From FedWeek, Dec. 2, 1998 Issue

The Office of Personnel Management has issued additional guidance on the newly-enacted Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998. FEDweek carried initial guidance in its November 11 issue. Here's what OPM has just released: This new law gives veterans access to federal job opportunities that might otherwise be closed to them. The law requires that:

  1. Agencies allow eligible veterans to compete for vacancies advertised under the agency's merit promotion procedures when the agency is seeking applications from individuals outside its own work force,
  2. All merit promotion announcements open to applicants outside an agency's work force include a statement that these eligible veterans may apply and
  3. OPM create an appointing authority to permit the appointment of these individuals if they are selected.

And OPM repeated this: "The law also establishes a new redress system for preference eligibles and makes it a prohibited personnel practice for an agency to knowingly take or fail to take a personnel action if that action or failure to act would violate a statutory or regulatory veterans' preference requirement." It also said it would issue more guidance on this last
point later.