An agency watchdog this month reported that even though Congress has widely panned the Trump administration’s plan to merge the Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration, officials are still examining ways to implement portions of the proposal without legislation, and they still lack documentation to justify the changes.
As part of an annual report, dated Nov. 6 but published last week, outlining “top management challenges” at OPM, the agency’s Office of the Inspector General for the second year in a row listed the proposal to send most of OPM’s functions to GSA and its policy shop to the Executive Office of the President as an “environmental” challenge.
The Trump administration issued the merger proposal last year, although officials did not submit legislation to authorize the plan until May 2019. Congress was mostly critical of the plan in hearings, and both chambers declined to include funds to implement the plan in their respective appropriations bills.
Despite the lack of congressional approval, the inspector general reported that efforts to move forward with at least some parts of the proposal have “continued to evolve and every iteration of the proposed reorganization would fundamentally alter how agency functions and duties are performed.” Among the agency components explored for piecemeal transfer to GSA were the Performance Accountability Council, the Performance Management Office and the Chief Human Capital Officers Council.
The inspector general acknowledged that the agency “appears to be aware of the inherent risks” of a large-scale agency merger, and noted that a so-called ‘tollgate’ process is being used to examine the logistics and challenges of the proposal. Although leaders, including former Acting OPM Director Margaret Weichert, have tried to keep employe ..
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