U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
Spending Taxpayer Dollars
Quick Reaction Report:
EPA Should Ensure
Positions Vacated Under
Buyouts Are Eliminated or
Properly Filled
Report No. 15-P-0184
July 14, 2015

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Report Contributors:
Chris Baughman
Eric Lewis
Rodney Rice
Tim Roach
Brooke Shull
Abbreviations
EPA	U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
OEI	Office of Environmental Information
OHR	Office of Human Resources
OIG	Office of Inspector General
OPM	Office of Personnel Management
OSWER	Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
VERA	Voluntary Early Retirement Authority
VSIP	Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment
Cover photo: EPA OIG image.
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	15-P-0184
sS?
Office of Inspector General
July 14, 2015
At a Glance
Why We Did This Review
This is a quick reaction report
that addresses hiring activities
by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) that
occurred after EPA employees
accepted payments of up to
$25,000 to separate from
federal employment. The Office
of Personnel Management
(OPM) gave the EPA authority
under the Voluntary Early
Retirement Authority (VERA,
or "early-out") and Voluntary
Separation Incentive Payment
(VSIP, or "buyout") programs
so that the agency could
downsize or restructure its
workforce. As a result, 479
employees voluntarily left in
2014, with the EPA paying
$11.9 million in VERA-VSIP
incentives. One condition of the
authority granted EPA is that
vacated positions cannot be
filled using the same or
substantially similar position
descriptions used for the
employees who left.
This report addresses the
following EPA goal or
cross-agency strategy:
• Embracing EPA as a high-
performing organization.
Quick Reaction Report: EPA Should
Ensure Positions Vacated Under Buyouts
Are Eiiminated or Properiy Filled
The EPA paid staff up to $25,000
each to voluntarily separate
from federal employment, but in
some cases replaced them
without modifying the positions.
The EPA needs to improve its
controls over this in light of the
currently planned rapid hiring of
more than 500 employees.
What We Found
Two of four EPA organizations we reviewed
correctly used the authority granted by OPM
for the VERA-VSIP programs by either
eliminating vacated positions or filling them
using different position descriptions.
However, the Office of Environmental
Information (OEI) filled one of nine vacated
positions using the same position
description, and Region 8 filled seven of 31
vacated positions using the same position
description. EPA paid a total of $200,000 in buyouts to employees vacating these
eight positions. Senior managers from these organizations were aware they
should not hire employees under position descriptions of separated employees.
An OEI Director said OEI used the same position description because it needed
continuity due to the loss of managers. In Region 8, an official said he used the
same position description because of time constraints, and the manager of an
office expressed the belief that the limitations did not apply to all of the vacated
positions.
OPM gave EPA program and regional offices authority to offer early-outs and
buyouts to eliminate or restructure positions. This can achieve cost savings or
mission improvements even if re-hiring occurs in restructured positions. However,
by paying some employees under VSIP to leave federal service only to fill those
same positions without changing them, the EPA lost an opportunity to reduce
costs or improve mission work.
In May 2015, the EPA Deputy Assistant Administrator for Administration and
Resources Management announced plans to hire more than 500 employees by
September 30, 2015. During this effort, the EPA must ensure it does not
improperly fill positions vacated through early-outs or buyouts. We alerted EPA
officials to the issue in this report and met with them on June 11, 2015.
Send all inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391
or visit www.epa.gov/oiq.
The full report is at:
www.epa.aov/oia/reports/2015/
20150714-15-P-0184.pdf
Recommendation and Planned Agency Corrective Actions
We recommend that the EPA implement controls to prevent positions vacated
under VERA-VSIP from being filled using the same position description. The
agency agreed with our recommendation and plans to complete corrective
actions by July 31, 2015. We agree with these corrective actions and consider
the recommendation resolved.

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UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20460
THE INSPECTOR GENERAL
July 14,2015
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: Quick Reaction Report: EPA Should Ensure Positions Vacated Under Buyouts Are
Eliminated or Properly Filled
Report No. 15-P-0184
This is a quick reaction report prepared by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). During preliminary research on the EPA's fiscal year
2014 Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment
(VSIP) activities, we identified an issue—concerning how the EPA filled positions vacated under
VERA-VSIP—that we believe the agency needs to address immediately.
This report contains findings that describe the problems the OIG has identified and corrective actions the
OIG recommends. This report represents the opinion of the OIG and does not necessarily represent the
final EPA position. Final determinations on matters in this report will be made by EPA managers in
accordance with established audit resolution procedures.
The organization responsible for the issues evaluated in this report is the Office of Administration and
Resources Management's Office of Human Resources.
Action Required
In accordance with EPA Manual 2750, your office provided acceptable and complete planned corrective
actions in response to the OIG recommendation. The recommendation is resolved and no final response
to this report is required. However, if you submit a response, it will be posted on the OIG's public
website, along with our memorandum commenting on your response. Your response should be provided
as an Adobe PDF file that complies with the accessibility requirements of Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended. The final response should not contain data that you do not want
to be released to the public; if your response contains such data, you should identify the data for
redaction or removal along with corresponding justification.
FROM: Arthur A. Elkins Jr.
TO:
Karl Brooks, Acting Assistant Administrator
Office of Administration and Resources Management
We will post this report to our website at http://www.epa.gov/oig.

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Quick Reaction Report: EPA Should Ensure Positions
Vacated Under Buyouts Are Eliminated or Properly Filled
15-P-0184
Table of C
Purpose, Scope and Methodology		1
Background		1
Responsible Office		2
Two Organizations Filled Vacated Positions Without
Changing the Position Descriptions		2
Conclusion 		3
Recommendation		4
Summary of Agency Response to Discussion Document
and OIG Evaluation		4
Status of Recommendations and Potential Monetary Benefits		5
Appendices
A Agency Response to Discussion Document 	 6
B Distribution	 8

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Purpose, Scope and Methodology
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) is reviewing the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's (EPA's) fiscal year 2014 Voluntary Early Retirement
Authority (VERA, or "early-out") and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment
(VSIP, or "buyout") activities. During our review, we identified an issue—
concerning how the EPA filled positions vacated under VERA-VSIP—that we
believe the agency needs to address immediately. Corrective actions are urgently
needed because the EPA is currently planning to hire more than 500 people. We
alerted EPA officials to the issue in this report and met with them on June 11,
2015.
We performed our work from April to June 2015 in accordance with generally
accepted government auditing standards issued by the Comptroller General of the
United States. 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 conclusions based on our
audit objectives.
We reviewed the related laws, regulations and guidance documents. Information
we obtained about VERA-VSIP activities included the requests from program and
regional offices to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for VERA-VSIP
authority, the OPM's approval, and the organizations' reports to OPM on the
results. We obtained detailed information for the following four organizations:
•	Office of Environmental Information (OEI).
•	Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER).
•	Region 1.
•	Region 8.
For these organizations, the detailed information we obtained included position
descriptions of some vacated and filled positions. We interviewed personnel from
these four EPA organizations, and staff from the Office of Administration and
Resources Management and OPM. In addition, we obtained information on
payments to the employees who left the EPA under VERA-VSIP.
Background
According to OPM, VERA and VSIP are options for increasing voluntary attrition
in agencies that are downsizing or restructuring. With OPM approval,
organizations can grant early retirements by temporarily lowering the age and
service requirements to increase the number of employees who are eligible for
retirement from the federal government. Similarly, with OPM approval,
organizations can grant lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 to employees as an
incentive to voluntarily leave the federal government. Section 1313(b) of the
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Chief Human Capital Officers Act of 2002 authorized VERA and VSIP options as
regulated by OPM, as codified in Title 5 of the U.S. Code. (For VERA, see
5 U.S.C. §§ 8336(d)(2) and 8414(b)(1)(B), and for VSIP see 5 U.S.C. §§ 3521
and 3525.)
Based on OPM's interpretation of the statute, positions vacated under VERA or
VSIP must be eliminated or restructured. According to OPM, restructuring includes
modifying the vacated position with a position (1) having a different job series
and/or grade, (2) using the same job series and grade but substantively different
duties and responsibilities, (3) having a different full-performance level, or (4) that
is no longer supervisory. According to OPM's Human Resource Specialist
administering the EPA's VERA-VSIP application and approval process, OPM does
not monitor agency hiring after VERA-VSIP to verify that these criteria are
followed.
In fiscal year 2014, 20 of the EPA's 23 program and regional offices participated
in VERA-VSIP activities. A total of 479 employees separated from the EPA
through these activities, and the EPA paid $11.9 million in VERA-VSIP
incentives.
On May 15, 2015, the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Administration and
Resources Management announced an initiative to hire 500 to 800 new EPA staff
by September 30, 2015. The announcement provided guidance to expedite the
hiring process.
Responsible Office
The Office of Administration and Resources Management's Office of Human
Resources (OHR) is responsible for the issues evaluated in this report.
Two Organizations Filled Vacated Positions Without Changing the
Position Descriptions
With the authority granted by OPM, EPA program and regional offices were to
eliminate or restructure vacated positions. Filling a position without changing the
position description of an employee who received an early-out or a buyout is
inconsistent with OPM's approval to undertake VERA-VSIP actions. According
to the Acting Director of the Human Capital Management Division, OHR on
several occasions reminded the program and regional offices not to do this. She
reported it was covered during the biweekly teleconferences. OHR also
communicated it as a best practice. However, without written policy, guidance or
other management controls, one program office and one regional office in our
sample had improperly filled vacated positions.
As shown in Table 1, OEI filled one of nine vacated positions using the same
position description as the employee who left under VERA-VSIP, and Region 8
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filled seven of 31 such vacated positions using the same position description.
Thus, the organizations paid employees to voluntarily leave and then hired people
to refill those vacated positions. OSWER and Region 1 complied with OPM
requirements by eliminating vacated positions or using a different position
description to fill them.
Table 1: Status of vacated positions in four organizations



Vacated positions

Payments for



filled or planned to
Vacated
positions

VERA-VSIP

be filled with
positions filled
filled with

vacated
Positions
different
with same
same
Organization
positions
eliminated
description
description
description
OEI
9
1
7
1
$25,000
OSWER
8
8
0
0
-
Region 1
20
9
11
0
-
Region 8
31
16
8
7
$175,000
Totals
68
34
26
8
$200,000
Source: OIG analysis.
During the process to obtain VERA-VSIP authority, OPM submitted questions
about the application packages sent by program and regional offices. In response
to a question from OPM, OEI replied that it intended to reshape and restructure its
workforce by filling vacated positions using new position descriptions. However,
OEI filled one vacated position using the same position description. According to
the Director of the OEI Office of Program Management, OEI used the same
position description because it needed continuity in that division because five of
the six management positions were vacant. OEI planned to revise the position as
part of a reorganization, which is now underway. Even with reorganization plans,
OEI's filling of the vacated position did not comply with the hiring limitations
agreed to when OPM granted the organization its VERA-VSIP authority.
The seven Region 8 positions filled with the same position description include
two general attorneys, one supervisory attorney, two environmental protection
specialists, one congressional intergovernmental liaison, and one supervisory
environmental scientist. Regarding the attorney positions, the Region 8 Deputy
Assistant Regional Administrator for the Office of Enforcement, Compliance and
Environmental Justice was aware of the hiring limitations caused by VERA-VSIP
separations. However, he said Region 8 had one position description for attorneys
and did not develop a new one because of time constraints. Consequently, to
quickly hire attorneys, Region 8 used the existing position description. For one of
the other positions, the Director of Region 8's office in Helena, Montana,
indicated being aware of the VERA-VSIP hiring limitations but believed it did not
apply to all of the vacated positions.
Conclusion
OPM's VERA-VSIP approval for the EPA stated that, "OPM may suspend or
terminate a VSIP authority if we determine that your agency is not operating its
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VSIP program in a manner consistent with applicable laws or regulatory
requirements." For a sample of EPA offices, we noted instances in which the EPA
filled vacated positions using the same position description, which is not a proper
execution of VERA-VSIP authority granted by OPM. Restructuring positions can
provide the opportunity for cost savings or mission improvements. However, the
EPA paid some employees incentives to leave federal service only to then fill
those same positions without restructuring them. In these instances, the EPA lost
an opportunity to reduce costs or improve mission work, and did not properly use
funds intended for workforce restructuring.
Between May and September 2015, the EPA intends to expedite the hiring of 500
to 800 employees. There are currently no management controls in place to prevent
VERA-VSIP-vacated positions from being refilled. This creates the risk of further
improper use of funds for workforce restructuring.
Recommendation
We recommend that the Assistant Administrator for Administration and
Resources Management:
1. Develop and implement management controls to prevent positions vacated
under VERA-VSIP from being filled using the same position description.
Summary of Agency Response to Discussion Document and
OIG Evaluation
We received a response to the discussion document from the Acting Assistant
Administrator for Administration and Resources Management (see Appendix A).
The agency agreed with our recommendation and provided details about the
corrective actions underway to prevent positions vacated under VERA-VSIP from
being filled using the same position description. We agree with the planned
corrective actions and consider the recommendation resolved.
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Status of Recommendations and
Potential Monetary Benefits
RECOMMENDATIONS
POTENTIAL MONETARY
BENEFITS (In $000s)
Rec.
No.
No.
Subject
Status1
Action Official
Planned
Completion
Date
4 Develop and implement management controls to
prevent positions vacated under VERA-VSIP from
being filled using the same position description.
Assistant Administrator for
Administration and
Resources Management
7/31/15
Claimed
Amount
Ag reed-To
Amount
1 0 = Recommendation is open with agreed-to corrective actions pending.
C = Recommendation is closed with all agreed-to actions completed.
U = Recommendation is unresolved with resolution efforts in progress.
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Appendix A
Agency Response to Discussion Document

UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20480
*^1 mo^
JUN 2 9 2015
OFFICE OF
ADMINISTRATION
AND RESOURCES
MANAGEMENT
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: EPA Comments on Quick Reaction Discussion Document, "EPA Should Ensure
Positions Vacated after VERA- VSIP Are Properly Filleddated June 15, 2015
FROM: ICarl Brooks, Acting Assistant	—**
TO:	Carolyn Copper, Assistant Inspector General
Office of Program Evaluation
Office of the Inspector General
Thank you for the opportunity to review the subject discussion document. We appreciate the
time and effort expended by the Office of the Inspector General to ensure that the agency is in
compliance with the execution of its granted VERA-VSIP authority.
AGENCY COMMENTS ON DISCUSSION DRAFT LANGUAGE
OIG Issue: "Two Organizations Filled Vacated Positions without Changing the Position
Descriptions"
•	After careful review of the eight positions at issue, we understand how the IG drew their
conclusion. Although the post VERA-VSIP hiring actions that are in question fully
comport with the offices' approved business cases including budget neutrality, the paths
taken to fill some of the positions may not always have been in line with a strict
interpretation of the VERA-VSIP requirements.
•	In several forums, we recently reminded our human resources teams across the agency
and our senior career executives of the VERA-VSIP requirements, including that direct
backfills are not authorized.
• We also believe that restructured positions filled at the same title, series and grade must
have substantively different duties and qualifications and should be verified by the
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office's HR-SSC through review and comparison of the former and new position
descriptions.
AGENCY RESPONSE TO RECOMMENDATION
•	In summation, the agency concurs with the discussion document recommendation that
management controls should be implemented to prevent positions vacated under VERA-
VSIP from being filled using the same position description.
•	We are finalizing strategic hiring templates for regional and program offices that will
require each office to certify that future hires related to positions vacated through VERA-
VSIP have been properly restructured.
•	For restructured positions, offices must document whether the position 1) changed from
supervisory to non-supervisory, 2) changed series, 3) changed grade/lower full
performance level, or 4) has the same series, grade or full performance level but
substantively different duties. If the latter, offices must provide the former and new
position description to their HR Shared Service Center for verification.
•	The agency will implement these new procedures by July 31, 2015.
If you have any questions, please have your staff contact Susan Kantrowitz, director, Office of
Human Resources.
cc: Donna Vizian
Susan Kantrowitz
Angela Freeman
Marian Cooper
Rick Buhl
Deb Thomas
Brenda Young
Debbi Hart
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Appendix B
Distribution
Office of the Administrator
Assistant Administrator for Administration and Resources Management
Assistant Administrator for Environmental Information
Assistant Administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response
Agency Follow-Up Official (the CFO)
Agency Follow-Up Coordinator
General Counsel
Associate Administrator for Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations
Associate Administrator for Public Affairs
Regional Administrator, Region 1
Regional Administrator, Region 8
Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for Administration and Resources Management
Director, Office of Human Resources, Office of Administration and Resources Management
Director, Office of Policy and Resource Management, Office of Administration and
Resources Management
Deputy Director, Office of Policy and Resource Management, Office of Administration and
Resources Management
Audit Follow-Up Coordinator, Office of Administration and Resources Management
Audit Follow-Up Coordinator, Office of Environmental Information
Audit Follow-Up Coordinator, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
Audit Follow-Up Coordinator, Region 1
Audit Follow-Up Coordinator, Region 8
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