Bureau of

Printing.

7. Operatives and other employees in the Bureau of Employees in Engraving and Printing whose duties are similar to those Engraving and of operatives may be transferred without examination and certificate of the Commission to the apportioned positions of expert money counter and paper counter in the office of the Secretary of the Treasury, money-order assorter and skilled laborer acting as money-order assorter in the office of the Auditor for the Post-Office Department, and expert counter, feeder, and separator in the office of the Treasurer of the United States. Employees so transferred shall not be charged to the apportionment, and such transfer shall not give them rights of promotion or transfer greater than those of the positions from which they were transferred, and they shall not be assigned to duties other than those of the positions named in this section.

The positions of counter in the office of the Register of the Treasury, clerk at $700 per annum (to be employed as counter), National Bank Redemption Agency, clerk at $700 (to be employed as counter), on the regular roll, in the office of the Treasurer of the United States, and clerk at $840 per annum in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, are also regarded as positions to which this provision applies. Clerks at $900 (to be employed as counters) in the office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and clerks at $900 (to be employed as counters) in the Division of Loans and Currency in the Secretary's office, Treasury Department, may be appointed by the promotion or transfer of counters who have had three years' experience in the latter-named office.

ters, and money counters in the office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the office of the Register of the Treasury, Treasury Department, may, after three years' satisfactory service, be promoted without examination to be assigned exclusively on the work of counting money and paper, and to receive compensation not to exceed $900 per annum. Such promotion shall not give the person affected any further rights of promotion or transfer than he had in the position from which he was promoted.

Promotions in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing from $840 per annum may be made upon the passing of the clerk examination without charge to the apportionment; but such promotion shall give no additional rights of promotion or transfer to an apportioned position.

Expert money counters, paper coun8. Unless otherwise specifically provided in this rule, On certificate. no person shall be transferred except on certificate of the Commission previously obtained, and subject to the following limitations:

ice required be

Amendment of

(a) He must have served three years in or under the Period of servdepartment or independent office from which transfer is fore transfer. proposed; but the Commission may waive this require- Sept. 23, 1907. ment, when it deems such action necessary in the interest of the service, in cases of transfer other than from one executive department to another at Washington, D. C. In any case he must have received absolute appointment and have actually served at least six months next preceding

the transfer; but the Commission may waive this latter requirement where the person has been separated within a year from a competitive position after six months' service therein, upon the certificate of the proper officer that the separation was caused by necessary reduction of force and not by inefficiency, and may allow transfer to any other department or office upon his passing an examination prescribed by the Commission testing his efficiency for the position to which his transfer is proposed, subject to the other provisions of this rule.

An employee who serves for less than three years in a department, and who resigns and later is reinstated, is required to serve for three years after such reinstatement before he can be transferred to another department, since his service prior to his resignation and his service in the same department subsequent to his reinstatement which together aggregate more than three years of service can not be regarded as constituting a term of three years.

When a transfer is in all other respects permissible under the civil-service rules, it will be the policy of the Commission to waive the requirement of six months' service immediately preceding transfer in the case of persons separated by reason of a necessary reduction of force; but all such persons on applying for transfer shall submit to physical examination, and those of them who are seeking to be transferred to the position of skilled laborer or to some other position requiring physical activity will be required to attain a grade of 85 on such physical examination before transfer is allowed. In cases where physical activity is not required, transfer may be made if, all other prerequisites being satisfied, the person seeking transfer is physically fit to discharge the duties of the position to which he seeks to be transferred.

Employees who lose their positions through necessary reduction of force and are transferred to other places will be allowed to return to their original positions, as opportunity offers, without reference to the three-year limitation, proIvided the retransfer is not from one executive department to another.

In view of the opinion of the AttorneyGeneral (22 Op. A. G., 62) that an independent commission, bureau or office is not comprehended under the term "Executive Department," the act of June 22, 1906, prohibiting a transfer from one executive department to another until after three years' service in the department from which transfer is desired, is not regarded as applying to a proposed transfer from an executive department to an independent commission, bureau or office or from such independent commission, bureau or office to an executive department, or to another independent commission, bureau or office. This decision was reached by the Commission on February 8, 1907, and was confirmed by the Attorney-General in an opinion rendered March 29, 1907. (26 Op. A. G., 209.) (See page 20.)

A person who was appointed as a special laborer in the New York navyyard on April 30, 1903, and served there as such special laborer until October 17, 1906, and who, on October 20, 1906, became a copyist in the Bureau of Navigation, Navy Department, was not eligible for transfer to another department except after three years' service in the Navy Department. This decision was based on the ruling of the Attorney-General that the field service is not covered by the word "department" in the act of June 22,

1906. That being the case, three years' service in the field service and in Washington does not constitute three years' service in the department within the terms of such law, and as the law requires three years' service in the department as a prerequisite for transfer, transfer in such a case can not be permitted.

(b) He must be within the age limitations prescribed Age limitations. for examination for the position to which his transfer is proposed.

(c) The apportionment must be observed, unless waived Apportionment. by the Commission upon the certificate of the appointing officer that the transfer is required in the interests of good administration, setting forth in detail the reasons therefor.

A transfer from the nonapportioned to the apportioned service is charged to the apportionment of the State of which the person transferred is a legal resident. If this State has received an excessive share of appointments, such a transfer is in the nature of an exception to section 2 of the civil-service act, which provides for the apportionment of appointments to the public service in the departments at Washington among the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia. Such transfers are therefore not authorized, unless the person whose transfer is sought possesses qualifications not possessed by eligibles tested by competitive examination, and it is not practicable to fill the position by the transfer or promotion of a person in the apportioned service.

In transfers the average percentage of appointments received by all the States will be taken as fixing the limit of the application of Rule X, section 8, clause (c), if the transfer is manifestly in the interests of the service.

The interests of good administration may sometimes permit, though they can very seldom require, a transfer, unless the employee is possessed of some unusual or highly technical knowledge, ability, or skill which is required for the most efficient performance of the duties of the position to which he is to be transferred, and which it would be difficult or impossible to obtain through the ordinary means provided for filling such positions. See section 9 of this rule.

If a transfer involves a promotion, the promotion rules and regulations must also be observed.

(d) He must pass an appropriate examination when- Examination. ever different tests are prescribed for original entrance to the position to which transfer is proposed.

See section 6, Rule II.

Where a person has passed the examination required for the position to which transfer is proposed, or an examination or other tests which the Commission shall deem equivalent thereto, the Commission may in its discretion, waive further examination.

hereby authorized, in its discretion, looking to the good of the public service only, to waive requirements for examination and to substitute for such examination so waived such other tests of fitness and capacity as the Commission may decide. In each case where such waiver is made the reasons therefor shall be stated at length by the Commission, and made matter of record in its minutes. (Executive order, Nov. 22, 1907.)

Mar. 23, 1909.

When transfers or promotions are properly applied for, and are otherwise permissible, the Civil Service Commission is (e) He shall not be transferred unless, in the judgment Amendment of the Commission, he possesses experience, qualifications, or training, which are required for the proper performance of the duties of the position to which transfer is proposed, and which render necessary in the interests of the service

43845-10-4

of

the filling of the position by his transfer, rather than by an original appointment or promotion in the manner provided by the civil-service act.

This is not intended to prevent the advancement of employees within a department. It is intended that transfers shall be so made that training received in one position may be made available elsewhere.

The transfer of a person who has been appointed from a register from which, in accordance with section 1, clause (a), of Rule VII, he would have been in turn to Legal residence.

be certified for appointment to the position to which transfer is proposed had his name remained thereon, may be made without reference to the above provision.

In exchange of positions between the field service of a department and its bureaus at Washington strict compliance with the above provision will not be inisted upon.

9. A person to be transferred from a nonapportioned to an apportioned position shall be required, previous to his transfer, to prove his residence in the same manner as for original appointment.

Persons who proved legal residence before appointment in the nonapportioned service, who have been continuously in the government service since their appointment, and still claim legal residence in the State from which they

Philippine service.

were appointed, will not, in the event of their transfer to the apportioned service, be required to file another application establishing legal residence, but will be charged to the State from which originally appointed.

10. An officer or employee occupying a competitive position in the Philippine classified service, who has served three years or more therein, may be transferred to the federal classified service, subject to the provisions of these rules.

An employee who has the service required by the rule will be regarded as eligible for reinstatement for the purpose of transfer as long as he remains eligible for reinstatement in the Philippine service.

Persons appointed on the Isthmus of Panama otherwise than through competitive examination or by transfer or promotion from a competitive position can not be transferred to a competitive position, unless classified by the executive order of Nov. 15, 1904, in a position which was then and is at the time of the proposed transfer in the competitive service. (See Schedule A, Sec. IX, p. 62.)

*

In * * cases of exceptional merit where an employee has had a long and faithful service in a civil capacity beyond the seas, under conditions such that his appointment and services were not in contravention of the civil-service rules or executive orders, he may be classified by the department, with the approval of the Civil Service Commission. (Executive order, Aug. 12, 1907.)

After seven years of efficient and satisfactory service, as shown of record, the terms of the executive order of August 12, 1907, may be applied in any case of exceptional merit arising among those who have served as constabulary officers of the Philippine civil service.

11. Any person who has served for at least two years in the office of the President of the United States may be transferred to a competitive classified position upon such tests of fitness as the Commission may deem proper.

RULE XI.-PROMOTION.

tests.

1. Competitive tests or examinations shall, as far as Competitive practicable and useful, be established to test fitness for promotion in the classified service.

Before a person occupying a subclerical position in one department can go therefrom to a clerical position in another department he must have earned his promotion through competitive examination and have been promoted in the department in which he was employed, or have been eligible for the next promotion in that department.

A promotion from a competitive position to an excepted position may only be forced upon a clerk for considerations of public good; as, for instance, because the clerk can render more efficient service in the position to which promoted.

Temporary service in a higher grade does not forfeit rights of promotion in the former position.

The promotion of persons employed for occasional duty will be made only to the lowest class of the grade in which the occasional employee is serving, or to the lowest class of any other grade not requiring a higher examination.

In filling vacancies in the regular grades in the Customs Service from among those employed for occasional duty, selections for promotion will be made in the order of seniority, except where the principal officer gives good reasons why the occasional employee longest in the service is not by virtue of ability or efficiency entitled to such promotion. The following distinction is made between occasional and temporary employees: A certification for temporary employment is not charged against any of the names appearing thereon. A person thus temporarily appointed has no status outside of the temporary position to which appointed. A certification for occasional employment is charged against all of the names appearing thereon. The persons thus appointed have a fixed status in that they are pro

moted to the permanent force in the order of their original appointment to occasional duty.

The requirement of absolute appointment before promotion in promotion regulations does not apply to the advancement to positions in the regular force of persons employed for occasional duty.

Apprentices may be promoted to journeymen upon the completion of apprenticeship without examination, service for the term of apprenticeship being regarded as a sufficient test of fitness.

The requirement in promotion regulations of two years' service prior to examination for promotion from subclerical to clerical grades is met by previous employment in a classified position for that period under another appointment.

Former service as a substitute in another branch of the service will not be counted as part of the two years' service required for entrance to the promotion examination for the apportioned departmental service.

Eligibles on a promotion register established according to promotion regulations are entitled to certification as long as they remain on the register, unless, after having been three times certified, the appointing officer shall object, in writing, to a further consideration of their names.

Laborers classified under the executive order of February 24, 1906, may not be promoted in grade or transferred without examination by the Commission; nor may any laborer be increased in pay beyond the usual and ordinary pay of the position and duties such laborer customarily fills and discharges. (Executive order, Aug. 28, 1907.)

Preference under section 1754, Revised Statutes, applies only to original entrance to the service and not to promotion.

2. Until regulations to govern promotions are made, Before promotions may be made upon any test of fitness, not dis- adopted. approved by the Commission, which may be determined