On Friday, May 28, President Biden released his request to the Congress for a budget for the Executive Branch of the federal government for Fiscal Year 2022 (beginning October 1, 2021). The OFCCP also filed a 29-page Budget Justification which compares their budget requests and budgets enacted in the prior two years. The OFCCP is seeking an approximately $35 million increase for FY 2022 with an increase of 188 FTE to 639 FTE. In addition, the OFCCP is asking to gain significant investment in staffing, modernization of its technology, reinvigorating construction enforcement and accountability, and racial equity.
The funding request clearly supports the maintenance of the Affirmative Action Program Verification Interface (AAP-VI), a request launched by the prior administration to create a portal for contractors to self-certify that they have completed their Affirmative Action Programs (AAP).
OFCCP has indicated for the past 5 years it would seek to satisfy its recommendation for a verification/certification portal.
According to the GAO Recommendation, a new contract was awarded in September 2019 to continue this work. OFCCP is anticipating obtaining approval from the Office of Management and Budget to collect annual certifications using this portal. When launched, the portal will allow all contractors to certify annually that they have developed and maintain compliant AAPs for each of their establishments or functional/business units. Those contractors who fail to certify, or who certify that they do not have compliant AAPs for each of their establishments or business/functional units, will be more likely to be scheduled for compliance evaluations. While the agency has made considerable efforts to implement this recommendation, the processes described have not been fully implemented.
The OFCCP found in 2016 that close to 85 percent of evaluated contractor establishments did not submit their AAPs within 30 days of OFCCP’s request during compliance evaluations. A central challenge to the OFCCP is the failure of contractors to provide a timely AAP during compliance reviews. If approved by OMB, OFCCP plans to utilize the certification data to more effectively build a neutral scheduling process that will enable the agency to focus its resources on compliance evaluations of contractors where there are more likely to be indicators of systemic discrimination.
Strong evidence exists that OFCCP is moving forward as the website, which was recently posted, states AAVI is coming soon. This verification would initially take the form of OFCCP review of a certification, followed by potential compliance checks, and may later take the form of annual submission of AAPs to OFCCP for review.
The message from OFCCP is that companies with federal contracts, subcontractors as well, are being nudged to be prepared for AAP verification.
