GAO to OPM: Implement Priority Recommendations
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is reminding the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) about priority recommendations that OPM has so far failed to implement.
The recommendations involve strategic human capital management, which has been on GAO’s biennial high-risk list since 2001.
In a new report publicizing the recommendations, GAO said OPM implemented just one of the 15 recommendations issued in its May 2023 report.
OPM did act to implement the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team's cybersecurity recommendation.
However, 14 other recommendations were not implemented. GAO also added two new priority recommendations in this year’s report.
The recommendations involve the following areas:
preventing improper payments,
improving the federal classification system,
making hiring authorities more effective,
improving payroll data,
addressing employee misconduct and improving performance management,
strengthening IT security and management, and
addressing mission critical skills gaps.
In a letter to OPM Acting Director Rob Shriver accompanying the report, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro wrote, “Fully implementing these open recommendations could significantly improve both OPM’s operations and its efforts to assist federal agencies in addressing various human capital management issues.”
Recommendations Details
Among the recommendations: GAO says OPM needs to finish plans to overhaul the General Schedule (GS) classification and pay system for federal employees, as well as continuing to work with stakeholders such as the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and labor unions on that pay overhaul. That recommendation dates to 2014.
GAO also urged OPM to act on recommendations to modify federal hiring authorities and review whether direct-hire authority and other programs translate into results.
OPM is also asked to enhance manager guidance on misconduct and performance management practices and create an IT modernization plan to improve retirement processing times.
In addition to the 16 priority recommendations, OPM has 61 other recommendations still outstanding. OPM’s four-year rate of GAO implementation is 33 percent, well below the government average of 75 percent.
