Intergovernmental Personnel Agreement: How the IPA Works

Intergovernmental Personnel Agreement: How the IPA Works

A Statute About Borrowed Staff

The Intergovernmental Personnel Act is not a grant programme and it is not a hiring authority. It is a mechanism for moving a person, temporarily, from one level of government into another, and for deciding who remains responsible for that person while they are there. It sits at 5 U.S.C. §§ 3371 to 3376, it has been in place since the Act of 1970, and almost everything it does is contained in a handful of paragraphs about consent, duration and liability.

What the Definitions Decide First

Section 3371 settles who the statute is talking about before it says anything else. A "State" includes the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the territories and possessions, and an instrumentality or authority of a state — including a federal-state authority. A "local government" reaches political subdivisions, their instrumentalities and authorities, general and special purpose agencies of those bodies, and recognised Indian tribes, bands, nations and communities, including Alaska Native villages.

The record speaks for itself.

That definitional work matters more than it looks. Whether a body is a state, a local government, or neither is what determines whether an assignment is authorised at all. A special purpose agency is inside the statute. A private contractor performing the same function is not.

The Assignment Itself: Consent on Both Sides

Section 3372(a) sets out how an assignment happens. It requires a request from, or the concurrence of, the state or local government concerned. It requires the consent of the employee. And it requires the head of a federal agency to arrange the assignment. Three parties, and no one of them can supply another's agreement.

There is no power to conscript a state employee into federal service under this subchapter, and there is no power to send a federal employee into a state agency over that agency's objection. The statute is built on agreement, and every later provision about pay, supervision and liability is a consequence of that premise.

Two Years, Extendable to Four

Section 3372 contains the limit that defines the whole arrangement: the period of an assignment under this subchapter may not exceed two years. The head of a federal agency may extend the period for not more than two additional years. Four years is therefore the ceiling for an ordinary assignment, and it is reached only through an affirmative extension.

For assignments made to Indian tribes or tribal organisations as defined in section 3371(2)(C), the head of an executive agency may extend the period further. The statute also anticipates an employee who does not finish: where the assigned employee fails to complete the period and another employee is willing and available, the Secretary may assign that other employee to complete it. The work is meant to continue even when the person does not.

The Federal Employee: Detail or Leave Without Pay

Section 3373(a) answers the question a personnel office asks first — what is this person while they are away. An employee of a federal agency assigned to a state or local government is deemed, during the assignment, to be either on detail to that government or on leave without pay. Whichever applies, section 3373 provides that the employee remains an employee of his agency.

That single sentence carries most of the legal weight. Retirement, tenure and the employment relationship do not transfer. The assignment changes where the work is done and who directs it; it does not change whose employee the person is.

Supervision Is a Contract Question

Because the employee stays a federal employee but works inside a state or local agency, the statute has to say who directs the work. Section 3373 does: the supervision of the duties of an employee on detail may be governed by agreement between the federal agency and the state or local government concerned. Direction is negotiated, which is why the written arrangement matters as much as the statute.

The Tort Question

Section 3373 also settles liability, and it does so plainly: the Federal Tort Claims Act and any other federal tort liability statute apply to an employee so assigned. A person driving to a site on federal assignment is treated as a federal employee for that purpose, not as a state employee and not as an uninsured individual actor.

For anyone who has had to establish who employed a person on a given day, this is the provision that answers it. The answer is in the statute, not in the letterhead of the agency where the work was performed.

The State Employee Inside a Federal Agency

Section 3374 runs the other direction. A state or local government employee assigned to a federal agency under an arrangement may be appointed in the agency, or may be on detail to it. Where an appointment is given, section 3374(b) provides that the employee is entitled to pay in accordance with chapter 51 and subchapter III of chapter 53 of title 5 or other applicable law, and is deemed an employee of the agency for the purposes stated there.

Where the state or local employee is on detail to a federal agency, section 3374(c) provides that during the period of assignment the employee is not entitled to pay from the agency, except to the extent that the pay received from the state or local government is less than the appropriate rate of pay the agency would pay. The detail is not a second salary.

Travel, and the Debt That Follows a Broken Agreement

Section 3375 makes federal appropriations available to pay or reimburse a federal, state or local government employee for travel expenses in accordance with the applicable travel provisions, subject to the limits set out in the section. It also constrains when those expenses may be allowed in connection with an assignment.

Then it adds the provision that gives the arrangement teeth: if the employee violates the agreement, the money spent by the United States for those expenses is recoverable from the employee as a debt due to the United States. An assignment is an agreement with a financial consequence attached, not an informal secondment.

Who Writes the Rules

Section 3376 is one sentence long and delegates the whole administrative apparatus: the President may prescribe regulations for the administration of this subchapter. That authority has been delegated to the Office of Personnel Management, which is why the operative detail — the form of the agreement, the treatment of benefits, the mechanics of reimbursement — lives in regulation rather than in the statute.

The statute sets the boundaries. The regulations describe the paperwork. A dispute about whether an assignment was properly made is usually a dispute about whether the regulation was followed, not about whether the section exists.

Why the Mechanics Matter

Read together, sections 3371 to 3376 describe a small, deliberate piece of machinery. Consent is required from three directions. Duration is capped at two years and extendable to four. The employee remains an employee of the government that sent them. Supervision is agreed. Tort liability follows the federal government. Pay during a detail is not duplicated. Travel is recoverable if the agreement is broken. And the rules are written by regulation.

Any arrangement that cites this subchapter can be checked against those eight propositions. Where an agreement is silent on supervision, or where a person is described as a state employee while performing federal work, the question is not a matter of opinion — the statute already answered it.