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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.)
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.)
- 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.
- "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.
- "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.
- 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.