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Government Contractors: Pilot of New Enforcement Plan, Advance Notice of Audits

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The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) will test a new process to select contractors for compliance reviews, and contractors picked for a review will get a chance to address potential shortcomings before the review. The OFCCP's Director Charles James made these statements on August 10, 2004 at meeting of some of the country's largest federal contractors.

The OFCCP's model for selecting contractors for audit uses the equal employment data system (EEDS), which reviewed movement in a contractor's workforce in a contractor's EEO-1 forms. The new model – called the Federal Contractor Selection System (FCSS) – is supposed to be a statistical targeting model that compares differences in a contractor's workforce profile at an establishment to census data in the local labor markets and the workforce profile of establishments in the same industry.

James stated OFCCP applied the new model in spring 2004 to a list of employers to investigate and selected a list of 3,560 "worst offenders" for possible compliance reviews. He said OFCCP recently sent scheduling letters to the first 663 in that group. James stated OFCCP selected those that were most likely to be involved in systemic discrimination. According to James, OFCCP will review the new statistical model over the next year to see if the compliance reviews validate the accuracy of the new targeting plan. The OFCCP continues to state that it is targeting systemic cases where contractors appear to have engaged in unlawful discrimination.

In addition, James stated OFCCP will send a contractor a letter informing the contractor of a compliance review before mailing a formal scheduling letter. James stated that the advance notice will give contractors the opportunity to address potential problems in EEO operations.

If you have any government contracting or affirmative action questions, please contact Pam Ploor at 414.277.5661 / pploor@quarles.com or your Quarles & Brady LLP attorney.

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