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I give you: a Justice Department-designed hoax playing on federal employees fears about the state of their TSP funds.

I am well aware that the breach of security at USAJobs is a very serious matter. And yet, this comment from Aaron Altman on Gawker made me giggle like crazy:

"Dear Sir:

I would Like to introduce you to the Prospect of receiving A Job with the United States of Government. I am JACK PIERRE, Interim Department of Labor Secretary, and I have come into the sum of $1,401,005, which I must Deposit into a Bank Account in order for you to Secure Employment with the United States of Government. If you would so kindly Provide me with your Name, Mailing Address and Bank Account number I would be happy to arrange for a Deposit of $1,401,005 which you May keep half of upon our first meeting. It is Critical for you to provide this Informations Now!

God Bless,

Jack Pierre"

Nigerian email scams have become their own comedic form at this point, I think.

From Brittany Ballenstedt (who is saving my suddenly-overwhelmed bacon):

Federal airport screeners will be lending their eyes at this Sunday's Super Bowl, USA Today reports. Dozens of behavior detection officers from the Transportation Security Administration will team with local police to watch spectator's body language, facial expressions and demeanor to find suspicious people. Police are looking to guard against an attacker similar to the one who drove to last year's Super Bowl site in Phoenix with an automatic rifle intending to open fire.

Feel free to use this as a Super Bowl open thread, guys...

From Brittany Ballenstedt:

Federal management and human capital are two areas of interest for President Obama's nominee for Deputy Secretary of Veterans' Affairs -- W. Scott Gould . Last year, he co-authored the book, "The People Factor, Strengthening America by Investing in Public Service," which presents a blueprint for effectively training and investing in federal workers. He's also a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. That's great for an agency that's considered by many to be one of the most advanced in its human capital planning.

More than 200 people trekked to Foggy Bottom last night to learn more about what it's like to work at the State Department. Even in trying economic times, that's a decent haul for a DC audience, given that a new administration means new jobs everywhere from the White House to K Street to non-profit shops as organizations seek to adjust to new leadership.

But more than the turnout, this event matters because it's part of Director General Harry Thomas's efforts to make the State Department workforce reflect the American populace. The DC career fair came after events in New York, Detroit, Raleigh, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, San Antonio, Anaheim, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Houston. I talked to Thomas last spring for our Chief Human Capital Officers story, and one argument he made at the time was that by doing more geographically diverse recruiting, State is more likely to end up with employees who not only represent different facets of the American experience, but who have a broader range of skills. If you recruit in the midwest, you may end up with folks who know something about farming and agriculture, a useful skill set at a time when food prices are rising, food riots are back, and agriculture's being impacted by global warming.

State isn't likely to have trouble attracting applicants. But by going on a recruiting road show, the department can both get educate people about what State is up to, and reach out to applicants who might not have given diplomatic work a thought in their lives.

From Rob Brodsky:

The Department of Homeland Security has delayed—again—a planned rule change that would require federal contractors to verify their employees’ immigration status. Federal contractors and subcontractors will be required to begin using the E-Verify system on May 21, which would allow the Obama administration an opportunity to review the proposal, officials said.

The rule was originally scheduled to take effect on Jan. 15 but the Bush administration postponed the change because of a lawsuit filed by five business interest groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

With Blackwater kicked out of Iraq and no longer permitted to provide State Department security, the government is looking for another contractor to take Blackwater's place. I'm sure someone better versed in Iraq security than I am can explain why the decision was made not to have government employees do that work. But for me, it raises an important question: is this inherently governmental work?

The "inherently governmental" tag is usually applied to jobs considered so important that they need to be insulated from the profit motive and cost-benefit tradeoffs. But I wonder if the definition should be expanded to include work the government absolutely needs done, and that it's not demonstrably clear the private sector can do better. I'm not an anti-contracting absolutist. There are some things that government needs done that it probably shouldn't have to set up on a permanent basis itself. It's certainly not clear from Blackwater's experience in Iraq that providing security is one of those things.

Update: Rob Brodsky has some good thoughts on this subject here.

Over at the New York Times, a group of analysts are debating the end of the bonus culture on Wall Street. While some of their conversation centers around the specific culture of the financial industry and the problems with using taxpayer money to pay bonuses rather than return companies to viability, some of it questions the viability of bonuses as a driver of performance.

The scales of federal bonuses and private-sector ones are completely different. Even the biggest federal bonuses don't catapult their recipients into the ranks of the wealthiest Americans, but they do make differences in their recipients standards of living. In corporate America, bonuses are a large part of executive compensation, but the people who receive them already make an extremely large amount of money. Does it really become an incentive under those circumstances? And what if it's not really performance-dependent? As one of the debaters writes:

"However, when a bonus is not only expected but mandated under any circumstance, it ceases to be a bonus. It becomes an outrage. Same goes for perks."

National Journal is tracking how well President Obama does in keeping his campaign promises. In theory, I think this is a useful exercise. Politicians should have to prove their efficacy to stay in office, and they shouldn't get away with saying they'll do one thing and doing another.

In practice, it seems silly to expect that Obama will keep all of his promises. He'll break some for efficacy, some for politics. He'll break a lot of promises that are performance-based, just because governing is an unwieldy process. Sometimes, he'll do things that appear to break promises, only to fulfill them later.

That doesn't mean it's a bad idea to try to keep tabs on Obama. It just means it's a bad idea to pull the trigger on whether he's broken a promise too quickly. Of course, it's also a bad idea for Obama to make clear, easily defined promises and then immediately not keep them.

From Elizabeth Newell:

Sen. Joe Lieberman today announced the creation of a new Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., will chair the subcommittee.

“Management of federal contracts is one of the greatest operational challenges facing the federal government,” Lieberman said. “Spending on federal contracts rose to an astounding $532 billion last year. And for years the Government Accountability Office has listed government contracting on its list of programs at high risk of waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement, or in need of comprehensive reform. This is a problem area that needs as much oversight as we can possibly muster. So, to more fully address the array of problems with federal contracting, I am establishing this new subcommittee with pride and great expectations. With her background as a prosecutor and state auditor, Senator McCaskill has unique investigative experience that will be crucial for this new subcommittee. I am certain that she will approach her new responsibilities with unmatched vigor to improve the value of all the taxpayer dollars devoted to federal contracting

I'm going to be writing about this more next week in the Pay & Benefits Watch column, but I wanted to highlight one element of the FSIS's new pay-for-performance plan. If you earn a low enough performance rating under the new system, they'll cut your base pay so you don't benefit from increases in locality pay. My sense is that this is unique among the pay-for-performance systems both in place and being tested. Is that right, folks? Let me know.

As usual, The Onion is far ahead of anyone else on the White House beat...

Update: Sorry for the broken link. This one to the cached page should work.

President Obama has tapped a 26-year-old Pentecostal minister who worked on his campaign to manage his re-conceptualized office of faith-based initiatives, now titled the Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the New York Times reports. I'll be very curious to see how this turns out. I have a long-standing interest in how faith and public service interact as a matter of philosophy. But also from an efficacy standpoint, it remains to be seen how effective such an office can really be, as Brian Friel and Paul Singer explored ($, but if you email me, I'll send you the story) in National Journal in 2007.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership in the federal sector rose by 78,000 workers between 2007 and 2008, a 1.3 percent total increase in the number of federal workers in unions. I know the National Treasury Employees Union says their membership is at a high point in their 70-year history, and I'll be looking into where the gains come from, overall.

This was a good year for union membership overall in the United States; unions gained 428,000 members in the public and private sectors last year. But most of those gains went to the public sector, especially in state and local governments. Some of that imbalance may be due to layoffs in unionized parts of the private sector: it hasn't exactly been an awesome year for auto workers for example. But I do wonder if Bush administration moves to curtail union organizing and unions' power may have backfired and made unions seem like a more appealing prospect for some federal workers.

Transitions between administrations are always a time of immense change, but they're also an opportunity for people who are trying to advance new initiatives or agendas. Steve Ressler, the federal employee and entrepreneur who founded GovLoop, a social networking site for feds that I've mentioned a number of times in this space, isn't missing his chance to get a piece of the action. In a new press release, he's urging members of the Obama administration to sign up for accounts of their own, and check out what's going on. Ressler's tone is partially in cheek, as when he says:

"Many government employees have decided to move past the dark ages and join GovLoop.com, the premier social network for government employees, where government prospers in the golden age."

But he's got a point. The Obama administration has made much of its plans to use its network of campaign supporters to lobby for legislation and as a conduit for information. If they're serious about using social technologies to solicit recommendations and to convey information, as they seem to have been through the transition period, with features like Your Seat at the Table on Change.gov, social networking would be a great way for them to listen in on conversations taking place within the federal community. These conversations are sophisticated, and they're serious. Obama has yet to meet with a major group of federal employees, but he could send a signal by getting his appointees involved with agency intranets, and with sites like GovLoop, suggesting that his administration will listen to, and take seriously, the concerns and ideas of rank-and-file employees.

Perhaps it's just poor phrasing, but President Obama seems to be taking a shot at civilian Defense Department employees in this statement:

“I have every confidence that our military is going to do their job, and I intend to make sure that the civilian side of the ledger does its job to support what they are doing.”

I'm not sure this is that famed message discipline...

Jill Aitoro has more details about the USAJobs hack today. I know some of you had wanted contact info: I don't have it for your lawyer, but to report suspicious emails, Jill's got an email address at the bottom of her story.

Should have specified that unscheduled leave is in effect just in DC. In the future, though, if you're in regional offices that get shut for weather, email and let me know. I'll be happy to do Public Service Announcements for everybody, everywhere.

Also, sorry for light posting today. It's been a heavy news day, and I'm trying to finish a piece for the magazine. The regular rate of posting should resume very soon.

The federal government is open on an unscheduled leave policy; if you can't get in, let your supervisor know you'll be taking unscheduled leave. If you're an emergency employee, no such luck: you've got to come in. And I sympathize; we're operating with a skeleton crew here in the GovExec offices, though folks are working from home. It's a mess out there!

Rumor has it that Sonal Shah, the Google.org executive who was a member of the Obama “Technology, Innovation, and Government Reform” transition team, is set to run the White House Social Innovation and Civic Engagement Office. It’s a key gig, given Obama’s use of social networking as a major campaign tool, and the signs he’s sent that he’ll both try to mobilize his supporters as a lobbying organization when he sends bills to Congress, and that he’s likely to try to use Web 2.0 techniques to bypass the media when he has a major message he wants to get out to the public.

But my colleague Gautham Nagesh has done extensive reporting on Shah’s ties to a controversial Hindu nationalist group, Vishva Hindu Parishad of America. To be fair, Shah has distanced herself from the group and said she never would have been involved in the group if she’d known it would not condemn the participation of the Indian branch in 2002 clashes between Hindus and Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat. But it also seems that she was more involved with the organization than she’s previously claimed.

Two Washington-area groups have opened nominations for awards for which federal employees are eligible.

Women in Technology is accepting nominations for its Annual Women in Technology Leadership Awards in five categories: Corporate Leadership, Entrepreneur Leadership, Government Leadership, Women in Technology Champion, and rising Rising Star. Nominations are open until March 13, so if you know a woman in government who's doing great technology work, get typing!

And the Partnership for Public Service is accepting nominations for its Service to America Medals until February 27.

Via Katherine Peters:

Ever wonder why the military services have so much trouble buying weapons that are affordable and actually work as advertised? Maybe it’s because they don’t have enough of the right people working in their procurement shops. According to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning the Air Force has had a whopping 43 percent average vacancy rate in key acquisition positions over the last eight years. That might account for some of the problems the service has had in a number of programs, from the botched replacement tanker deal scuttled last year to its second-generation wireless local area network, which the IG found was critically flawed in a report earlier this month.

My colleague at The Atlantic, James Fallows, has followed up the debate over PlayMobil's checkpoint toys, and in the process finds a TSA game that apparently takes into account changing job requirements.

Charles Peters and Timothy Noah have another terrific piece in today's Slate, explaining the difference in how stimulus funding works when it's delivered via privately-contracted infrastructure projects, as opposed to when it's delivered by making the people who work on these projects federal employees. I say terrific not because I necessarily agree that the federal government should hire a ton of road-builders, but because I think the piece is useful from an explanatory perspective.

It's rare that we have analogues this direct with policy debates, and it's useful to see how debates over contracting, federal employment, oversight, etc., played out under Roosevelt. It's also nice to have a reminder that though the federal bureaucracy can be slow, it can also be a tool for mobilizing incredibly quickly, when necessary. (Updated) Peters and Noah write:

The PWA's poor performance relative to the CWA was more than just a matter of being ruled by the wrong Harry. Structurally, the CWA was much better able than the PWA to mobilize quickly because it could avoid the cumbersome process of putting contracts out to bid and all the other obstacles to swift action that arise with public-private partnerships. (Government by contract was popular then, and remains so today, because it allows a politician to create the semblance of government action without expanding the government work force. It also caters to the public's belief that the private sector is more capable, an illusion punctured by recent scandals surrounding Blackwater and other U.S. contractors in Iraq.) Hopkins enjoyed immediate carte blanche to apply directly the apparatus of the federal government. He shifted staff from the federal relief program he'd headed up, seized tools and equipment from Army warehouses, and cut checks through the Veterans Administration's vast disbursement system.

(Update: Block quotes are from the story I'm talking about, not an argument I'm making myself. Just so y'all know.)

It's going to be all Slate, all the time today, folks. For some reason, the little online newsmagazine has decided to write a lot about government's role and government jobs over the past 48 hours, and if they write it, I'm more than happy to blog it. First up is this piece from Slate editor-in-chief Jacob Weisberg, in which he argues that President Obama has a view of how governance should work, but not of what government should do. Weisberg writes:

Where government cannot do something more effectively than the private sector, such as allocate private capital to maximize economic growth, it shouldn't try. But more often, we face a complicated interplay of social ills and imperfect government responses. There are programs that succeed, programs that fail, and lots in between. The same program can work and not work at different times. Social Security flourished for decades, became unsustainably costly in the 1970s, was restored to viability in the 1980s, and has since become problematic again. That the programs that constitute the war on drugs have mostly failed isn't a decisive argument for legalizing heroin and cocaine.

Obama's vagueness about the federal role comes at a moment when clarity is especially needed. Our government is about to become bigger, more powerful, and more expensive to deal with a sprawling economic crisis. Washington will take on responsibilities it hasn't shouldered in 75 years, such as directly alleviating unemployment and perhaps nationalizing banks. Many who would ordinarily reject such interventions on principle can justify them as misery relief, Keynesian stimulus, or emergency management. But some see in the expansion something further-reaching—a redefinition of the government's relationship to markets transcending the current crisis.

I think this is an interesting argument, but I'm not entirely convinced that it means that Obama doesn't have a theory of government's role. I think Weisberg sees government as an entity, and Obama sees government as a tool. In other words, Weisberg thinks you define government's role by where you invest bricks and mortar, where you set up longer-term commitments and programs. Obama seems to think that government is a tool: you don't use a snowblower in summer, because you don't need it. You use it in the winter when you do. In much the same way, I think Obama believes that government is something you intervene with when the market and individual efforts either have failed or were always insufficient, and is something that can be withdrawn when it's no longer needed, or when it's no longer functioning as it should--thus the promise to cut under-performing programs.

I'm not sure which view of government I agree with. Given our present circumstances, large government interventions are both probably necessary and already underway. Will they result in a permanent expansion of government programs akin to Social Security and Medicare? That remains unclear. Obviously, as Americans lose their health insurance along with their jobs, there are going to be calls for substantial health care reform that may create a larger role for the government, but it's by no means clear that such a reform will pass soon or at all. So it may be that Obama's understanding of government's role is actually a match for today's events. But Weisberg may be right that it's not a long-term philosophy.

Apparently names, resumes, and social security numbers are safe. But watch out for phishing emails.

(H/T: Brittany Ballenstedt's sharp eyes.)

For those of you who know my colleague (and frequent contributor here) Elizabeth Newell, see if you can find her in this MASSIVE picture of the Capitol on Inauguration Day.

I've had a number of people ask why we've been so focused on President Obama's decision to appoint a number of acting heads of federal agencies. To some extent, they're right that administrative housecleaning always happens shortly before Inauguration (I particularly like commenter Scot Faulker's observation that these decisions are part of a pattern of "'turning agencies into drama societies' as so many people are acting.") But I think there are two reasons that Obama's decision to make these changes, particularly at agencies that deal with federal management issues, rather than with more partisan concerns, are significant and worth focusing on.

1. It means we're going to wait a while for the President to turn his attention to the nitty-gritty of federal management.

Want to strengthen evaluations of federal employees government-wide or streamline federal hiring? You need the Office of Personnel Management for that. Want to improve federal building security or expand telework? You need the General Services Administration. Acting directors aren't the people who are going to champion broad innovation, or make ambitious changes. Even if they have relevant experience, like Paul Prouty, who worked in the Regional Public Building Service prior to his appointment to head GSA on an acting basis, they don't have a mandate to make big changes. In other cases, like with Kathie Ann Whipple at OPM, whose background is in law and litigation rather than in hiring, personnel, or evaluation, they don't have the experience to conceive of broad new program architectures.

More importantly, appointing acting administrators for these agencies means that the President hasn't really made up his mind where he wants those agencies to go, and he doesn't feel a lot of urgency to make those decisions now. They can wait.

It's true that Frank Reeder told me in our interview that Peter Orszag, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget, was attentive to questions of how to measure performance without drowning in red tape. But Orszag is from the Congressional Budget Office, and will likely spend much of his time taking the measure of major efforts the Obama administration has inherited, from the bailout of the financial system to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than on crafting a new management agenda. Nancy Killefer will certainly hit the ground running as the chief performance officer, but it seems likely that she'll start out studying a lot of federal management practices, and won't make recommendations immediately, and certainly not until she has the agency heads in place to implement the agenda she and the president eventually formulate.

Continue reading "Why the Acting Appointments Matter" »

From Elizabeth Newell:

The 23-year old arms dealer at the center of the AEY, Inc. contracting scandal has regained access to $4.2 million frozen at the start of his trial for procurement fraud, the Miami Herald is reporting. Efraim Diveroli, indicted on charges of selling banned Chinese-made ammunition to the Army, was given renewed access to the money after prosecutors realized it came from the company’s Defense contracts but not directly from the illegal munitions sale.

As the Miami Herald’s Jay Weaver points out, Diveroli’s troubles are far from over. Prosecutors are seeking to recover $10.3 million, and Diveroli’s Mercedes-Benz, if they win convictions in the September trial.

So, I understand that most mainstream media outlets have something of a conflict bias: for example, Tim Geithner's tax problems and their impact on his candidacy, or his comments on China's currency, make bigger headlines than his experience at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. To some extent, that's as it should be--Geither's tax problems are very germane because he'll be overseeing the Internal Revenue Service, the Treasury Secretary's words on currency can move the markets, etc. But this story, about two candidates to head the FAA, struck me as a particularly odd example of the genre.

The story focuses on the fact that labor groups favor one candidate over the other. But it doesn't say why. One is an aide to Harry Reid, who advises the Senate Majority leader on transportation, among other issues. The other is a former president of the Air Line Pilots Association. But other than this one line--"Both men are regarded within Washington aviation circles as accomplished aviators and qualified to run the agency," there isn't a single actual sentence about substantive difference between the two on any issue germane to the agency today. Weird, especially given a) the magnitude of the aviation challenges the country faces, and b) the complexity of the transition to NextGen, personnel issues, etc.

Apparently, Dennis Taitano, currently the chief financial officer in the budget and finance office of the Farm Service Agency and the acting associate administrator for operations and management, was named acting head of the FSA within the last half hour. Given all of these appointees' experience in their agencies, it feels a little silly to make an "Obama is just handing out acting positions to ANYBODY," joke, but the pace within the last 24 hours certainly makes it feel that way.

The Office of Personnel Management isn't the only agency that has a new Acting head. President Obama yesterday appointed Stuart Ishimaru Acting Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and named Christine Griffin Acting Vice Chair. I don't know Ishimaru well, but Griffin is an uncompromising advocate for hiring more disabled federal workers, and someone I've heard mentioned as a possible future chair of the Commission. And GSA also has a new acting head: Elizabeth Newell will have more on that later today.

But less than any of these individual appointees, the decision to put a group of acting agency heads in place seems a clear signal that Obama isn't going to get to the federal bureaucracy any time soon. I'm not sure I agree with "Concerned Retiree" in comments that Tim Geithner's tax problems are necessarily going to ramp up scrutiny--the Obama process already seems fairly rigorous, and there's not really any indication that the issues came as a surprise to the Obama team. But I am intrigued by the suggestion that federal management nominees could be a place where Republicans choose to challenge Obama on his vision of government, or even on social issues.

In the end, though, I think Obama mostly sees other issues as more pressing. He's got an economy to fix, two wars to figure out to handle, etc. And while Obama's said repeatedly that he wants to make government cool again, I think he sees the biggest vehicle for doing that as policies that have fairly immediate impacts and that restore trust in government, rather than at the micro level. I don't think management reform is his passion, and so I can understand why he'd pick some worthy placeholders for these agencies. But at OPM, where it appears he had a strong candidate who was close to being chosen, or had accepted the job, I'm still not sure why he went with an acting director. No word yet from OPM or the White House.

Looks like the President reads his GAO report, or at least has them condensed and summarized to him. As he said in remarks before an economic briefing this morning:

One last point that I want to make -- the recovery package that we're passing is only going to be one leg in a -- at least a three-legged stool. And some of the reports that we've seen over the last couple of days about companies that have received taxpayer assistance, then going out and renovating bathrooms or offices, or in other ways not managing those dollars appropriately, the lack of accountability and transparency in how we are managing some of these programs to stabilize the financial system, and a recent GAO report that speaks to some of the problems of waste in our government, those all have to be part and parcel of a reform package if we're going to be responsible in dealing with this economic crisis.

I'm waiting for answers on why he did this, but apparently President Obama has appointed an acting Office of Personnel Management director, Kathie Ann Whipple, previously the agency's deputy general counsel. The full announcement is below the jump.

A couple of things strike me as strange about this. 1) If John Berry is, in fact, going to be the nominee, why not just appoint him? 2) It was never clear what President Bush did when he "designate[d] Acting" Michael Hager at the OPM job. It was never clarified whether Hager had a set term, under what circumstances he could be dismissed, etc. 3) The Obama team has normally announced all appointments. I can't recall if any of them have been acting appointments. So it seems unusual that he would make an acting appointment here, and that OPM would announce it, rather than the Obama camp.

You'll get details as I get them. Any insights would be helpful, too!

Continue reading "Really, What is Going On At OPM?" »

What Allan Holmes said.

Which is a good way of saying, if any of you care about IT, and aren't reading NextGov, well, get on it already!

Given how much work Clay Johnson did to handle the transition from Bush to Obama, it seems only fair that he got to hop former President Bush's plane out of Washington. Johnson's originally from Texas, and involved in the art and museum scenes there. I don't know if he'll be returning to Texas permanently, but he can probably give a pretty good tour of the Texas State History Museum, which he helped found, if other Bush confidants are looking for entertainment while in the Lone Star State.

The Government Accountability Office just announced that they've released their 2009 High-Risk List of programs in need of major, speedy improvement.

Some entries are unsurprising. Strategic Human Capital Management remains on the list, as it has since 2001, and human capital issues play a role in 18 of the 30 High-Risk Areas, as well as in GAO's concerns about the Department of Homeland Security, Internal Revenue Service Business Systems Modernization, the Improvement and Modernization of Federal Disability Programs, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's Insurance Programs.

On the other hand, GAO cited the Federal Aviation Administration's increased attention to its human capital challenges as one reason it decided to remove Air Traffic Control Modernization Program from the high-risk list this year. I'm not sure that everyone I talk to about aviation issues will agree with GAO's decision, but the 2007 ITT contract was a big step forward.

Hillary Clinton met with career State Department employees as she arrived at her new office this morning, and from all accounts, her reception was extremely enthusiastic. Two things struck me about the reported accounts of the event, though.

First, Steve Kaskent of the American Foreign Service Union told his new Secretary, ""So far, we are thrilled to have you here," which I thought was both uncharacteristically warm, and uncharacteristically frank as a warning that State employees' opinions could change quickly.

Second, Clinton told employees to "Think outside the proverbial box. There is nothing I welcome more than a good debate and the kind of dialogue that will make us better.... We need a sense of openness and candor in the building." From what I've heard from State Department employees, that call will be welcomed--and answered. There are a lot of opinions floating around Foggy Bottom, and I'm sure Clinton will get many earfuls of them.

So, Megan McArdle threw down yesterday, asking readers why government information technology is so terrible. The best answer that she got has to do with a combination of bureaucratic requirements and antiquated technology. Certainly, those things are factors. But the question itself seems like one of those queries that people throw out there when they're not really bothering to think before asking.

Because the truth is, it's not that the federal government is inherently bad at IT. If the National Security Agency, working with private companies, can create a top-secret digital channel for Obama's Blackberry, clearly government is capable of IT innovations and creativity, especially when a) security is involved and b) the president asks. The IT work that's gone into building telework programs, for example, has been extremely impressive: when 60 percent of an agency's headquarters staff can work away from home and not crash the network, that's a real accomplishment. And behind that accomplishment is the deployment of a LOT of updated technology, a huge amount of training and acculturation for both managers and supervisors, and efforts to bring older workers in line with newer technology.

But it's hard to move a multi-million person organization forward seamlessly. There aren't the resources to give everyone Blackberries, or to license the newest web-design software every time it comes out. Sure, it's absurd that an agency is still writing code in HTML rather than having made it into Dreamweaver, or another alternative. It's not good if agencies are using outdated technology and methods when updated, more efficient options are available. But it really isn't as if the federal government can just afford to upgrade everything instantly.

Beyond the issue of cost, different agencies require very different IT investments. Some service-delivery agencies, like the Social Security Administration or the Thrift Savings Plan need excellent user interfaces. The intelligence and defense agencies need many layers of security and interoperability. Different jobs have different levels of IT competencies required as well. Trying to figure out what everyone needs and get it to them is an enormously complicated task.

That's not to say that government couldn't be a lot better. Follies like the Census Bureau's wasteful handheld contract or the failed Office of Personnel Management retirement calculator contract are a big drain on resources and bad for the government's reputation. Websites crash under strain. Websites are poorly designed (though that's often more a matter of aesthetics or IT) or poorly explained. But given the magnitude of the challenges, it's amazing government IT is in the state it's in. And if President Obama demands that it gets better and makes that a significant priority, the chances that government IT will get better seem substantial. Although now that you mention it, where's that Chief Technology Officer?

Update: Apparently, some of ya'll like hand-coding. Fine with me. What I mean, of course, is, it's absurd for an agency to be stuck with an outdated, inefficient technology if a better, more efficient update is readily available.

I've put the whole text of President Obama's press announcement of a series of executive orders and memoranda below the jump, and will post the text of the executive orders when they're available. The one I'm most looking forward to seeing in full is the Executive Order on Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel act, which the press release says "requires that government hiring be based upon qualifications, competence and experience, not political connections."

The press release isn't clear exactly which positions these requirements will apply to, or how they'll be applied. Obviously, these requirements already apply to civil servants. I'm sure the requirements come mostly out of the political hiring scandals at Justice.

But I think it's a good thing that Obama emphasized that troika of characteristics for hiring. It may seem incredibly self-evident to say that qualifications, competence, and experience should be used to determine who gets a job. But there are differences of opinion as to which of those characteristics matter most in hiring and promotions, particularly among people of different generations. What Obama suggests in this Executive Order is that education, time served in government, projects you've worked on, and demonstrated ability all matter in candidates for jobs or promotions. It'll be interesting to watch how those principles get transmitted to his agency heads and Chief Human Capital Officers.

Continue reading "More on the Executive Orders" »

President Obama laid out a comprehensive accountability and transparency agenda today, and more to come on that. But most notably? He's freezing salaries for White House staffers who make more than $100,000. Now, that's hardly peanuts. But it will be a step down for some folks. But it is a reminder that even though West Wing jobs come with some glamor, it's not Hollywood money.

Readers have been kind enough to remind me that what appeared to be Obama's stumble during the Oath yesterday was actually Chief Justice Roberts'. That wasn't immediately obvious at the time, but I did want to point it out. I guess everyone had some nerves!

Sorry for the light posting today, folks. I was lucky enough to get a last-minute stop on President Obama's tour of the Inaugural Balls yesterday. The Obamas clearly didn't have their Arthur Murray shoes on, and were too tired to really bust a move anyway, but they did a sway, twirl, and peck (I apologize for the quality of the photography. I am short, and most of these were taken by holding the camera as far over my head as I could reach.):

Joe Biden, on the other hand, was clearly having a high old time, quoting Seamus Heaney's "The Cure at Troy" to good effect in the crowd:

(Click on each picture for a larger view.)

The crowd was surprisingly mellow until the Vice President and President made their appearances, much of which may have been due to James Taylor, who played a long, low-key set, followed by a harder-rocking encore after the President and First Lady departed.

More substantive posting to come shortly, I promise.

Government Executive's Elizabeth Newell has a terrific photo gallery of Inauguration photos up at Flickr. Go check them out!

Apparently, Sen. Ted Kennedy had a severe seizure during the Inaugural Luncheon, and Sen. Robert Byrd also had a serious health issue as well. No matter your political affiliation, this is sad news on what is otherwise a celebratory day.

As Obama begins his Inaugural Address, he'll have two significant passages on government's role in these times. They largely echo his themes from the campaign, but it's striking to see him reiterate that he'll cut failing programs in this address:

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

...

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

The full text of the speech appears after the jump.

Continue reading "Obama On Government In the Inaugural Address" »

I found Obama's slip-ups during the Oath of Office kind of sweet. I think it's the first time I've ever heard him stumble in a speech.

"You are loving to everyone you have made," Warren says. President-elect Obama's choice of Warren to give the invocation wasn't popular, given his views on gay people, but this line seems to be an attempt to reach out.

He goes on, with obvious emotion, " We celebrate a hinge-point of history, with the inauguration of our first African-American president of the united states. We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequalled possibility, where the son of an African immigrant can rise to the highest level of our leadership. We know that Dr. King and a great crowd of witnesses are shouting in heaven."

Crack reporter Elizabeth Newell is on the scene at the Capitol, and when I say on the scene, I mean on the scene:

This may be a mistake on the part of the pool reporter who filed from the church service for the President and President-elect this morning, but apparently, T.D. Jakes, the senior pastor at the Potter's House in Texas, who gave the main sermon this morning, said:

“I say to you as my son who is here today, my 14-year-old son – he probably would not quote scripture. He probably would use Star Trek instead, and so I say, ‘May the force be with you.'”

As any self-respecting nerd knows, the Force is from the Star Wars universe...

Xavier de Souza Briggs, whose credentials encompass one of the most enormous paragraphs I've seen outside of a William Faulkner novel, will be the new associate director for general government programs at the Office of Management and Budget. The position's been vacant since Michael Bopp departed for a position at law firm Gibson Dunn in September, leaving no one directly overseeing the appropriations for the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, and Commerce.

Briggs is familiar at least with HUD, having led the policy research and development division there during the Clinton administration. But his expertise is in community-level problem solving. I have no idea how he'll apply that knowledge to the budgets of the departments now under his purview, but given the magnitude of the challenges that many of those departments face, community problem-solving might come in handy!

I'll be liveblogging Inauguration festivities today, but don't worry--I'll be keeping you updated on any and all federal management goodness that comes down the pike.

Washington will be basically shut down tomorrow, as President-elect Obama makes the formal and final transition from candidate to president. And all the attention will be focused on the man on the dais, rather than on the buildings sprawling around the Capitol, and the people who work in them. But at this moment, when the messages of the campaign begin to be translated into action, it's incredibly important to be aware of, as Walter Lippmann put it, the brutal realities of earth, and the people who work with those realities every day.

Harold Pollack, with whom I've had the pleasure of guest-blogging before, has a piece up at The New Republic with a number of suggestions for how President-elect Obama could direct stimulus funding towards improvements in public health. On his list:

Public health workforce
Across the street from my office at the University of Chicago is a gleaming billion-dollar hospital. If I walk the other way, I pass crowded and understaffed primary health care facilities with out-of-date computer systems, old facilities, and other great resource needs. Merrill Goozner of the Center for Science in the Public Interest has written extensively about these issues. So has Mickey Eder, director of research programs at ACCESS Community Health Network, one of America's largest safety-net providers. Both suggest variants of a new Health Corps.

Goozner notes that the current National Health Service Corps of primary care doctors could be expanded to include nurses, dietitians, and a variety of vital lay health workers and paraprofessionals. One can create many more jobs by hiring these men and women than by hiring more doctors. The public health benefit would be greater, too. Health Corps workers could provide home visits to help patients manage blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose. They could help pregnant women manage the logistics of prenatal care. They could organize community walking circles, visits to local groceries to buy healthy foods. Rather than using costly space at hospitals and medical facilities, Health Corps groups could rent local storefronts and partner with local churches and civic groups. They could serve as useful ambassadors within communities mutually estranged from medical and public health systems.

In the midst of a lot of fairly abstracted conversations about service that have largely ignored federal employment, it's nice to see someone make a firm connection between what federal employees do and the public good. In this next administration, I think it's likely that the federal government's role in American health, be it health care reform, expansion of public health programs, or a more visible Surgeon General will expand dramatically. I'd be curious to see how you think that expansion will affect current programs, and the federal health bureaucracy as a whole.

For those of you in D.C., details about Inauguration as a holiday are here.

Orders of succession in government have always seemed a bit random to me. But it's amusing to see the order President Bush has established in two executive orders for who steps up if the heads of the Agriculture and Transportation Departments are for some reason unable to serve. At Agriculture, the General Counsel is next in line, followed by the Chief Financial Officer. At Transportation, it's the head of the Federal Highway Administration, followed by the Federal Aviation Administrator. I have no idea what this says about the relative prestige of these positions within their departments, but I must say, I hope the Director of the Kansas City Commodity Office is prepared to take over Ag if it comes to that.

Janet Napolitano used this phrase in her confirmation hearings to head the Department of Homeland Security to describe the kind of people she wants the department to hire. To which I say, enough. This phrase is done. "Best and the Brightest" ought to be on the Tired list in every entertainment magazine's list of what's hot and what's not. It's not just that the phrase is a cliche. It's not even that it's drawn from David Halberstam's critique of what relying on smart, idealistic people can produce (namely, the Vietnam War).

Rather, saying "we're going to hire the best and the brightest" is the policy equivalent of saying "I would like a pony." It's an expression of desire, with no meaningful engagement with the recruiting and hiring processes. Federal agencies have big challenges determining what skills they need to bring on board, how to convince the people who possess those skills to get excited about working for the federal government, how to convince them to stick with it through the federal hiring process, and how to bring them on board and best use their talents. There is no snazzy little phrase that encompasses that process, but I would be much more excited about an appointee who took the time to describe that as their goal.

I think graphic design is interesting, though unlike our fantastic designers here at Government Executive, I have no talent for it whatsoever. I also am interested in language analysis, so I think Wordle, a web application that creates word clouds that shows how often certain words are used in certain publications, is a fascinating tool for revealing hidden priorities. I created a Wordle cloud of the entries I'd written so far this month, and discovered that after "government" (no real surprise there), "trust" was the word I've used most. Make of that what you will, but in this time of transition, it seems appropriate.

In conversations I've had with feds recently, I've noticed a theme to questions. People are moving beyond the question of simply how certain Web 2.0 technologies work, but how those technologies can best serve individual agencies. I think it's promising that we're in a place where people are thinking strategically, which is why I wanted to call attention to two posts at GovLoop (May require registration). In one, a county-level employee is explaining where he is in the process of designing his agency's new website. In another, the author discusses how social networking can be a tool to reduce budget expenditures.

I wanted to highlight these two posts for different reasons. I was interested in the first because I don't really know what goes into creating a web presence, and for those of us who are not IT people, I think it's valuable to know how much hard work goes into creating our online identities. I also think familiarity breeds comfort: knowing how technology works and is put together makes it much less intimidating.

The second post caught my eye because of its practicality. I think that agencies sometimes use technology for the case of using technology, as was the case of FEMA's Twitter press conference. That seems fine as an occasional practice, as a way to demonstrate that you're engaged with trends in technology. But long-term, agencies shouldn't hold press conferences on Twitter if that's not the best way to hold an engaging press conference. Agencies shouldn't develop internal social networks unless they have demonstrated utility and value. So thinking about what's strategic, not just what's new, matters.

I was having dinner with a friend last night who works in the good-government sector, and I said I think that public perception of federal employees operates like a reverse Picture of Dorian Gray. What people see in the portrait--dedicated civil servants, slackers who waste money, bureaucrats who impinge on our freedom, over-worked people trying to do the right thing in a system that won't help them--has more to do with their perspective and what they want to see, than the actual reality of federal workers' lives.

Some of that contradictory impulse seems apparent in a new poll (full results are a link in the story, and require registration) commissioned by POLITICO. The 1,000 registered voters surveyed said they don't trust government very much:

Only 5 percent said they have a “great deal” of trust that the federal government will manage its finances responsibly, while 23 percent expressed “some” trust that the government will be financially responsible. Meanwhile, an overwhelming 63 percent of respondents described their amount of trust as “not very much” or “none at all.”

62 percent of respondents said their trust in government has fallen over the last 12 months (though 38 percent say they expect their trust in government to increase over the next year, perhaps reflecting optimism about President-elect Obama). And yet, despite these grave concerns, the respondents want government to do more to fix the economy. It's always hard to track where exactly distrust originates. But I'd be curious to see how many of those people who don't trust government think government is fundamentally unsound, and how many think appropriate actions haven't begun because of leadership decisions. Distrusting the current administration, and distrusting government as a whole are different things, and it would be useful to see what the results are on the latter, and where that reaction comes from.

Matt and Spencer are correct. Samuel L. Jackson is Nick Fury.

Now that I've got that endorsement out of the way, a side note. Someone really should make a Marvel Civil War movie. Not only is Civil War a fantastic universe that showcases a bunch of characters in innovative ways, it's a terrific examination of government power. The Commission on Superhero Activities, the Registration Act, etc., would all require major federal efforts and oversight. And if Marvel ever decides to go ahead with the project, I am SO available as an on-set consultant on government operations.

As anyone who's read my reporting or blogging knows, I'm fascinated by the challenges the generational transition is bringing to government, which is why I dived into the age-sorted results of the Federal Human Capital Survey for a story on Monday. There's a great, if sometimes tough, debate taking place in the comments on that story. I'd be curious to hear more of your thoughts on why younger and older employees see performance systems differently--and where you think distrust between the generations comes from.

For those of you who aren't familiar with it, GovLoop is a social networking group for government. There's a lot going on there--blog posts, many discussion and interest-based groups, and of course, profiles, though they tend to be more professional and less Facebook-y. One thing I've enjoyed about GovLoop is the chance to get even more feedback on these blog posts.

While as my story yesterday makes pretty clear, John Berry will bring an interesting resume to the Office of Personnel Management, it's going to be inevitable that people will make "from one zoo to another" jokes about his transition from the National Zoo to OPM. And if there are going to be jokes, there might as well be good ones. So when Sandy Ressler posted this list, I asked him if I could reproduce it here, and he graciously said yes. So from Sandy:

Top Ten Reasons a Guy from the Zoo should Run OPM

10. All us Feds have been viewed as animals for a long time anyway.

9. He can rename executive departments by genus names: Dept. of Reptiles, Dept. of Fish, Dept of Mammals etc.

8. Wild screaming down the hallways will simply be an invitation to lunch.

7. Official time after lunch for "grooming".

6. Promotion via real scratching and clawing.

5. Instead of "staff meetings" they will now be called "cattle calls".

4. Performance plans will really be signed in blood.

3. Performance measures will be based on obligatory distance spitting.

2. Bonuses will now be made with bananas.

1. Ya know that 500 lbs gorilla in the room? That's really your boss.

Since I'm relatively new here, I thought I'd take care of a couple of housekeeping matters.

1. I make spelling and grammar mistakes. We all do, especially under tight deadlines. I really do appreciate when you guys pick up on them. If you notice something, emailing me is a much faster way to reach me and to call a correction to my attention than leaving a comment, since I only review and post comments several times a day. My email address is arosenberg@govexec.com. I check it obsessively. I know many of you have suggested that I get a proofreader. Here at GE, we have one saintly copy editor who does everything for the web and the magazine. Were she to take on this too, it would be totally unfair to her and to her workload. So let's make a deal: I will try to be more careful about my own proof-reading, and you guys will email me if you see mistakes.

2. Sometimes my Mac at home gets a little crabby about writing URL code, and things look funny occasionally. Also happy to correct those font issues. Email is also the fastest way to let me know in these situations.

3. Comments! I love having them. I am happy you guys are here, and I hope these discussions will continue. I have to approve comments before they are posted, so if there's a delay in something you wrote going up, it's not censorship; I'm just busy and haven't gotten to comments in a bit. I just want to remind everyone that this is a family blog, and that we do have a comment policy in place that I adhere to. Here it is:

By using this Service you agree not to post material that is obscene, harassing, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable.

So, I've been reading Julia Child's My Life In France as my most recent book, and though I picked it up basically for the descriptions of cooking, it turns out, her memoir is also a fascinating chronicle of what it was like to be in the State Department at a time when reductions in force were taking place, the U.S. Information Service was becoming the U.S. Information Agency, and Sen. Joseph McCarthy was sending his staff abroad to investigate State Department work overseas.

(Quick background: Julia Child met her husband while working for the OSS, the precursor to the CIA in Sri Lanka. They moved to Paris when he was posted there for his job at the USIS. So America owes the State Department for Julia Child's promotion of French cooking.)

Child's descriptions make it sound like an incredibly successful experience. Her husband's budget to buy books for local libraries falls dramatically, his staff keeps getting whittled away, his boss in Mareille, their second posting, is someone Child accuses of having been successful by being extremely cautious and dull. State Department buffs should definitely take note. But for anyone connected with the federal government, it's an interesting experience to read a mainstream memoir that's full of references to RIFs and budget errata, in other words, where government is a fully integrated part of the life of someone who doesn't work for it directly, rather than an impenetrable tangle.

This from the National Federation of Federal Employees

“NFFE would strongly support John Berry’s appointment as OPM Director”, said Richard N. Brown, National President of the National Federation of Federal Employees. “His record indicates that he will be willing to work constructively with federal employees and their unions.”

“We believe John Berry’s stellar record of public service and employee relations would make him a great choice for the position of OPM Director.”

Pamela Baker-Masson, John Berry's spokeswoman at the National Zoo, now says "things have progressed significantly today," but that she isn't at liberty to say whether Berry has been offered, and accepted, the OPM job. I'm awaiting confirmation from the transition team. Our full story on Berry should be up shortly.

Presented without comment. Spotted by the sharp-as-always-even-from-New-York Rob Brodsky:

DoD News Briefing with Geoff Morrell from the Pentagon

MR. MORRELL: Good afternoon. Pleasure to see you all today. I have just a few announcements, and I'll gladly take your questions.

First, Secretary Gates very much appreciates the Senate Armed Services Committee quickly arranging hearings this Thursday for the first four people nominated to serve in this department under President Obama. As you know, last week the president-elect nominated Bill Lynn to be the deputy Defense secretary, Michelle Obama (sic) for undersecretary of Defense for Policy --

Q That was Flournoy --

Q Not Obama --

(Cross talk.)

Q (Laughs.)

MR. MORRELL: Excuse me. (Laughter.) Thank you for correcting me. (Laughter.) Talk about an --

Q (Off mike.)

MR. MORRELL: Talk about an active first lady!

Not only because it's insurance fraud, but because it's a really bad thing to do to the air traffic controllers on duty.

From Colleen Kelley, the NTEU president's, statement:

"The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) welcomes the apparent intention of President-Elect Obama to nominate John Berry, an experienced and respected public servant, to be the new director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). NTEU worked extensively with Mr. Berry during his service as legislative director for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). In that capacity, he earned the trust of agency management and unions alike, proving to be fair and determined in his pursuit of good government. He was involved in a number of legislative initiatives concerning federal employees, including the creation of the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act (FEPCA). In addition, Mr. Berry is widely regarded as having performed capably as Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget in the Department of the Interior during the late 1990s. Through that position and several others, including his current role as Director of the National Zoo, he has significant management experience and knows what it takes to run a federal agency. John Berry will help return respect to the federal workforce and help attract the best and the brightest to public service. I look forward to his confirmation by the Senate."

The Washington Post wrote this morning that John Berry, the director of the National Zoo in Washington, had accepted an offer from President-elect Obama to become director of the Office of Personnel Management. That appears to be somewhat premature, according to Zoo spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson, who said moments ago when I spoke to her:

"It’s a rumor. He has not heard from President-elect Obama. He has not accepted the position. They have contacted him, that much I’m happy to confirm."

More as I get it.

Apparently, the Merit Systems Protection Board is 30 today. No word on whether petitioners bearing cupcakes will be more favorable received.

Apparently, there is a British nuclear-armed submarine at sea, at this moment, with instructions from Prime Minister Gordon Brown locked in a safe, telling the commander whether or not to use the on-board weapons to retaliate of England is destroyed in a devastating attack.

It seems like a deeply improbable scenario. But it's true, and Ron Rosenbaum lays out the dilemmas of nuclear-decision making in a haunting Slate piece on the Letter of Last Resort today. I found this fascinating for a number of reasons. First, the scenario itself harkens back to an age of nuclear anxiety that I, as a member of Generation Y, find incomprehensible. Second, it's so deeply personal: only the sub's commander has access to the letter, he can only read it if he's informed British leadership has been decapitated, and he's not supposed to tell anyone what it says if he ever has occasion to read it. When British PMs leave office, their Letters of Last Resort are destroyed unread.

But what does this all have to do with our government, you ask? And rightly so. It turns out Rosenbaum interviewed some of the American submariners who were responsible for firing nuclear missiles if it came to retaliation back in the late 1970s. I'm not going to quote that portion of the piece so you'll have to actually go read it. But suffice to say, it's an amazing illustration of how the biggest policy decisions come down to the single person who is actually pulling the trigger.

Clearly, this is kids' day on FedBlog. Check out PlayMobil's Security Checkpoint.

(H/T: Jezebel)

Newsweek notes that President-elect Obama, not much of a foodie, is getting an Inaugural lunch based on President Lincoln's tastes. Daniel Stone notes:

A detailed depiction of Lincoln's taste buds isn't too shabby for a man who died almost 150 years ago. A full mapping of Obama's seems much harder to come by.

All of which is really just an excuse for me to mention perhaps my favorite children's book of all time, George Washington's Breakfast. As a mere member of the chattering classes, I will be eating more modestly on Inauguration Day (and live-blogging the festivities as they occur).

It's out, and there's not a lot of movement since the end of September. All the Human Capital and Performance Improvement scores have remained the same. The Smithsonian's Commercial Services Management score is up to Yellow from Red, but no other agency saw an improvement or decline in that category. Four agencies have improved Financial Performance scores, and GSA fell from Green to Yellow in that category. Interior, State, and NASA all have improved E-Government scores.

This lack of movement illustrates two things. First, it takes a long time to achieve substantial improvements in how agencies operate. Second, a three-light system doesn't allow for a lot of nuance; a number of agencies may have made progress towards improvement, or suffered setbacks, but a 3-grade system doesn't have a way to indicate those fluctuations. It also doesn't really explain what metrics define the boundaries between the color grades. I don't know if a numerical score system would be too difficult to put in place, but it would provide a more fluid look at how agencies are doing.

At yesterday's Federal Human Capital Survey results release, Nancy Kichak called attention to one number in particular she said she was worried about: a 3 percent drop in the number of federal employees who said they were pleased with the government's efforts to help them achieve a good work-life balance, from 78 percent in 2006 to 75 percent last year. I'll be curious to see what answers agencies and departments come up with to explain that decline, but the FHCS numbers on specific work-life programs offer some disturbing suggestions.

How many federal employees responded positively to the question about their satisfaction with child-care subsidies? A measly 9.1 percent. 22.6 percent said they were satisfied with telework or telecommuting programs. 28.5 percent said they were satisfied with work-life balance programs, including those on health and wellness, elder care, support groups, and other forms of employee assistance.

It's possible that some of these numbers are as low as they are simply because many employees don't yet have much experience with these programs. But if that's the case, perhaps programs need to be better-advertised or made more widely available. Particularly in the case of telework, which the Bush administration has worked hard to promote, the figures are quite low.

None of these numbers detract from the fact that an overwhelming majority of federal employes, 91 percent in fact, see their work as important, and 69 percent have no plans to leave government in the next year. But there is always room for improvement, especially when it comes to promoting the federal government as a good employer. Making sure employees feel good on and off the job is a good place to start.

Appointment-wise, anyway, says the New York Times. Given everything the folks at NextGov have broken about the dismal state of the 2010 Census, I'd say that's pretty much right.

Newsweek's Powering Up blog has a consideration of Nancy Killefer's role as Chief Performance Officer that gets some things right, but misses the point a bit about how the role is likely to work.

The post is right in that Obama does seem poised to demand stronger performance-based results from agencies, but the "running-government-like-a-business" canard seems to me to be somewhat off the mark. Government can't run exactly like a business. It doesn't produce products, for the most part. Government can't boost profits to support new initiatives. It's not that easy to just shutter divisions. And that's not actually the point--either of government itself, or of Killefer's role. Obama's not actually interested in a lot of the initiatives that, if implemented, would turn government towards more business-like practices. He's no huge fan of privatization, he's critical of some of the efficacy of contracting, he supports strong federal labor rights. He wants government to be better, not something else entirely.

In most of the commentary about Killefer, and in this Newsweek post as well, writers haven't mentioned that Killefer is a government veteran (she served in Treasury) as well as a management consultant. She gets what's unique about government. Also, she'll be wearing dual hats, both roving government as the chief performance officer and with authority beyond simply that of an adviser as Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget.

That dual authority demonstrates why Killefer is unlikely to end up on the dust-heap, as Newsweek implies. Doing business differently, and making government more responsive, were key Obama messages on the campaign trail. They're also an area where he has to deliver. Almost everyone interacts with government on a regular basis, even if only to pay their taxes every year. If people don't start to see and feel differences in those interactions, they will notice. Giving Killefer a dual role, where one of her titles backs up the other, gives her authority and stature--and she'll need both if she's going to deliver on the very complicated task Obama has set to her.

I meant to post about this yesterday, but President-elect Obama announced four important civilian additions to his Defense Department team yesterday. Matt Yglesias notes that some of the key defense leaders who endorsed Obama early haven't necessarily received jobs in return, but doesn't suggest any other patterns that the nominations suggest. I'd note that bringing Michèle Flournoy into government continues Obama's tradition of elevating leaders of liberal think tanks--Flournoy is president and co-founder of the Center for a New American Security.

From a political perspective, I'll be curious to see if that proves to be a wise decision. Conservative leaders like Grover Norquist, for example, have been close to various administrations, but have not taken formal positions within them, allowing, in Norquist's case, Americans for Tax Reform to have a prominent figurehead. John Podesta will presumably head back to the Center for American Progress with even more credibility among the Democratic establishment than he had when he headed off to head the transition. But it's less clear to me what Flournoy's departure will mean for the relatively new Center for a New American Security.

This from Brittany Ballenstedt:

The House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce subcommittee may gain some new leadership in the 111th Congress. The subcommittee's current chairman, Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., is seeking a waiver to remain on the Committee after being assigned to the House Ways and Means Committee in December. "We do not know if Rep. Davis will remain as subcommittee Chair, and the committee has not organized," an aide said on Thursday. "So if we do have a new Chair, we do not know who it will be."

Davis gave more details on the issue in a statement issued last month:

"I am honored and appreciative of the support of my colleagues in the Congress for their nomination to the Committee on Ways and Means. I want to particularly thank Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Members of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, Chairman Charles Rangel and Representatives Jan Schakowsky and Jerry Costello for their support and the confidence and trust they have offered."

"The jurisdiction of the Committee includes a number of issues which have long been at the center of my interests and I look forward to focusing with special attention on the issue of health care from both the community and national perspective. I am hopeful that the next years will see significant advancements in our nation's health care system and in the health and well being of our people."

"I have requested a waiver to remain as Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, Postal Service and District of Columbia of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. I have deeply appreciated the opportunity to serve in that capacity and look forward to the possibility of continuing in that role."

OPM has put the results of the Human Capital Survey into 4 categories: leadership and knowledge management, results-oriented performance culture, talent management, and job satisfaction. Here (sorry for the acronyms and capital letters) are the top ten agencies in each categories, and the ten most improved agencies in each category, in order:

Top 10 Leadership and Knowledge Management
NRC
NSF
FERC
FTC
NASA
OMB
STATE
GSA
CSOSA
SSA

Top 10 Results-Oriented Performance Culture
NSF
NRC
FTC
NASA
FERC
OMB
CSOSA
COMMERCE
PBCG
AID

Top 10 Talent Management
NRC
NSF
NASA
CSOSA
FTC
OMB
NCUA
FERC
GSA
STATE

Top 10 Job Satisfaction
NRC
OMB
NSF
NASA
STATE
AID
SSA
CSOSA
FERC
Justice

Continue reading "Top Ten Agencies, and Top Ten Improved Agencies" »

These are the areas where the Office of Personnel Management saw the most improvement from 2006 to 2008 on the Federal Human Capital Survey. The full department-level results will be up at 2pm at www.fhcs2008.opm.gov. Advance apologies for any typos; I'm taking notes:

Q27: pay raises depend on how well employees perform their job: 22 percent favorable in 2006, 26 percent in 2008

Q50: Employees have electronic access to learning and training programs readily at their desk: 75% 2006, 79%

Q65: How satisfied are you with health insurance benefits: 58% 2006, 62% 2008

Q16: I have sufficient resources to get my job done: 48% 2006, 51% 2008

Q33: I am held accountable for achieving results: 79%2006, 82% 2008

Q34: Supervisors/team-leaders in my work unit are committed to a workforce representative of all segments of society 54% 2006, 57% 2008

Q35: Policies and programs promote diversity in the workplace: 57% 2006, 60% 2008

Q37: I have a high level of respect for my organization’s senior leaders 48% 2006, 52% 2008

Q45: Arbitrary action, personal favoritism, and coercion for partisan political purposes are not tolerated 45% 2006, 48% 2008

Q68: how satisfied are you with the flexible spending account program: 32% 2006, 35% 2008

One thing I didn't mention in yesterday's story about the Federal Career Intern Program lawsuit is that the fight over FCIP isn't done in court. Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, reminded me that NTEU has their own separate suit pending in federal court. They also did a ton of support and prep for Gingery's case, including filing an amicus brief, participating in oral arguments, and holding mock courtroom sessions. In other words, they are very invested in getting rid of FCIP.

I think this could be one of the big fights in the new administration. There's no question that FCIP is convenient, and widely used, but it does raise important issues about the competitive service. Obviously, the Obama administration will pursue other workforce reforms, but I think there is momentum here.

On Monday at 3:00 pm, Federal Emergency Management Agency head David Paulison will host a press conference on the large subject of "Where FEMA Was, Is Now, and Where FEMA Is Going," in a rather small space: the agency's Twitter page. For those of you who don't use Twitter, it allows users to micro-blog. Entries are limited to 140 characters a pop, meaning questions--and responses--have to be short and sweet.

I think this is an interesting concept. I like Twitter as a way to keep an eye on what some friends and colleagues are thinking at any given moment. But as a reporter, I think it would drive me insane to be limited to 140-character answers. Far and away the best interviews are the ones where I get to talk to a source, and we're both interested, and we're both willing to go off on a lot of tangets, and the source is willing to think out loud. Not so much 140 characters. More like 1,400 words. I think Twitter can be a valuable transparency tool, as when the State Department uses it to open up the stops on a public diplomacy mission. But it may not be an ideal tool for good press conferences. We'll have to see.

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Obama's long-time friend and surrogate, Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein, will take over the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget. Sunstein will come into office with at least some past experience in government--he served in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department--a highly developed theory of regulation, and an intimate understanding of his boss.

It was Sunstein who gave the most coherent outline of Obama's theory of reconciliation between competing beliefs in a May 2007 New Yorker profile:

Sometimes, of course, there is no possibility of convergence—a question must be answered yes or no. In such a case, Obama may stand up for what he believes in, or he may not. “If there’s a deep moral conviction that gay marriage is wrong, if a majority of Americans believe on principle that marriage is an institution for men and women, I’m not at all sure he shares that view, but he’s not an in-your-face type,” Cass Sunstein, a colleague of Obama’s at the University of Chicago, says. “To go in the face of people with religious convictions—that’s something he’d be very reluctant to do.” This is not, Sunstein believes, due only to pragmatism; it also stems from a sense that there is something worthy of respect in a strong and widespread moral feeling, even if it’s wrong. “Rawls talks about civic toleration as a modus vivendi, a way that we can live together, and some liberals think that way,” Sunstein says. “But I think with Obama it’s more like Learned Hand when he said, ‘The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.’ Obama takes that really seriously. I think the reason that conservatives are O.K. with him is both that he might agree with them on some issues and that even if he comes down on a different side, he knows he might be wrong. I can’t think of an American politician who has thought in that way, ever.”

More relevant to his new gig, Sunstein has some fairly innovative thoughts about regulatory policy. He's interested in particular in ways you can encourage people to make good decisions without requiring them to do so.

Matt Yglesias writes that the appointment shows Obama's dedication to elevating some rather obscure agencies (though I'd quibble with his contention that no one's ever heard of OIRA before!). I'd add that appointing someone he is personally close to and who is deeply familiar with his theory of governance to the position that oversees e-government initiatives also shows Obama's commitment to using new media in governing. Currently, OIRA's mostly worked on security issues, like the issuing of HSPD-12 credentials, but I'd imagine that Sunstein will work on openness issues as well.

Since we're starting a new year, I was hoping I could ask all of you a couple of questions as I plan how to move FedBlog forward. We'll be running two polls here through the end of January, and I'd really appreciate your responses! The polls appear in this post and the post below:

Thanks for responding!

Ezra Klein is pretty excited about the prospects of CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta as our next Surgeon General. I have no particular quibble with Ezra's theory that Gupta will be an advocate for health care reform, and that his appointment represents a reconceptualization of the position. Both of those things are probably true. But I think it's a mistake to minimize "the guy who writes warnings for cigarette labels" part of the job, or to suggest that the 1964 Surgeon General's report was just one in a line of public health PR initiatives. Rather, tobacco in particular provides an instructive lesson on how the Surgeon General can operate.

Before I explain why, I have to admit to being a bit of a Surgeon General groupie. One of my first real reporting experiences came at a terrific presentation by former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler when I was in high school. Kessler was basically leading a master class on tobacco regulation, assigning various audience members roles to play (your loyal blogger got a minor part as a Philip Morris lobbyist). In attendance was former Surgeon General Julius Richmond, who I buttonholed after the event to ask if I could interview him for my National History Day paper. For a fifteen-year-old high school newspaper editor, it was pretty exciting to come home after school one day, and mid-snack pick up the phone to find a Surgeon General on the other end of the line. But for the project, I also read Richard Kluger's Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris, which along with Kessler's A Question of Intent, provide an important lens into another one of the Surgeon General's roles: building consensus within the medical community.

Continue reading "Dr. Gupta, Surgeon General" »

President-elect Obama's new Chief Performance Officer, Nancy Killefer , has just confirmed to GovExec's Elizabeth Newell that she will also serve as OMB Deputy Director for Management, the role being vacated by Clay Johnson. Story to come.

From President-elect Obama:

Announcement of Nancy Killefer

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Washington, DC

Good morning.

By now, we all know that we are facing a crisis in our economy, one that requires immediate and decisive action to spur the creation of new jobs as we lay the foundation for future growth. And with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that Congress will soon be debating, we intend to deliver that change.

But we committed to more change than that. We committed to change the way our government in Washington does business so that we’re no longer squandering billions of tax dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of a lobbyist or interest group. We can no longer afford to sustain the old ways when we know there are new and more efficient ways of getting the job done.

Even in good times, Washington can’t afford to continue these bad practices. In bad times, it’s absolutely imperative that Washington stop them and restore confidence that our government is on the side of taxpayers and everyday Americans.

Continue reading "The Full Chief Performance Officer Announcement" »

Via Robert Brodsky:

Multiple news organizations are now reporting that Nancy Killefer is set to be named President-elect Obama’s new chief performance officer. Killefer, a senior director for McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm, was formerly an assistant secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration. Sources tell Government Executive that Killefer could actually assume a dual role: both as a CPO and deputy director of management at the Office of Management and Budget, a position held for the past eight years by Clay Johnson. Stay tuned.

Acting, at least. Slipped in at the bottom of a list of last-minute appointments to things like the Holocaust Memorial Council and the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, is the notice that as of January 16, Lynne Osmus, a career FAA employee, will be the agency's Acting Administrator. She was chief of staff to two FAA Administrators appointed by Bill Clinton, David Hinson and Jane Garvey. Her expertise is in security; she took over the Civil Aviation Security Program just before 9/11 and led the agency's post-9/11 response, as well as the transition of airport security functions over to TSA. It's not clear yet where she stands on the hot-button issue of bargaining rights for FAA employees, or the pay and work rules air traffic controllers are working under now. It'll be interesting to find out. More information as I find it.

(H/T: Alexis Simendinger)

As regular readers of Fedblog have no doubt noticed by now, Alyssa Rosenberg has established herself as a presence on the blog in recent weeks. Now she’s going to step out on her own full-time.

Alyssa covers human resources and pay and benefits issues for Government Executive, and will continue to do so. Her blogging efforts will focus on those issues as well, but also will range into other areas of the federal scene, keeping you apprised of breaking news and developments our reporters are following from around the bureaucracy. She's already shown that she is keenly perceptive about goings-on in the federal arena -- and prolific to boot.

I may weigh in from time to time, and you'll continue to hear my voice around GovExec.com, but Fedblog is Alyssa’s from here on out.

"Concerned Retiree" calls me out on Leon Panetta at CIA:

Ms. Rosenberg -- could you perhaps approach this topic -- i.e. Mr. Panetta doesn't appear to have any special substantive experience or knowledge of intelligence gathering, operations or issues - from the OTHER END -- i.e. please speculate and enlighten us on your views on how little substantive experience or knowledge is needed for the CIA Director post.

It's a fair question, and there are a couple of other questions mixed into the longer comment. So I'm going to answer this query by making a couple of numbered points. Bear with me.

1. Experience Matters, But What Kind? "Concerned Retiree" brings up Caroline Kennedy and President-elect Obama as examples of people who are considered good candidates for leadership positions not because of specific work experience, but because of intangible personal qualities.

I don't really think Panetta falls into the same category as Caroline Kennedy. Panetta's served in Congress, as head of an agency, and as White House Chief of Staff. Kennedy has no similar substantive resume. Much has been made of Kennedy's thin answers to written questions to news outlets. Panetta should--and I'm sure he will--face a lot of tough questions about intelligence, his lack of background in it, how his past management experience will apply to the CIA, etc. If he completely flubs his confirmation hearings, that's probably a good indication that he hasn't figured out CIA enough to direct it.

But I think to suggest that Panetta doesn't have relevant experience in any field just because intelligence work is not among the fields where he has a background is misguided. Yes, Panetta has not (that we know of, of course :) ) worked for the CIA. But he has lead an agency staffed mostly by highly specialized and educated experts at a time when that agency had serious morale problems, and a pressing mission (reducing the size of government, and making it more efficient). The CIA is chock-full of highly educated and trained people with specialized skills. Morale in the agency is low for a variety of reasons, a generational transition is under way, and the intelligence community is undergoing community-wide personnel reforms that affect how people are evaluated and what experience they need to get promoted.

In an ideal world, Panetta would be both an intelligence expert, and have had management experience in a situation similar to what he'll need to tackle the challenges at CIA. I think there's not much question that he isn't the former. He does have the latter. Is that enough? I don't really think I'm qualified to make that call.

Continue reading "What Makes Someone Qualified to Serve?" »

Slate absolutely SLAMS ABC's new series, "Homeland Security USA" in a review today, arguing that the show validates the claim that the Department of Homeland Security is more a nanny than an actual watchdog. Your loyal correspondent has a commitment that prevents her from watching the premiere tonight, but I'll report back tomorrow morning.

One thing that I think is important to remember as Slate, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, etc., critique our Homeland Security operations is that while it may be easy to get frustrated with a TSA scanner scrutinizing your bag, a border patrol agent asking for your passport, or whomever, they are not the source of security theater policies. I find it really frustrating when authors and critics slam TSOs, CBP agents, etc., for being sincerely invested in the mission. It's not actually corny to care about airline safety because people you care about fly. It's not irredeemably cheesy to want to protect the United States from attack. Do the policies we have best achieve those goals? Perhaps not. I'm not super-concerned about belly dancers coming to the U.S. without appropriate work visas unless they're being trafficked in. But it's not wrong to be concerned about people being trafficked in.

Just a heads up for any of you with children in or applying to college or graduate school, or anyone whose New Year's Resolution involves continuing education. The Federal Employee Education & Assistance Fund is now accepting applications for its 2009 round of scholarships. Applicants must be the federal employees who have been in government for at least three years, or their dependents. The application is available here, and is due by March 27.

In an interview with former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer, Marc Ambinder gets confirmation of his observation yesterday that dealing with the workforce and morale at CIA will be one of Leon Panetta's biggest challenges as director. Roemer says:

Secondly, one of the key issues is managing the young work force at the CIA, balancing our electronic and satellite capabilities with a human intelligence network that can penetrate some of these groups around the world....The challenge there -- we've got one of the youngest workforces since 9/11 in any of the government agencies... and it's very diversified, and getting more diversified....that's a strength.

Some commentators have noticed that CIA veterans might resent Panetta for overseeing Clinton-era budget cuts at the agency. Others have batted back and forth whether Panetta's lack of intelligence experience matters But if the intelligence workforce is really the most important thing Panetta has to address, it's more important to consider what he's like as a manager, and how he handles major transitions. Because Panetta's taken on a troubled agency with an elite staff before.

This 1994 National Journal profile (If it's under a pay barrier let me know, and I'll try to get it out) of Panetta at the Office of Management and Budget provides an interesting look at how he took on some similar challenges. Obviously, the parallels between OMB and the CIA aren't exact, but the experience does suggest a couple of things about Panetta's management style.

1. He's eager to learn about things he doesn't know very much about. Panetta was a budget expert when he took over at OMB, but he didn't know very much about evaluating performance or about OMB's management division. Nicholas Masters, then a lobbyist who had worked with Panetta on the Budget Committee, is frank in saying Panetta was pretty clueless about management, but that he worked hard to make up for that lack of knowledge.

2. He's willing to shift positions if his first proposal doesn't work. Panetta originally supported separating OMB into two separate offices, one that handled management, and one that handled budget. The budget office was probably overstaffed: of 550 total OMB analysts, 160 at most were working on management. But, as the profile shows, he changed his mind:

Instead of "never the twain shall meet," OMB 2000 fuses management and budget into a single function. As the report, which was signed by Panetta and Rivlin, states, "Having led this institution for over a year ... we are convinced that management is integral to budget and vice versa."

"I thought that you would never be able to integrate the two," Panetta explained. He attributes his change of view in large part to the National Performance Review. "The fact that we were stressing management, and that we were going to cut the equivalent of 272,000 full-time employees (throughout the federal government) gave us the momentum." The issue became one of how to run a smaller and less costly agency. "How do you solve that problem? You scream and bitch a lot, but you have to make it work. That's why we had to bring those two elements into one office."

Obviously, it's been a while since Panetta made the link between budgeting and performance. But unless his beliefs on the matter have changed substantially, understanding that connection means Panetta has already grappled with a challenge that many agencies are only beginning to address. And because he took on performance at OMB, he understands both how that agency's management challenges, and how OMB tries to measure the success or failure of management elsewhere. Does that mean Panetta can fix CIA on day one? Of course not. Does it mean he's a management guru? Probably not either. (No matter what anthems to great managers 30 Rock delivers, no one is a perfect visionary.) But it does mean Panetta's got a sense of what it's like to work in a troubled, unbalanced agency that is trying to realign itself.

Someone who is not a human capital journalist (in this case, Marc Ambinder) says the most important challenge a new agency head (in this case, Leon Panetta at the CIA) will face is human capital. This is true. It's also really important that more people write and talk about human capital. It is a really easy issue to allow to sink under the waves (or to leave out of your legacy briefing book), but if you don't have the people, you don't have your shiny new policy. It's just true.

The Bush administration's just released a new booklet, "Highlights of Accomplishments and Results," as a legacy-shaping device. I expected, as I flipped through it, to find some mention of performance management, or the workforce. But this is as close as it got:

Increased the accountability, transparency, and effectiveness of the Federal • Government, which improved the Government’s performance and helped save billions of dollars.

To be fair, I can understand why the administration wouldn't include a number of contested personnel efforts, like NSPS. But the creation of the Chief Human Capital Officer position doesn't rank as significant? Not a single line about human capital. I guess that is not the stuff of which presidential legacies are made, but it is important on a practical level.

Over at his ABC News' "Political Punch" blog, Jake Tapper does some interesting math on Barack Obama's Saturday radio address. The president-elect, he notes, said in the address that the "No. 1 goal" of his economic stimulus plan "is to create 3 million new jobs, more than 80 percent of them in the private sector.”

If you assume the other 20 percent are in government, that works out to 600,000 new government jobs. Presumably, the great majority of those would be at the state and local levels, where the bulk of Obama's plan to beef up infrastructure would be implemented. Still, even if a relatively small percentage were federal jobs, it would amount to a pretty substantial boost in the size of the federal workforce.

And I mean SERIOUS hiring. They're looking for 2,100 professional staffers and 850 special agents. Details are here, so if you've ever wanted to emulate Seeley Booth, you're all set!

Jeffrey Toobin has a very good profile of Barney Frank in this week's New Yorker. One anecdote that stuck out to me was the following:

“My father ran a truck stop,” Frank told me. “He sort of lived on the fringes. We’re talking about Hudson County—Frank Hague was the boss—a totally corrupt place. In 1946, my father’s brother Harry got the contract to sell cars to the city, and of course he had to give a kickback to the guys who ran the city. My father was a middleman or something.” Sam was subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury about the matter. He refused and was found in criminal contempt. “For a while, he was hiding out from the cops in New York,” Frank recalled. “I was six years old, and once I went to see him in the city, and we saw ‘Robin Hood,’ with Errol Flynn. The next day, the cops came to my first-grade class to interview me, to see if I had been with my dad. My father’s sister, Aunt Minnie, taught at the school. She heard about the cops coming and went straight to my classroom to break it up, so I didn’t have to talk.”

Eventually, Sam returned to New Jersey, and was jailed for refusing to testify. “They treated him nice,” Frank said. “They let my mother bring him food. He served for about a year.” The incident notwithstanding, Frank’s parents instilled in their children a belief in the power of the government to do good.

I have to say, if a kid whose father goes on the lam and gets him questioned by the police as a kid can retain a fondness for government, it shouldn't be THAT hard for President-elect Obama to rebrand government as cool, should it?

President-elect Obama added to his Justice Department today, tapping David Ogden as Deputy Attorney General, Elena Kagan as Solicitor General, Tom Perrelli as Associate Attorney General, and Dawn Johnsen as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. I know many bloggers are very interested in these high-level positions, but to my mind, and this is not just because I'm a government operations nerd, one of the most important Justice Department appointees will be the Chief Human Capital Officer.

Obviously it's unlikely that Justice is going to start using the same political litmus tests for appointees that got Monica Goodling, et. al., in trouble during the Bush administration. But in addition to politicizing appointments, those tests have the fallout effect of raising questions about the integrity of the Justice Department's hiring and personnel practices period. Establishing simply that the Justice Department will reward merit, and that its hiring and promotion practices will be fair should be high on Eric Holder's to-do list when he takes over as Attorney General. And to that end, he and Obama should be looking hard for a smart, qualified Chief Human Capital Officer.

It would be good practice for other agencies. We've written here repeatedly that human capital issues are going to be a major challenge for Obama's administration, and as such, deserve better attention. The Office of Personnel Management shouldn't be treated as a backwater. And CHCO positions shouldn't be doled out like candy to supporters for whom any administration job is an enticement, or left to gather dust.

Welcome back and happy New Year! I hope all of you managed to get a breather sometime in the past couple of weeks. It's going to be a quick start back, I think.

Obviously the biggest news as this week begins is New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's decision to withdraw from consideration to be Commerce Secretary. I think there is one lesson here that's applicable to all potential appointees, no matter the level of the appointment, and another point about management in general.

First, did Richardson not see this investigation coming? I find that kind of hard to believe. In this day and age, everyone knows what a tough confirmation process looks like, and it seems unwise to accept an appointment, no matter how flattering such appointment may be, no matter how star-struck you may be in the moment, if you're not absolutely sure you can handle the process. Hillary Clinton seems to be a counter-example of this. She knew her nomination to be Secretary of State would bring increased scrutiny to her husband's fundraising, and they dealt with it. It's basically been a non-story ever since. Similarly, it hasn't been that long since Richardson was tapped. I find it hard to believe that this investigation comes as a total shock to him. So why did he accept in the first place.

But on another note, other than the fact that this is not great for Obama, I'm not sure it's a huge loss. Righting problems with the Census Bureau and revising unpopular scientific review processes is going to take a very smart manager. I'm not sure there was any particular evidence that Richardson was that guy. Sure, he's run a state, but there are a lot of other competent folks with high-level executive experience who could do just as well, and might, with some specific experience, do better. It was never clear why Richardson wanted Commerce, and it was never particularly clear that Commerce needed him, specifically.