedures associated with recording, reporting, processing, and keeping track of budgetary transactions. Therefore, the work was best covered by the GS- 0561 series.