Opinion ID: 3178168
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Use of Prior-Year Performance Ratings

Text: The second issue on remand concerned the propriety of using prior-year performance ratings to determine retention standings. Appellant argues that the ________________ (continued) that the voluntary retirements would take effect prior to the effective date of the RIF. Indeed, the District represents on appeal that the investigator occupying the second-ranked position in the register, a position in which he was protected from the RIF, did not retire until after the effective date. Moreover, the District claims, there is reason to believe another of the retirees (who was ranked ahead of appellant in one of the other positions to be abolished) would have rescinded his decision to retire had he been allowed to move up in the rankings to a vacated position protected from the RIF. 26 administrative judge‘s decision with respect to this issue was flawed in a number of respects, but it no longer matters given our resolution of the retirement vacancies issue. Regardless of how we might rule on this issue, appellant‘s retention standing would not improve enough to make a difference. Even if we were to disagree with the OEA and uphold the Department‘s use of prior-year performance ratings, there is no dispute that the four-year service credit appellant would receive for his ―outstanding‖ prior-year rating would only move him from eighth to seventh place in the retention register. He still would occupy a position that was scheduled for abolishment (unless we also were to hold that he should have been allowed to compete for the retirees‘ positions, but we have rejected that claim). The performance rating issue thus is moot; to put it differently, any legal or factual errors the administrative judge may have made in addressing the issue were harmless and cannot entitle appellant to relief.43 43 See 6B DCMR § 2405.7 (―The retroactive reinstatement of a person who was separated by a reduction in force under this chapter may only be made on the basis of a finding of a harmful error as determined by the personnel authority or the Office of Employee Appeals. An error to be harmful shall be of such a magnitude that in its absence the employee would not have been released from his or her competitive level.‖); see also Harding v. District of Columbia Office of Emp. Appeals, 887 A.2d 33, 34–35 (D.C. 2005) (applying the harmless error standard for a violation of the notice requirement in the RIF regulations). 27