| Comment Number: | OL-10501119 |
| Received: | 2/23/2005 4:14:44 PM |
| Subject: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| Title: | National Security Personnel System |
| CFR Citation: | 5 CFR Chapter XCIX and Part 9901 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
ADVERSE ACTIONS SECTION 9901.807 The MSPB should be divested of any right to review or hear adverse actions. Their past practice of blocking agency's actions in the past should be a warning to NSPS officials that it is unlikely that MSPB will change their stripes and not override Agency's adverse actions. Your system of appellate review is more complex than the current one. Instead of streamlining the process, you have added another layer of review. You also have made it impossible to achieve proper adjudication of adverse actions by imposing the 90 day rule for the MSPB AJ to issue a ruling. They barely have enough time now to render such a ruling in 120 days. Reducing the time to 90 days will adversely impact the Agency more than the employee. The Agency has to submit all the documents to support the adverse action in the format set out by the MSPB within 20 days of receipt of an appeal. That time will be shortened to afford the AJ with more time in the 90 days to finish their decision. In other words, by shortening the time to 90 days has the effect of making it more difficult to submit the supporting adverse action documents to the MSPB. You also failed to change the unbelievably complex process known as the mixed case. See Section 9901.809. This process is presently unworkable and you have not helped in any manner to simplify the process. Might I suggest that we make the employee either choose to allege discrimination for the advese action and go to the EEOC for redress or choose MSPB and pursue the complaint from an adverse action due process perspective. We give employees the right to take their grievances either to EEOC or the griveance procedure BUT NOT BOTH. That's what needs to be done with mixed cases. Make the employee choose the forum for arguing their claims and not give them extra bites of the apple (MSPB and EEOC).