Clarification from the agency

The first area of consideration is current, permanent employees of the West Palm Beach Veteran Affairs (Station 548) facility. Status Candidates {Current and former competitive service Federal employees, and people eligible under special hiring authorities. This includes all Merit Promotion sources: Status (Transfers, Reinstatements), VEOA, Permanent Canteen (VCS) employees, CTAP, ICTAP, Non-Competitive Eligible and certain Excepted Service Employees (i.e., Interchange Agreements).}

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The Program Specialist performs a wide range of duties associated with planning, coordination, execution, and monitoring of educational resources and activities that support workforce development, mandatory training, continuing education (CE), continuing medical education (CME), and other organizational learning initiatives. They serve as the primary purchasing agent for facility education programs and is responsible for managing education-related procurement activities, processing training and educational payments, and administering purchase card transactions in accordance with federal acquisition regulations, VA policies, and fiscal accountability requirements. The position coordinates educational expenditures, monitors budget utilization, assists with budget analysis, and ensures educational programs operate within approved funding levels.

Additional Duties Include But Not Limited To:

• Provides administrative and logistical support for conferences, workshops, meetings, and training events; maintains training and fiscal records required for audits, accreditation reviews, and leadership reporting; prepares and monitors reports and supporting documentation; and evaluates training resources and materials to ensure effective utilization of organizational funds.
• Requires knowledge of education program administration, budget execution, procurement procedures, records management, and analytical methods to support the effective management of Employee Education Service programs and resources.
• Provides comprehensive administrative, operational, and programmatic support for Employee Education Service (EES), serving as a key resource in the planning, coordination, implementation, and evaluation of facility-wide education and training programs.
• Coordinates and administers a broad range of educational activities, including continuing education (CE), continuing medical education (CME), mandatory training, workforce development initiatives, leadership development programs, and other learning activities designed to support organizational goals and employee competency requirements.
• Serves as the central point of contact for education and training activities, providing guidance and technical assistance to employees, supervisors, service chiefs, and program managers regarding training requirements, enrollment procedures, educational funding processes, and applicable policies. Coordinates training requests from multiple services and disciplines, reviews submissions for completeness and compliance, and tracks requests through approval and completion processes.
• Monitors and maintains education and training records within automated systems and databases to ensure the accuracy, integrity, and availability of data used for compliance reporting, accreditation reviews, audits, workforce planning, and leadership decision-making.
• Conducts periodic reviews of training records and reports to identify discrepancies, trends, deficiencies, or compliance concerns and recommends corrective actions as appropriate.
• Compiles, analyzes, and prepares recurring and ad hoc reports, statistical data, spreadsheets, briefing materials, and supporting documentation for leadership, accreditation surveys, fiscal audits, program evaluations, and regulatory reviews.
• Assists in evaluating the effectiveness of educational programs by collecting and analyzing participation data, completion rates, and other performance metrics to support continuous process improvement and organizational learning objectives.
• Coordinates administrative and logistical support for educational meetings, conferences, workshops, and training events, ensuring required documentation, materials, schedules, communications, and reporting requirements are completed accurately and within established timeframes. Maintains working knowledge of applicable VA policies, accreditation standards, regulatory requirements, and educational program guidelines to ensure compliance and effective program administration. Assigned as the TMS domain back up coordinator.
• Performs a wide range of fiscal management, budget administration, and resource management functions in support of Employee Education Service (EES) programs and activities.
• Executes, tracks, and monitors education program budgets and funding allocations to ensure the effective utilization of financial resources in support of facility-wide training, workforce development, continuing education (CE), continuing medical education (CME), and other organizational learning initiatives.

Conditions of employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• Subject to background/security investigation
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents). Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued identification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment.
• Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP)

• your performance and conduct;
• the needs and interests of the agency;
• whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and
• whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service.

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 10/08/2026.

Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-9 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-7. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade.

Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment.

You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below:

• Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-07 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: providing comprehensive administrative, fiscal, procurement, and program management support for facility-wide education and training programs; Planning, coordination, execution and monitoring of educational resources and activities that support workforce development, mandatory training, continuing education, continuing medical education education, and other organizational learning initiatives; Primary purchasing agent for facility education program; administering purchase card transactions in accordance with federal acquisition regulations, VA policies, and fiscal accountability. OR,
• Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have a master's or equivalent graduate degree or 2 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.B. or J.D., if related. OR,
• Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an combination of specialized experience and education beyond 1 year of graduate level education.

• Data Management: Knowledge of the principles, procedures, and tools of data management, such as modeling techniques, data backup, data recovery, data dictionaries, data warehousing, data mining, data disposal, and data standardization processes.
• Decision Making: Makes sound, well informed, and objective decisions; perceives the impact and implications of decisions; commits to action, even in uncertain situations, to accomplish organizational goals; causes change.
• Knowledge Management: Knowledge of the value of collected information and the methods of sharing that information throughout an organization.
• Budget Administration: Knowledge of the principles and practices of budget administration and analysis; including preparing, justifying, reporting on, and executing the budget; and the relationships among program, budget, accounting, and reporting systems that information throughout an organization.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE WILL NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE.

Narrative responses are not required at this time. If you are referred for consideration, you may be asked to submit additional job related information, which may include, but not limited to; responses to the knowledge, skills and abilities; completion of a work sample, and/or contact for an interview. Your resume and/or supporting documentation will be verified. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your rating or consideration for employment.

The Department of Veterans Affairs performs pre-employment reference checks as an assessment method used in the hiring process to verify information provided by a candidate (e.g., on resume or during interview or hiring process); gain additional knowledge regarding a candidate's abilities; and assist a hiring manager with making a final selection for a position.

For more information on the "Who may apply" eligibility requirements, please refer to the OHRM Status Candidates and Other Candidate Definitions document.

Placement Policy: The posting of this announcement does not obligate management to fill a vacancy or vacancies by promotion. The position may be filled by reassignment, change to lower grade, transfer, appointment, or reinstatement. Management may use any one or any combination of these methods to fill the position.

It is the policy of the VA to not deny employment to those that have faced financial hardships or periods of unemployment.

Veterans and Transitioning Service Members: Please visit the VA for Vets site for career-search tools for Veterans seeking employment at VA, career development services for our existing Veterans, and coaching and reintegration support for military service members.