U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Ensuring the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce

Appendix B

TURNOVER DATA FROM THE CENTRAL PERSONNEL DATA FILE

This appendix addresses quit and transfer rates for law enforcement officers (LEOs) covered by the special retirement provisions for law enforcement officers (LEOs) under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) or the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), as well as selected law enforcement employees with arrest authority who are not covered by the special retirement provisions. (See General Notes for a more detailed description of the employees included.) We compiled quit and transfer data using the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM's) Central Personnel Data File (CPDF) for fiscal years (FY) 2001, 2002, and 2003. The Federal fiscal year is from October 1 through September 30. We also compiled data specifically from the last six months of FY 2003 (April 1 - September 30, 2003) in order to provide the latest available information, which might help identify recent trends.

This appendix is organized as follows:

General Notes

B1- Quit Rate Data

B1-1 Quit Rates for All Occupations by Grade (General Schedule and Related Only)

B1-2 Quit Rates for Selected LEO and Other Law Enforcement Occupations (All Pay Plans)

B1-3 Quit Rates for LEOs and Selected Other Law Enforcement Occupations by Agency (All Pay Plans)

B1-4 Quit Rates for Non-LEO Occupational Series 0083 Police Officers by Agency (All Pay Plans)

B1-5 Quit Rates for LEOs by Locality Pay Area (All Pay Plans)

B1-6 Quit Rates for Non-LEO Occupational Series 0083 Police Officers by Locality Pay Area (All Pay Plans)

B1-7 Quit Rates for Non-LEO GS-1816 Immigration Inspectors by Locality Pay Area (General Schedule Only)

B1-8 Quit Rates for Non-LEO GS-1890 Immigration Inspectors by Locality Pay Area (General Schedule Only)

B1-9 Quit Rates for Selected LEO Occupations by Grade

B1-10 Quit Rates for Police and Inspectors by Grade

B2 - Transfer Rate Data

B2-1 Transfer Rates for All Occupations by Grade (General Schedule and Related Only)

B2-2 Transfer Rates for Selected LEO and Other Law Enforcement Occupations (All Pay Plans)

B2-3 Transfer Rates for LEOs and Selected Other Law Enforcement Occupations by Agency (All Pay Plans)

B2-4 Transfer Rates for Non-LEO Occupational Series 0083 Police Officers by Agency (All Pay Plans)

B2-5 Transfer Rates for LEOs by Locality Pay Area (All Pay Plans)

B2-6 Transfer Rates for Non-LEO Occupational Series 0083 Police Officers by Locality Pay Area (All Pay Plans)

B2-7 Transfer Rates for Non-LEO GS-1816 Immigration Inspectors by Locality Pay Area (General Schedule Only)

B2-8 Transfer Rates for Non-LEO GS-1890 Immigration Inspectors by Locality Pay Area (General Schedule Only)

B2-9 Transfer Rates for Selected LEO Occupations by Grade

B2-10 Transfer Rates for Police and Inspectors by Grade

GENERAL NOTES

1. This appendix provides data on quits and transfers for (1) law enforcement officers (LEOs) and (2) selected other law enforcement employees with arrest authority. For the purpose of this appendix, a LEO is defined as a Federal employee covered by the special retirement provisions for law enforcement officers under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) or the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). The term LEO also includes approximately 500 Secret Service Uniformed Division officers, Secret Service agents and Park Police officers who are covered by the D.C Police Officers' and Firefighters' Retirement Plan. "Other law enforcement employees" is defined as employees with arrest authority who are not covered by the special retirement provisions for LEOs. Our analysis of other law enforcement employees is limited to the three major occupations in this category-police officers (0083), immigration inspectors (1816), and customs inspectors (1890). "Other law enforcement employees" exist in other occupational series, but they do not represent a majority of their occupation, and it was not possible to identify them in the data used for this analysis.
2. We compiled quit and transfer data using the Office of Personnel Management's Central Personnel Data File (CPDF) for fiscal years (FY) 2001, 2002, and 2003. The Federal fiscal year is from October 1 through September 30. We also compiled data specifically from the last six months of FY 2003 (April 1 - September 30, 2003) in order to provide the latest available information, which might help identify recent trends.
3. The CPDF database includes all executive branch agencies except the U.S. Postal Service, Postal Rate Commission, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Imagery and Mapping Agency, Tennessee Valley Authority, White House Office, Office of the Vice President, and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. In the legislative branch, only the
   Government Printing Office, U.S. Tax Court, and selected commissions are included. The judicial branch is entirely excluded, as are nonappropriated fund employees in the Department of Defense and foreign nationals outside the U.S. and its territories. (We note that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) provides only limited data, which does not include quit or transfer actions, and is therefore absent from the data in this appendix. See note 4 below.)
4. We estimate that, Governmentwide, there are about 106,000 LEOs and about 29,000 other law enforcement employees. This turnover study covers approximately 84,000 and 23,500 of these employees, respectively. The most significant exclusions include approximately-
• 11,600 criminal investigators at the FBI (LEO);
• 5,400 probation and pretrial services officers in the judicial branch (LEO);
• 1,900 postal inspectors and 130 postal IG investigators (LEO)
• 1,250 postal police officers;
• 1,500 Capitol Police officers (LEO);
• 170 police officers at the FBI;
• 130 police officers at the Library of Congress;
• 120 police officers at the Supreme Court (LEO); and
• 3,500 other law enforcement employees in occupational series other than 0083, 1811, and 1896 (including about 1,350 Diplomatic Security Service special agents in the Foreign Service).
5. The CPDF data includes employees who have non-seasonal, full-time work schedules, including employees on temporary appointments. We included temporary appointees since the vast majority of LEOs and other law enforcement employees who have temporary appointments are employees who generally convert to permanent appointments when the temporary appointment expires. In these cases, the temporary appointment is the normal mechanism through which new employees are hired.
6. For certain summary tables, employees covered by all pay plans are included, as indicated by "All Pay Plans" in the title of the summary tables. Other summary tables-primarily those detailing turnover data by grade level-include data specifically for General Schedule employees.
7. In March 2003, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was established by transferring employees from 22 agencies into DHS. Also, in January 2003, law enforcement employees in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were transferred from the Treasury Department to the Justice Department. It was necessary to adjust CPDF data so we could show meaningful FY 2003 quit and transfer rates by agency. Employee agency assignments on early FY 2003 population counts, quits and transfers were changed so that they reflected the new agency rather than the legacy agency. (We note that the mass transfer actions that moved the employee into their new agencies were not included in computing transfer rates.)
8. Annual quit and transfer rates were computed by dividing the number of fiscal year actions by the average number of employees for that fiscal year and multiplying by 100. The average number of employees was based on employment at the beginning, middle and end of the fiscal year. All data was limited to non-seasonal, full-time employees. Rates for the last half of FY 2003 were computed by multiplying the number of
   April-September actions by 2 to annualize the 6 month count, dividing by an average based on employment at the middle and the end of the fiscal year, and multiplying by 100.
9. "Quit" is defined as a voluntary resignation from the Federal service, including any resignations during a probationary or trial period. Quits exclude such actions as reassignments to other series, transfers to other Federal agencies, involuntary separations, retirements, and deaths.
10. "Transfer" is defined as a movement of an employee, without a break in service, from a position in one department/agency to a position in another department/agency. It may, or may not, be accompanied by a change in grade, occupation, etc. It does not include movements within a department or an independent agency-i.e., from one
    subcomponent to another subcomponent. Prior to the establishment of DHS, employees who moved to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from the Secret Service, the Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, etc., were counted as transfers, since TSA was part of the Department of Transportation and these other organizations belonged to other departments (e.g., Treasury, Justice). After DHS was established in March 2003, these movements would be considered reassignments, not transfers because they were movements within DHS. OPM found significantly higher transfer rates in FY 2002, largely due to movements to TSA (or FAA before security functions were formally transferred to TSA). OPM analyzed CPDF data to determine whether the drop-off in transfer rates in FY 2003 could be attributed to the inclusion of TSA with other organizations in DHS. In other words, we reviewed whether movements to TSA were continuing at a high rate but being labeled as reassignments instead of transfers. We concluded that the reduced FY 2003 transfer rates were valid. First of all, any movements to TSA from other departments before March 2003 were captured as transfers. Second, we conducted special analyses that showed very few movements to TSA from other parts of DHS during the last half of FY 2003.
11. Effective in January 2003, OPM established higher special rates for GS-0083 police officers in most agencies. Similar special rates were established for many Department of Defense GS-0083 police officers effective in April 2003. Also, since January 2003, the Veterans Administration (VA) established new or higher special rates for many of its GS-0083 police officers under VA's title 38 authority. We expect that these special salary rates will assist agencies in their efforts to recruit and retain police officers, but more time is needed to monitor and evaluate the full effect of the higher rates.