After lacking a quorum of members for more than five years, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) announced that it has decided 94 percent of its inherited inventory cases.
The MSPB – an independent, quasi-judicial executive branch agency that protects against partisan political and other prohibited personnel practices in the Federal merit systems – lacked a quorum from 2017 to March 2022.
During that time, the board didn’t have enough members to constitute a quorum, resulting in an accumulated backlog of 3,793 cases.
“Since the MSPB’s quorum was restored, it has been our mission to provide decisions to the thousands of Federal employees and agencies who had been waiting,” Cathy Harris, chair of MSPB, said in a statement.
“Through the hard work and dedication of the Board’s employees and my fellow members, we have been able to nearly eliminate the inherited inventory in 2.5 years. We will continue to work hard to adjudicate the remainder of the cases pending before us,” she continued.
At the end of fiscal year (FY) 2023, MSPB had reduced the inventory to 50 percent – by FY2024, it was reduced to only 6 percent. Since the restoration of the quorum, the board has decided nearly 4,400 cases.
“The Board tracks progress towards its goal to reduce the inherited inventory by monitoring the total number of cases decided since the quorum was restored and the number of inherited inventory cases remaining,” said the MSPB.
Earlier this year, the White House renominated – and the Senate later confirmed – Harris as chairman along with member Henry Kerner, whose term is set to expire in 2030. The MSPB consists of three members, with Raymond Limon serving as the vice chairman of the board.
