Supervisory Program Specialist

Supervisory Program Specialist

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Chicago, Illinois

Salary Range: $83482 - $108533 Per Year

Job Summary: Position is located at the Jesse Brown VA Hospital, Chicago IL. (537)) - a Level 1B Complexity VHA Facility and is organizationally aligned under the Surgery Service. The purpose of this position, provide administrative oversight for the coordination of activities in Surgery Service to include outpatient components of surgery staffed clinics and management of operating room. Includes Inpatient Services, Outpatient Services, Employee Services, Specialty Surgery Services and Administrative Office.

Major Duties:

• Duties: Operations Management/Directing Duties and programs under the purview of this position include activities involving services at the main facility and community based outpatient clinics (CBOC) : Administration, Operating Room - Equipment management, purchase, and preventive maintenance, Vascular, Orthopedic Surgery, General Surgery, Ophthalmology, Optometry, Residency Training Program, Otolaryngology, Podiatry, Plastic Surgery, Thoracic Surgery, Urology, Cystoscopy suite, Outpatient Surgery Service and Staffed Specialty Clinics. Serves as the coordinator, and preceptor for the sections (shown above) and all other clinical programs within Surgery Service. Such coordination will require intercommunication with multiple Medical Center Service Chiefs and other specialty medical staff members in order to implement changes and establish new clinical activities. Responsible for oversight of high-volume functions within the Surgery Service, such as new process roll out, trainings, hospital-wide safety drills and rollout of new technology. Incumbent disseminates information in order to be able to troubleshoot and be ahead of questions from the rest of the staff. Position is responsible for oversight of high-volume functions that occur within the Operation Room, over 4,000 procedures annually. Supervisory: Responsible for supervision of all Surgery Service administrative staff both directly and indirectly. Budgeting/ Administrative Management/ Procurement/Contracting: Surgery Service budget manager for all Service Control Points and is responsible to the Chief, Fiscal Service and Chief of Staff for the various finances of Surgery Service Coordinates all service level budget planning and projecting with Fiscal and the Chief of Staff regarding budget projections and fiscal needs of the service. Monitors resource utilization, advising Fiscal service of significant variances as compared with projected allocations; prioritizes the needs of the various sections, effecting increases/decreases in view of available resources. Responsible for overseeing all Cost Control Points and General Post Funds within Surgery Service and will direct post additions to service records. Develops specifications and assists in the preparation and development of contracts and sharing agreements for specialized medical services with other facilities and clinicians for effective, maximum utilization of medical center resources at minimal cost expenditures Responsible for all matters and acts as an advisor to the Acting Chief in the absence of the Chief, Surgery Service. Responsible for dissemination and coordination of Surgery Service program requirements and functions with the representatives of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern Medical school. Coordination and required interaction with clinical department chairmen at the University of Illinois at Chicago & Northwestern School of Medicine, and the medical staff, house staff, and students practicing at this facility. Oversees all Surgery Service pay administration for all full-time, part-time, intermittent, fee-basis and WOC assignments, FMLA requests, name changes, tour/schedule changes, alternative work schedules, random drug testing, pay panels, awards, performance pay, telework, recruitment, retention, and separation from the Surgery Service. Manages all personnel actions within the service, and is responsible for evaluation and implementation of personnel management for the service including assessing staffing needs, preparing requests and justifying these needs, and reviews and modifies organizational and functional charts as required. Provides support as the Customer Service Representative for Surgery Service to contribute high quality customer service while investigating reports of patient complaints, Congressional inquiries, OIG hotline, VA hotline, unusual incidents, or those incidents which might result in unfavorable public relations for the medical center. Interprets VA regulations, rules, directives and professional standards to implement policies and procedures governing these programs and ensures that all employees involved are educated for the implementation of these publications, and is responsible for analyzing medical center policies, directives and guidelines, and the priorities of the Chief, Surgery Service, Chief of Staff, Director, other top management and outside organizations, and for communicating this information to medical staff and Surgery Service personnel. Provides the customer with consistent information according to established policies and procedure. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 7:30am to 4:00pm Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Supervisory Program Specialist/PD250440 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 03/16/2026. 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-11 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-9. 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-9 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: Surgery Service pay administration, Medical Staff Committee minutes, Primary Safety Officer, overseeing Environment of Care Round reporting; evaluating staffing needs, assess work behaviors and productivity of service personnel; supervising onboarding and exiting of residents, fellow and students with-in service; resolution of personnel issues, labor disputes, time and attendance problems. Customer service representative for service; investigate internal and external complaints. Custodial official for medical and support equipment; writing medical care and supply contracts, acquisition; managing optical dispensary contract for eyeglasses. Collect and condense specific equipment through service to enable Equipment Committee to compare, contrast, evaluate and determine priorities on hospital-wide basis. Work with section supervisors and section chiefs, equipment users, vendors and Supply Service officials. Optimize and maximize use of technology environment, both hardware and software. Data management: Statistical reporting activities, utilize the data to evaluate the quality and appropriateness with published guidelines. Serve as a liaison for service projects, relocations, mergers and expansions, both clinical and administrative remodeling and or construction. Assess clinical and administrative space relative to workload and mission. Submit proposals for modifications of current space and or the need for additional space. Interpret VA regulations, rules, directives and professional standards. Ensure service documents are pertinent, relevant and updated. Evaluate programs to ensure economic and efficient operation. Review previous inspection comments and criticisms and make recommendations to section supervisors and chiefs to bring their activities in compliance. OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree, or 3 full years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to such a degree, obtained in an accredited college or university, or LL.M., if related, may be substituted for specialized experience to qualify for this grade 11, Supervisory Program Specialist position. Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of the position. One year of full-time graduate education is considered to be the number of credit hours that the school attended has determined to represent one (1) year of full-time study If that number cannot be obtained from the school, 18 semester hours will be considered an academic year of graduate study. Part-time graduate education is creditable in accordance with its relationship to a year of full-time study at the school attended. NOTE: TRANSCRIPTS REQUIRED. OR, Combination: Equivalent combinations of successfully completed graduate education and specialized experience directly related to the work of the Supervisory Program Specialist position that may be used to meet the experience requirements for this position. For example, nine (9) months of appropriate specialized experience equivalent to GS-09 (75 percent of the experience requirement for GS-11) and 2 years of successfully completed graduate level education. (50 percent of the required education, i.e., the applicant has year of graduate study beyond that required for the GS-09), would exceed the total requirement and be qualified for the GS-11 position. NOTE: Only education in excess of 2 full years of progressively higher-level graduate education may be used to qualify at the grade 11 level. TRANSCRIPTS REQUIRED. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Customer Service Leadership Manages Resources Organizational Awareness Planning and Evaluating Self Management Strategic Thinking Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Physical Requirements: The work is mostly sedentary. Occasionally, light physical effort may be required, such as that involved with walking, stair climbing, and carrying of light office items. 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/.

How to Apply: All applicants are encouraged to apply online. To apply for this position, you must complete the questionnaire and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section below. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on 03/16/2026 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12898891. 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 and complete the occupational questionnaire. Click Submit My Answers to submit your application package. NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. 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 https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-information/merit-hiring-plan-resources/applicant-guidance-on-the-two-page-resume-limit/ The Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced Federal/VA competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be qualified you must submit appropriate documentation (a copy of the agency notice, your most recent performance rating, and your most recent SF-50 noting current position, grade level, and duty location) and be found well-qualified for this vacancy. To be well-qualified: applicants must possess experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position including all selective factors, and who are proficient in most of the required competencies of the job. Information about ICTAP and CTAP eligibility is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website at http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/employee-guide-to-career-transition/. During the application process you may have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions. Opting in does not impact your application for this announcement, nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions.

Application Deadline: 2026-03-16