Air Force Community - Air Force Times

Editorial: Job plan too generous

President Bush has signed an executive order that gives a huge advantage to military spouses seeking federal government jobs.

Qualified military spouses may be hired using “noncompetitive appointments” — meaning a manager can hire them without considering any other potential applicants.

The order covers widows or widowers of troops killed on active duty, as long as they have not remarried; spouses of troops with 100 percent disabilities; and spouses of troops moving on official reassignment orders.

The first two groups are easily justified; the government can’t do enough for those who lose a spouse in combat. A quick-hiring decision is a big help for them.

But spouses moving on PCS orders? Should every military spouse have a no-competition shot at a government job? That’s going a step too far. Only one other group gets this special noncompetitive advantage at federal jobs: disabled military veterans.

The rationale for extending that preference to spouses is that frequent military moves disrupt their careers. True enough. But it’s hard to see how that should give them equal footing with disabled vets.

Worse, this new rule could have unintended consequences.

In a civil service system in which many employees already feel that who you know is often more important than what you know, this order will only increase cronyism.

Existing rules give spouses extra priority when applying for one Defense Department job after each PCS move, while still competing with other candidates.

A fairer solution to enhance spouse hiring preference would be to expand that policy to all federal jobs, regardless of agency.

Congress — or the next president — should revisit this issue next year.