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U.S. Office of
Personnel Management
Variations to Staffing
Regulations
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Variations By Administrative Law Judge Examinations
The following variations are listed in chronological order.
They are excerpted from the quarterly notices which are listed
under Quarterly Notices of
Variations .
Variations from the June 21, 1996, notice:
- The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has approved a
precedent-setting variation to 5
CFR 930.203(e). That section requires that OPM use,
in final rating for the Administrative Law Judge
(ALJ) examination, "a transmuted scale of 0 to
100, with a score of at least 70 required to pass."
- This variation is necessary because OPM used a scale of
70 to 100 to score applications for Administrative Law
Judge positions, instead of the "transmuted scale of
0 to 100, with 70 required to pass." Although the
use of the 70 to 100 scale was described in the March
1993 announcement for the Administrative Law Judge
examination, OPM did not obtain a variation or modify the
regulation to permit the use of such a scale.
- The variation was granted to avoid the practical
difficulty required to revise the final ratings of the
more than 1700 candidates on the ALJ register. Such an
effort is unnecessary because the transmuted scale of 70
to 100 is frequently used in unassembled competitive
examinations like the ALJ examination, and is consistent
with merit system principles. The precedent set by this
variation is limited to transmutation scales used by unassembled
examinations that are specified in regulation.
Section 5.1 of civil service rule V
requires that like variations be granted in like circumstances.
Therefore, if an agency believes it has a case which parallels
the one described in this notice, a variation may be requested.
Agencies are reminded, however, that variation is appropriate
only when no other authority exists to remedy the hardship or
practical difficulty. All requests for variation must be sent
through the headquarters of the agency or department involved and
must be transmitted to the Office of Personnel Management for
final action. Agencies do not have authority to approve
variations.
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Page created October 16, 1997