On May 23, 2017, the Department of Labor released its budget for 2018 Salaries and Expenses for the OFCCP. The amount requested totals $88,000,000, which is a decrease of $17,275,000 from 2017’s total of $105,275,000 and includes funds to employ 440 full-time employees (a decrease of 131 FTEs from 571).
The main headline is that the budget proposes merging the OFCCP and EEOC. The funds will enable the OFCCP to focus on the following priorities:
- Work collaboratively with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to develop and implement a plan to merge the OFCCP into the EEOC by the end of FY 2018.
- Continue its focus on combating pay discrimination through intensive contractor compliance assistance aimed at educating contractors about their contractual obligations, supporting their voluntary compliance with those obligations, and conducting high quality compliance evaluations.
- Continue its focus on larger federal and federally-assisted construction projects that have the potential to employ large numbers of diverse workers.
The budget document also cited a focus on pay disparity, stating that “OFCCP anticipates that about 35 percent of its discrimination conciliation agreements will address systemic pay discrimination violations.”
Also, the proposed changes include the establishment of two Skilled Regional Centers, likely located in the Pacific (San Francisco) and Northeast (New York). These Centers would have “highly skilled and specialized compliance officers capable of handling various large, complex compliance evaluations in specific industries, such as financial services or information technology. Compliance evaluations conducted by highly skilled compliance officers greatly increase case evaluation quality and timeliness as well as the more efficient use of limited resources. It also reduces the need for a network of field area and district office (expertise).”