United States Office of Personnel Management - Function

Function

According to their website, the mission of the OPM is "recruiting, retaining and honoring a world-class force to serve the American people." OPM is partially responsible for maintaining the appearance of independence and neutrality in the Administrative Law System. While technically the employees of the agencies they work for, Administrative Law Judges (or ALJs) are hired exclusively by the Office of Personnel Management, effectively removing any discretional employment procedures from the other agencies. The Office of Personnel Management uses a rigorous selection process which ranks the top three candidates for each ALJ vacancy, and then makes a selection from those candidates, generally giving preference to veterans.

The OPM is also responsible for a large part of the management of security clearances (Federal Investigative Services a/k/a FIS conducts these investigations) for the United States Government. With the exception of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which maintains its own system, separate programs for each executive department have gradually been merged into a single, Government-wide clearance system. The OPM is responsible for investigating individuals to give them Secret and Top Secret clearances. SCI compartments, however, are still managed by the particular agency that uses that compartment.