12/30/09: The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has issued proposed regulations that would require agencies to conduct periodic reinvestigations (PRIs) of all “public trust” employees at least once every five years. NTEU has submitted these comments in response to that proposal to register NTEU’s opposition to any PRIs and its reasons for believing that, if a PRI is necessary, a ten-year cycle would be sufficient.

Federal employees hold positions that are generally categorized as either “nonsensitive,” “public trust” or “national security” positions. Until now, public trust employees were subject to PRIs only if there was some specific statutory authority for such a requirement. In the last days of the prior administration, however, President Bush promulgated an Executive Order directing the reinvestigation of all public trust employees and ordering OPM to determine the standards of such investigations, including their frequency. OPM has now proposed a five-year frequency.

In NTEU’s comments, Colleen Kelley stressed the Union's opposition to any reinvestigation requirement. She pointed to the absence of any evidence of need, together with the high monetary and psychic cost of such reinvestigations. She urged OPM to reevaluate the necessity for the requirement, a reevaluation that we feel confident would lead to a rescission of the earlier Executive Order.

In the event, however, that OPM refuses to reconsider the need for PRIs, She offered some pointed observations about OPM’s failure to give the public sufficient information to enable us to evaluate its proposed regulation. OPM has not yet determined how extensive a PRI would be or whether the scope would differ for “high risk” versus “moderate risk” public trust employees. In a briefing of union representatives over the proposal, OPM was also unclear as to the number of employees who would be affected by the requirement. Without firm information regarding the scope and cost of the PRI process, it is difficult to comment on the appropriateness of the five-year frequency interval. Based on the information available, NTEU sees no reason why a PRI should be conducted more frequently than every ten years.

OPM must evaluate the comments before issuing final regulations. We will keep you posted on developments as they occur.