Federal Paid Administrative Leave: Additional Guidance Needed to Improve OPM Data
Released: 2014-10-20T00:00:00

Letter

Background

There is no general statutory authority for the use of paid administrative leave, which is an excused absence without loss of pay or charge to leave; however, we, as well as OPM and others, have provided direction in the permissible use of administrative leave.

Regulations Addressing Administrative Leave

OPM regulation. In the absence of statutory authority to promulgate regulations addressing administrative leave for all executive agency employees, OPM has addressed the use of paid administrative leave in limited contexts in regulations, such as those regarding other types of leave, excused absences for federal wage employees, and personnel matters. Examples include:

Brief tardiness. In describing minimum charges for sick and annual leave, OPM provides that if an employee is unavoidably or necessarily absent for less than one hour, or tardy, the agency, for adequate reason, may excuse the employee without charge to leave.

Federal wage employees. In implementing the statute which authorizes employees paid on daily, hourly, or piece-work basis to be paid for days they are prevented or excused from working, OPM regulations address excused absences for Federal Wage System employees, and certain other employees (e.g. those paid on a daily or piece-work basis), stating that granting up to 3 consecutive workdays of administrative leave may be appropriate when warranted.

Adverse actions. OPM addresses the limited use of administrative leave in its regulations on the procedural requirements for removing or suspending employees. Specifically, in discussing an employee’s entitlement to at least 30 days’ advance written notice of a proposed action, OPM provides that while it is presumed that an employee will remain in a duty status during the advance notice period, in “rare circumstances” where the agency determines the employee’s presence in the workplace may pose a threat to the employee or others, result in loss of or damage to government property, or otherwise jeopardize legitimate government interests, the agency may elect from one or a combination of alternatives, including placing an employee on administrative leave for such time as necessary to effect the action.

Guidance and Legal Decisions

OPM guidance. While it has not addressed administrative leave in broad contexts through regulations, OPM has provided additional guidance to agencies on the use of administrative leave via government-wide memorandums, handbooks, fact sheets, and frequently asked questions. In this guidance to agencies regarding exercising their discretion to use administrative leave, OPM provides that the use of administrative leave should be limited to those circumstances in which the employee’s absence is not specifically prohibited by law and satisfies one or more of the following criteria: (1) it is directly related to the agency’s mission, (2) it is officially sponsored or sanctioned by the head of the agency, (3) it will clearly enhance professional development or skills of the employee in his or her current position, or (4) it is brief and determined to be in the interest of the agency.

See OPM, memorandum Excused Absence for Voting, October 31, 2008. emergency) because of severe weather or other emergency situations. More recently, OPM has strongly encouraged agencies to permit telework-ready employees to telework in such situations, thereby maintaining the continuing operations of the federal government.

OPM also issued guidance on granting administrative leave in response to presidential direction. For example, in response to a 2003 presidential directive to provide 5 workdays of excused absences to employees returning from active military duty in support of the Overseas Contingency Operations, OPM issued guidance to agencies on how to properly implement this directive.

OPM has also incorporated the use of administrative leave into guidance on various topics, including workplace violence. In discussing short-term administrative options available in removing a potentially dangerous employee from the workplace, OPM advises that while conducting further investigation and deciding on a course of action, placing an employee on excused absence is an immediate, temporary solution to the problem of an employee who should be kept away from the worksite.

OPM is also responsible for settling federal employee leave and compensation claims and issuing decisions to agency officials on such matters. We had performed this function until it was transferred to OPM in 1996.

Our decisions. We have issued numerous decisions on the permissible use of administrative leave. Our decisions recognize that in the absence of a generally applicable statutory or regulatory framework authorizing administrative leave, agencies have the discretion to grant brief periods of administrative leave. However, our decisions have found granting administrative leave for lengthy periods of time is inappropriate unless it is in connection with furthering a function of the agency.

Under a range of situations, our decisions have addressed the appropriate usage of administrative leave. In the context of official travel, we have recognized several circumstances in which administrative leave may be granted, including brief periods of acclimatization rest following travel, in connection with a transfer, and in connection with extended temporary duty to attend training.

A number of our decisions have addressed the use of administrative leave during the investigation of an employee or in the context of taking an adverse action against an employee. For example, to process an employee’s suspension (where it was in the interest of the government to have the employee off the job), we approved of placing the employee on administrative leave during an investigation for wrongdoing for the short time needed (24 hours or so). However, under circumstances when it would not be feasible to reassign the employee (or when information to initiate an adverse action against the employee was insufficient), we concluded that an agency’s proposed regulations were unauthorized where those regulations provided up to 45 days of administrative leave while investigating allegations of employee misconduct.

Administrative tribunal decisions. The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) has recognized the authority of agencies to place employees on short-term administrative leave while instituting adverse action procedures. unenforceable where, under its terms, the agency was to place the employee on administrative leave for extended periods of time.

See, Brown v. United States Postal Service, 64 M.S.P.R. 425, 431 (1994). them in a non-pay status), such agency actions are also subject to appeal.

The Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) has also addressed the use of administrative leave in some of its decisions. In a recent case, FLRA reaffirmed its controlling precedent that agency discretion to grant administrative leave is limited to granting brief, occasional, or sporadic periods of administrative leave.

OPM Collects Payroll Data on Administrative Leave

Payroll data. In 2004, OPM began to integrate federal civilian employee payroll and personnel data into a single data warehouse—the Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) system—as one of several efforts supporting OPM’s Human Resources Line of Business (HR LOB) initiative. HR LOB intended to help transform the way human capital functions and services are carried out in the federal government. The goal of HR LOB was to integrate and streamline human resources systems to improve government-wide human capital management by better informing policy making and more effectively managing the federal workforce. To collect the payroll data, payroll service providers for federal agencies report payroll data biweekly to EHRI. According to OPM officials, most payroll providers were reporting payroll data to EHRI by 2009.

Time keeping. Federal employees generally use electronic time and attendance systems to record their work and leave time. These systems allow employees to record time spent on different work and leave activities, including paid administrative leave. However, the level of detail regarding the exact nature of the work or leave time varies depending on the agencies’ systems for recording employee work time.

Payroll service. Federal agencies primarily use four payroll service providers to process employee pay and track work and leave hours.These payroll providers process employees’ time and attendance information and then report payroll data to OPM’s EHRI system. These data are then used to populate OPM’s EHRI data warehouse containing federal personnel and payroll information. EHRI has a single category for all paid administrative leave hours and the payroll service providers may aggregate various leave categories when preparing data on paid administrative leave to be transmitted to EHRI.

Selected Agencies Consistently Categorize Some Activities as Acceptable Reasons for Granting Paid Administrative Leave; However, Variations Exist

Selected Agency Policies and Guidance Commonly Categorize Some Activities for Granting Paid Administrative Leave

Policy similarities. Among the agencies reviewed, we found activities or circumstances which were consistently categorized as eligible for the granting of paid administrative leave in each of the agencies’ leave policies and guidance. These included donating blood, dismissals due to hazardous weather or emergency conditions, physical examinations to determine fitness for duty, and voting and registration, among others (see table 1 below). In addition to civic activities and weather-related delays or closures, all agencies we reviewed also included at least one activity directly related to employees’ job responsibilities as reasons for granting paid administrative leave. Examples of these activities included attending trainings, conferences, conventions, or meetings, and performing tasks necessary for change of duty station.

Agencies Can Set Policies for Paid Administrative Leave; Therefore, Policy Differences Exist between Agencies

Agency discretion. Agencies have the discretion to grant paid administrative leave for brief periods of time and have exercised this discretion through setting policies governing the use of this type of leave. In some instances, agencies set policies to grant paid administrative leave to employees for reasons related to agencies’ missions, or that are in the best interest of the agency. For example, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Department of Defense (DOD) officials said that they grant paid administrative leave to employees serving 6 months or more in Afghanistan for rest and recuperation breaks, while other selected agencies did not. In addition, some agencies may allow paid administrative leave to be granted for physical fitness activities, as an agency employee-wellness initiative or for mission-related reasons. For example, the Air Force allows installation commanders (or heads of serviced organizations) to excuse civilian employees for physical fitness activities—and to charge up to 3 hours of paid administrative leave per week—based on mission and workload requirements. Similarly, the Department of the Interior (Interior) allows employees to be granted paid administrative leave for health and fitness activities, but only under limited circumstances and not for regularly recurring periods (such as a set amount of time each week).

Categorization differences. While the five selected agencies consistently categorize some activities under their paid administrative leave policies (as described in table 1), we found that some agencies’ policies categorize a specific activity as paid administrative leave while others do not. For example, four of the five agencies we reviewed categorize time to serve as a juror or witness (commonly referred to as court leave) as separate from paid administrative leave; however, Interior policy classifies court leave as a reason for which employees can charge paid administrative leave (see figure 1). In another variation, we found that an agency subcomponent’s policy categorized activities or circumstances as paid administrative leave while agency-wide policy categorized the activities or circumstances differently. For example, according to Air Force policy, legal holidays are categorized as paid administrative leave. However, in DOD-wide policy, as well as other DOD subcomponents reviewed, legal holidays are not categorized under paid administrative leave.

Congressional authorization. Both court leave and legal holidays are examples of circumstances in which Congress has authorized excused absences for federal employees. Other instances of congressionally authorized excused absences include attending military, law enforcement, and firefighter funerals, serving as a bone-marrow or organ donor, and recovery for employees injured by hostile action while serving abroad. Similarly, Congress has authorized official time to be used when engaging in union activities, such as negotiating collective bargaining agreements. According to OPM officials, these congressionally authorized circumstances are not paid administrative leave, but rather separate types of leave or authorized absences. OPM officials said that they considered paid administrative leave to be an administratively authorized absence from duty. However, agencies we reviewed included congressionally authorized circumstances in their paid administrative We discuss below our assessment of OPM’s payroll leave policies.guidance and the extent to which it distinguishes between administrative leave and congressionally authorized excused absences.

Differences in Agency Leave Recording Practices and in Payroll Providers’ Interpretation of Guidance Contributed to Large Variations in Reporting of Paid Administrative Leave

A Lack of Detailed Guidance Related to Recording and Reporting Paid Administrative Leave Activities Makes Data Comparison Challenging

Because agencies’ policies on paid administrative leave differ, OPM data on administrative leave is expected to vary across agencies, even when controlling for agency size. However, we found large variations in OPM data on paid administrative leave as a result of (1) agency recording practices, and (2) differences in how payroll providers report time to EHRI. Agency practices for recording paid administrative leave included time for activities that OPM did not consider to be paid administrative leave. Similarly, when payroll providers reported data to EHRI, time for activities that OPM did not consider to be paid administrative leave were included. Furthermore, in one case, a payroll provider did not report any time for activities that OPM officials would expect to be reported as paid administrative leave, even though time for these activities was collected through the time and attendance system. OPM has not provided guidance to agencies on how to record time for paid administrative leave activities, and while OPM has provided guidance to payroll providers for reporting paid administrative leave hours, this guidance is limited.

Agency recording practices. Agency practices for recording activities as paid administrative leave in time and attendance systems vary from what OPM officials told us that they expected. In some instances, we found that time entered by employees as paid administrative leave may not all be considered as paid administrative leave by OPM officials. For example, as noted above, employees are to use official time when engaging in certain union and labor relations activities (e.g., negotiating collective bargaining agreements); however, some agencies record union and labor relations activities as paid administrative leave. At the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for instance, we found that official time for engaging in union activities were recorded as paid administrative leave because the agency’s time and attendance system does not have a job code to capture official time separately. In another example, a subcomponent of Interior instructs a certain group of employees—those not paid for specified vacation days but who are paid during this time as part of a prorated payment schedule—to record this time as paid administrative leave in the time and attendance system. Interior officials told us that the subcomponent did not have a separate code for recording this vacation time. Thus, the agency established the practice of recording it as paid administrative leave. OPM has not issued guidance on which activities employees should or should not record as paid administrative leave in agencies’ time and attendance systems, which affects the accuracy and consistency of the data that OPM collects. Internal control standards state that agency management must have relevant, reliable information to effectively manage their organization and provide accountability for their operations. In addition, internal control standards state that detailed policies, procedures, and practices are to be developed to ensure consistent implementation by responsible parties to achieve established objectives. Without adequate guidance on what should or should not be recorded as paid administrative leave, federal employees and agencies cannot provide OPM with relevant and reliable information, which could be used to manage the federal workforce and inform human capital management policy.

Additionally, as mentioned previously, OPM officials told us that they do not consider any legislatively authorized activities, such as bone marrow or organ donation, funeral leave, or absence due to injuries sustained from hostile actions abroad to be paid administrative leave. However, we found that agencies do instruct employees to record these activities as paid administrative leave in their time and attendance systems. For example, DOD does not have a separate code for employees to record time spent for bone marrow or organ donation, but for several agency components, including the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, it is included as one reason among many for charging paid administrative leave. Additionally, Interior instructs its employees to record court time as paid administrative leave, which does not align with what OPM officials consider to be paid administrative leave. By providing more detailed guidance, OPM could assist federal agencies in determining which activities should or should not be recorded as paid administrative leave, making this government-wide time and attendance data more consistent for monitoring the activities of the federal workforce.

Payroll provider reporting. OPM has provided a data codebook to payroll service providers to serve as guidance on reporting payroll data to EHRI. This codebook includes instructions and technical specifications on the data elements that payroll providers should populate every 2 weeks. For example, the instructions include specifications for how each employee’s data should be formatted in the file along with a listing of all data elements to report for each employee such as total salary, annual leave hours used, and amounts deducted for health benefits. However, this guidance is limited and we found that payroll service providers interpret it in different ways. For example, the OPM guidance document for reporting payroll data to EHRI does not provide any instructions for reporting federal holiday leave hours, and we found that payroll service providers report these hours either differently or not at all. One of the four primary payroll providers for the federal government—the National Finance Center (NFC)—includes federal holidays among the hours reported to OPM as paid administrative leave; the other three primary providers either report federal holidays as regular duty hours or do not report them at all. NFC officials said that these charges are reported to EHRI as paid administrative leave for lack of another option because, according to OPM’s guidance, there is no separate data element for federal holidays and regular duty hours should not include any paid leave. However, OPM officials told us that they do not consider federal holidays to be paid administrative leave. In addition, among the four primary payroll providers, three report other legislatively authorized leave activities such as court leave, official time, military leave, and bone marrow and organ donation as paid administrative leave.reporting differences result in inaccurate data on the total amount of paid administrative leave, and since OPM guidance does not define paid administrative leave by specifying what should and should not be reported in this category, these payroll providers include time for activities that OPM does not consider to be paid administrative leave. As illustrated below, while employees at USAID (which uses NFC) record federal holidays separate from paid administrative leave, when NFC reports USAID payroll data to OPM, federal holidays are included in the agency’s paid administrative leave totals. In contrast, for the General Services Administration (GSA), which uses its own services as one of the four These primary payroll providers, federal holidays are reported as regular duty time, not as paid administrative leave (see figure 2 for an illustration of how these hours are reported to EHRI).

In another example, the Department of State (State) (which acts as its own payroll provider for submitting payroll data to OPM for all its employees) does not report any hours to OPM as paid administrative leave, even though the agency has a policy for granting paid administrative leave under several circumstances and records time for several activities in its time and attendance system as administrative leave. State officials explained that paid administrative leave is recorded as such in the time and attendance system, but recorded as regular duty time within the agency’s payroll system. Officials stated that this is due to a system limitation that will be corrected with the implementation of a new payroll application in late 2015. As a result, all paid administrative leave is reported to OPM as regular duty time.

OPM officials explained that no quality review of the data has occurred and that they were not aware of the data discrepancies created by either NFC reporting federal holidays as paid administrative leave or by State not reporting any time as paid administrative leave. Consequently, the agency has not addressed these discrepancies to date. However, OPM officials told us that they intended to organize a working group in fiscal year 2015 to conduct an initial review of the quality of the EHRI payroll data. Similar to our 1998 assessment of the reliability of OPM’s personnel data—which facilitated the data’s use in numerous subsequent engagements—we have initiated work to review the reliability of OPM’s EHRI payroll data. completed in fiscal year 2016, and will include following up on the status of OPM’s working group.

The payroll data assessment is expected to be As described above, EHRI payroll and personnel data are collected to assist OPM and agencies in managing the federal workforce and resources more effectively. However, because OPM has not provided detailed guidance to ensure the consistency and accuracy of data reported to EHRI as stated in federal internal control standards,and agency leadership may be unable to use these data to effectively manage their workforces and resources.

EHRI personnel data (formerly Central Personnel Data File (CPDF)) records demographic information, job information, the agency of employment and location of employees, and other aspects of the on-board Federal workforce. We previously reported that government-wide data from CPDF were 96 percent or more accurate. See GAO, OPM’s Central Personnel Data File: Data Appear Sufficiently Reliable to Meet Most Customer Needs, GAO/GGD-98-199 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 30, 1998).

The Total Amount and Estimated Salary Cost of Paid Administrative Leave is Difficult to Estimate

Categorical differences—the reasons for which agencies grant paid administrative leave—and reporting differences—such as including official time activities or federal holidays—contribute to variations in the total amount of paid administrative leave reported to OPM. The reasons for the paid administrative leave charges are not reported to OPM and the data may include time charged for other reasons that—like federal holidays— OPM considers as separate and distinct from paid administrative leave. This includes official time, court leave, leave for injury due to hostile action abroad, bone marrow and organ donation, and funeral leave. We estimated the extent to which federal holidays impact the total amount of paid administrative leave reported and excluded this amount as it is not paid administrative leave. However, other reasons—such as weather- related events—are relevant to specific employees or geographic areas, and unlike federal holidays, cannot be estimated because the hours are not charged consistently across all employees and all agencies.

Federal holidays. When including federal holidays among the charges, the total amount of paid administrative leave more than doubles government-wide (see figure 3). Over the 3 years we reviewed, federal employees charged a total of about 24.6 million days of paid administrative leave, or about 12 days per employee, which includes time for federal holidays for those agencies using NFC as a payroll service provider (see appendix II, table 3). of paid administrative leave, an estimated 60 percent were federal holidays. Separating federal holidays from the data, the total amount of paid administrative leave falls to more than 9.9 million days across the 3 years reviewed (less than 1 percent of total employee paid days), or about 5 days per employee.

Thirty-four agencies (including 9 CFO Act agencies) in addition to subcomponents of 6 other agencies use NFC as a payroll service provider and for which NFC reports payroll data to EHRI.

Personnel Matters and Physical Fitness Activities were the Most Common Reasons for Charging Large Amounts of Paid Administrative Leave

Employees with high charges. At the 24 CFO Act agencies we identified more than 26,000 employees charging paid administrative leave in amounts relatively higher than the average charges at each agency (see appendix III, tables 5 and 6 for summary data on employees with higher-than-average amounts of paid administrative leave at each of the 24 CFO Act agencies). On average, these employees across the 24 CFO Act agencies charged approximately 51 days of paid administrative leave between fiscal years 2011 and 2013. During this 3-year time period, total paid administrative leave per employee ranged between 15 and 730 days. At the five agencies we reviewed, we identified more than 17,000 employees charging relatively higher amounts of paid administrative leave. From among these 17,000 employees, we selected a nongeneralizable sample of 312 employees based on (1) those employees who had charged the highest amounts of paid administrative leave, and (2) a random selection from among the remaining employees (see appendix I for a detailed description of sample selection process). We asked agencies to provide reasons for the two largest total amounts of paid administrative leave charged per employee in the 3-year period of fiscal years 2011 through 2013.

Summary of reasons. Of the 312 employees selected for further review at the five agencies, we found, through analysis of agency responses, that the most common reasons for charging higher-than-average amounts of paid administrative leave included personnel matters (such as investigations into alleged misconduct or criminal actions), physical fitness-related activities, and periods of rest and recuperation for employees working in overseas locations. Agencies were asked to provide reasons for the two largest total amounts of paid administrative leave charges per employee. For nearly 70 percent of the employees selected, agencies provided one reason for the paid administrative leave, but for 79 employees (25 percent) agencies provided two reasons for the largest amounts of paid administrative leave. For 5 percent of employees selected, agencies were unable to provide any reason for the amount of paid administrative leave. Of the reasons provided for paid administrative leave charges, 34 percent were for personnel matters, 16 percent were for physical fitness-related activities, and 15 percent were for travel to and from duty locations, including rest and recuperation periods for employees working overseas (see table 2 below).

Predominant reason. Among selected employees, the most commonly cited reason for large amounts of paid administrative leave was personnel matters, which was cited as a reason for paid administrative leave at all five of our selected agencies. Examples of personnel matters include investigations into alleged misconduct, criminal matters, or security concerns as well as settlement agreements, pending adverse actions due Agency officials told us that to inappropriate behavior, and interim relief.these personnel matters concluded in a variety of ways including removal, retirement, resignation, reinstatement of employee, and settlement agreement.

As discussed above, personnel matters are cited in four of the five selected agencies’ policies as a permissible reason for authorizing paid administrative leave. Personnel matters are not explicitly listed as a permissible reason in DOD policy although officials confirmed that they do authorize paid administrative leave for this reason.

Other reasons. Three of the most frequently cited reasons for higher- than-average amounts of paid administrative leave are specific to the policies and practices of one or two of the selected agencies. These reasons include

Physical fitness-related activities. Both GSA and DOD reported that selected employees charged paid administrative leave for physical fitness-related activities, with GSA having the most selected employees granted paid administrative leave for fitness-related activities. An agency official at a GSA subcomponent told us that it was following a policy allowing employees up to 3 hours per week in paid administrative leave for the purposes of physical fitness-related activities. GSA reported that this policy was abolished in fiscal year 2014, outside the time period of the data collected for this analysis (fiscal years 2011 through 2013).

Vacation. A specific group of contract employees at a subcomponent of Interior recorded authorized vacation time as paid administrative leave. Interior indicated that it plans to explore other options for recording authorized vacation time for these employees.

Professional development. Participating in professional development activities, including attending training, was a reason reported for employees with higher-than-average amounts of paid administrative leave at VA and DOD. Officials from a VA subcomponent told us that paid administrative leave is granted to certain employees so that they could attend medical training for the purposes of earning or maintaining their professional licenses.

Conclusions

Federal agencies have the discretion to grant paid administrative leave to employees to help manage their workforces when it is in their best interest to do so. This discretion is important in ensuring that employees are not placed in dangerous circumstances, have access to professional development opportunities, and are able to participate in civic activities during work hours. Nonetheless, since paid administrative leave is a cost to the taxpayer, its use should be managed effectively. While each agency has differences in its policies for granting paid administrative leave, we found that data collected by OPM on the amount of such leave do not accurately reflect the reasons in agency policies for granting—nor what OPM considers to be—paid administrative leave. Therefore, OPM data on paid administrative leave are inaccurate and inconsistent across agencies. Ensuring a more consistent and accurate measure of data across agencies could enable both federal agencies and OPM to more effectively oversee the use of paid administrative leave. Such data are important for understanding the extent to which paid administrative leave is used across the government and for potentially identifying instances of abuse.

OPM’s collection of payroll data from federal agencies, including data on paid administrative leave, could provide relevant and reliable information to assist OPM and federal agencies in more effectively managing the federal workforce. OPM has collected these data for several years, but has not ensured that the data are valid. Our work confirms that the data OPM has collected on paid administrative leave do not comport with what OPM officials intended to collect. For example, the data included time off for federal holidays and other legislatively authorized leave that OPM does not consider administrative leave. As a result, OPM does not have an accurate measure on the use of paid administrative leave across federal agencies that can be used to inform decision makers on the use of paid administrative leave. Continuing to collect these data without ensuring their accuracy is costly to both OPM and federal agencies. In addition, using these data to manage the federal workforce could result in decisions based upon faulty conclusions that stem from inaccurate data. OPM officials told us that, while they had not reviewed the quality of the payroll data, they intend to establish a working group in fiscal year 2015 toward this end. As part of our ongoing work to review the completeness and accuracy of the payroll data, we will follow up on the status of OPM’s working group.

By working with agencies to improve recording practices and by working with payroll providers to report the relevant data, OPM has an opportunity to help agencies manage their workforce and resources and provide decisions makers with reliable information on the use of administrative leave. This could assist both agencies and OPM in making informed decisions to effectively manage the federal workforce. Improving the data is consistent with internal control standards and OPM’s stated goals for collecting and warehousing the Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) system data.

Recommendations

To help ensure that agencies report comparable and reliable data to EHRI, we recommend that the Director of OPM, in coordination with agencies and payroll service providers, take the following actions:

Develop guidance for agencies on which activities to enter, or not enter, as paid administrative leave in agency time and attendance systems; and

Provide updated and specific guidance to payroll service providers on which activities to report, or not report, to the paid administrative leave data element in EHRI.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided the Secretaries of the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, the Interior, State, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Administrator of the General Services Administration and the Directors of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Office of Personnel Management with a draft of this report for their review and comment.

In its written comments, reproduced in appendix IV, OPM partially agreed with our recommendations. OPM also provided technical comments that we incorporated, as appropriate. We also received written comments from USDA, DOD, and VA, which are reproduced in appendixes V, VI, and VII. USDA stated it generally agreed with the findings, and provided technical comments that we incorporated, as appropriate. DOD neither agreed nor disagreed with the findings and recommendations, and provided technical comments that we incorporated, as appropriate. VA stated it agreed with the conclusions and concurred with the recommendations. State also provided technical comments that we incorporated, as appropriate. In emails received on September 29, 2014, October 6, 2014, and October 2, 2014, respectively, the liaisons for Interior, GSA, and USAID stated that the agencies did not have any comments on the report.

OPM agreed in its comments that

Some reporting requirements should be clarified, in particular, guidance regarding reporting holiday time; It will clarify that the paid administrative leave category is a catch- all category for paid leave that does not fall into another EHRI category; and It will collaborate with agencies and payroll providers in developing changes in guidance and EHRI payroll data elements.

OPM recommended that our two recommendations be combined into one. Regarding our first recommendation that OPM develop guidance for agencies on which activities to enter, or not enter, as paid administrative leave in agency time and attendance systems, OPM stated that it reflected an incorrect understanding of its role. OPM said that its role does not include directing guidance to agencies on how to collect time and attendance data, but it does include issuing guidance on EHRI data requirements that agency systems should support. We do not agree that the recommendations should be combined nor that the first recommendation is inconsistent with OPM’s role. Our first recommendation is directed at the need for OPM to clarify agencies’ understanding of how leave should be reported and entered appropriately into time and attendance systems. In directing EHRI data requirements to all responsible agency officials and payroll providers, OPM can provide such guidance to agencies. Our second recommendation is directed at what payroll providers report from these agency time and attendance systems to EHRI as paid administrative leave.

Based on our findings, guidance from OPM could directly impact how agencies record time for paid administrative leave activities in agency time and attendance systems, thereby increasing the likelihood that agency data that are ultimately reported to EHRI would be more accurate. We believe that this guidance is within the purview of OPM’s role and is similar to guidance that OPM has provided in the past. OPM acknowledges as much when it states in its comments on this report that “ guidance is not just for payroll providers, but for all parties involved in collecting and reporting relevant data.”

Moreover, in agency comments to this report, two of the eight agencies indicated that they would benefit from such guidance from OPM. For example, VA indicated that it is reviewing how the agency approves and charges paid administrative leave. In doing so, VA stated that it will coordinate with OPM to ensure consistency with OPM’s interpretation of when administrative leave is appropriate. USDA noted that additional guidance from OPM would greatly benefit how paid administrative leave is managed. Based on our findings and agency comments, we feel that if agencies had a common understanding of what OPM considers paid administrative leave, then the agencies would be more capable of meeting OPM’s data reporting requirements.

Concerning the second recommendation for OPM to provide updated and specific guidance to payroll service providers on which activities to report, or not report, to the paid administrative leave data element in EHRI, we continue to believe it is valid because we found that payroll providers were reporting time for activities as paid administrative leave that they should not, according to OPM. Our assessment of OPM guidance demonstrated that it was limited and it was not clear as to what activities should be included or excluded from the paid administrative leave data element. Therefore, we believe that clarification of the guidance could enhance payroll providers’ understanding of the paid administrative leave category and minimize future errors.

OPM also recommended that we include a recommendation to agencies and payroll providers to collaborate with OPM as it revises its guidance and to modify systems and procedures to comply with OPM data reporting requirements. While these are important issues, we did not assess agency and payroll provider collaboration with OPM nor did we fully assess agency and payroll provider compliance with OPM data reporting requirements. Therefore, it would not be appropriate for us to include such a recommendation.

In commenting on the draft report, while DOD did not state whether it agreed with the findings and recommendations, it stated that it provided comments to enhance context, add clarity, and affirm agency discretion in granting or placing personnel on paid administrative leave. For example, DOD stated that, “in order to add clarity to the scope of administrative leave as opposed to other forms of leave, clear coding standards should be identified….” Such comments are consistent with the intent of our recommendations that OPM work with agencies and payroll providers to develop and update guidance clarifying how agencies record, and payroll providers report, paid administrative leave.

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the report date. At that time, we will send copies to the Secretaries of Agriculture, Defense, the Interior, State, and Veterans Affairs, the Administrator of the General Services Administration, the Directors of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Office of Personnel Management, and interested congressional committees. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on GAO’s Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-2717 or jonesy@gao.gov. Contact points for our offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are listed in appendix VIII.

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

In this report, we had three objectives including (1) describe policies for paid administrative leave at selected federal agencies; (2) review agencies’ and payroll providers’ practices in recording and reporting paid administrative leave, and describe the number of federal employees granted such leave, the total number of days granted, and the associated salary costs; and (3) describe categories of reasons for which large amounts of paid administrative leave have been charged by individual employees at selected federal agencies. To better understand the reasons why federal agencies authorize paid administrative leave for federal employees and the extent to which it is used government-wide, we analyzed payroll data from OPM’s Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) system. We selected five agencies at which to review administrative leave policies and collect information on the reasons why selected employees had large amounts of paid administrative leave.

To obtain an understanding of the reasons why agencies authorize paid administrative leave for federal employees, we used OPM’s EHRI payroll data (described below) to select five federal agencies—the Departments of Defense, the Interior, and Veterans Affairs; General Services Administration; and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)—based upon two factors: (1) the percentage of employees with amounts of paid administrative leave that was relatively higher than each agency’s average, and (2) the agency’s average amount of administrative leave per employee. For these five selected agencies, we reviewed leave policies and time and attendance guidance for granting and recording paid administrative leave, respectively, and interviewed agency officials. We compared the administrative leave policies of the five agencies and, in the case of DOD, some subcomponent policies, and categorized the reasons authorizing such leave to determine those that are similar or different across the agencies.

To determine the extent of use, the total amount, and salary costs of paid administrative leave, we analyzed payroll data from OPM’s EHRI system for each agency between fiscal years 2011 and 2013. OPM’s EHRI payroll data include paid administrative leave data for more than 100 federal agencies, including 23 of the 24 agencies covered by the Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act of 1990, as amended (the Department of State (State) does not report paid administrative leave separately from regular work hours). OPM’s goal for the EHRI payroll data is to securely acquire pay data for all federal civilian employees by leveraging existing data extraction processes. Payroll data are submitted electronically to OPM by payroll service providers. Payroll data submissions from providers to EHRI represent actual payroll records in a given pay period. The EHRI payroll data covers employees in pay and nonpay status. The data includes all federal civilian employees of the Executive Branch except for employees in the intelligence community, U.S. Postal Service,and selected positions, such as nonappropriated fund personnel, commissioned officers in the Departments of Commerce, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, and the Environmental Protection Agency, and, as of March 2006, foreign service personnel at State. The file does not include employees of the Judicial Branch, and Legislative Branch coverage is limited to the Government Printing Office, the U.S. Tax Court, and several small commissions.

We conducted substantial electronic testing and interviewed cognizant officials at OPM to assess the reliability of the EHRI payroll data. Officials at OPM explained that they had not tested the data for consistency nor validated it against agency data. In our testing, we examined the data provided for obvious errors, inconsistencies, and missing data; conducted logic tests; and compared data to EHRI personnel data. We also interviewed officials at the four payroll service centers used by the five selected agencies to better understand what the data on paid administrative leave include when the data are reported to OPM’s EHRI system. From this assessment, we determined that the data from fiscal years 2011 to 2013 are reliable for the purposes of this study. Data prior to fiscal year 2011 were not reliable due to missing data and because fewer agencies reported the data to OPM during that time. However, the data for fiscal years 2011 to 2013 have several limitations. First, the data represent charges to specific categories of leave and other activities that vary by agency, thus they are not comparable across agencies. For example, one agency might instruct employees to record court leave as paid administrative leave whereas employees at another agency may record it under a separate category. In addition, we found that one payroll service provider included federal holidays among the paid administrative leave hours, whereas the other three payroll service providers include holiday hours in regular duty time or do not report them at all. Finally, the reasons for the charges to administrative leave are not specified in the data, so it is not possible to determine why employees charged leave, if it corresponds to the agency’s policy for administrative leave, or if it includes time when employees were participating in activities directly related to their job responsibilities. These limitations are described in the report and accompany the presentation of data so they can be properly understood in the context of the noted limitations.

To summarize EHRI data on paid administrative leave, we totaled the number of hours per employee at each agency then converted that to an estimated amount of days assuming an 8-hour work day. Total amounts of administrative leave are summed across the three fiscal years and are not necessarily charged consecutively. We calculated the average number of paid administrative leave days charged per person for the 3- year period at each agency. We calculated this average using the sum of paid administrative leave charges and the on-board average number of employees in pay periods with sufficient data (not missing) across the 3- year period. While there were 79 pay periods in the 3-year period, most agency averages were based on data from 77 pay periods because 2 pay periods were missing for most agencies. While missing pay periods differed for each agency, they generally occurred around the change of fiscal year. We calculated the per person average to provide an easier interpretation of hours of paid administrative leave. We chose a 3-year average because paid administrative leave is not uniformly distributed across pay periods or years. We calculated the per person average by agency because of differences in agency size. We used actual employee salaries and work schedules, where available, to estimate the salary cost of paid administrative leave hours and all other paid hours. Salary cost was adjusted for inflation and prorated for work schedule. If salary and work schedule information was unavailable, we used the average agency salary, adjusted for inflation, to estimate the salary cost of paid administrative leave hours and all other paid hours. We then prorated the salary estimate based on the proportion of full-time and part-time employees in the federal workforce. Unless otherwise noted, all summary data and salary estimates for paid administrative leave exclude federal holidays. As described in the report, federal holidays are included in paid administrative leave data reported to OPM’s EHRI system for those agencies that use National Finance Center (NFC) for payroll service. Since federal holidays should not be charged to administrative leave, per OPM officials’ expectations, and because they occur regularly and are generally applicable across all federal employees, we estimated the total amount of federal holiday hours used for those agencies using NFC and disaggregated the total time from paid administrative leave charges. Not all federal employees are eligible for holiday pay. For example, firefighters and part-time employees whose work schedules do not fall on a particular holiday may not receive holiday pay. Consequently, we only deducted holiday hours from a pay period during which a holiday occurred if paid administrative leave hours were charged in that pay period.

Finally, to describe categories of reasons why employees had large amounts of leave, we selected a nongeneralizable sample of employees at each of the five selected agencies and asked officials at each agency to provide reasons for the two largest total amounts of paid administrative leave per employee. To select the employees, we first identified those “outlier” employees charging paid administrative leave in amounts relatively higher than average (greater than three standard deviations from the agency mean) at each of the five selected agencies, finding more than 17,000 employees. Among those employees with large amounts of charges across the five agencies, we selected 70 for each of the five agencies. This included the 35 employees with the highest total amount of paid administrative leave and another 35 employees randomly selected from the remaining “outlier” employees. For one of the five selected agencies, USAID, there were only 32 “outlier” employees, so we did not request information for more than those 32 employees. Using a standard form for each agency, we provided a listing of each of the selected employees and the total amount of administrative leave each employee charged between fiscal years 2011 and 2013. For each of these employees, we asked the agency to provide all the reasons for which the administrative leave was charged and to identify two of those reasons that accounted for the majority of the total charges across the 3 years. We conducted an independent analysis of the responses provided by each agency, where one analyst categorized the reasons provided independently from a second analyst, and then compared the results. The analysts’ initial assessment was in agreement 96 percent of the time. Where there was any disagreement, the analysts discussed to come to consensus. Results of our analysis of reasons for administrative leave charges are not generalizable to the selected agencies or government- wide because of sample size and selection method.

We conducted this performance audit from November 2013 to October 2014 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Appendix II: Paid Administrative Leave Summary Data by Agency

Holidays are not included in “Excluding Holidays” “Excluding Holidays”

Chief Financial Officers Act Agencies Using Other Payroll Service Providers in total charges to paid in total charges to paid “Excluding Holidays” “Excluding Holidays”

Estimated salary cost FY2011-2013

Appendix III: Employees with Higher-Than- Average Total Administrative Leave by CFO Act Agency

Total days Average Days Minimum Days Maximum Days 333 10,920 62 37

State does not report paid administrative leave separately to OPM/EHRI. Instead, paid administrative leave is tracked in the agency’s time and attendance system and is aggregated and reported with regular work hours to OPM’s EHRI system. Summary includes data for those agencies that report paid administrative leave to OPM’s EHRI system.

Appendix IV: Comments from the Office of Personnel Management

Appendix V: Comments from the Department of Agriculture

Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Defense

Appendix VI: Comments from the Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Agriculture Department of Veterans Affairs

Appendix VIII: GAO Contacts

GAO Contacts

Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Steven Lozano, Assistant Director; Sara Daleski; Karin Fangman; Shelby Kain; Cynthia Saunders; Erin Saunders Rath; Rebecca Shea; and Carolyn Taylor made key contributions to this report. Jeff DeMarco, Mary Diop, Deirdre Duffy, Ellen Grady, Ulyana Panchishin, Robert Robinson, and Jeffrey Schmerling also provided assistance.