In the interest of augmenting our current efforts to eliminate the backlog of naturalization applications under Citizenship USA and its designation as a reinvention laboratory, I am delegating full authority to you to determine and utilize the most appropriate, expedient methods to recruit and hire temporary employees for this purpose. Funding Increase: The five primary target districts participating in the Citizenship USA initiative are allocated funding increases, as displayed on the worksheets at Attachment 1. These enhancements represent a 20 percent increase over current Naturalization and Information and Records program funding levels already provided to the district offices in their base Fiscal Year (FY) 96 budgets, as well as that provided through the FY 96 Exams Fee Reprogramming. Flexibility in Spending. Each of you has discretionary authority to switch funds in your naturalization budget between PS&B and GE lines, as needed, to accomplish initiative goals and objectives. Please note that the regional offices will continue to hold PS&B funds on your behalf. Regional staff will execute any necessary transactions for this purpose upon your notice. District Directors should develop operating plans to achieve the stated goals and objectives of Citizenship USA. Please submit copies of these plans to the Regional Directors and the HQ Citizenship USA project office for their reference. Form 6-3 (Rov. 1-2-80 Page 2 District Directors 28. Hiring: The objective is to hire additional, temporary District Adjudications Officers, GS5/7/9, and Applications Clerks, GS-4/5, as quickly as possible. Consider using shift work, overtime, and other alternatives. You should determine the specific numbers of employees or contracted clerks your enhanced budget will permit. It should be noted that district offices are not authorized to convert any temporary positions into permanent positions. Do not allow Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) considerations to constrain your recruiting and hiring of temporary personnel in support of this initiative. Should you have available resources (PS&B or GE), you may exceed your FTE ceilings. The Office of Budget has determined that in the event that the INS were to exceed its FTE ceiling in FY 96, the Department of Justice and İNS would ensure that these FTE were covered. i It is imperative that you begin recruitment at once. Appointments to these Citizenship USA positions should not exceed 6 months, however, the appointments may be extended at a later date. Based on our review, you may want to staff positions using one or a combination of the following options: a - detailing employees from other Federal agencies; b- hiring reemployed annuitants with waiver of annuity offset, c - using District resources coupled with expedited procedures for new temporary hires, d - requesting Administrative Center support coupled with expedited procedures; or e-using Office of Personnel Management (OPM) support services. Steps and estimated timetables for options c-e above are listed in Attachment 2. Funding for OPM recruitment services will be provided centrally by Headquarters. Representatives from the National Performance Review team are exploring availability of non-reimbursable details from other Federal agencies to augment the number of personnelists you may need for this project. Drug Testing: To expedite drug testing under the Citizenship USA project, the contractor will provide you with the kits and custody documents to be given to selectees. You can then send the individual directly to the designated collection site, which eliminates trying to locate the selectees after they leave your office. See Attachment 3 for more details. Personnel Security: A special security process will be used to screen applicants for the temporary District Adjudications Officer and Applications Clark positions. In these procedures, the District receives and reviews the required security package. The security package will contain a security form (SF-86 or SF-85F) and OF-306, and two SF-87A fingerprint charts, which the District will immediately complete for each selectes and forward to HQ Security for processing. The District will retain a copy of the security form and complete the employment and personal reference checks (within 10 days). Based on the receipt of the security form and fingerprint charts from the District, Page 3 District Directors 28. HQ Security will enter the applicant into PERSECS, complete a credit check, request FBI checks, and request an OPM background investigation. The District will notify HQ Security of the results of the employment and personal reference checks.· If all of the above checks are favorable, HQ Security will notify the District that a waiver has been approved, and the District can then make a final offer of employment and set an exter-on-duty (EOD) date. This entire process can be completed within 10 calendar days. No applicant may be granted Security EOD approval until successful completion of all phases of the waiver process, i.a., review of security form (SF-36 or SF-85P) FBI fingerprint check, credit check, and employment and personal references checks. Attachment 4 fully describes the security process. Contracting Out: Offices should not contract out for these Adjudication Officers without further notice. If you have any questions, points of contact are Budget (Field Operations) -Joe Moore (202) 305-4689; Personnel - Nancy Weiss (202) 514-8896; and Security - Gloria Scott (202) 514-4985. Chris Sale Chris Sale Deputy Commissioner Attachments ce: Regional Directors Today Chris Sales delegated hiring authority to the five cities and At the same time; she expressly prohibited the most promising way we had of getting good interviewers on board fast -- using temporary service agencies (like Kelly girls). We found some that specialize in supplying young lawyers -- bright young people whose records are clean enough to have recently passed the bar. Her lawyer was concerned that this is too much a "governmental function" to use contractors. I can think of several ways around that problem. If this were the early days of reinvention, I'd recommend Is for a hammer award. But it is the waning months of the first term and 1 BELLI don't -think the city directors have enough freedom to do the job. The more they have to contend with headquarters, the fewer citizens they'll produce. Sorry, Blaine, you ove m $10. I recommend that you ask Doris Meissner to give the five city managers experienced SESS every one -- the authority to decide: whether or not to use temp services - how much background checking to do on their people - which INS rules and regs should be waived. I'm meeting with other agency managers in LA and San Francisco this week, trying to get them to donate people. I'll let you know how that goes." |