{"id":27311,"date":"2024-02-21T21:10:14","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T21:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/uncategorized\/2024\/02\/21\/supervisors-less-likely-to-be-disciplined-at-homeland-security-report\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T04:57:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T04:57:56","slug":"supervisors-less-likely-to-be-disciplined-at-homeland-security-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/management\/hr\/2024\/02\/21\/supervisors-less-likely-to-be-disciplined-at-homeland-security-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Supervisors less likely to be disciplined at Homeland Security: report"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Supervisors at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the third-largest federal agency, are less likely to be disciplined than other employees in instances of alleged misconduct, according to the Government Accountability Office<\/a>, an independent watchdog agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supervisors received disciplinary or adverse action less frequently than non-supervisors, and the number of allegations involving a supervisor were higher than the proportion of supervisors working in each surveyed office, which included the Secret Service, Customs and Border Protection, Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, GAO said in a report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer \u201cis not positioned to identify the reasons for the differences in disciplinary outcomes between supervisors and non-supervisors identified in our analyses because it does not collect the necessary supervisory data,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merit-system principles are the bedrock of the federal workforce at Homeland Security and every other agency that employs civil servants working on behalf of the American people. It is these rules that define the public sector, and, in the ways they\u2019re lettered, ensure workers are appointed, promoted and disciplined free from political influence or nepotism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politicking in Congress and on the 2024 presidential campaign trail has thrust this further into the forefront, as Republicans have called out several agencies for easing up on discipline, <\/a>bloating the bureaucracy and politicizing government services under a Democratic \u201cwoke\u201d agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump, the former president who is seeking reelection this year, and many of his supporters, including biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy <\/a>and current Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have praised the idea of slashing the federal workforce,<\/a> either through mass layoffs or a system of reclassifying them to at-will employment status.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\t