[Payment of SES Performance Awards of the RRB Office of the IG]

The Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) requested a decision regarding which appropriation it should use to pay performance awards to its Office of the Inspector General's (OIG) Senior Executive Service (SES) employees. RRB contended that: (1) the Civil Service Reform Act required it to make such awards from its general appropriation; and (2) use of its general appropriation constituted an impermissible augmentation of the OIG appropriation. GAO held that RRB had the discretion to choose either its general appropriation or the OIG appropriation to pay the awards, although it had to continue to use the same appropriation for that purpose once it made its administrative decision. Accordingly, RRB should consistently use the same appropriation for making performance awards to OIG SES employees.