Office of Personnel Management: Actions Are Needed to Help Ensure the Completeness of Political Conversion Data and Adherence to Policy, GAO-16-859: Published: Sep 30, 2016. Publicly Released: Sep 30, 2016.
“When a new president takes office in January, scores of new political appointees will join the federal workforce. What happens to the old appointees? Some move on; some convert to permanent positions. The Office of Personnel Management requires agencies to seek approval before such conversions to help assure fair and open competition free from political influence. In about a quarter of cases we reviewed, agencies implemented political conversions without obtaining prior OPM approval. We recommend that OPM establish a process for agencies to verify and correct in a timely manner the data OPM uses to identify unapproved conversions.”