Transition Watch: New Plum Book ready for download
Users have several choices to search and download the Web-based version of a list of 7,000 senior-level and appointed positions.
This year’s version is designed to be easier for users to navigate and download from the Web by section or the complete publication, the GPO noted.
The 2008 book lists more than 7,000 senior level and support positions that may be subject to noncompetitive appointment, said Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and the committee's ranking member, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
More than 4,000 of the positions were noncompetitively filled with political appointees as of Sept. 1, the senators said. Of those, more than 1,100 required Senate confirmation. The remaining 3,000 are positions that senior career civil servants have filled competitively even though the positions themselves could be filled noncompetitively, the senators said.
Federal agencies compile the book through the Office of Personnel Management, while the GPO publishes it, the senators said.
“The Plum Book is essential reading for anyone interested in pursuing public service in the executive branch of government,” the senators said. The book has traditionally been known as the Plum Book because it lists the best jobs in the executive branch.
Lieberman's committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee alternately sponsor the publication every four years, the GPO noted.
The book is available in its entirety as a single PDF file, according to the GPO, which said it refined this year’s version by adding bookmarks and optimizing it for the Web.