The Department of Veterans Affairs is reviewing more than 4,000 positions at risk of a downgrade in their respective pay scales.
The six VA positions under review include a mix of white-collar General Schedule (GS) and blue-collar Wage Grade (WG) positions.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) estimates about 56% of VA employees in these 4,000 positions are veterans. Some of the positions under review cover VA employees who make less than $20 an hour.
The positions the VA is reviewing cover all 18 Veterans Integrated Services Networks (VISNs). More than 1,700 positions under review are located in the Veterans Health Administration’s Finance Revenue Operations and Procurement and Logistics Office.
AFGE says affected employees have received notices in the mail about the consistency reviews. But Thomas Dargon, supervisory attorney for AFGE’s National VA Council, said the union hasn’t received notice from the VA yet about any imminent downgrades.
However, if the VA decides to downgrade any of these positions, Dargon said the department will face an even harder time filling these positions.
“The bell’s already been rung here. I’ve seen the letters that have gone out to impacted employees, and VA doesn’t have a lot of answers to the questions they’re asking,” Dargon said.
The VA put a moratorium on downgrading employee positions in 2012, allowing the department to revise a national handbook, computer software and other administrative tasks to ensure it classified employees fairly and consistently.
The VA, however, ended that moratorium earlier this year, and is conducting “consistency reviews” on six of its occupations, at the direction of the Office of Personnel Management.
VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes told Federal News Network in a statement that OPM directed the VA to conduct agency-wide consistency reviews of these six occupations, after VA employees appealed the classification of their positions to OPM.
OPM, following a classification oversight review of VA in spring 2023, determined that two positions, industrial hygienist GS-0690-12 and purchasing agent (prosthetics) GS-1105-06, were not properly classified at the correct grade level.
VA, in a memo obtained by Federal News Network, said its Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer, “is working to strengthen consistency and oversight of classification determinations across the department by taking action to ensure employees are in appropriately and consistently classified positions, reduce geographical and organizational pay disparities and decrease hiring times.”
The VA is conducting consistency reviews on the following positions:
- File Clerk (GS-0305-05 and above)
- Financial Accounts Assistant (GS-503-all grades)
- Industrial Hygienist (GS-0690-12 and above)
- Purchasing Agent (OA) (GS-1105-07 and above)
- Housekeeping Aid (WG-3 and above)
- Boiler Plant Operator (WG-5402-10 and above)
Reviews of these occupations will occur in two phases. The first phase of reviews began on March 1 and will conclude on April 26. The department will start a second phase on April 29, and complete the reviews by May 1. VA expects to submit all its reviews to OPM by May 1.
“VHA Consolidated Classification Units will be required to initiate a consistency review process, which will require the identification of [position descriptions] in need of review. [Position descriptions] determined not properly classified will be sunset through attrition and positions impacted will be recruited at the appropriate grade levels, as applicable,” the VA memo states.
Once VA conducts its consistency reviews, it will provide reports back to OPM on whether their internal findings demonstrated that those positions are properly classified as compared to OPM standards.
“From there, I suspect some decision will be made,” Dargon said….
This article was originally published by a federalnewsnetwork.com . Read the Original article here. .