GAO-01-1081R Monetary Awards for Political Appointees

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548

September 14, 2001

The Honorable Christopher S. Bond

Ranking Minority Member

Committee on Small Business

 and Entrepreneurship

United States Senate

The Honorable Dave Weldon

Chairman, Subcommittee on Civil Service

 and Agency Organization

Committee on Government Reform

House of Representatives

Subject: Personnel Practices: Monetary Awards Provided to Political Appointees

As part of its human capital management, the federal government administers an incentive

awards program, consisting of monetary and nonmonetary (letters of appreciation, for

example) awards, to recognize individual employees or groups of employees for especially

significant performance and contributions that enhance government operations and

programs. However, Congress has placed various prohibitions on cash awards to political

appointees, in contrast to regular federal employees.1

 A 1994 law,for example, prohibits

certain appointees, such as political appointees in Senior Executive Service (noncareer SES)

and Schedule C positions, from receiving cash and time-off awards during presidential

election periods for superior accomplishments. 2 The law defines a presidential election

period as beginning on June 1 of the election year and ending on the following January 20.

Federal law also prohibits the payment of cash awards at any time to presidential appointees

who are confirmed by the Senate and who are paid either under the Executive Schedule pay

plan or occupy a position for which the compensation is set by reference to the Executive

Schedule pay rates.3

You asked us to monitor selected types of awards given to political appointees and provide

information about two topics. One, you asked us to provide information on the number and

types of monetary and time-off awards provided to political appointees during the period

September 1, 1999, through April 30, 2001, and how that compared to awards provided to

 1

As used in this report, political appointees are defined as those who obtained noncareer appointments

to the Senior Executive Service (SES); limited term and limited emergency SES appointments; and

presidential appointees, including executive-level appointees and noncareer ambassadors. We also

included appointees serving under Schedule C appointments.

2

5 U.S.C. 4508

3

5 U.S.C. 4509
Page 2 GAO-01-1081R Monetary Awards for Political Appointees

regular federal employees. And two, you asked us to report any violation of the prohibitions

against awarding cash awards to political and other noncareer employees.

This report responds to your request. In doing this work, we asked 46 agencies to report on

awards given to political appointees for the period September 1, 1999, through April 30, 2001.

From the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Central Personnel Data File (CPDF) we

obtained data on awards provided to regular federal employees from September 1, 1999,

through May 31, 2000, and we compared that data to political appointee award data provided

by the 46 agencies for the same time period. We restricted our comparative analysis to this

period in recognition of the moratorium on awards to political appointees. Also, because the

likelihood of receiving an award and the dollar value of awards received varied for different

pay levels, we grouped and compared political appointees and regular federal employees by

pay levels. We combined executive-level employees, SES, and Senior Level and equivalent

employees in one group. We combined GS-13 through GS-15 and equivalent employees in a

second group and employees and equivalents at the GS-12 level and below in a third group.

Employees below GS-4 were excluded because there were no political appointees for

comparison below GS-4.

The type of incentive awards we included were (1) performance awards, (2) suggestion

awards, (3) special act or service awards, (4) time-off awards, (5) gainsharing awards, and (6)

quality step increases. We also asked agencies to report on retention allowances (i.e., an

allowance of up to 25 percent of base pay used to retain employees that have unusually high

or unique qualifications). A more detailed description of our scope and methodology is

presented later in this letter.

Results

In total, 32 of the 46 agencies reported that 297 political appointees received 373 monetary

awards during the 20-month period of September 1, 1999, through April 30, 2001. The

remaining 14 agencies reported that they did not provide any awards to political appointees

during that period. On average, about 12 out of every 100 political appointees in the 46

agencies received one or more awards during the period, with the mean dollar value of

$2,252. Enclosure I provides a list of the number of political appointees who received awards

and the number of awards they received, as reported by the agencies, and their mean dollar

value.

The table below shows a comparison of the number of awards, rate per 100 employees, and

mean dollar value of awards granted to political appointees and to regular federal employees

during the 9-month period September 1, 1999, through May 31, 2000, grouped by grade

ranges. We limited our analysis to this period (rather than the full 20-month period covered

by our review) in recognition of the moratorium on providing certain cash awards to political

appointees and other noncareer employees during the presidential election period of June 1,

2000, through January 20, 2001.
Page 3 GAO-01-1081R Monetary Awards for Political Appointees

Table 1: Total Number, Rates, and Mean Dollar Value of Awards Given to Political Appointees and

Regular Federal Employees from September 1999 Through May 2000 in 46 Agencies

Number of awards Rate of awards per 100 Mean dollar value of awards

Type of award Political

appointeesa

Regular

federal

employeesa

Political

appointeesb

Regular

federal

employeesb

Political

appointees

Regular

federal

employees

32 4,017 3.5 41.3 $5,153 $2,643

124 296,610 15.1 114.0 2,316 1,119

88 787,245 34.2 84.2 1,441 599

Monetary

 SES-EX-SL

 GS13-GS15

 GS4-GS12

 All

 employees 244 1,087,872 12.3 90.3 $2,373 $748

6 629 .7 6.5 35

hrs $2,071 19

hrs $1,107

61 35,412 7.4 13.6 24

hrs 953 16hrs 602

11 168,084 4.3 18.0 15

hrs 350 14hrs 272

Time-off

 SES-EX-SL

 GS13-GS15

 GS4-GS12

 All

 employees 78 204,125 3.9 16.9 23

hrs $954 14hrs $331

38 4,646 4.2 47.8 $4,666 $2,435

185 332,022 22.5 127.6 1,867 1,064

99 955,329 38.5 102.2 1,320 541

All awards

 SES-EX-SL

 GS13-GS15

 GS4-GS12

 All

 employees 322 1,291,997 16.2 107.2 $2,029 $682

a

The number of awards granted include multiple awards to some employees during the period.

b

The rate of awards per 100 employees includes multiple awards granted to some employees during the period. Because

multiple awards to the same individual are included, the rate per 100 employees is not equivalent to the percentage of staff

who received an award; the rate per 100 is higher than the percentage that received an award.

As shown, political appointees in each of the pay groups received both monetary and time-off

awards less frequently than regular federal employees, but at a larger mean dollar value. For

example, in total, political appointees received monetary awards at the rate of about 12 per

100 political appointees compared to about 90 awards per every 100 regular federal

employees. The mean dollar value of all monetary awards to political appointees ($2,373)

exceeded that of awards to regular federal employees ($748). The frequency and rate of

awards, as well as mean dollar value, for both political and regular federal employees varied

across the grade-level groupings of employees.

The number, rates, and mean dollar value of awards to political and regular federal

employees also varied by type of award. (See enclosure II.) With the exception of quality

step increases, the pattern of political appointees receiving awards less frequently than

regular federal employees also appears in this breakdown. In total, political appointees

received quality step increases at more than twice the rate for regular federal employees.

OPM officials suggested that a reason for this is most likely the fact that the previous

Administration issued guidance that agencies should “refrain from giving cash awards to

political appointees paid a salary level that exceeds that of a GS-12 . . . .” Quality step
Page 4 GAO-01-1081R Monetary Awards for Political Appointees

increases are not lump-sum cash awards, but rather additions to basic pay. For each type of

award, however, the mean dollar value of awards to political appointees was higher than that

for regular federal employees.

Individual political appointees and regular federal employees often received more than one

award. Agencies reported that 46 political appointees, or about 17 percent of the appointees

who received monetary awards, received multiple awards during the period September 1,

1999, through May 31, 2000. According to CPDF data, 410,000 individuals, or about 42

percent of regular federal employees who received an award, received more than one award

during fiscal year 2000.

We also asked agencies to report retention allowances provided to political appointees

during the period September 1, 1999, through April 30, 2001. Three agencies reported

initiating three retention allowances worth an annual mean dollar value of $22,028 during this

period. Comparable data for regular federal employees are not readily available from the

CPDF because that database does not distinguish whether the personnel action was for an

initial retention allowance or a change in the amount of an existing allowance.

Governmentwide CPDF data show, however, that 4,136 regular federal employees were

receiving retention allowances worth an annual mean dollar value of $10,040 as of September

30, 2000.

In February 2000, OPM reminded agencies that they could not give cash or time-off awards to

noncareer SES, Schedule C, and certain other employees during a presidential election

period, which is defined as the period from June 1 of any year with a presidential election

through the following January 20. We found that six departments—the Departments of

Agriculture, Energy, Labor, State, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs—gave out 15 cash awards

totaling $38,149 to 14 political appointees during the moratorium. Agency officials reported

that these awards were made in error and that they had rescinded all of the awards and

recovered the money or were in the process of recovering it. We did not identify any

instances that violated the prohibition of cash awards to presidential appointees.4

Background

The federal government’s Incentive Awards Program was established to provide employees

with special recognition for performance excellence and creativity. Individual employees or

groups of employees may earn a cash or noncash award for overall high-level performance, a

suggestion, an invention, or a special act or service. An employee may be named “employee

of the month” for example, or a group of employees may be honored for suggesting ways to

simplify procedures or processes.

Awards can take several forms. The heads of agencies may approve cash awards of up to

$10,000. Cash awards over $10,000 are generally subject to OPM approval, and cash awards

over $25,000 require approval by the President. Types of cash awards include:

Performance Rating-Based Cash Awards—Cash awards based on overall high-level

performance as evidenced by a current performance rating of record.

 4

The Department of Labor reported giving an SES performance award to a presidential appointee in

December 2000. The individual had been a career SES employee at the time of his appointment and

had elected to be paid at the SES rate of pay and to continue to be covered by the SES Performance

Award system. He was eligible to make this election based upon 5 U.S.C. 3392 (c).
Page 5 GAO-01-1081R Monetary Awards for Political Appointees

Special Act or Service Award—Cash awards for contributions such as work on a special

project, performance exceeding job requirements on a particular assignment or task, or a

scientific achievement.

Suggestion awards—Cash or other forms of recognition to employees for ideas that improve

operations and services to the public.

Gainsharing awards—any of a variety of wage payment methods in which the worker

receives additional earnings due to increases in agency productivity.

Agencies also use other types of award incentives. Agencies may award an employee with a

quality step increase (i.e., a one-step increase to base pay within a General Schedule grade) to

recognize an employee in the General Schedule who received a performance rating of record

at the highest summary level. Also, agencies can grant time off from work without charge to

leave or loss of pay to recognize some aspect of good job performance. Other types of

incentive awards include nonmonetary items such as plaques, certificates of appreciation,

and trophies.

Although not part of the incentive awards program, agencies may also pay a retention

allowance of up to 25 percent of base pay to an employee who has unusually high or unique

qualifications or where the special needs of the agency for that person’s services make it

essential that the employee be retained.

While incentive awards may generally be given to any employee, there are some exceptions

to the availability of monetary awards to political appointees. Because political SES

appointees are not career employees, they are not eligible to receive performance ratingbased cash awards. In contrast, a career SES member whose annual job performance rating

is “fully successful” or better may receive a performance rating-based cash award in a lumpsum payment of between 5 percent and 20 percent of base pay. Agency discretion regarding

performance awards is exercised in accordance with 5 C.F.R. 534.403(b). This section of the

regulation establishes requirements under which SES performance award (bonus) pools are

established. The total amount of performance awards paid by an agency in a fiscal year may

not exceed 10 percent of the aggregate SES base pay of career executives on the rolls at the

end of the previous fiscal year, or 20 percent of the average rate of annual basic pay for

career SES appointees at the end of the prior fiscal year.

In addition, a 1994 act prohibits giving cash awards at any time to individuals whom the

President appoints with the advice and consent of the Presidential Appointment with Senate

confirmation (PAS) and who are paid under the Executive Schedule pay plan. PAS

employees who are career SES employees at the time of their appointment may elect to be

paid at the SES rate of pay and continue to be covered by the SES performance award

system. Such employees may continue to get cash awards even during a Presidential election

period. Also, section 4508 of title 5, United States Code, prohibits Senior Executive Service

employees who are not career appointees, and employees in confidential or policydetermining Schedule C positions, from receiving awards - - either cash or time-off - - during a

presidential election period. The statute defines the presidential election period as, “any

period beginning on June 1 in a calendar year in which the popular election of the President

occurs, and ending on January 20 following the date of such election.” The latest presidential

election period began on June 1, 2000, and ended on January 20, 2001. The prohibition does

not cover quality step increases or retention allowances.
Page 6 GAO-01-1081R Monetary Awards for Political Appointees

Agency Comments

The Director of OPM provided written comments on a draft of this report in a letter dated

September 7, 2001. (See enclosure III.) The Director expressed concern that the report mixes

different types of awards and data - - for example that we mix awards granted under different

chapters of title 5, United States Code; that we use cash basis reporting for awards given in

the form of both cash and time off; and that we include awards given in lump sums as well as

quality step increases - - and that this may result in readers reaching inappropriate

conclusions.

We do not agree. One of our objectives, as agreed with our requesters, was to report on

selected types of awards. Further, the report clearly specifies the types of awards discussed

and identifies them by category, as well as in the aggregate. In discussing our methodology,

we explain how the dollar value of quality step increases and time off awards was calculated.

Further, in the case of time-off awards, we identify both the mean number of hours granted

and the mean dollar value of those hours based on the employees’ reported salaries. We did

not draw any conclusions in the report and it is not clear from the Director’s letter what

inappropriate conclusions a reader might draw.

The Director also said that it was inappropriate for us to characterize SES limited term and

limited emergency appointees as political appointees, because most SES limited appointees

are appointed from career or career-type appointments and are serving on special short-term

projects.

We recognize that OPM has not traditionally viewed such appointments as being political

appointments. However, as the Director recognizes in her letter, both SES limited term and

limited emergency appointees are included in the definition under section 4508 of title 5,

United States Code, which prohibits awards during a presidential election period to any

“senior politically appointed officer.” Because our requesters specifically asked that our

report indicate whether we found any violations of this statutory provision, we believe it was

necessary and appropriate to include both SES limited term appointments and limited

emergency appointees.

Scope and Methodology

To determine the number and types of monetary and other awards provided to political

appointees from September 1, 1999, through April 30, 2001, we sent a form we had developed

to collect information on each award to the personnel offices of 46 federal agencies. We

asked them to send us a completed form each month for each political appointee who

received a (1) performance award, (2) suggestion award, (3) special act or service award, (4)

time-off award, (5) gainsharing award, or (6) quality step increase. We also asked agencies to

report on retention allowances awarded during this time period. While retention allowances

are discussed in the text, those amounts are not included in our tables. We also asked each

agency to submit a negative report for the month if no awards had been made to political

appointees. We selected the agencies on the following bases: (1) all cabinet-level

departments and agencies, (2) departments and agencies that had at least 50 political

appointees on their roles as of September 30, 1999, (3) agencies that had oversight or other

regulatory responsibilities for federal workforce issues, and (4) agencies of particular interest

to the congressional requesters of this review. (See enclosure I.)

In completing the data collection form, we asked personnel offices to provide information

such as the name of the political appointee who received the award, the appointee’s grade

and salary at the time of the award, and the type of award and date given. We also asked the
Page 7 GAO-01-1081R Monetary Awards for Political Appointees

personnel offices to provide the dollar value of all cash awards and retention allowances.

For time-off awards, we asked that the number of hours off be reported. We then calculated

the dollar value based on the appointee’s salary. We also calculated the dollar value of

quality step increase awards based on the appointee’s basic pay provided by the agencies.

We also instructed agencies to submit a copy of the completed personnel action form used to

make the award.

For the purposes of our work we defined political appointees as those appointees who were

serving under the following appointments at the time they received an award:

! Schedule C appointments;

! noncareer SES, including limited term SES and limited emergency SES appointments;

and

! presidential appointees, including executive level appointees and noncareer

ambassadors.

Our review included agencies with about 85 percent of political appointees in OPM’s CPDF.

As of September 30, 1999, there were over 3,000 political appointees governmentwide.

Schedule C, noncareer SES, and presidential appointees are appointed by an administration

to support and advocate the President’s goals and policies. Schedule C appointees generally

receive noncompetitive appointments to excepted service positions graded GS-15 and below

that involve determining policy or that require a close, confidential relationship with the

agency head or other key officials of the agency. Noncareer SES appointees are

noncompetitively appointed to SES positions that normally involve advocating, formulating,

and directing the programs and policies of the Administration. Limited term SES

appointments are time-limited, nonrenewable appointments for up to 3 years. These

appointments can be made noncompetitively. Limited emergency SES appointments are also

made noncompetitively and the appointees serve at the pleasure of the agency head. We

included limited term and limited emergency SES appointments because they are noncareer

appointments and are also subject to the moratorium on monetary awards during a

presidential election year.

To analyze the frequency rate per 100 employees and mean dollar values of awards granted to

political appointees in comparison with regular federal employees, we developed comparable

information from OPM’s CPDF for the regular employees. We restricted our definition of

“regular federal employee” to mean those employees in the 46 agencies covered by this

review who were in the competitive, excepted, or Senior Executive services who were not

political appointees. We included career, term, and temporary employees in any work

schedule provided they were salaried employees (thus excluding wage scale employees). We

included term and temporary employees because they are eligible to receive, and did receive,

the types of awards we reviewed.

Our analysis covered the period September 1, 1999, through May 31, 2000. We excluded the

June 1, 2000, through January 20, 2001, time frame because that was the period of the

presidential election year moratorium on granting cash awards to certain political and other

noncareer employees (15 awards were made to 14 political appointees during this period).

Further, CPDF data were not available through April 30, 2001, when we performed our

analyses. By excluding the period January 21, 2001, through April 30, 2001, our analysis

excluded 15 awards granted to political appointees, as reported to us by the agencies.

We compared the rate of awards and the mean dollar value of awards given political

appointees to those given regular federal employees in the 46 agencies included in this

review. We further limited the career employees to those in the same grades (there were no
Page 8 GAO-01-1081R Monetary Awards for Political Appointees

political appointees with a GS grade below GS-4) as those for the political appointees.5 When

a person was in a pay plan that did not have a grade level, we used the annual basic pay to

classify them into a grade level.

For comparison, we divided the political appointees and regular federal employees into three

grade ranges:

! Executive level, SES, and Senior Level employees (EX-SES-SL),

! GS-13 through GS-15 and equivalent employees, and

! GS-4 through GS-12 and equivalent employees.

We created these three grade ranges to adjust for the significant difference in the pay

structures between the political appointees and regular federal employees as well as

differences in rules governing awards across these grade ranges. For example, almost 46

percent of political appointees were in the top grade range (EX-SES-SL) compared to almost

one percent among regular federal employees. 6 Because the likelihood of receiving an award

and the dollar value of awards received varied for different grade ranges, using the three

grade ranges allowed us to compare groups of employees with similar likelihood of receiving

awards and dollar values of awards received. We did not, however, weight the results within

a grade range to adjust for differences in the percentages of staff at different grades within

that grade range (for example, GS-4s through GS-7s were about 9 percent of political

appointees in the GS-4 through GS-12 grade range compared to 41 percent of regular federal

employees in this same grade range). Because we did not do this weighting, differences

between political appointees and regular federal employees within a grade range could be

due to differences in the underlying distribution of employees within that grade range.

We did not independently verify the accuracy of awards data for political appointees

provided by the 46 agencies or the data for regular employees in the CPDF. However, we

previously found CPDF data to be generally accurate.7

We monitored the awards to political appointees reported by the agencies to identify any

apparent violations of the presidential election period moratorium or other prohibitions on

granting monetary awards to political appointees. We verified the facts concerning any

potential violation identified with the respective agency.

We did our work in Washington, D.C., from June 2000 through June 2001, in accordance with

generally accepted government auditing standards.

- - - - -

As agreed with your committees, unless you publicly announce this report’s contents earlier,

we plan no further distribution of it until 30 days after the date of this letter. At that time we

will send copies of this report to the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business

and Entrepreneurship and the Ranking Minority Member of the House Subcommittee on Civil

Service and Agency Organization, the Chairmen and Ranking Minority Members of the Senate

Governmental Affairs and House Government Reform Committees, other appropriate

 5

Although there are political appointees in the wage scale system, we excluded them from these

analyses because there were so few of them.

6

 We did not include PAS (Presidential Appointment With Senate Confirmation) appointees in the

percent of political appointees.

7

 See OPM’s Central Personnel Data File: Data Appear Sufficiently Reliable to Meet Most Customer

Needs (GAO/GGD-98-199, Sept. 30, 1998).
Page 9 GAO-01-1081R Monetary Awards for Political Appointees

congressional committees, the Director of OPM, the heads of other agencies where we did

our work, and other interested parties. We will also make copies available to others on

request.

Major contributors to this report were Richard W. Caradine, Assistant Director, and Domingo

Nieves, Senior Human Capital Analyst. Please contact Mr. Caradine or me on (202) 512-6806

if you have any questions.

George Stalcup

Director, Strategic Issues

Enclosures
Page 10 GAO-01-1081R Monetary Awards for Political Appointees

Enclosure I: Number and Mean Dollar Value of Awards Made to Political Appointees Reported by

Selected Federal Agencies From September 1, 1999, Through April 30, 2001

Agency Number of award

recipients

Number

of awards

Mean dollar

value

African Development Foundation 1 1 $4,000

Agency for International Development 2 2 2,294

Commission on Civil Rights 0 0 N/A

Consumer Product Safety Commission 3 3 1,666

Corporation for National Service 1 1 $910

Department of Agriculture 11 13 1,611

Department of Commerce 9 9 2,431

Department of Defense 44 47 1,853

Department of Education 17 18 3,463

Department of Energy 53 64 2,282

Department of Health and Human Services 20 44 764

Department of Housing and Urban Development 16 16 2,360

Department of Justice 2 2 3,302

Department of Labor 21 22 3,530

Department of State 10 10 1,043

Department of the Interior 18 27 2,117

Department of the Treasury 10 15 2,850

Department of Transportation 7 7 2,463

Department of Veterans Affairs 1 2 1,500

Environmental Protection Agency 5 5 8,209

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 4 6 1,865

Export-Import Bank of the U.S. 0 0 N/A

Federal Aviation Administration 0 0 N/A

Federal Labor Relations Authority 0 0 N/A

Federal Maritime Commission 0 0 N/A

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service 0 0 N/A

Federal Retirement and Thrift Investment Board 0 0 N/A

Federal Trade Commission 1 1 2,055

Inter-American Foundation 0 0 N/A

Merit System Protection Board 5 12 2,652

National Endowment for the Arts 1 1 600

National Endowment for the Humanities 4 4 2,197

National Labor Relations Board 2 3 1,878

National Mediation Board 2 4 1,673

Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission 1 1 883

Office of Government Ethics 0 0 N/A

Office of Management and Budget 0 0 N/A

Office of Personnel Management 8 9 3,137

Office of Special Counsel 2 3 1,755

Office of the U.S. Trade Representative 0 0 N/A

Overseas Private Investment Corporation 3 4 3,547

Peace Corps 0 0 N/A

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation 0 0 N/A

Small Business Administration 3 3 2,589

U.S. Institute of Peace 0 0 N/A

U.S. International Trade Commission 12 14 2,640

Total 297 373 $2,252
Page 11 GAO-01-1081R Monetary Awards for Political Appointees

Enclosure II: Number, Rates, and Mean Dollar Value of Awards, by Type of Award, Given to Political

Appointees and Regular Federal Employees From September 1999 Through May 2000 in 46 Agencies

Number of awards Rate of awards per 100 Mean dollar value of awards

Type of awarda Political

appointees

Regular

federal

employees

Political

appointees

Regular

federal

employees

Political

appointees

Regular

federal

employees

Quality step increaseb

 SES-EX-SL N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

 GS13-GS15 101 19,106 12.3 7.7 $2,330 $1,961

 GS4-GS12 17 39,240 6.6 4.3 1,375 1,134

Total 118 58,346 10.9 4.8 $2,192 $1,405

Performance award

 SES-EX-SL 5

c 2,134 .5 21.9 $8,948 $2,871

 GS13-GS15 11 99,225 1.3 38.1 2,654 1,455

 GS4-GS12 46 266,812 17.9 28.5 1,599 758

Total 62 368,171 3.1 30.6 $2,379 $958

Special act or service

 SES-EX-SL 26 1,815 2.9 18.7 $4,559 $2,449

 GS13-GS15 12 174,358 1.5 67.0 1,892 834

 GS4-GS12 25 476,703 9.7 51.0 1,196 466

Total 63 652,876 3.2 54.2 $2,717 $570

Gainsharing

 SES-EX-SL 1 68 .1 .7 $1,603 $683

 GS13-GS15 0 3,921 0 1.5 0 1,150

 GS4-GS12 0 4,490 0 .5 0 621

Total 1 8,479 0 .7 $1,603 $866

Total monetary awards

 SES-EX-SL 32 4,017 3.5 41.3 $5,153 $2,643

 GS13-GS15 124 296,610 15.1 114.0 2,316 1,119

 GS4-GS12 88 787,245 34.2 84.2 1,441 599

Total 244 1,087,872 12.3 90.3 $2,373 $748

Time off award

 SES-EX-SL 6 629 .7 6.5 35

hrs $2,071 19

hrs $1,107

 GS13-GS15 61 35,412 7.4 13.6 24

hrs 953 16hrs 602

 GS4-GS12 11 168,084 4.3 18.0 15

hrs 350 14

hrs 272

Total 78 204,125 3.9 16.9 23

hrs $954 14

hrs $331

Total all awards

 SES-EX-SL 38 4,646 4.2 47.8 $4,666 $2,435

 GS13-GS15 185 332,022 22.5 127.6 1,867 1,064

 GS4-GS12 99 955,329 38.5 102.2 1,320 541

Total 322 1,291,997 16.2 107.2 $2,029 $682

a

Agencies did not report giving suggestion awards during this period.

b

The moratorium on political appointees does not apply to quality step increases.

c

The five employees included two limited term SES appointees, two presidential appointees who were former career SES

members who opted to continue to be covered under the SES performance award system, and one Schedule C employee in

the Senior Level pay plan. The prohibition against paying a performance rating-based award to political appointees did not

apply to these individuals.

Source: Data submitted by agencies and OPM’s Central Personnel Data File.
Page 12 GAO-01-1081R Monetary Awards for Political Appointees

Enclosure III: Comments From the Office of Personnel Management

(410588)