Classification Appeal Decision

U.S. Office of Personnel Management

Chicago Oversight Division

Appellant:

Position Number:

Agency Classification:

Position Location:

Office of Personnel

Management Decision:

OPM decision number:

[Appellant]

NE9479

Secretary (OA), GS-318-6

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Forest Service

[installation] Forest Experiment Station

[installation]

[installation city state]

Secretary (OA), GS-318-5

C-0318-05-01

This appellate decision constitutes a certificate that is mandatory and binding on administrative, certifying, payroll, and accounting offices of the Government. It is the final administrative decision on the classification of the position, not subject to further appeal. It is subject to discretionary review only under the conditions and time limits specified in Part 511, Subpart F, of Title 5, U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. This certificate must be implemented no later than the beginning of the sixth pay period following the date of the decision.

/s/

________________________________

Frederick J. Boland

Classification Appeals Officer

July 10, 1997

_________________________________

Date

INFORMATION CONSIDERED

Appellant's letters dated December 3, 1996, and January 24, March 24, and June 17, 1997, their enclosures and earlier correspondence.

Agency letter dated January 15, 1997, and its enclosures.

Copy of the official description of the appellant's position.

Copy of the official description of the appellant's supervisor's position.

Copy of the appellant's performance plan.

Copy of the Department of Agriculture's decision on the appellant's internal appeal of her position's classification.

Telephone audit of the position with the appellant on February 27 and with her supervisor on April 1, 1997, and follow-up conversations.

EVALUATION CRITERIA

Secretary, GS-318, Series position classification standard, dated January 1979.

Office Automation Grade Evaluation Guide, dated November 1990.

Budget Clerical and Assistance, GS-561, Series position classification standard, dated March 1983.

INTRODUCTION

The appellant contests her agency's decision in classifying her position. She is assigned to position number NE9479, classified on April 4, 1996, as Secretary (Office Automation), GS-318- 6. The position is located in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, [area] Forest Experiment Station, [area], [city state].

The appellant requests that her position be upgraded to Secretary, GS-318-7. She believes her work warrants greater credit than her agency allowed because she is more experienced than others in similar positions, because of the range of knowledge and skill her duties demand, and because of her lengthy experience with the guidelines she uses (Factors 1 and 3 of the GS-318 classification standard). She believes her position description accurately reflects her major duties, but warrants upgrading when compared to other positions.

By law, positions are classified based upon their duties, responsibilities, and qualification requirements compared to the criteria specified in the appropriate OPM classification standard or guide. Other methods of evaluation, including comparison to other positions, are not permitted. Agencies are, however, required to apply classification standards and OPM decisions consistently to ensure equal pay for equal work. OPM will require an agency to conduct a consistency review upon showing that specifically identified positions at different grades have identical duties and responsibilities.

The appellant specifically identifies, by means of a vacancy announcement and position descriptions, three GS-7 support positions that she believes are comparable to her own. These are: an Administrative Support Assistant in her parent organization, the [area] Forest Experiment Station in [city state]; a Secretary in the Office of the Area Director, Forest Health Protection, National Center of Forest Health Management, [area]; and a Secretary in the Department of Agriculture, Staff Director, [city state]. Each of these positions provides clerical and administrative support, but except for their functional likeness, have no obvious similarity to the appellant's own. Their work environments, for example, are markedly different from the appellant's environment, which lacks the larger staff and subordinate structure that lend complexity to these other positions. Significant differences in complexity commonly yield grade level differences between positions in similar lines of work.

JOB INFORMATION

The appellant is one of about 15 employees in her office, which is headed by a GS-14 Supervisory Research Forester (Project Leader) and includes 3 other Researchers, 3 Foresters, 2 Computer Specialists, a Biological Technician, the appellant, and 4 temporary staff. The office, in cooperation with other researchers, develops biological and silvicultural understanding and forest management technology for reducing damage associated with gypsy moth defoliation in susceptible forest types in the United States.

The appellant coordinates the administrative and clerical functions of the office, providing support to both her supervisor and his subordinate staff. Included among her administrative duties are monitoring the office's budget by tracking, entering, and reconciling expenditures; monitoring project status; locating and assembling information for various reports, briefings, and conferences; composing non-technical correspondence; following up with staff to ensure commitments are met, retrieving and arranging data needed for the budget and annual reports; making arrangements for travel and support of staff on field trips; and assigning work to a temporary clerk.

Among her clerical duties are answering calls and receiving visitors; maintaining attendance and leave records; requisitioning office supplies, repairs, and printing services; reserving meeting rooms; maintaining office filing systems; controlling incoming correspondence; reviewing outgoing correspondence for format, grammar, and appearance; completing routine letters and reports; and keeping abreast of various procedural requirements, such as those pertaining to travel and requests for personnel actions. She is expected to be proficient (at least 40 words per minute) in typing and in the use of wordprocessing and other office software.

Contrary to the language in her position description, which conveys a sense of greater authority, responsibility, and complexity than found in our review, the appellant does not function as a technician or an analyst, nor does she perform budget analyst, program analyst, or personnel management work. She does not manage the office budget (her supervisor's responsibility), analyze program development, effectiveness, efficiency, or execution, provide personnel management services (support rendered by agency Personnel Specialists), or exercise the full range of supervisory responsibilities over another support position within the office (which would involve responsibility for selection, appraisal, counseling, discipline, grievance resolution, etc.). Her assignments and responsibilities are valuable and important to the smooth functioning of her office, but are more limited than the description suggests and do not exceed the clerical and assistant levels outlined in this decision. Therefore, the letter transmitting this decision to the agency requests correction of any language in the position description that is inconsistent with our findings.

ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

Series and Title Determination

The appellant's primary duties fall within the type of work covered by the Secretary, GS-318, series, which includes positions that assist one individual, and, as in the appellant's case, the subordinate staff of that individual, by performing general office work auxiliary to the work of the organization. As required by the GS-318 classification standard, the appellant functions as the principal administrative and clerical support position in her office, operating independently of any other such position in the office. She coordinates a comprehensive range of administrative and clerical support duties, as noted in the Job Information section of this decision. Her duties require knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and requirements, various office skills, and the ability to apply such skills in a way that increases the effectiveness of others. Her duties require a general knowledge of the substantive work of her office, but not technical or professional knowledge in any specialized subject-matter area.

The title Secretary applies to all non-supervisory positions in the GS-318 occupation. (The appellant's occasional direction of a temporary clerk does not meet the minimal requirements specified in the General Schedule Supervisory Guide for titling and grading supervisory positions.) Because her work requires typing proficiency (at least 40 w.p.m.) and significant knowledge of office automation systems (e.g., word processing and other office software), the parenthetical Office Automation or OA is added to the title. Thus, the appellant's position is properly titled Secretary (OA).

Grade Determination

Work demanding less than a substantial (at least 25 percent) amount of time is not considered in classifying a position. Similarly, acting, temporary, and other responsibilities that are not regular and continuing are not considered in classifying positions. (Temporary assignments of sufficient duration, though, are sometimes recognized in accordance with agency discretion by temporary promotion if higher graded duties are involved, by formal detail, or by performance awards.)

The appellant's primary duties are evaluated using the Secretary, GS-318, classification standard. Her secondary duties, such as wordprocessor and spreadsheet use, are evaluated using more relevant standards, like the Office Automation Grade Evaluation Guide. Her office automation duties, however, cannot be higher graded than her Secretarial duties unless they involve a wide variety of non-standard automation problems or assignments requiring knowledge of advanced functions of more than one type of software, which they do not. Her compilation and tracking of budget data are evaluated using the Budget Clerical and Assistance, GS-561, standard. Her budget related work requires knowledge of routine procedures for receiving and routing documents, basic arithmetic and balancing techniques, and the ability to extract and record financial data from records. Because her budget tracking does not involve a wide variety of non- standard transactions or resolution of a wide range of budget related problems, it also cannot be higher graded than her Secretarial duties. Neither of these latter two areas of work, therefore, are further evaluated in this decision.

The GS-318 standard is in Factor Evaluation System (FES) format. This system requires credit levels assigned under each factor to relate to only one set of duties and responsibilities. Under FES, work must be fully equivalent to the factor-level described in the standard to warrant credit at that level's point value. If work is not fully equivalent to the overall intent of a particular level described in the standard, a lower level and point value must be assigned, unless the deficiency is balanced by an equally important aspect of the work that meets a higher level.

Factor 1: Knowledge Required by the Position

This factor measures the nature and extent of information or facts that employees must understand to do acceptable work (e.g., steps, procedures, practices, rules, policies, theories, principles, and concepts) and the nature and extent of the skills needed to apply those knowledges. In the Secretary occupation, the same type of knowledge may be found at different factor-levels and point values, depending on the extent of knowledge required. The extent of knowledge required in this occupation is related, in part, to the work situation in which the position is situated. Accordingly, this factor is examined by means of these two parts, type and situation.

The standard describes four basic types of knowledge required and three basic types of work situations that determine the factor level credited. The appellant believes her work warrants Level 1-4 credit as a combination of Knowledge Type III with Work Situation B.

Knowledge Type

The appellant feels her many years of experience warrant greater credit than her agency allowed under this factor, noting that she has longer service than other Secretaries given the same or greater credit by her agency. She cites as an example another Secretary with 2 years experience receiving greater credit than she received with 25 years experience. As noted in the introduction to this decision, positions are classified based upon their duties, responsibilities, and qualification requirements by comparison to the criteria specified in the appropriate classification standard or guide. Factors such as the appellant's credentials, length of experience, level of performance, or workload are not considered in determining grade level. Other areas of the personnel management system take these considerations into account. Performance and incentive awards, periodic step increases, and special pay rates, for example, address some of these issues that are not properly resolved through position classification.

The appellant emphasizes the variety of administrative support tasks that she coordinates, citing, among other things, her monitoring of expenditures, reconcilement of statements, and summarization of budget related data; her keeping current with standard procedures related to initiating recruitment, classification, performance appraisals, awards, and training requests; her use of software to customize reports, to prepare spreadsheets and graphs, and to enter procurement data; and her compilation and summarization of material when drafting reports of office activities. Responsibility for the coordination of such tasks, versus simply their performance, distinguishes Secretarial positions from other support positions, as recognized in the classification standard and considered below.

Not considered, however, are duties the appellant cites from her position description that suggest she functions as a technician or analyst. For example, she notes that her position description mentions using analytical solutions to resolve administrative and technical problems and suggests programmatic analyses are part of her job. Nothing of this nature is evident in the work samples she provided or from our interviews with her, which revealed only clerical and administrative support type assignments. As noted in the Job Information and Series Determination sections of this decision, her assignments are supportive in nature, rather than technical, professional, or specialized. Higher graded, administrative positions perform program analyses and devise analytical solutions. Such positions demand a high degree of analytical ability combined with a comprehensive knowledge of the functions, processes, theories and principles of management and the methods used to gather, analyze, and evaluate information. In contrast, the appellant provides only administrative support by applying established methods and procedures to her assignments. Her work requires only a practical knowledge of the purpose, operations, procedures, techniques, and guidelines of the specific program or function involved, rather than theories, principles, or analytical techniques. Technical positions typically involve substantial elements of the work of a professional field, but require less than full competence in the field. The appellant's position does not demand technical training in Forestry or related sciences (e.g., in order to perform the more routine portions of professional work). Instead, it demands only general knowledge of the type of scientific work performed by her office ( e.g., in order to establish files, refer calls, and answer general inquiries).

In addition to meeting the GS-318 classification standard's requirements for Knowledge Types I and II, the appellant's position meets Type III. Her job requirements, however, fall short of Type IV knowledge. Type I credits the appellant's knowledge of basic or commonly used rules, procedures, or operations in order to receive and refer phone calls and visitors; her knowledge of common clerical practices and procedures to file material and obtain requested data from the files; and her knowledge of grammar, punctuation and required formats sufficient to recognize and correct related errors in correspondence, reports, and publications. Type II credits the appellant's knowledge of an extensive body of rules, procedures, or operations as well as knowledge of the organization and functions of her office in order to carry out and coordinate many different procedures, each of which might involve numerous steps, such as preparing travel orders, making travel and lodging arrangements, obtaining and monitoring a full range of office support services including supplies and equipment, preparing training requests and locating training vendors, and preparing a variety of recurring reports and documents from information obtained from the staff, files, and other offices.

Type III positions demand knowledge of the duties, priorities, commitments, policies, and program goals of the staff sufficient to perform non-routine assignments. Type III Secretaries, like the appellant, are fully responsible for coordinating the work of the office with the work of other offices and for recognizing the need for such coordination in various circumstances. Among her non-routine assignments, the appellant must locate and summarize relevant information from files and documents for reports, project reviews, and agreements as requested by her supervisor or office staff. In preparing statements of work for cooperative agreements, she must summarize in under two pages nearly a dozen pages of background information, determining what is relevant and what is not, while protecting the agreement's impact statement, which cannot be altered. She also searches and retrieves from office files and other sources data and information needed for budget reports, research project reviews, and cooperative research agreements. Among her coordination assignments, the appellant must coordinate with other offices the processing of budget data, requests for personnel action, the preparation of cooperative agreements and volunteer agreements, etc.

Type IV positions demand basic knowledge of administrative concepts, principles, and practices. Type IV Secretaries have a comprehensive knowledge of the supervisor's policies and views on all significant matters affecting the organization. The appellant's ample experience provides her with a comprehensive knowledge of program objectives, alternatives, local priorities, and operating policies similar to that demanded at Knowledge Type IV. However, notably absent from her work, among other things, are opportunities to regularly apply a basic knowledge of administrative concepts and principles to the study of extensive office procedures. Type IV Secretaries exercise such knowledge by dealing with extensive office procedures found in organizations much more complex than the appellant's. Unlike the appellant, Type IV Secretaries deal with subordinate or external organizations through formal procedures and administrative controls that require study to eliminate conflict and duplication, for example, in reporting and clearance processes. Since the office procedures of the appellant's organization demand little in the way of administrative study, all Type IV's criteria are not met. Consequently, we evaluate the appellant's position at Knowledge Type III.

Work Situation

Work situation refers to the complexity of the organization served, which affects the extent of office rules, procedures, operations, and priorities Secretaries must apply to maintain a proper and smooth flow of work within the organization and between organizations. The standard describes three work situations, A, B, and C, each of increasing complexity.

The appellant believes that as the primary assistant to the leader of a specialized research unit, she deserves greater credit than her organizational context would normally allow. She states:

. . . regardless of the size and nature of problems encountered in a work place, it takes as much know-how to resolve a small number of unprecedented problems as opposed to a large number of the same kind of problems. Size is of no importance when making an administrative judgment call. This is the "heart" of making Guidelines work for yourself and your unit. One principle shows through: it takes as much understanding to build a small bridge as it does to build a large bridge. It has to serve the purpose for which it was made. No mistakes are acceptable. Such is the position of this unit.

Positions are graded based upon the impact of properly performed duties, rather than the consequence of error. The appellant's analogy otherwise recognizes that some basic concepts and principles underlie the construction of all structures. At the same time, it overlooks the many considerations and advanced knowledges peculiar to engineering large structures, particularly in the choice of materials and techniques and the danger that large structures may collapse under their own weight if small structure construction practices are employed. As she implies, however, organizational size alone does not dictate complexity. Small and large organizations alike may possess the necessary administrative and clerical processes, mission, or program complexity to impose significant coordination demands upon Secretaries. The small organizations depicted in Work Situation A of the standard, however, typically have no subordinate units posing significant coordination demands. Like the appellant's office, they present few complicated internal coordination problems requiring formal procedures and controls for adequate solution. Their low organizational complexity permits supervisors to direct staff primarily through face-to-face meetings and allows internal procedural and administrative controls to be simple and informal, as in the appellant's office.

Some small organizations, however, demand extensive external coordination. These exceptional small organizations have programs or functions that place upon Secretaries substantive and complex demands characteristic of Work Situation B. Unlike the appellant, Secretaries in such organizations establish and maintain numerous external contacts in coordinating substantive program requirements, administrative details, and staff support responsibilities. Congressional liaison offices, public affairs offices, offices of the general counsel, and small scientific or research oriented program offices sometimes entail such extensive coordination.

The appellant's office conducts research in partnership with universities. The office also hosts from cooperating schools volunteers, typically two to four, who assist in research as part of their education. The appellant's supervisor gives briefings before professional associations and reviews graduate student work in cooperation with educational institutions. These institutions, along with businesses and other research offices, have a continuing interest in research the office conducts and the insights it may afford to conducting their own research or solving forest management problems. The administrative arrangements for research agreements, hosting volunteers, and publishing research papers, impose additional coordination demands upon the appellant. However, with only about two active research agreements, the additional demands are modest, rather than extensive. Extensive external coordination is necessary to treat a small organization like the appellant's as the equivalent of Work Situation B organizations, where, for example, organizations with three subordinate branches and 95 positions performing research and development work may be found.

The appellant obtains information from her supervisor or staff to prepare or amend agreements and maintains a table summarizing basic information on all agreements, both active and closed. Although this is important and critical support work, the few active agreements do not require extensive external coordination. Her tracking of research costs by each researcher using spreadsheets developed by her supervisor to generate reports and charts also demands modest external coordination. For example, she transfers funds or extends the date of an agreement by submitting a narrative request to staff in the parent organization, the Northeastern Forest Experiment Station in Radnor, Pennsylvania. Her coordination of publications similarly presents modest coordination demands. Each researcher must submit three manuscripts for publication each year. She reviews these in accordance with the Forest Service Publication Handbook procedures. This involves completing a manuscript review and approval form and a station publication distribution order form, proofreading the material, and forwarding it for comment to other researchers. The overall coordination involved in these activities falls short of the extensive coordination that elevates small organizations to Work Situation B.

We evaluate the appellant's organization as Work Situation A. A combination of Knowledge Type III and Work Situation A results in Level 1-3, according to the table on page 12 of the standard.

We evaluate this factor at Level 1-3 and credit 350 points.

Factor 2: Supervisory Controls

This factor covers the nature and extent of direct and indirect controls exercised by the supervisor, the employee's responsibility, and the review of completed work. Controls are exercised by the supervisor in the way assignments are made, instructions are given to the employee, priorities and deadlines are set, and objectives and boundaries are defined. Responsibility of the employee depends upon the extent to which the employee is expected to develop the sequence and timing of various aspects of the work, to modify or recommend modification of instructions, and to participate in establishing priorities and defining objectives. The degree of review of completed work depends upon the nature and extent of the review, e.g., close and detailed review of each phase of the assignment, detailed review of the finished assignment, spot-check of finished work for accuracy, or review only for adherence to policy.

As at Level 2-3, the appellant plans her work and handles problems and deviations in accordance with established instructions, priorities, and policies, taking into consideration her supervisor's commitments and program goals. For example, she independently tracks reporting requirements and arranges with staff for the collection and submission of relevant information, assembling that information into general reports on the total work of the office.

Unlike Level 2-4, she does not have the greater responsibility for independently resolving more difficult problems. She does not regularly encounter a wide variety of situations and conflicts requiring individual initiative to determine the appropriate approach or methods to use without consulting her supervisor. For example, while she independently retrieves and summarizes information for reports, it is typically from known sources rather than unspecified sources that may be difficult to find or are fragmented.

We evaluate this factor at Level 2-3 and credit 275 points.

Factor 3: Guidelines

This factor covers the nature of guidelines and the judgment needed to apply them. Guides used include, for example, reference materials such as dictionaries and style manuals, agency instructions concerning correspondence, and operating procedures of the organization served.

The appellant believes that being with the Government for over 25 years provides her the experience necessary to exercise Level 3-3 judgment. She feels Level 3-3 is standard for Secretaries and believes her work mirrors that of a GS-7 position description from which she quotes. She also feels that answering work questions for a less experienced Administrative Manager warrants higher credit under this factor.

At Level 3-2, the appellant is already credited with locating and selecting the appropriate guidelines, references, and procedures for application to specific cases, determining which established alternatives to use, and referring situations to which the existing guidelines cannot be applied to her supervisor. This pertains to such guides as dictionaries and style manuals, Forest Service regulations, manuals and policies, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Formatting Guide, and standard operating procedures that the appellant uses and follows. She exercises judgment when choosing the appropriate guideline to apply and consults with her supervisor when a written policy or procedure does not exist.

Unlike Secretaries at Level 3-3, the appellant does not work from a large body of unwritten policies, precedents, and practices that are not completely applicable to her work and which deal with matters relating to judgment, efficiency, and relative priorities rather than with procedural concerns. Most of the appellant's work concerns procedural matters, as at Level 3-2, rather than, for example, complaints and inquiries where her supervisor's or agency's preferences might be unclear. Unlike Level 3-3 Secretaries, she does not frequently use judgment to interpret and adapt guidelines or wrestle with many situations not covered by clear precedents.

We evaluate this factor at Level 3-2 and credit 125 points.

Factor 4: Complexity

This factor covers the nature, number, variety, and intricacy of tasks, steps, processes, or methods in the work performed; the difficulty in identifying what needs to be done; and the difficulty and originality involved in performing the work.

Much of the appellant's work involves, like Level 4-2 work, following proper procedures and making factual determinations when requisitioning supplies, printing, or maintenance services, completing travel forms for staff, and preparing scheduled reports from information readily available in office files.

In addition, as at Level 4-3, she spends a substantial amount of time evaluating information and determining priorities and relevance such as when preparing one-of-a-kind reports from information in various documents by reviewing correspondence and reports to identify relevant items and selecting the most appropriate facts, based on her familiarity with the issues involved and the relationships between the various types of information.

We evaluate this factor at Level 4-3 and credit 150 points.

Factor 5: Scope and Effect

This factor covers the relationship between the nature of the work (i.e., the purpose, breadth, and depth of the assignment) and the effect of work products or services both within and outside the organization. Only the effect of properly performed work is considered.

As at Level 5-2, the purpose of the appellant's work is to carry out specific clerical and administrative procedures in support of her office. Unlike Level 5-3, the purpose is not to identify and resolve various problems with extensive office procedures to improve the orderly and efficient flow of work.

As at Level 5-2, the appellant's properly performed work affects the accuracy, reliability, or acceptability of further processing of the work outside her office. Unlike Level 5-3, her work does not directly and significantly affect a wide range of agency activities, operations in other agencies, or a large segment of the public or business community.

We evaluate this factor at Level 5-2 and credit 75 points.

Factor 6: Personal Contacts

This factor includes face-to-face telephone contacts with persons not in the supervisory chain. Levels described under this factor are based on what is required to make the initial contact, the difficulty of communicating with those contacted, and the setting in which the contact takes place (e.g., the degree to which the employee and those contacted recognize their relative roles and authorities). Above the lowest level, points are only for contacts that are essential for successful performance of the work and that have a demonstrable impact on the difficulty and responsibility of the work performed. Contacts credited under Factor 6 must be the same contacts credited under Factor 7.

As at Level 6-2, the appellant's contacts with individuals outside her office frequently occur in a moderately structured setting (i.e., the contacts are generally established on a routine basis, usually at the employee's work place; the exact purpose of the contact is frequently unclear at first to one or more of the parties; and one or more of the parties may be uninformed concerning the role and authority of the other participants). In her contacts with other offices, schools, and businesses, the appellant frequently must clarify the purpose of the call and the reason for the request in order to obtain the necessary information or properly respond to an inquiry.

Unlike Level 6-3, her contacts do not occur in a moderately unstructured setting (where the purpose and extent of each contact is different and the role and authority of each party is identified and developed during the course of the contact). The appellant's contacts involve typically non-controversial matters, where the role and authority of each participant is readily apparent and unquestioned. They do not involve, for example, sensitive or contentious matters, where the role and authority of the parties may at first be uncertain, as when dealing with attorneys, public action groups, etc.

We evaluate this factor at Level 6-2 and credit 25 points.

Factor 7: Purpose of Contacts

Factor 7 addresses the purpose of personal contacts, which may range from factual exchange of information to situations involving significant or controversial issues and differing viewpoints or objectives.

As at Level 7-2, the appellant's contacts (discussed under Factor 6) are to coordinate work efforts and resolve administrative problems associated with establishing agreements, ensuring reports are submitted by the office and staff on time and in the proper format, making travel arrangements, etc.

We evaluate this factor at Level 7-2 and credit 50 points.

Factor 8: Physical Demands

This factor covers the requirements and physical demands placed upon the employee by the work assignment. This includes physical characteristics and abilities and physical exertion involved in the work.

Level 8-1 work is sedentary and presents no special physical demands, though there may be some walking, standing, bending, and carrying of light items.

The appellant's work is sedentary and free of special physical demands.

We evaluate this factor at Level 8-1 and credit 5 points.

Factor 9: Work Environment

This factor considers the risks and discomforts in the employee's physical surroundings or the nature of the work assigned and the safety regulations required.

Level 9-1 work is in an office setting.

The appellant's work is performed in an office-like setting and requires no special safety precautions.

We evaluate this factor at Level 9-1 and credit 5 points.

Factor Level Point Summary

Factor Level Points 1 1-3 350 2 2-3 275 3 3-2 125 4 4-3 150 5 5-2 75 6 6-2 25 7 7-2 50 8 8-1 5 9 9-1 5

Total: 1060

The table above summarizes our evaluation of the appellant's work. As shown on page 9 of the standard, a total of 1060 points falls within the GS-5 grade range (855-1100).

DECISION

As explained in the foregoing, the proper classification of the appellant's position is Secretary (OA), GS-318-5.