D.C. Courts: Implementation of Personnel Policies Requires Further
Attention From the Courts' Leadership (Briefing Report, 04/12/2000,
GAO/GGD-00-75BR).

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the personnel
management policies and practices of the District of Columbia Courts,
focusing on whether: (1) D.C. Courts' applicable policies for six basic
personnel activities or functions--performance evaluation, competitive
and noncompetitive promotions, corrective actions, training,
classification, and equal employment opportunity (EEO) policies--were
consistent with commonly accepted personnel management principles; and
(2) D.C. Courts generally adhered to its policies when implementing the
six personnel activities or functions.

GAO noted that: (1) D.C. Courts' policies for the six personnel
activities or functions were generally consistent with commonly accepted
personnel management principles; (2) however, D.C. Courts did not always
adhere to and communicate those policies; (3) while employees are to
receive written performance evaluations on their yearly anniversary
dates with D.C. Courts, relatively few received written evaluations near
their anniversary dates in 1998; (4) although D.C. Courts have acted to
improve compliance, the compliance rate for 1999 indicates that D.C.
Courts still has a distance to go to timely comply with its stated
policy of providing employees with written evaluations on their yearly
anniversary dates; (5) while D.C. Courts collect and retain documents in
connection with competitive promotions, the policy manual does not
identify what documents should be collected and retained for the purpose
of proving the process was fair; (6) while a position review is to be
conducted when a promotion results from reorganization, GAO found that
such reviews often did not occur due to a lack of coordination between
D.C. Courts' Executive Office and Personnel Division; (7) while
employees were to be informed of their right to review materials that
formed the basis for corrective action, they were not routinely informed
of that right; (8) while court policy calls for systematic
classification surveys on a periodic basis, such surveys have not been
conducted for a considerable time; (9) however, D.C. Courts has
announced plans to conduct systematic surveys yearly; (10) apart from
adhering to policies, certain court practices could be improved as
evidenced by D.C. Courts' own work, the results from GAO's
questionnaire, and GAO's comparison of D.C. Courts' practices to certain
federal guidelines; and (11) these practices involve training, EEO, and
the reporting of potential fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  GGD-00-75BR
     TITLE:  D.C. Courts: Implementation of Personnel Policies Requires
	     Further Attention From the Courts' Leadership
      DATE:  04/12/2000
   SUBJECT:  Internal controls
	     Reporting requirements
	     Personnel management
	     Municipal employees
	     Courts (law)
	     Noncompliance
	     Fair employment programs
	     Human resources training
	     Personnel evaluation systems
	     Employee promotions
IDENTIFIER:  District of Columbia Courts Equal Employment Opportunity
	     Program
	     District of Columbia Courts Personnel Management System

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United States General Accounting Office
GAO

Briefing Report  to Congressional Requesters

April 2000

GAO/GGD-00-75BR

D.C. COURTS
Implementation of Personnel Policies Requires

Further Attention From the Courts' Leadership

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Contents
Page 181GAO/GGD-00-75BR D.C. Courts Implementation of Personnel
Policies
Letter                                                                      1
Objectives, Scope, and                                                     20
Methodology
Implementation of                                                          22
Personnel Policies or
Practices
Employees Performance                                                      26
Evaluations and Feedback
All Required Procedures                                                    30
Not Documented
D.C. Courts Policy                                                         36
Compliance
Employees Perceptions of                                                   44
D.C. Courts' Efforts
Appendix I                                                                 48
Equal Employment
Workforce Statistics
District of Columbia
Courts, December 1998
Appendix II                                                                50
Survey of D.C. Courts'
Employees
Appendix III                                                               60
Comments From the D.C.
Courts' Joint Committee
on Judicial
Administration
Appendix IV                                                                66
GAO Contacts and Staff
Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

CFR       Code of Federal Regulations
EEO       equal employment opportunity
EEOC      Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
MSPB      Merit Systems Protection Board
OPF       Official Personnel Folder

B-284121

Page 16GAO/GGD-00-75BR D.C. Courts Implementation
of Personnel Policies
     B-284121

April 12, 2000

The Honorable Ernest J. Istook, Jr.
Chairman, Subcommittee on the
 District of Columbia
Committee on Appropriations
House of Representatives
 
The Honorable Tom Davis
Chairman, Subcommittee on the
 District of Columbia
Committee on Government Reform
House of Representatives
 
The Honorable James P. Moran
Ranking Minority Member
Subcommittee on the District of Columbia
Committee on Appropriations
House of Representatives
 
This briefing report responds to your request that
we examine the personnel management policies and
practices of the District of Columbia Courts.
Those practices have been criticized by some
employees of the D.C. Courts, who individually
have alleged to you and to us that the Courts'
personnel management practices are unfair and at
odds with the Courts' policies on personnel
management.

This report details the information provided in
our February 1, 2000, briefing. It is our second
report to you on personnel management at the D.C.
Courts. Our first report discussed how the D.C.
Courts determine the adequacy of nonjudicial staff
levels.1 For this second report, which also
concerns nonjudicial employees, as agreed with
your offices, our objectives were to determine
whether (1) the Courts' applicable policies for
six basic personnel activities or functions were
consistent with commonly accepted personnel
management principles and (2) the Courts generally
adhered to their policies when implementing the
six personnel activities or functions. These
activities or functions were as follows:
performance evaluation, competitive and
noncompetitive promotions, corrective actions,
training, classification, and equal employment
opportunity (EEO) policies. In gathering
information on the EEO function in the Courts, we
also compared certain court practices with
practices called for or recommended by certain
federal guidelines. Although the Courts are not
required to follow these federal practices, we
viewed them as prudent practices to follow.

Specifically, we reviewed (1) the provision of
feedback to employees about their job performance;
(2) the awarding of competitive and noncompetitive
promotions; (3) the application of official
disciplinary measures by supervisors or managers
in response to unacceptable employee behavior or
performance, which the D.C. Courts refer to as
corrective actions; (4) employee training; (5) the
classification of positions; and (6) EEO policies.
These activities and functions are widely regarded
as among the basic attributes of an effective
public sector human resources system. In addition,
as agreed with your offices, we asked employees
and managers about the D.C. Courts' process for
reporting fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.

To do this review, we compared court policies with
commonly accepted personnel management principles,
interviewed program managers and court executives,
obtained various documents and data, reviewed over
700 personnel files, and sent a questionnaire to a
representative sample of 460 court employees. All
results from our sample data are accurate to plus
or minus 6 percentage points or less with 95-
percent confidence. The Courts' Joint Committee on
Judicial Administration gave us written comments
on a draft of this briefing report, which are
discussed near the end of this report and appear
in appendix III.

Results
The D.C. Courts' policies for the six personnel
activities or functions were generally consistent
with commonly accepted personnel management
principles. However, the D.C. Courts did not
always adhere to many of those policies. As the
following text shows, where we found nonadherence
to a policy, it was not usually an anomaly limited
to a single action or a single year. Managers and
supervisors were clearly not required in practice
to regularly follow all of the personnel policies
and practices we reviewed, even though those
policies were presented as the way the D.C.
Courts' personnel management system should and
would operate. Apart from adhering to policies,
certain court practices could be improved as
evidenced by the Courts' own work, the results
from our questionnaire, and our comparison of the
Courts' practices to certain federal guidelines.
These practices involve training; EEO; and the
reporting of potential fraud, waste, abuse, and
mismanagement.

Our specific findings follow and are presented in
the Briefing Section in more detail.

Performance evaluations (feedback). Regular
performance evaluations and feedback are common
key components of personnel systems and are
intended to help employees improve their job
performance and thereby to also improve
organizational performance. Two objectives of the
D.C. Courts' policy on performance management are
to provide employees with regular performance
feedback (at least every 6 months) and a written
evaluation annually on each employee's anniversary
date with the Courts.2 In practice, according to a
Personnel Division official, supervisors are given
30 days from anniversary dates to provide written
evaluations. In connection with providing feedback
at least every 6 months, about 34 percent of the
court employees who answered our questionnaire
said their supervisors had talked with them about
their work performance about once in the past
year. Another 18 percent indicated that their
supervisors had not talked with them during the
past year about their job performance. We
recognize that sometimes a supervisor can give
performance feedback that the employee does not
perceive as feedback and, if this occurred at the
Courts, it could explain some of the responses we
received. However, our questionnaire results
indicate that about half of the Courts' employees
do not perceive that they have received timely
performance feedback in conformance with the
Courts' policy.

In calendar years 1996 and 1997, according to the
Courts, relatively few Superior Court and Court
System nonjudicial employees-about 6 percent in
1996 and 13 percent in 1997-received written
performance evaluations. The Courts adopted a
program to increase the rate of compliance after
we initiated our review and reported that about 84
percent of Superior Court and Court System
nonjudicial employees received written evaluations
for calendar year 1998. This percent was without
regard to employees' anniversary dates. We
determined that a much smaller percentage of
employees-about 13 percent-received their 1998
evaluations on or within 30 days (before or after)
of their anniversary dates. This smaller
percentage means the Courts were still not
consistently following their policy of giving
employees written evaluations on their anniversary
dates.

For calendar year 1999, the Courts told us that 76
percent of those Superior Court and Court System
nonjudicial employees who were eligible to receive
a written evaluation through November had received
them as of December 15. However, when the
employees received the evaluations was not always
related to their anniversary dates. Using a
representative sample of personnel files, we
determined that about 29 percent of the employees
who were eligible to receive a written evaluation
had received it on or within 30 days (before or
after) of their anniversary dates. Thus, the
Courts have much further to go to comply with
their policy to give written evaluations on
anniversary dates. To improve compliance with the
written evaluation policy, the Courts have
implemented a procedure for checking each
division's compliance and said they would formally
evaluate supervisors' compliance with the policy
beginning in fiscal year 2000.

Promotions (competitive and noncompetitive).
Promotions at the Courts come about through
competitive means (also called merit selection) or
through noncompetitive means (by earning the next
pay grade in a career ladder, for example).
Federal regulations require federal agencies to
keep records on a temporary basis sufficient to
allow reconstruction of each competitive promotion
action. The D.C. Courts are not subject to this
regulation and did not have formal procedures
detailing what documents they believed should be
collected and retained to support the competitive
promotion process. That is, the Courts did not
specify the documents they believe are necessary
to reconstruct a promotion process, if challenged,
to show it was fair.

However, the Courts do collect and retain
documents as a matter of practice in connection
with competitive promotions, using the federal
government's Uniform Guidelines on Employee
Selection Procedures as a guide in deciding what
to collect and retain. However, the Uniform
Guidelines are designed to ensure only that
employers, both public sector and private sector,
do not discriminate on the basis of
characteristics such as race, color, and religion.
And while the Uniform Guidelines do require
employers to maintain documentation on what the
adverse impact of their selection process might
be, they do not identify what documentation would
be necessary to ensure the fairness of a selection
process under a merit system.

We worked with court personnelists to construct a
checklist of documents they said were collected as
a matter of practice and used the checklist to
review the files on 88 competitive promotions made
in 1997 and 1998 that we randomly selected from
121 competitive promotions. About 76 percent of
the files contained all of the checklist
documents. One or more documents were missing from
the remaining 24 percent. The document missing
most often was a "referral panel certificate,"
which would be important in reconstructing a
promotion process as it would show where-by
points-panel members ranked promotion candidates.
It was missing in an estimated 14 percent of the
files. Therefore, in addition to not identifying
in procedures what documents should be kept, the
Courts had not always collected and kept the
documents that in practice they intended to keep.

On the basis of our review of the supporting files
and information from the Personnel Division, we
found that the Courts' procedures for
noncompetitive promotions were not followed in 12
of the 79 noncompetitive promotions in 1997 and
1998.3 With one exception, which was a career-
ladder promotion, the noncompliance involved
promotions that came about through
reorganizations. Seventeen noncompetitive
promotions in 1997 and 1998 resulted from
reorganizations, and files for 11 of them did not
indicate that the Personnel Division had conducted
the required position review. The purpose of a
position review is to ensure that a position's pay
grade is justified by the duties of the position.

According to the Courts' Executive Officer, there
are two types of reorganization categories, and
each has a different time requirement for doing
position reviews. When new or revised positions
result from reorganization, they are to be
reviewed and classified by the Personnel Division
at the time of promotion. However, when a new or
revised position results from a reorganization
that is triggered by legislation, grants, new
programs, new projects, or operational
emergencies, then the position is to be reviewed
within 1 year of the trigger's inception. The
responsible personnel official said one position
review was not done because of a Personnel
Division oversight. This review was to have been
done at the time of promotion. The Personnel
Division was, the official said, unaware of the
need to conduct the other 10 position reviews. The
official attributed this situation to a lack of
coordination between the Personnel Division and
the Courts' Executive Office. The Executive
Officer had used his authority to initiate the
reorganizations and these associated promotions.
All 10 reviews were to have been done within 1
year.

The Executive Officer also used his authority to
change the career ladder for a position-from grade
14 to grade 15-to promote the position's
incumbent. The incumbent was then promoted after
the change. The Courts' practice, according to the
Executive Officer, is for career ladder promotions
to be accompanied by supervisory verification of
the employee's satisfactory job performance at the
lower grade. We found no evidence of supervisory
verification in the files to support this career
ladder promotion to grade 15.

The Courts do not appear to have followed another
of their policies in connection with four of the
reorganization promotions for which no position
review was conducted. As set out by a court
document on position classification, the Executive
Officer is to designate managerial positions at
grade 14 and above upon consultation with the
director of personnel. We found no evidence in the
files that this consultation occurred for the four
positions, all of which were managerial positions
at grade 14 or above.

Corrective actions. Court supervisors and managers
can impose a corrective action against an employee
when the employee's improper behavior or poor
performance warrants an official action. The
corrective action policy requires that all
corrective actions be in writing and that the
employee be notified of key elements regarding the
action. Nonjudicial employees can appeal
corrective actions, and the Courts have
established a formal process for this purpose.

The case files for 150 employees from 6 court
divisions who received corrective actions between
July 1997 and June 1999 typically contained
correspondence to the employees noting the nature
of the problem, the proposed corrective action,
and the right to appeal the action. However,
employees were not routinely notified-as required
by court policy-of their right to review the
materials that were the basis for the corrective
action. Of 150 corrective actions we reviewed,
corrective action correspondence lacked the
required notification in 112 cases. In addition,
according to the results of our employee survey, a
sizeable percentage of employees (about 40
percent) said they had not received information on
the range of disciplinary actions that could be
taken for inappropriate employee behavior. Also, a
sizeable percentage of employees (about 41
percent) responded that they were unsure whether
the Courts would fairly or unfairly handle an
appeal of a corrective action. Employees appealed
corrective actions in 13 cases over 4 1/2 years.
The appeals appeared to follow the process
provided for in the Courts' personnel policies.

Employee training. The Courts, as a matter of
policy, encourage the training and development of
employees, and appeared to have an active training
program. Employees receive training from the
divisions in which they work and the Courts'
Center for Education, Training, and Development.
In general, the operating divisions are to provide
the types of training employees need to do their
jobs on an everyday basis while the Center offers
formal courses to maintain and enhance their
knowledge, skills, and abilities. As a general
matter, the Courts have not established, and we
are unaware of any requirement for them to
establish, overall requirements as to the amounts
of training or the training curriculums
nonjudicial court employees should receive or
follow.

However, the Center had formulated a concept for
further defining the training needs and curriculum
of positions that were to be identified. Under the
concept, according to the Center's director, the
knowledge, skills, and abilities of staff would be
determined. With that information, the Courts
would then determine what training should be
offered to enable employees to reach performance
expectations, as set out in job descriptions.
According to the director, funds to develop a
staff-assessment instrument were included in the
Center's budget request for fiscal year 2001. A
different instrument, the director said, would be
necessary for different job series. However,
beyond this initial request, no plan or timetable
had been developed as of September 1999 for
implementing the concept. According to the
director, the Center will propose a plan and
timetable in consultation with the newly appointed
director of personnel, since this effort is
anticipated to be a joint project with the
Personnel Division. The new personnel director was
appointed in the fall of 1999.

Classification. The Courts are required by their
policy to conduct a classification survey
periodically and to conduct the survey either by
surveying all or a representative number of
positions. Classification is used to establish
grades and rates of pay based on the difficulty,
responsibility, and qualifications needs of
positions and is done to help ensure equal pay for
equal work. The Courts have not conducted
systematic surveys periodically. The last
systematic review was in 1983. Since then, the
Courts have substituted the results of reviews
done for other purposes, such as for
reorganizations, to meet the policy requirement.
However, the positions selected for review were
not statistically representative and officials
were not able to tell us how many employees'
position descriptions were affected by these
reviews. In October 1999, after we met to discuss
the issue, court officials informed us that the
Courts would implement a systematic classification
survey of all nonjudicial positions on a 5-year
cycle. At least one-fifth of the positions are to
be reviewed every year starting in January 2000.

EEO policies and practices. The Courts have formal
procedures for processing EEO discrimination
complaints, and the contracted-for attorney who
administers the EEO complaint process has drafted
a brochure to inform employees about the Courts'
EEO policies and aspects of the complaint process.
Additional communications may also be helpful to
employees. Posters are displayed informing
employees about EEO protections provided by
federal statutes and which federal agencies to
contact if they believe they have been
discriminated against under any of the described
protections. However, posters about the Courts'
EEO program and complaint process are not
displayed.4 Such a poster would help remind
employees of the Courts' EEO policies and
complaint process, although it would probably
repeat to some extent information in the draft
brochure. In addition to telling employees who
enter the Courts' EEO complaint process of their
rights and responsibilities, the Courts could also
give them a written list, which is not a court
practice.

The Courts did not have a procedural manual that
identified what documents to retain in EEO
complaint files. This type of detail, that is
useful to supporting the Courts' EEO program, is
not included in the Courts' policy manual, which
is the only collection of the Courts' EEO policies
and procedures. Although the Courts are not
required to display posters, provide rights and
responsibilities in writing, or create a
procedures manual, federal EEO regulations require
all three of these practices for federal agencies.
The Courts are not subject to these regulations.

The Courts collect EEO data for several purposes.
They prepare an annual report for the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on the
number of new hires, promotions, and terminations
by race, national origin, and gender. Separately
from the EEOC-related collection, the Courts
collect data on the race, national origin, and
gender of applicants for competitive appointments
and promotions and those who are appointed and
promoted. According to Personnel Division
officials, they keep these data on a job-
announcement basis and analyze them to ensure that
each appointment or promotion process was fair to
all EEO groups. Finally, the Courts compare by EEO
group the composition of their workforce to the
composition of the labor force in the Washington,
D.C., metropolitan area. This comparison (called a
workforce utilization analysis) is done for
purposes of developing recruiting plans.

The Courts have not, however, done various other
analyses that are recommended, but not required,
by Justice Department guidelines that the Courts
otherwise follow.5 For example, the Courts have
not done analyses of applicants for employment or
promotion compared with those selected for
employment or promotion, employees who receive a
corrective action, and voluntary and involuntary
terminations. These analyses are recommended to
ensure that equal opportunity principles are
followed in all employment phases. According to
Personnel Division officials, certain of these
analyses have not been done, in part, due to
limitations in the computer software they use. The
Courts' Personnel Division plans to start
producing an annual package of such supplementary
EEO analyses, starting with 1999 data. It plans to
produce the package using computer-generated data
and manual methods.

Through our survey of court employees, we obtained
a representative sample of their perceptions on
the Courts' EEO complaint process and efforts to
eliminate workplace discrimination. About 56
percent of the employees who answered our question
about filing a formal EEO discrimination complaint
said they would be very or generally willing to
file a complaint if they believed they had been
discriminated against, while 18 percent held the
opposite view. Another 26 percent were undecided.
Employees were undecided or unwilling most often
out of concern for the fairness of the process.
Almost as often as they were concerned with
fairness, unwilling employees also were fearful of
reprisal for filing a complaint. We do not know
the exact reasons why these employees were
undecided and unwilling to file complaints.
However, we were told during our review that the
Courts contracted with an attorney in 1997 to
administer the EEO complaint process in part
because of a breakdown in employees' confidence in
using the complaint process. Employees also had
varied opinions as to whether the Courts supported
the elimination of workplace discrimination. About
52 percent of the employees believed that the
Courts definitely or probably supported the
elimination of discrimination, 18 percent held the
opposite view, and 29 percent were unsure.

Employee reporting of fraud, waste, abuse, and
mismanagement. The D.C. Courts have not adequately
informed employees about the Courts' process for
reporting fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.
About 4 out of 5 employees who responded to our
survey said they had not received information on
(1) where to report waste, fraud, abuse, or
mismanagement; (2) the process for reporting; or
(3) the protections provided to employees who make
reports. The Courts reported that an internal
Quality Service Council has been available since
1994 to receive employees' allegations of fraud,
waste, abuse, and mismanagement, although none had
been received. The council was established to
explore the possibility of implementing total
quality management principles into the court
system. After we brought the issue of the Courts'
need to adequately inform employees to the Courts'
attention, the Executive Officer told us that a
statement was being drafted as of mid-October 1999
to clarify for employees the process for reporting
of alleged fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.
Also, in late October 1999, the Executive Officer
appointed court officials to a new subcommittee of
the Personnel Advisory Committee to explore
alternatives and draft a proposed policy on the
reporting of fraud, waste, and abuse in the court
system. The Personnel Advisory Committee makes
recommendations for new policies to the Joint
Committee on Judicial Administration.

     In a recent discussion draft on "human
capital" in the federal government, we noted that
federal agencies depend on three enablers-people,
process, and technology-to attain the highest
level of performance and accountability.6 An
agency's most important asset-its people or human
capital-defines its character and its capacity to
perform, the discussion draft said. The same is
true for the D.C. Courts. While the Courts have
written personnel policies as a framework for
managing and working with employees, the Courts'
leadership has not always made certain that those
policies included all appropriate provisions
(e.g., documents to retain for competitive
promotions) or that they were carried out. For
that reason, we are recommending the Courts'
leadership hold appropriate managers and
supervisors accountable for more effective
implementation of the Courts' personnel policies.
We also are recommending enhancements to the
Courts' training, EEO, and reporting of fraud,
waste, abuse, and mismanagement efforts.

Background
The District of Columbia Courts comprise the D.C.
Superior Court, the D.C. Court of Appeals, and the
D.C. Court System. Judges of the Courts are
appointed by the President and are subject to
confirmation by the Senate.

The D.C. Superior Court has general jurisdiction
over virtually all local legal matters. In
addition to judicial members, the D.C. Superior
Court has divisions that process and dispose of
cases, provide alternative dispute resolution
services, and handle the juvenile probation
function. The D.C. Court of Appeals is the highest
court in the District of Columbia, and appeals
from it are taken to the U.S. Supreme Court. The
D.C. Court System does not process cases but
provides administrative services to the Superior
Court and Court of Appeals, including personnel
management and education and training.

A Joint Committee on Judicial Administration-made
up of five judges-is the policymaking body for the
D.C. Courts. The Chief Judges of the D.C. Superior
Court and D.C. Court of Appeals serve on this
committee, with the Chief Judge of the Court of
Appeals serving as committee chair. In addition,
another Court of Appeals judge elected by the
Court of Appeals judges, and two Superior Court
judges elected by their colleagues, serve on the
Joint Committee.

An executive officer appointed by the Joint
Committee is responsible for the administration of
the Courts, including the personnel management
function. The executive officer has authority to
prescribe rules and regulations to administer the
personnel policies approved by the Joint
Committee. In addition, subject to regulations,
the executive officer can appoint and remove, with
limited exception, D.C. Court personnel (including
the Clerks of the Superior Court and Court of
Appeals) except for the judges' law clerks and
secretaries and the D.C. Register of Wills.

The executive officer also chairs the Personnel
Advisory Committee, which advises the Joint
Committee on personnel policies. To accomplish
this mission, the Advisory Committee is to make
recommendations for new policies or to revise
existing policies based on regular review of the
Courts' personnel policies and all proposed
changes to those policies. The Advisory
Committee's responsibility does not normally
extend to overseeing adherence to approved
policies, according to court officials. Nine
individuals are to serve on the Advisory
Committee. Six members, including the executive
officer and the personnel director, are to serve
on a permanent basis, and three members, who each
represent a segment of the Courts' workforce, are
to serve on a rotating basis.

The Courts' personnel policies are contained in
the District of Columbia Courts Comprehensive
Personnel Policies. The policies, which were
approved by the Joint Committee on Judicial
Administration, apply to nonjudicial employees,
who numbered nearly 1,000 as of June 1999. These
employees were individuals other than judges and
their secretaries, law clerks, and administrative
assistants. Also excluded from the definition of
nonjudicial employees were the positions of
special counsel to the chief judges and hearing
commissioners (judicially appointed).

Conclusions
For the six personnel activities and functions we
reviewed, the D.C. Courts had established policies
that were generally consistent with commonly
accepted personnel management principles. However,
the Courts did not always adhere to and
communicate those policies.

ï¿½    While employees are to receive written
performance evaluations on their yearly
anniversary dates with the Courts, relatively few
received a written evaluation at all in 1996 and
1997, and relatively few received written
evaluations near their anniversary dates in 1998.
Although the Courts have acted to improve
compliance, the compliance rate for 1999 indicates
that the Courts still have a distance to go to
timely comply with their stated policy of
providing employees with written evaluations on
their yearly anniversary dates.
ï¿½    While the Courts collect and retain documents
in connection with competitive promotions, the
policy manual does not identify what documents
should be collected and retained for the purpose
of helping to prove the process was fair.
ï¿½    While a position review is to be conducted
when a promotion results from reorganization, we
found that such reviews often did not occur due to
a lack of coordination between the Courts'
Executive Office and the Personnel Division.
ï¿½    While employees were to be informed of their
right to review materials that formed the basis
for corrective action, they were not routinely
informed of that right.
ï¿½    While court policy calls for systematic
classification surveys on a periodic basis, such
surveys have not been conducted for a considerable
time. However, the Courts have announced plans to
conduct systematic surveys yearly.

 In addition to following those policies in the
personnel areas just mentioned, we also saw
opportunities for the Courts to enhance efforts in
the training and EEO areas as well as better
informing employees about reporting fraud, waste,
abuse, and mismanagement. The Courts' training
center has proposed a concept for better targeting
the training employees could receive. Various
enhancements in the EEO area appear available and
appropriate, such as doing the kinds of analyses
that applicable Justice Department guidelines
recommend. In addition, the percentages of court
employees who expressed uncertainty or negative
views about the Courts' complaint process and
efforts to eliminate discrimination, which totaled
approximately 45 percent for each question,
indicates to us that many employees may lack a
sense of confidence in the Courts' EEO efforts.
The Courts and employees addressing these
perceptions together might increase the number of
employees with such confidence, which should
benefit both the Courts and employees. Finally,
the responses to our questionnaire very clearly
indicate that the Courts have not adequately
informed employees of the procedures and
protections for reporting fraud, waste, abuse, and
mismanagement.

     In our view, the overriding and long-term
solution for the problems we identified is for the
leadership of the D.C. Courts to consistently
emphasize the importance of complying with human
resources policies and principles, to ensure that
policies are supported as necessary by appropriate
procedures, and to hold managers accountable for
compliance. We recognize that the Courts have
acted or indicated they would act to address a
number of the issues we raised, and we commend the
Courts' initiative. Nevertheless, the problems we
identified in this report, such as providing
employees with annual performance appraisals and
surveying positions on a systematic and periodic
basis, may well persist if the level of emphasis
placed by leadership on the importance of
personnel matters is unchanged. We believe
increased attention and emphasis is warranted
because, as in any organization, human capital is
the Courts' greatest asset, defining the Courts'
character and capacity to perform.

Recommendations to the Joint Committee on Judicial
Administration
We recommend that the Joint Committee on Judicial
Administration, working through the Courts'
Executive Officer, ensure that personnel policies
are more effectively documented, communicated, and
implemented. Specifically, the Joint Committee
should direct the Executive Officer to

ï¿½    Hold appropriate managers and supervisors
accountable for implementing the Courts' policies,
such as providing employees with periodic feedback
on their performance, including annual written
evaluations; undertaking and documenting required
position reviews; and doing periodic
classification surveys that are generalizable. One
way in which to hold appropriate managers and
supervisors accountable is by evaluating their
performance on how well they implement policies,
which the Courts plan to do starting in fiscal
year 2000 in connection with the policy of
providing employees annual written evaluations.
ï¿½    Ensure that employees are informed of their
right to review the basis for corrective actions
that may be taken against them.
ï¿½    Develop formal written policies and
procedures that identify what documents to collect
and retain for the Courts' competitive promotion
process.
ï¿½    Explore as proposed whether training
curriculums and requirements can be appropriately
established for court positions.
ï¿½    Enhance EEO communications with employees by
displaying posters about the Courts' EEO program
and complaint procedures and informing employees
who enter the complaint process of their rights
and responsibilities in writing. Develop a manual
to better document procedures necessary for
supporting the EEO program and complaint process.
And make more analytical use of data collected for
EEO purposes, such as by performing analyses of
applicant and hiring data together.
ï¿½    Work with employees to identify and implement
ways to strengthen employees' confidence in the
Courts' EEO efforts and internal processes for
addressing complaints and appeals.
ï¿½    Ensure that the actions being taken (e.g.,
drafting of policy) result in employees being
adequately informed regarding the reporting of
waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.

Comments of the Joint Committee on Judicial
Administration
On March 13, 2000, the Acting Executive Officer of
the D.C. Courts, on behalf of the Courts' Joint
Committee on Judicial Administration, provided the
Courts' written comments on a draft of this report
(see app. III). The Courts said that we had
identified areas where their policies could be
enhanced and court personnel responsible for
implementing them could improve adherence to
policies. The Courts also said that our findings
have assisted them in identifying where
improvements can be made to enhance performance.
In addition, the Courts summarized actions they
have taken and plan to take to implement the
recommendations we make in this report.

Scope and Methodology
To determine whether the Courts' policies for the
six personnel areas were consistent with commonly
accepted personnel management principles, we
reviewed the policies and compared them with
personnel management principles we identified in
an earlier report on a federal personnel system.7
The principles we used were those we judged to be
relevant to the six personnel areas.

To determine whether the Courts' were adhering to
the applicable policies, we interviewed program
managers and executives of the D.C. Courts and
obtained documents and data, such as schedules of
training courses, relating to specific functions.
In some instances, because the policies were not
specific enough, we asked the Executive Officer or
officials of the Personnel Division to document
for us what the Courts' practices were, and we
used those statements of practice to determine the
Courts' compliance. These instances involved
competitive promotions (list of documents the
Courts collect and retain) and noncompetitive
promotions (when position reviews are to be
performed). In gathering information on the
Courts' EEO function, we also compared certain
court practices with practices that EEOC (in 29
C.F.R. Part 1614) and the Department of Justice
(in 28 C.F.R. 42.301 et. seq.) requires or
recommends. These EEOC regulations are for federal
agencies, and the Courts are not subject to them.
These particular Justice Department regulations
are for state or local units of government that
receive federal financial assistance for the
reduction and control of crime and delinquency.

We also analyzed

ï¿½    random samples of Superior Court and Court
System nonjudicial employees' personnel files-394
for 1998 and 220 for 1999-to determine whether and
when written performance evaluations were given to
employees in 1998 and 1999. For 1999, the
employees were those with anniversary dates
through November 30, 1999, and the information we
reviewed was through December 15. The files were
of employees who had been employed for at least 1
year by the end of 1998. Some files examined for
1999 were also examined for 1998.
ï¿½    files on a random sample of 88 competitive
promotions made in 1997 and 1998.
ï¿½    files on all 79 noncompetitive promotions in
1997 and 1998.
ï¿½    files on the 150 employees from 6 selected
divisions receiving corrective actions between
July 1997 and June 1999. For those employees who
received more than one corrective action during
the 2-year period, our analysis focused on the
most recent corrective action received. We
reviewed four of the eight key elements that the
Courts' corrective action policy said should be
addressed in corrective action correspondence.

The results of our analyses of the sampled files
for 1998 performance evaluations and for
competitive promotions are generalizable to the
populations of such files during the covered time
periods with a sampling error of plus or minus 5
percent (or less) with 95 percent confidence. The
results of our analysis of the files for 1999
performance evaluations are generalizable to the
populations of such files in 1999 (through
November) for staff employed at least 1 year by
the end of 1998 with a sampling error of plus or
minus 6 percent (or less) with 95 percent
confidence.

We relied on the Personnel Division to provide us
with complete and accurate information on such
matters as the number and roster of employees, the
anniversary dates as to when employees should
receive written performance evaluations, the
number and names of employees who were promoted,
and the number and names of employees who received
corrective actions. We did not as a matter of
practice verify these data. Although we did not
investigate individual allegations that came to
our attention during our work, we designed our
data gathering and analytical efforts taking into
account the allegations we received.

We also sent a questionnaire in February 1999 to a
representative random sample of the D.C. Courts
nonjudicial employees to obtain their views about
their work environment. A questionnaire is a
common means of collecting information from large
groups of individuals and is a technique that
contractors have used at the Courts. Of the 460
employees who were sent a questionnaire, about 73
percent returned a completed questionnaire. A copy
of the questionnaire, annotated with the responses
to each question, is in appendix II. We used an
October 1998 roster of nonjudicial employees to
identify those to whom we sent a questionnaire,
and the results of our questionnaire are
generalizable to that universe of employees. The
October 1998 roster was the most current roster
available at the time we sent our questionnaire.

We did our work between December 1998 and January
2000 in accordance with generally accepted
government auditing standards.

We are providing copies of this briefing report to
Representatives C.W. Bill Young, Chairman, and
David Obey, Ranking Minority Member, Committee on
Appropriations; Delegate Eleanor Homes Norton,
Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on the
District of Columbia, Committee on Government
Reform; Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison, Chairwoman,
and Richard Durbin, Ranking Minority Member,
Subcommittee on the District of Columbia,
Committee on Appropriations; Senator George
Voinovich, Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight of
Government Management, Restructuring, and the
District of Columbia, Committee on Governmental
Affairs; and Representative Julian Dixon. We are
also providing copies to the District of Columbia
Courts, the National Center for State Courts, and
the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. We
will make copies available to others on request.

The major contributors to this briefing report are
listed in appendix IV. If you have any questions
about this report, please call me on (202) 512-
8676.

Michael Brostek
Associate Director, Federal Management
 and Workforce Issues
_______________________________
1Nonjudicial employees are individuals other than
judges and their secretaries, law clerks, and
administrative assistants. Also excluded from the
definition of nonjudicial employees are the
positions of special counsel to the chief judges
and hearing commissioners (judicially appointed).
D.C. Courts: Staffing Level Determination Could Be
More Rigorous (GAO/GGD-99-162, Aug. 27, 1999).
2The Courts' define anniversary date as the date
of an employee's last appointment, promotion, or
demotion. The Courts centrally keep track of each
employee's latest anniversary date, and court
divisions are notified quarterly of those dates
for their staffs.
3The Personnel Division is now the Human Resources
Division. However, because it was the Personnel
Division during much of our work and to avoid
confusion with using both names, we have used
Personnel Division in this report.
4We did not determine the extent to which the
federal posters are displayed in the several
buildings that house the D.C. Courts.
528 C.F.R. 42.301, et. seq.
6Human Capital: A Self-Assessment Checklist for
Agency Leaders (GAO/GGD-99-179, Sept. 1999). This
product was issued as a discussion draft to obtain
further advice and feedback.
7Federal Personnel: Architect of the Capitol's
Personnel System Needs Improvement (GAO/GGD-94-
121BR, Apr. 9, 1994).

Briefing Section I
Objectives, Scope, and Methodology
Page 21GAO/GGD-00-75BR D.C. Courts Implementation
of Personnel Policies

Briefing Section II
Implementation of Personnel Policies or Practices
Page 23GAO/GGD-00-75BR D.C. Courts Implementation
of Personnel Policies

D.C. Courts' Personnel Policies for Six Basic
Personnel Activities or Functions Are Generally
Consistent With Commonly Accepted Personnel
Management Principles
     A comparison of the Courts' personnel
policies for six basic personnel activities or
functions (i.e., performance evaluation,
competitive and noncompetitive promotions,
corrective actions, training, classification, and
EEO) with commonly accepted personnel management
principles shared by public and private sector
organizations shows that they are consistent with
the principles.  For example, one objective of the
Courts' performance management policy is "to
provide employees with regular performance
feedback year round and a written evaluation on an
annual basis."  This objective is consistent with
the general principle that organizations should
assess employee performance and provide periodic
feedback.

Briefing Section III
Employees Performance Evaluations and Feedback
Page 29GAO/GGD-00-75BR D.C. Courts Implementation
of Personnel Policies

                         The Courts did not give all of their nonjudicial
employees annual written performance evaluations
in calendar years 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999
(through December 15) as required by their
performance management policy.  The policy
requires that career employees be evaluated
annually on the anniversary date (i.e., date of
last appointment, promotion, or demotion).  The
objective of the Courts' performance management
policy is "to provide a fair, consistent and job-
related performance management system that shall
provide employees with regular performance
feedback year round and a written evaluation on an
annual basis."

After we began our review in December 1998, the
Courts, according to a court official, inventoried
the Official Personnel Folders (OPF) of all
Superior Court and Court System nonjudicial
employees to determine if they received written
performance evaluations.  The Courts reported the
results of this review in a June 24, 1999,
response to congressional inquiries about the
Courts' compliance with their policy on personnel
evaluations.  The Courts said that written
evaluations were in 6 percent of the OPFs for
1996, 13.4 percent of the OPFs for 1997, and 83.5
percent of the OPFs for 1998.  However, we
independently determined that a much smaller
percentage of nonjudicial employees actually
received their 1998 performance evaluations within
the time frame established by the Courts' policy
and practice.  Using a representative sample of
OPFs, we determined that about 13 percent of
performance evaluations due in 1998 were done on
or within 30 days (before or after) of the
employee's anniversary date.1

The Courts told us that 76 percent of Superior
Court and Court System nonjudicial employees with
anniversary dates through November 30, 1999, had
received performance evaluations as of December
15. We independently determined, based on a
representative sample, that about 29 percent of
the Courts' nonjudicial employees actually
received their 1999 performance evaluations timely
as of December 15.2  The discrepancy between our
findings for 1998 and 1999 and the Courts' can be
explained by our different approaches to
determining the compliance rate.  While we
counted, as being in compliance, only evaluations
that were signed by supervisors on or within 30
days (before or after) of an employee's
anniversary date, the Courts counted all
evaluations that were done as of December 15,
1999, regardless of the employee's anniversary
date.

To improve compliance with the written evaluation
policy, the Courts have implemented a procedure
for checking each court division's compliance and
said they would formally evaluate supervisors'
compliance with the policy beginning in fiscal
year 2000.

Many Nonjudicial Employees of the D.C. Courts Do
Not Believe They Received Periodic Informal
Feedback as Required
The Courts' performance management policy requires
that supervisors review with the employee, his or
her performance, optimally, on a quarterly basis
but at a minimum of every 6 months throughout the
evaluation period.

An analysis of the responses to our questionnaire
indicates that supervisors do not appear to have
regularly followed the periodic feedback policy.
In answering our question about informal feedback,
about 34 percent of the respondents said their
supervisors talked to them about their performance
about once in the past year, about 12 percent said
not at all in the past year, and 6 percent said
never.

We recognize that sometimes a supervisor can give
performance feedback that the employee does not
perceive as feedback and, if this occurred at the
Courts, it could explain some of the responses we
received.  However, our questionnaire results
indicate that about half of the Courts' employees
do not perceive that they have received timely
performance feedback in conformance with the
Courts' policy.

_______________________________
1This percentage is accurate to plus or minus 5
percentage points with 95-percent confidence.
2This percentage is accurate to plus or minus 6
percentage points with 95-percent confidence.

Briefing Section IV
All Required Procedures Not Documented
Page 35GAO/GGD-00-75BR D.C. Courts Implementation
of Personnel Policies

The D.C. Courts do not have formal written
procedures detailing the documentation they
believe are necessary to support the fairness of
the competitive promotion process.  To do our
review of the completeness of documentation
maintained in personnel files to support
competitive promotions, we had to develop a
checklist with the help of court personnelists of
documentation that was generally maintained.
According to the personnelists, the Courts use the
Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection
Procedures (29 C.F.R. 1607, et. seq.) guidance on
what documents, forms, and other information to
maintain in order to support the fairness of
competitive promotion decisions.  However, the
guidelines are designed to ensure only that
employers, both public sector and private sector,
do not discriminate on the basis of such
characteristics as race, color, or religion.  And
while the guidelines do require employers to
maintain documentation on what the adverse impact
of their selection process might be, they do not
identify what documentation would be necessary to
ensure the fairness of a selection process under a
merit system.  Federal regulations require federal
agencies to keep records on a temporary basis
sufficient to allow reconstruction of each
promotion action, including documentation on how
candidates were rated and ranked.  The D.C. Courts
are not subject to this regulation.

Through our review of the documentation for 88 of
121 competitive promotions made in 1997 and 1998,
we found that 76 percent of them were thoroughly
documented in accordance with the checklist. One
or more documents were missing for the remaining
24 percent. The document missing most often was a
"referral panel certificate," which would be
important in reconstructing a promotion process,
as it would show where-by points-panel members
ranked promotion candidates.  It was missing in an
estimated 14 percent of the files.  Without the
documentation necessary to reconstruct the
decisions made during the competitive process, it
is not possible to determine if all promotions
were fair and followed the Courts' policies.  And
without formal policies and procedures describing
what documentation to retain, it is difficult to
know what documents the Courts believe are
necessary for ensuring and supporting a fair
competitive process.  Nearly one in three of the
Courts' employees answering our survey questions
about the promotion process doubted its fairness.
About 33 percent said that they have been treated
unfairly in terms of decisions about promotion and
career advancement. About 31 percent said the
Courts regularly fail to use ability, knowledge,
and skill as a basis to promote people, and 34
percent said the Courts regularly fail to make
promotions based on fair and open competition.  In
comparison, there was no statistically significant
difference between the percentage of court
employees who answered the latter two questions on
the promotion process negatively and federal
employees who answered similar questions in a 1996
governmentwide study.1

We reviewed the personnel files for all 79 of the
noncompetitive promotions that occurred in 1997
and 1998.  These promotions included temporary and
career ladder2 promotions and those that resulted
from reclassifications, reassignments, and
reorganizations.  Not all of the required
documentation was included in the personnel files
for the majority of reorganization promotions or
for one noncompetitive promotion that resulted
when the Courts' Executive Officer used his
authority to create a career ladder position to
promote the position's incumbent.

Seventeen noncompetitive promotions in 1997 and
1998 resulted from reorganizations, and the files
for 11 did not indicate that the Personnel
Division had conducted the required position
review. Position reviews are  done to ensure that
a position's pay grade is justified by its duties.
There are different requirements for when position
reviews are to be done at the Courts.  According
to the Executive Officer, reviews are to be done
at the time of the promotion, when new or revised
positions result from reorganization.  This rule
applies unless legislation, grants, new programs,
new projects, or operational emergencies triggered
the reorganization, in which case reviews are done
within 1 year of the trigger's inception.
According to a personnel official, a position
review was not conducted in 1 of the 11 cases
because of an oversight.  This review was to have
been done at the time of promotion.  The Personnel
Division was unaware of the need to conduct
position reviews for the other 10 promotions,
according to the Personnel official, due to the
lack of coordination between it and the Courts'
Executive Office.  The Executive Officer had used
his authority to initiate the reorganizations and
these associated promotions.  All 10 reviews were
to have been done within 1 year, but were never
done.

For the noncompetitive career ladder promotion in
question, the Executive Officer used his authority
to create a career ladder from grade 14 to grade
15 for a particular position.  The grade 14
incumbent was later promoted to grade 15 through
this career ladder.  According to the Executive
Officer, the Courts' practice is for career ladder
promotions to be accompanied by supervisory
verification of the employee's satisfactory job
performance at the lower grade. We found no
evidence of supervisory verification in the files
to support the career ladder promotion to grade
15.

In addition to this promotion to grade 15, four
promotions resulting from reorganizations were to
grade 14 positions.  These four promotions were
among the 10 promotions for which no position
reviews had been conducted.  The Courts do not
appear to have followed another of their practices
that applied to these four promotions.  As set out
in a court document on position classification,
the Executive Officer is to designate managerial
positions that will be graded at grade 14 and
above upon consultation with the director of
personnel.  We found no evidence in the files that
this consultation occurred for the four positions,
all of which were managerial positions.

     The D.C. Courts' corrective action policy
requires that all corrective actions be in writing
and maintained in an employee relations file in
the Courts' Personnel Division.  To determine
whether the Courts were ensuring adequate
retention of corrective action documentation, we
judgmentally selected six court divisions and
asked them to provide us with a list of corrective
actions that the divisions' supervisors had
initiated during the 2-year period from July 1,
1997, to June 30, 1999.  The six divisions
employed almost 50 percent of the Courts'
workforce.  We found that for all six divisions
during the 2-year period, the employee relations
files contained the required documentation in all
but four corrective action cases.

     The Courts' corrective action policy also
requires that supervisors notify employees of key
elements regarding the corrective action.  To
determine whether the Courts' supervisors included
key elements in the corrective action
notifications to employees, for 4 key elements, we
reviewed the case files for the 150 employees from
the 6 divisions that the Courts had reported
received actions during the 2-year period that
ended June 30, 1999.  Our review of the files
showed that these 150 employees were typically
notified of 3 key elements: (1) the nature of the
misconduct or performance problem, (2) the
proposed disciplinary action, and (3) the
employee's right to appeal the corrective action.
However, for 112 of the 150 employees, the
corrective action correspondence did not include
the required notification to the employee of his
or her right to review any materials that were the
basis for the corrective action.

     Our survey of court employees showed that the
majority (about 65 percent) of those who answered
the specific question said they had received
information indicating that employees can be
disciplined for committing various offenses or
misconduct.  However, a sizeable percentage (35
percent) said they had not received this
information.  In addition, about 40 percent
responded that they had not received information
from the Courts that there is a range of
disciplinary measures that could be imposed for
various offenses or misconduct.

     Our survey also showed that some employees
expressed a lack of confidence in the Courts'
ability to deal appropriately with inadequate
performance.  About 34 percent of court employees
said that the Courts do not regularly take
appropriate steps to correct inadequate
performance.  About 38 percent of court employees
said that the Courts do not regularly separate
employees who cannot or will not improve their
performance to meet required standards.  In
comparison, significantly more federal employees
responding to MSPB's 1996 survey answered these
questions negatively (i.e., 44 percent and 51
percent, respectively).

     In addition, our survey found that about 41
percent of employees were unsure whether
corrective action appeals would be handled fairly
or unfairly.  We reviewed the filed documentation
for all 13 corrective action appeals that were
heard from January 1995 through June 1999, and we
found that the appeals appeared to follow the
process provided for in the Courts' personnel
policies.

_______________________________
1The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB)
asked the three questions in a 1996 survey of a
representative sample of federal employees.  We
compared the responses we received from employees
of the D.C. Courts to responses MSPB received.
2A career ladder is a series of developmental
positions of increasing difficulty in the same
line of work, through which an employee may
progress to a journeyman level on the basis of his
or her personal development and performance in
that series.

Briefing Section V
D.C. Courts Policy Compliance
Page 42GAO/GGD-00-75BR D.C. Courts Implementation
of Personnel Policies

D.C. Courts Comply With Training Policy
Court employees receive training usually from the
divisions that employ them and the Courts' Center
for Education, Training, and Development. In
general, employees-with approval of
supervisors-elect to attend courses offered by the
Center. In addition, all employees or groups of
employees, including managers, have been required
to attend specific courses or training. Also, for
the positions of social worker and certified
addiction counselor, which have a continuing
educational requirement for recertification, the
Center provides courses to assist employees in
meeting those requirements. Operating divisions
may provide formal training sessions in addition
to those that the Center provides at their
requests.

In general terms, the operating divisions are to
provide the training, including informal training,
that employees need to do their jobs on an
everyday basis, while the Center offers formal
courses to maintain and enhance their knowledge,
skills, and abilities. The Courts appear to us to
have an active training program to encourage the
training and development of employees, as called
for by their training policy.

As a general matter, the Courts have not
established, and we are unaware of any requirement
for them to establish, overall requirements on the
amounts of training or the training curriculums
nonjudicial court employees should receive or
follow. However, the Center had formulated a
concept for further defining the training needs
and curriculum of positions that were to be
identified. Under the concept, according to the
Center's director, the knowledge, skills, and
abilities of staff would be determined. With that
information, the Courts would then determine what
training should be offered to enable employees to
reach performance expectations, as set out in job
descriptions. According to the director, funds to
develop a staff-assessment instrument were
included in the Center's budget request for fiscal
year 2001. A different instrument, the director
said, would be necessary for different job series.
However, beyond this initial request, no plan or
timetable had been developed as of September 1999
for implementing the concept. According to the
director, the Center will propose a plan and
timetable in consultation with the newly appointed
director of personnel, since this effort is
anticipated to be a joint project with the
Personnel Division. The new personnel director was
appointed in the fall of 1999.

                         The objective of the Courts' position
classification policy is to attain equal pay for
substantially equal work based upon complexity of
assignment, assigned duties, responsibilities, and
the qualification requirements of positions. The
policy calls for periodic classification surveys (
i.e., a review of existing positions to determine
if changes should be made in position
descriptions). The policy specifies that these
surveys shall be accomplished either by surveying
all positions or by surveying a representative
number of positions. We determined that the Courts
had not conducted a systematic review of their
positions, as prescribed in their policy, since
1983.

     In October 1983, a classification study was
done to determine whether the D.C. Superior Court
had an adequate process for setting pay and grades
for court clerk positions. The study recommended
that the Court adopt federal standards, which
could be applied to Court positions and modify
existing federal Office of Personnel Management
standards to apply to the court clerk position
series.

     The Courts believe they have reviewed
representative samples of court positions on an
ongoing basis from 1989 through 1999. These
reviews, officials said, were conducted because of
reorganizations, new positions, position reviews,
new programs, grievances, job analyses, desk
audits,1 and reclassification requests. The Courts
reported reviewing 144 of 205 grade 13 and lower
positions between 1989 and 1999. However, the
positions reviewed were not selected to be
statistically representative, and officials were
not able to tell us how many employees' position
descriptions were affected by these reviews.

     In October 1999, the Courts notified us that
they would begin a new approach to doing
classification surveys starting in January 2000.
According to Personnel Division officials, the
Personnel Division will implement a systematic
review of at least one-fifth of the Courts'
positions each year. All nonjudicial positions are
to be reviewed over a 5-year period, after which
the cycle is to begin again. The review is to
consist of managerial distribution of
classification questionnaires, review of position
descriptions, and desk audits (where necessary).

     About 80 percent of the Courts' employees who
answered our survey questions on classification
said they had seen a current written description
of their job duties, and most of them thought
those descriptions were rather accurate. About 34
percent considered these descriptions to be very
accurate and 44 percent said the descriptions were
more accurate than inaccurate. About 15 percent
said the descriptions were more inaccurate than
accurate, and another 6 percent considered the
descriptions to be very inaccurate.

In response to a House Appropriations Subcommittee
on the District of Columbia question, the Courts,
in November 1999, added an EEO job element to the
performance plans of managers and supervisors. It
requires them to support and enforce the Courts'
EEO policies.

The Courts have had a formal process in place to
address discrimination complaints. Its
administration was privatized in 1997 with the
hiring (on a part-time basis) of a contract
attorney who specializes in EEO matters. The
contractor's duties include determining whether
there is reasonable cause to believe that
discrimination occurred. In addition, the Courts
opened a separate mediation office in 1998 to
mediate disputes--including EEO issues-between
employees.2 Experienced mediators from outside the
Courts are to mediate disputes. In early January
2000, the Courts' Standing Committee on Fairness
and Access, an advisory committee of principally
judges, sent several recommendations for enhancing
the mediation function to the Joint Committee on
Judicial Administration. The recommendations are
intended, in part, to permit the mediation of
corrective actions and appeals from corrective
actions and to establish a more formal and
integrated conflict resolution referral network.
The network is to better identify when referrals,
including EEO referrals, should be made to the
mediation office.

In response to our inquiry, the Courts have
drafted language to amend their complaint
processing policy to reflect that EEO counseling
is available (before or in conjunction with filing
a formal complaint) and that employees may file
complaints with EEOC. Although not specifically
mentioned in the current policy, employees to some
extent had been made aware of both. The contract
attorney has drafted a brochure to highlight, for
employees, the Courts' EEO policies and certain
elements of the complaint process. The draft
language and brochure were working through the
Courts' approval process as of mid-November 1999.
Additional formal communications may also be
helpful to employees. Although posters are
displayed informing court employees about federal
EEO protections, posters about the Courts' EEO
policies are not displayed. Such a poster would
help remind employees of the Courts' EEO program
and complaint process, although it would probably
repeat to some extent information in the policy
manual, which employees are to possess, and in the
draft brochure. Complainants are not provided with
a written list of their rights and
responsibilities, although the contract attorney
said he conveys them verbally. In addition, the
Courts did not have a procedures manual, for
example, to identify what documents to include in
complaint files, although the contract attorney
had begun to outline such a guidebook. This level
of guidance is not in the Courts' comprehensive
personnel manual. While the Courts are not
required to do any of the three, each is a
practice federal agencies are to follow. Federal
regulations require all three in federal EEO
programs. The Courts are not subject to these
regulations.

     The Courts collect EEO data for several
purposes. They prepare an annual report for EEOC
on the number of new hires, promotions, and
terminations by race, national origin, and gender.
According to court officials, the data are sent at
least annually to the Courts' Executive Officer
and through the District of Columbia Government to
EEOC.

     Separately from the EEOC-related data
collection, the Courts collect data on the race,
national origin, and gender of applicants for
competitive appointments and promotions and those
who are appointed and promoted. In making
competitive appointments and promotions, the
Courts follow the federal government's Uniform
Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, which
are designed to prevent unlawful discrimination in
the selection of employees. They also employ
specialists to make certain that selection
criteria have a "business necessity" (that is, a
clear connection to performance on the job) and
make analyses on a job-announcement-by-job-
announcement basis.

     For purposes of recruitment in general and
affirmative employment recruiting, the Courts
compare by EEO group the composition of their
workforce to the composition of the labor force in
the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Appendix I
contains a comparison of the workforces as of
December 1998. According to court officials, these
analyses go to the Executive Officer and to the
Courts' Standing Committee on Fairness and Access,
which is charged in part, with enhancing fairness
in the Courts' human resources policies,
practices, and procedures.

     The Courts have not, however, done various
other analyses that are recommended, but not
required, by Justice Department guidelines that
the Courts otherwise follow.3 For example, the
Courts have not done analyses of applicants for
employment or promotion compared with those
selected for employment or promotion, employees
who receive a corrective action, and voluntary and
involuntary terminations. These analyses are
recommended to ensure that equal opportunity
principles are followed in all employment phases.
According to Personnel Division officials, certain
of these analyses have not been done, in part, due
to limitations in the computer software they use.
The Personnel Division, according to an official
of the division, plans to start producing an
annual package of such supplementary EEO analyses,
starting with 1999 data. It plans to produce the
package using computer-generated data and manual
methods. The official said the package would also
include a workforce utilization analysis, and
would be sent to the Executive Officer and the
Standing Committee.

_______________________________
1A desk audit is a conversation or interview with
the person in the job, with the supervisor of the
position, or sometimes with both, usually at the
work location. The purpose of an audit is to gain
as much information as possible about the
position. This information, combined with an
analysis of other available material about the job
and the organization, can help to verify details
and resolve questions.
2Regulations that took effect in November 1999
require federal agencies to establish or make
available an alternative dispute resolution
program. Such programs, according to the
regulations, must be available for both the
precomplaint and the formal complaint EEO process.
Mediation is one alternative dispute resolution
technique.
328 CFR 42.301, et. seq.

Briefing Section VI
Employees Perceptions of D.C. Courts' Efforts
Page 47GAO/GGD-00-75BR D.C. Courts Implementation
of Personnel Policies

Employees' Perceptions of D.C. Courts' EEO Efforts
Mixed
About 56 percent of the employees who answered our
question about filing a formal EEO discrimination
complaint said they would be very or generally
willing to file a complaint if they believed they
had been discriminated against, while 18 percent
held the opposite view.  Another 26 percent were
undecided.  Employees were undecided or unwilling
most often out of concern for the fairness of the
process.  Almost as often as they were concerned
with fairness, unwilling employees also were
fearful of reprisal for filing a complaint.  We do
not know the exact reasons why these undecided and
unwilling employees felt as they did.  However, we
were told during our review that the Courts
privatized the complaint process in 1997 in part
because of a breakdown in employee confidence in
using the complaint process.

Employees also had varied opinions on whether the
Courts supported the elimination of workplace
discrimination.  About 52 percent of the employees
believed that the Courts definitely or probably
supported the elimination of discrimination, 18
percent held the opposite view, and 29 percent
were unsure.

Most Employees Not Informed of the D.C. Courts'
Process for Reporting Fraud, Waste, Abuse, and
Mismanagement
     According to the Courts, their Quality
Service Council, which was established in 1994 to
explore the possibility of implementing total
quality management principles into the court
system, is available along with employees'
supervisors and managers to receive allegations of
fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement from court
employees.  However, as of mid-October 1999,
according to the Courts' Executive Officer, the
Council has not received any such allegations.
And a more formal clarifying statement providing
for reporting these types of allegations is in the
process of being drafted by the Personnel Advisory
Committee for review and approval by the Joint
Committee on Judicial Administration.  The Courts'
Executive Officer also appointed court officials
to a new subcommittee of the Personnel Advisory
Committee, in late October, to explore
alternatives and draft a proposed policy on the
reporting of waste, fraud, and abuse in the court
system.

According to 54 percent of the Courts' employees,
who answered our survey questions about fraud,
waste, abuse, and mismanagement, they would be
willing to report such incidents.  But, about 80
percent also said they had not received
information on where to report, the process for
reporting, or the protections provided to
employees who make reports.

Appendix I
Equal Employment Workforce Statistics District of
Columbia Courts, December 1998
Page 49GAO/GGD-00-75BR D.C. Courts Implementation
of Personnel Policies
                Male Total     Black     Asian  Hispanic     White     Other
Managerial                                                             
   Courts              53        35         0         0        18         0
   Courts %           58%       38%        0%        0%       20%        0%
   Metro           5,3321     7,545     1,755     1,692    42,118       211
   Metro %            52%        7%        2%        2%       41%        0%
Professional                                                               
   Courts             111        61         8         4        38         0
   Courts %           46%       25%        3%        2%       16%        0%
   Metro          122,210    15,439     6,271     3,149    97,019       332
   Metro %            53%        7%        3%        1%       42%        0%
Technical                                                                  
   Courts              32        23         0         1         8         0
   Courts %           41%       29%        0%        1%       10%        0%
   Metro           18,295     5,111     1,263       777    11,041       103
   Metro %            60%       17%        4%        3%       36%        0%
Paraprofessiona                                                            
l
   Courts              15        13         0         1         1         0
   Courts %           26%       22%        0%        2%        2%        0%
   Metro           20,903     3,075       718       666    16,404        40
   Metro %            35%        5%        1%        1%       27%        0%
Clerical                                                                   
   Courts             166       146         3         5        12         0
   Courts %           31%       27%        1%        1%        2%        0%
   Metro           38,052    14,706     2,004     1,703    19,496       143
   Metro %            17%        7%        1%        1%        9%        0%

Female Total     Black      Asian   Hispanic     White      Other Total M/F
                                                                       
          38        24          0          1        13          0        91
         42%       26%         0%         1%       14%         0%          
      49,317    12,743      1,153      1,383    33,817        221   102,638
         48%       12%         1%         1%       33%         0%          
                                                                           
         130        97          2          6        25          0       241
         54%       40%         1%         2%       10%         0%          
     106,797    24,548      5,449      3,131    73,368        301   229,007
         47%       11%         2%         1%       32%         0%          
                                                                           
          46        34          1          0        11          0        78
         59%       44%         1%         0%       14%         0%          
      12,293     4,956        603        478     6,223         33    30,588
         40%       16%         2%         2%       20%         0%          
                                                                           
          43        36          1          1         5          0        58
         74%       62%         2%         2%        9%         0%          
      39,648     8,265      1,398      1,404    28,414        167    60,551
         65%       14%         2%         2%       47%         0%          
                                                                           
         377       353          5          4        15          0       543
         69%       65%         1%         1%        3%         0%          
     183,714    64,336      6,400      7,214   105,054        710   221,766
         83%       29%         3%         3%       47%         0%          
Note 1: Some corrections to the data were made in
1999, which this table reflects.
Note 2: "Metro" refers to the Washington, D.C.
Metropolitan Statistical Area, which consists of
the District of Columbia and areas of Maryland and
Virginia.  The metro labor force data, according
to the Personnel Division, are of those
occupations within each major category
(managerial, professional, etc.) that the
Personnel Division believes approximates the
positions in the D.C. Courts.  The metro data were
taken from a publication of the Metropolitan
Washington Council of Governments, according to
the Personnel Division.  The publication compiles
EEO data from the 1990 Census.
Note 3: Percents are rounded to the nearest whole
percent.
Source: Personnel Division, D.C. Courts.

Appendix II
Survey of D.C. Courts' Employees
Page 59GAO/GGD-00-75BR D.C. Courts Implementation
of Personnel Policies

Appendix III
Comments From the D.C. Courts' Joint Committee on
Judicial Administration
Page 65GAO/GGD-00-75BR D.C. Courts Implementation
of Personnel Policies

Appendix IV
GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments
Page 66GAO/GGD-00-75BR D.C. Courts Implementation
of Personnel Policies
GAO Contacts
Michael Brostek (202) 512-8676

Acknowledgments
     In addition to the above named, Richard W.
Caradine, Domingo Nieves, Anthony Assia, Kenneth
S. Derrick, Gerard S. Burke, Brenda J. Lindsey,
Ernestine B. Burt-Sanders, Nelson S. Payne,
Michael J. O'Donnell, and Gregory H. Wilmoth made
key contributions to this report.

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