EEOC budget proposal shows what’s getting the feds’ attention
February 28, 2008 by Jim GiulianoPosted in: Complaint investigation, Latest News & Views
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
December 11th, 2008 at 12:33 am
My husband lost his job because he and the superviser do not let along. The superviser tells other employees to tell other employees what he would like them to do. He does not go and tell the person that works under him on what he would like them to do. He tell the employees to tell each other what he tells them to tell wht needs to be done. I fell that if your are a superviser you should go out an tell that person what you would like done by them. not telling the employee to tell other employee on what you said to done. so happen was when he was told by this employee that he was going out of town on monday he call up his superviser and yelled at him about that. not in a nice way but he call up and said he was sorry about how he handed it.