The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission plans to step up enforcements and charges against employers.

Follow the money, the saying goes. Turns out, that’s pretty good advice if you’re an HR manager who’s trying to figure out what the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will be concentrating on in the upcoming year.

President Bush has proposed increasing EEOC’s budget by $13 million for fiscal year 2009. The president wants most of the money to go to one area – hiring more full-times to field employee complaints about discrimination.

The numbers are telling:

– The president wants to see an increase in the investigative staffers by about 250 full-timers.

– That increase comes after a steady seven-year decline; EEOC lost about 350 staff members in the period 1999-2006.

The agency said it expects to handle an 11.9% increase in charges against employers. Thus, the need for more money and more investigative staff.

The focus

Normally, $13 million wouldn’t make much of a ripple in the workings of a federal agency like EEOC. The agency has a total budget of about $340 million. But lasering the focus of the funding on one area – investigating discrimination complaints – can be meaningful.

There is an upside, if you can call it that, to the projected increase in complaints handled by the EEOC. With increased numbers comes the likelihood that the agency will be more willing to settle complaints rather than taking them to full-blown trial.

Of course, budgets and approaches may change, but one thing stays the same: The best way to deal with an EEOC investigation is to avoid one altogether.

Tags: complaints, discrimination, eeoc