FEDERAL CIVILIAN HIRING FREEZE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84B00890R000500110003-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 8, 2003
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: January 24, 1981
• Content Type: BULL

EXECUTIVE OF=F=ICE OF THE PRESIDENT
OFFICE = MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
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WASHINGTON. D.C. 20503
Bulletin No. 81-6
Januaryt24, 1981
TO THE HEADS'OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENTS
SUBJECT: Federal Civilian Hiring Freeze
?1. Purpose. This Bulletin provides for an immediate and
total freeze on the hiring. of Federal civilian personnel as
directed by the President on January 20, 1981. Instructions
are also provided for appeals in a very limited number of
situations where exceptions may be warranted..
2. Rescission. OMB Bulletin No. 80-7, dated March 17, 1980,-
i.s hereby rescinded, together with any exemptions granted
under its provisions.
3. "Authority and background. The Budget and Accounting Act
of 1921,.as amended. The President has directed that a total
freeze be placed on the hiring of Federal civilian employees
in the Executive Branch. . This Bulletin outlines the steps--
that will betaken tb carry out this directive.
4. Coverage. These instructions apply to,all Executive
Branch departments and establishments.
5. Policy.' It is the policy of this Administration that the
overall size of the Federal civilian workforce shall be
reduced as expeditiously 1as possible. Toward that end,
Executive Branch departments and establishments are directed
to stop immediately all hiring.
Except for the exemptions listed below, this hiring
limitation applies to all departments and establishments and
to all types of appointments, temporary as well as permanent.
Contracting with firms and institutions outside the
Government will not be used to alleviate or circumvent the
effect of this hiring freeze.
6. E+:emntions. The following exemptions to the hiring
freeze are permitted:
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presently exempt from employment ceilings.
hiring in . ccordance with firm written -com-nitments
made on or before November 5, 1980, by agency
personnel of-Eicers. '
d. hiring by the U.S. Postal Service.
e. reassignments of personnel within an agency.
appointments to Executive Level positions and
noncareer appointments in the Senior. Executive
Service.
appointments to Schedule C positions. In filling
these positions, the number of such appointments may
not exceed the number of Schedule C positions
existing in each agency as of November 5, 1980.
a. upon determination by the agency head that hiring is
necessitated by emecency situations involving
directly the safety of human life or the protection
of property. The determination must be based upon a
clear indication that human safety could be affected
directly or that property could be damaged', Such a
determination may be applied in situations where
medical, hospital, or other health care is furnished
directly and where protection of property or persons
is the primary purpose of. employment. Air safety
functions are also included. This exception does not
apply to employment involving research, or other
activities, that.ultimately affect human safety. It
.also does not apply to employment for maintenance of
facilities or-land and forest management.
An agency head who determines that this exemption is
applicable must immediately notify the Director of
~..~f3$SQ?:_in? writing that the exemption is being used and
state the reasons therefor' as well' as the number ofr
positions involved. The-Director of OMB may overturn
p
h
i
i
i
i
i
e exem
t
on,
t
n his view,
t
f,
s not warranted
b. the 'f111.ing:.'of- positions under programs that' 're "-'
h. shifting of employees from one agency to another
because of a transfer of functions resulting from
Presidential reorganization or legislative action.
i. hiring by Executive Branch agencies whose on-board
total em ploym.ent as of December 31, 1980, was less
than 100. . (Miring by such agencies will not exceed
the number of vacancies that occur after December 31,
1930.)
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seasonal hiring of temporary employees consistent
with historical hiring patterns may be continued,
provided that the agency informs OMB in writing in
advance of its hiring plans. Such hiring of
temporary employees may not be used as a means to
circumvent this Bulletin.
k. to facilitate the transition, a limited number of
noncareer positions may be established for up to 120
days.
1. hiring for positions in the Executive Office of the
President that are necessary for an orderly
transition and operation of the new Administration.
7. Appeals. Additional exemptions may be granted in a very
limited number of cases -if * a determination is made by"the
Director of the Office* of Management and Budget that such
action. is necessary, to assure that essential services are
?`
vied,.
fue
prod''ndamntal n eds ``' are""~tiiet;" '' and zpplicable '= `''~`=
provisions of. law are carried out. When an agency head
believes that circumstances warrant an exemption
other than
,
- :..those . automatically .:permitted
. under: section
b of thi
,
.
s
..,.. Bulletin, an appeal -must -be*:?made by le't*ter, a`dressed to,th.e:~~`:~
Director of th.e Office of Management and Budget and signed by
the a
e
h
d
g
ncy
ea
The need fordditill
. aona personne must be
fully justified, .including an explanation as to why
reallocation within the agency is not feasible.
8. Use of savings. Dollar savings generated from personnel
reductions may be applied to other approved program
activities within the same appropriation in the following
order of priority:
.
a. to offset the need for mandatory program supplemental
appropriations or amendments that could otherwise-be
submitted to the Congress under the provisions of the
Antideficiency Act (31 U.S.C. 665(e)).
b. to reduce the 1981 pay; supplemental transmitted with
the 1982 Budget.
However, where personnel reductions result in withholding of
appropriations from obligation, the reporting requirements
prescribed by the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 apply, as
set forth in OMB Circular No. A-34 and OMB Bulletin No.
75-15. In such cases, rescission proposals or deferral
reports will be prepared and submitted to O.'?:B for inclusion
in a special message on rescissions and deferrals.
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 Dale R. McOmber
Acting Director
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9. Revised 1982 Budget. The personnel reduction will be a
part of the Administration's revised 1982 Budget. Further
instructions will be provided in a later bulletin that will
address budget revision procedures.
10. Effective dates. The instructions in this Bulletin are
effective immediately and will remain in effect until further
notice.
11. Inquiries. Questions regarding the instructions in this
Bulletin will be addressed to the 0MB representatives in
charge of the agency's budget estimates.
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84B00890RG~D0500110661 X '_
DDA 81-M"
FEB i9PJ'
The Honorable David Alan Stockman
Dear Dave,
I have assessed in some detail the impact of the President's
hiring freeze on the CIA. I am now satisfied that the Agency will
suffer from even a short freeze because of the unusual nature of
its hiring process. You are no doubt aware of the stringent
security requirements that must be :yet by all prospective Agency
employees--an exhaustive 15-year background investigation, poly-
graph interview, and the like. This selection and clearance
process typically stretches out over six months and, as you
migh1expect, we lose a lot of good people just because they
either can't or chose not to tolerate this inconvenience. Those
who stick with it do so in largest part because of the good
faith that CIA demonstrates.
Even in the best of times, CIA has trouble fillings its
authorized position ceiling. This factor, coupled with the
fact that over the last three years the Agency has suffered an
inordinate skills loss, puts CIA in a very difficult position.
The Agency has, within the past year, implemented sweeping improve-
ments in the way it selects and processes prospective employees.
While these changes have been productive, CIA has still not been
able to significantly shorten this so-called pipeline--the end
to end recruiting and processing system used to acquire new
employees. If the Agency is required to turn off its pipeline,
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it will take literally years to turn it back on again.
The CIA will be most vulnerable in a hiring freeze in
what it calls its Hard-to-Get Critical Skills, a longstanding
collection of skills that have been particularly difficult to
acquire in recent years. Each of these -skills categories is
significantly under strength now. The Agency has estimated its
attrition through the end of the year, and the dilemma looms
much larger. The following specifics wil give you an appreciation
of the dilemma:
Occupational
Category (Hard-
to-Get)
Under Strength
As of
Estimated
FY 1981
Attrition
Communications
Specialists
100
49
Operations Officers
(foreign intelligence
collection)
100
100
Engineers and Physical
Scientists
Computer Specialists
Security Officers and
Couriers
Linguists
Clericals
165
475
Communications Specialists
The CIA's Office of Communications provides a worldwide service
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of its serious understrength condition, is and will continue
to be unable to satisfy overseas communicator requirements
in 17 different foreign locations--some new activities, others
necessary expansions of existing activities. Moreover, reduc-
tions will very shortly have to be imposed at other foreign
posts. This will be accomplished by reducing seven overseas
stations from a four-communicator complement to a three-communi-
cator complement; reducing
Stations from three communicators
to two communicators; and reducing
additional Stations from STATl
two communicators to a single communicator. These cuts would
result in a reduction of overseas communications operations
percent and would eliminate some percent of cur- STAR!
rent overseas electronic reporting of foreign intelligence.
Domestically, the Office of Communications is also responsible
for the maintenance and repair of CIA's metropolitan Washington,
D.C. telephone service, both unclassified and secure. It
works. The Office is now estimating that it will increase its
usage of overtime some 65 percent just to maintain existing
levels. of support. If the freeze continues for any appreciable
length of time, an additional 10 percent will be necessary.
Notwithstanding this extensive and inefficient use of overtime,
significant operational delays will occur.
Operations Officers
Personnel reductions imposed on the Operations Directorate in
1978 and 1979 combined with a very high retirement rate not
unassociated with the reductions have resulted in a significant
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loss of unique intelligence skills. The CIA is only in the
very early stages of recovering from these losses. Current
understrength in this area coincides with dramatic increases and
demands for:
-- Clandestine intelligence collection against
economic, monetary, nuclear, science and technology,
and political targets;
-- The rebirth of the Agency's covert action capability
resulting from events in the Near East, Latin
America, and Africa;
STAT
-- The necessity to open new stations overseas.
In order to satisfy these requirements under less than ideal
conditions (hostile overseas environment not conducive to normal
family living), it is necessary that we bring 160 career trainees
and 40 nonofficial cover officers through the pipeline each year.
The pipeline for these officers begins with their initial
identification and stretches through heir subsequent interviews,
security processing, unique tradecraft training, and culminates
with foreign language training some 24 to 30 months later. This
pipeline is carefully structured continuum. Interrupt any
part of it, and you seriously unbalance all other segments.
Engineers and Physical Scientists
As with all other hard-to-get ocupation categories in the CIA,
engineers and physia l scientists also present us with unique
acquisition problems. All Agencies of government have difficulty
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competing with the private sector for the skills of these profes-
sionals. As a part of the improvements made in the Agency's
selection and processing procedures, as previously discussed,
major recruiting emphasis was placed on this category. It has
taken us eight months to get 86 people with these skills into our
pipeline. These skills are most urgently needed in the Officeof
Development and Engineering, in support of national reconaissance
programs; at the National Photographic Interpretation Center,
where we are initiating major. improvements in our ability to process
collection data that will be acquired with a new generation of
overhead collection systems; in the Office of SIGINT Operations,
to work on developing capabilities to recover Soviet data that was
STAT lost at the closing of ourl ites; and in the Office of
Logistics, which is tasked with supporting all of these endeavors
that require some combination of civil, mechanical, and electrical
engineering skills. In addition, the Office of Scientific and
Weapons Research will have increasing difficulty in providing to
me analyses f foreign space weapons systems, nuclear warheads,
and computer technology. ( )
Computer Specialists
The CIA has as much difficulty acquiring computer specialists as
it does engineers and physical scientists for all of the same
reasons sited above. Programs like SAFE--a large computer system
being developed to improve the tools available to intelligence
analysts--will be significantly impacted because of an inability
to acquire supervisory and operating personnel to man the computer
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 center ptAJ_WPPABqQM9RQa%-&
because of the length of the pipeline for people with these
skills and heir need for extensive training, the SAFE system may
well not begin operation as scheduled. Because of the dynamic
nature of the marketplace for these skills, attrition in this
category is typically higher than others and will impact ongoing
computer operations that this Agency has become so dependent
upon.
Security Officers and Couriers
The CIA relies on people with these skills to protect our classi-
fied information and to protect our facilities, both at home an. d.
abroad, that contain not only classified information, but our
people as well. Given increasing political instability in the
major areas of the world, as most recently evidenced
by incidents
in the Near East and Latin America, CIA security officers are
taking on increasingly responsible assignments with respect to
the protection of our employees and our property located overseas.
Our.security officers play critical roles in
performing security investigations, not only for prospective
CIA employees, but also for the myriad of people in the private
sector working on classified CIA contracts--some with the very
highest clearance requirements of our govern-.ent. CIA security
officers are also very heavily and continual;y involved in counter-
intelligence and antiterrorist activities overseas. R~a~a
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Regarding o.ur couriers, we rely on them to routinely service
over 700 delivery and pickup points around the world on a
24-hour-a-day basis. We are presently some 30 percent under
strength in this occupational category and, without relief, will
have o recourse but to 4e-vat-e professional employees from their
primary intelligence-related responsibilities to perform these
courier duties, to the further detriment of CIA's intelligence
collection and production responsibilities.
Linguists
Skilled linguists are a vanishing breed in America. This comes
at a time of increased demand for linguists by:both the govern-
ment and multinational corporations. For example, increased
requirements to have
been levied on The
Operations Directorate is debriefing an ever-increasing
STAT number of
and has requirements for overseas
operations officers for very esoteric languages overseas. At
this time, the DDO is 50 percent below its language capability
need. In many cases, there are only a few people in the
United States who speak and read the more difficult languages--
Chinese, Russian, and Arabic, for example. Once an applicant
with a language capability is found, it is absolutely necessary
to hire the person if he/she meets other necessary qualifications.
Clericals
experience
As you might suspect, we espegzs~lxxaxe our.highest attrition
rates in the clerical fields and yet in many ways are most depen-
dent upon these skills to make our daily processes operate
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effectively and efficiently. We are talking here not only
about typists and stenographers who produce our large numbers
of intelligence reports, but also with the file clerks who
help compile volumnous data and with the payroll clerks who
ensure that our employees are paid. Based on the Carter hiring
freeze, for example, the Operations Directorate has already
accummulated 75 clerical vacancies in Headquarters and 30 addi-
tional clerical vacancies in the field. CIA has historically
utilized spouses of their employees to satisfy clerical requirements
in the field. This has obviated the need to sendSecretaries
around the world at a significant annual savings. This hiring
freeze, while precluding us from SQL- .,,'clerical requirements
overseas, is also precluding us from satisfying these requirements
in the most efficient manner. This is just one example of our
clerical difficulties. Others of equal magnitude exist everywhere
in the Agency.
Applicants in Process
The CIA's selection and processing pipeline that I have previously
described is a very expensive one. Nearly 80 percent of the
prospective employees. that CIA had in process on the 20th of
January fall into one of the Hard-to-Get ccuuational categories
just described--those skilled areas that are presently most
critical to the CIA. Because of the sunk costs in these prospec-
tive employees and the fact that we will ultimately hire only
250 a so of them, I would propose that the CIA not interrupt this
processing and that those who survive the process be allowed to
enter on duty.
8
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I further request that CIA be authorized to continue
to hire in those Hard-to-Get occupational categories listed
above with the understanding that we will not exceed the
authorized ceiling at any time in an;cxiny one of them..
William J. Casey
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