Secretary

Secretary

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Erie, Pennsylvania

Salary Range: $45409 - $59031 Per Year

Job Summary: The incumbent serves as the Behavioral Health Clinic's Secretary to the Chief of Behavioral Health, located at the Erie VAMC. The BH Secretary provides clerical and administrative support to staff across the BH Division as specifically requested by the Behavioral Health Chief, Assistant Chief, Administrative Officer, and other assigned BH supervisors.

Major Duties:

• Duties include: Relieves Chief, Assistant Chief, AO, and BH supervisors of routine clerical duties, independently resolving office problems using knowledge of BH operations. Acts as primary point of contact between BH and other departments, including Offices of the Director, COS (Chief of Staff), ADPCS (Associate Director of Patient Care Services), Specialty Clinics, Social Work, and CBOCs (Community-Based Outpatient Clinics). Responds to inquiries regarding report status, personnel duty status, and general information from files and office sources. Provides courteous service to Veterans, visitors, and staff, maintaining professionalism during busy and challenging periods. Collects, summarizes, and assembles BH workload data and other information into computerized spreadsheets and reports as directed. Maintains calendars for Chief of BH and designated supervisors, schedules appointments and meetings, and independently reschedules as needed. Prepares agendas, minutes, and materials for BH meetings, staff huddles, MHEC (Mental Health Executive Committee), and conference calls. Uploads approved documents to SharePoint as needed. Schedules and supports in-service training, educational conferences, and seminar sessions for BH staff. Organizes medical student schedules during BH rotations, coordinates coverage, and arranges presentations. Prepares, proofreads, and disseminates correspondence, reports, and documents for BH leadership using computer software. Maintains files of correspondence, reports, and materials related to BH; arranges for proper disposal of outdated or sensitive materials per Records Control Schedule. Updates and circulates BH SOPs, Medical Center Policies, and maintains BH SharePoint/share drives. Reads and routes incoming mail, and keeps BH informed of updated procedures, forms, and directives. Monitors and orders supplies for BH staff and clinic operations. Initiates and tracks work orders for housekeeping, engineering, phones, IRM/CIO, etc. Manages the issuance and tracking of keys for BH staff, orders new and replacement keys, and retrieves keys from departing staff. Coordinates physical moves and informs staff of move dates in collaboration with facility move committees. Serves as primary or backup timekeeper for BH, using GovTA payroll system to maintain attendance records and solicit leave requests. Creates the Monday Morning Bulletin for BH employees (critical staffing updates, report deadlines, events, etc.). Supports onboarding and offboarding by coordinating clearance, paperwork (e.g., SF-52s), access requests (EPAS, JIT, PACS), orientation, badges (PIV), phones, and computer access. Manages BH competency folders, proficiencies, OPPE/FPPE, and Pay for Performance documentation. Assists in hiring processes and HR transactions as delegated by BH supervisors. Serves as subject matter expert for BH staff travel, coordinating CGE travel authorizations, government vehicle reservations, tax exempt forms, and reimbursement claims in accordance with policy. Tracks mandatory training compliance, distributes educational materials, and enters training information into the Talent Management System (TMS). Coordinates BH staff education, scheduling, and documentation for in-service and external training. Assists AO with BH budget control, utilizing fund control point menu options, data reconciliation, authorizations, and tracking balances; serves as backup for fund control points. Provides clerical assistance for BH and approved facility initiatives as needed. May assist other service lines within incumbent's position description as assigned. Performs other duties as assigned. Work Schedule: Monday -Friday; 7:30am -4:00pm Telework: Ad-hoc; This position may be authorized for telework. Telework eligibility will be discussed during the interview process. Position Description/PD#: Secretary/PD012500 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 05/18/2026. 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-6 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-5. 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. In addition to the Time-In-Grade Requirement you must meet the following: GS-6 grade level: One year of specialized experience (equivalent to the GS-5 grade level in the federal service); experience that equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA's) and other characteristics to perform successfully the duties of the position, and that is typically in or related to the work of the position to be filled, in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Specialized experience includes: Performing administrative functions, office operations and technology support for an organization; Establishing and maintaining filing systems; Experience using automated software applications such as Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint); typing letters, memos, reports; Maintaining calendars and schedules. There is no educational substitution for the GS-06 level. 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 as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-5 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: Prepares wide variety of recurring and some non recurring correspondence, reports, and other documents, including MCM formatting and tracking, maintains supervisor's calendar, coordinates meeting arrangements, and schedules meetings and/or conferences, serves as liaison between supervisor and units, and Timekeeping duties.. OR, For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/. Physical Requirements: The work requires no special demands on the incumbent and includes walking, sitting, standing, bending and carrying of light objects such as papers, manuals, mail, etc.

How to Apply: Please read the entire announcement and all the instructions before you begin an application. To apply for this position, you must complete the initial online application, to include the initial online questionnaire and submission of the required documentation specified in the How to Apply and Required Documents section. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration. To preview the application questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12952274. The application process is as follows: To begin, click Apply Online to create a USA JOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USA JOBS resume and/or other supporting documents. Answer the questions presented in the application and attach all necessary supporting documentation. Click the Submit Application button prior to 11:59 PM (ET) on the announcement closing date, 05/18/2026. If you are required to complete any USA Hire Assessments, you will be notified after submitting your application. The notification will be provided in your application submission screen and via email. The notification will include your unique assessment access link to the USA Hire system and the completion deadline. Additionally, in USAJOBS you can click "Track this application" to return to your assessment completion notice. Access USA Hire using your unique assessment link. Access is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Review all instructions prior to beginning your assessments. You will have the opportunity to request a testing accommodation before beginning the assessments should you have a disability covered under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended. Set aside at least 3 hours to take the USA Hire Assessments; however, most applicants complete the assessments in less time. If you need to stop the assessments and continue later, you can re-use your unique assessment link. NOTE: Your responses to the USA Hire Assessments will be reused for one year (in most cases) from the date you complete an assessment. If future applications you submit require completion of the same assessments, your responses will be automatically reused. Visit the USA Hire Applicant Resource Center for practice assessments and assessment preparation resources at https://support-usahire.opm.gov/hc/en-us. To update your application, including supporting documentation: During the announcement open period, return to your USAJOBS account, find your application record, and click Edit my application. This option will no longer be available once the announcement has closed. To view the announcement status or your application status: https://help.usajobs.gov/how-to. Your application status page is where you can view your application status, USA Hire assessment completion status, and review your notifications sent by the hiring agency regarding your application. Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume: Prioritize most relevant and recent experience Use concise, results focused language Align language from the job announcement Focus on demonstrating skills and competencies Remove outdated or unrelated experience Use the USAJOBS resume builder Additional guidance on this new requirement and resume building tools can be found at https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit

Application Deadline: 2026-05-18