Office of Personnel Management December 29, 2014 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is issuing an interim rule to implement statutory changes pertaining to veterans' preference. We are making this change in response to the Hubbard Act, which broadened the category of individuals eligible for veterans' preference; and to implement the VOW (Veterans Opportunity to Work) to Hire Heroes Act of 2011, which requires Federal agencies to treat certain active duty service members as preference eligibles for purposes of an appointment to the competitive service, even though the service members have not been discharged or released from active duty and do not have a Department of Defense (DD) Form 214, Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty. In addition, OPM is updating its regulations to reference existing requirements for the order of consideration for traditional rating and ranking of candidates, as well as the alternative ranking and selection procedure called ``category rating;'' to more clearly state the existing requirements for order of consideration in excepted service hiring; and to add a reference to the end date of Operation Iraqi Freedom, which affected veteran status and preference eligibility. This action will align OPM's regulations with the existing statute.