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I missed this among an extremely busy day yesterday, but yesterday was the seventh anniversary of the roll-out of the first federal airport screening checkpoint!

We've been getting a lot of duplicate comments submitted; you only need to press the submit button once! They don't appear instantly because I need to approve them to make sure they're in conformity with our policy.

Eliot Spitzer and New York City lawyer Peter Pope have a provocative piece in yesterday's Slate arguing that the federal government should use its clout as a gun buyer to encourage good behavior, including product controls, by gun dealers and manufacturers. It's an interesting position, that seems to run into two challenges. First, I don't know how it's even possible to enforce every place guns are sold and resold: Spitzer and Pope's standard might not be meetable, and would impose a significant burden on procurement officials. Second, there are important questions that should be asked about using federal purchasing power for political ends. One reason the Thrift Savings Plan is comparatively strong is because the fiduciaries have avoided politically entangled funds like Real Estate Investment Trusts. Procurement officials should be thinking, first and foremost, about quality and price. Some political considerations, like whether women or minorities own the businesses that get contracts, may make sense. But using contracts to achieve larger social goals may not.

The budget that passed yesterday included pay parity language but not a reporting requirement written by Sen. Tom Coburn. It also includes language written by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, to fund health care provided by the Veterans Affairs Department on a two-year cycle rather than on a one-year basis. Akaka has argued that year-by-year funding has often arrived late, and made it harder to do long-term workforce planning at VA.

By Katherine Peters

I happen to be reading Andrew Krepinevich's thought-provoking new book, 7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores War in the 21st Century, where he examines potential threats to U.S. security ranging from the collapse of Pakistan to global cyber attacks. By conjuring plausible future horrors, Krepinevich hopes to jolt policy-makers and military planners into creating realistic plans for coping with catastrophe. Scenario No. 3 should be required reading for anyone dealing with pandemic preparedness right now (which is to say most senior federal officials), given the legal, health, security and economic implications for the nation. The scenario takes place in 2010, when a global outbreak of avian influenza leads to the collapse of a weakened Mexican government leading millions of Mexicans to flee north across the border in search of security and health care.

Needless to say, this doesn't work out so well for Mexicans or Americans. The real trouble begins when the fictitious U.S. "President Dickson" nationalizes the country's insufficient vaccine and antiviral drug stocks, sparking riots across the country (earlier government attempts to take strong measures against the spread of the virus were vigorously opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union and various survivalist groups, albeit for different reasons). Things go downhill from there. Rumors that the wealthy and well-connected are getting access to antiviral drugs fuel public anger. To deal with the exodus from Mexico, the military is called upon to execute what would surely be an unworkable security plan. What's more, the Defense Department doesn't have enough non-lethal weapons for the mission, essentially guaranteeing that deadly force will be used. If that sounds implausible, check out the GAO report issued last week on that very topic.

Of course swine flu (or H1N1 flu virus, as we're supposed to be calling it now) may turn out to be another blip on the screen of over-hyped threats. But it's not hard to imagine that a devastating pandemic may soon be on the horizon.

Story is here. Sorry for the delay. It's worth noting that in our suggestion box, doing something about telework is one of the most popular recommendations to President Obama.

A couple of months ago, I was carrying on a blog-based conversation with Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein about the need to reduce the number of political appointees and increase the number of civil servants doing those jobs. And today, Matt has a great column in the Daily Beast, in part making the case for exactly that. Matt writes:

The fact that it's the national-security branches of the government that are run this way should be suggestive, as this is the portion of the government where there's traditionally the greatest commitment to efficacy. And, indeed, research by David E. Lewis, of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, has found that on the civilian side the minority of federal programs that are administered by career civil servants are better managed than the majority of programs that are run by political appointees. Follow-up work by Lewis and University of Wisconsin political scientist Donald Moynihan confirmed this in a telling way. Using the Bush administration's Program Assessment Rating Tool administered by the Office of Management and Budget, they compared the PART ratings of over 600 government programs with the backgrounds of the program's 242 managers. The political appointees turned out to have more educational credentials than the career people, but the civil servant-managed programs scored better in terms of strategic planning, program design, financial oversight, and results.

Is it possible that the push to rename "swine flu" the "2009 H1N1 flu virus" hasn't penetrated the federal bureaucracy not because said bureaucracy is poky, but because the latter name is stupid and jargony?

The end of President Obama's first 100 days in office has been getting a vast (dare I say suffocating?) amount of mainstream media attention, but I've been thinking a great deal about John Berry's first two weeks in office, especially given his press conference on Capitol Hill today.

The press conference struck me for a couple of reasons. First, Berry seemed determine to make a splash, and to be defining a role for himself in the political process. I can't remember ever seeing Linda Springer or Michael Hager, the two OPM directors I've covered, on the Hill unless they were behind a witness table answering questions from Congressmen. Today, Berry was master of ceremonies, and he effectively increased the press draw by getting three Congressmen to stand with him. He did that even though he was essentially coopting their bill by implementing its provisions himself--they'll continue to push for its passage, but they'll be codifying what Berry has already done. And all three lawmakers praised him effusively. It was a very canny piece of politics.

Continue reading "John Berry's Political Capital" »

More on this later in a full story, but I'm just back from OPM Director John Berry's press conference on Capitol Hill, at which he announced that he's essentially going to implement the provisions of the two main telework bills that have been introduced in Congress. John Sarbanes, Gerry Connolly, and Jim Moran said they still intend to pursue legislation, just to codify the changes, but this is big. Berry said guidance on the new policies should be out by the end of the week, meaning they're moving very, very fast.

International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers president Gregory Junemann provides the first federal union feedback. Junemann represents private-sector workers as well, which probably explains the emphasis on the Employee Free Choice Act, which Specter continues to say he won't vote for:

"IFPTE has been a consistent and proud supporter of Senator Specter for many years, which is exactly why we were so disappointed by his March 24th announcement about the Employee Free Choice Act. However, today's news is positive and we at IFPTE fully support Senator Specter as he makes this transition. It certainly is clear to those of us in the labor community that Senator Specter's positions on many of the concerns facing working people have not exactly been consistent with those of his party. While IFPTE takes great strides to work with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, it is unfortunate, but accurate that the issues of importance to working people are at odds with the broader agenda of the national Republican leadership. While there still remain a handful of good, labor friendly Republican lawmakers in the Congress that IFPTE is proud to support and looks forward to working with, I believe that today's announcement by Senator Specter is reflective of this regrettable conflict. I understand that Senator Specter's March 24th decision on the Employee Free Choice Act has not changed yet. However, he was a supporter of the bill as far back as the 109th Congress, so we remain hopeful that with this change in parties there will also be a change of heart by the Senator with respect to that legislation. The Employee Free Choice Act is the most important bill before Congress in rebuilding America's middle-class and it is critical to working people that it become the law of land."

And Sen. Daniel Akaka, one of the Senators who focuses most on federal management issues, and who has worked productively with the ranking member on his subcommittee, Sen. George Voinovich, welcomes Specter to the party:

"Senator Specter has always been an independent thinker who puts issues ahead of party affiliation. He is a good man who cares for our country deeply. I have appreciated working with him over the last two decades and I look forward to this new chapter. Regardless of today's events, we must continue our efforts to develop bipartisan solutions to our nation's problems."

Atlantic blogger Megan McArdle passes along this entertaining and informative video illustrating the impact of President Obama's pledge to cut $100 million from the budget:

This is just some random mid-day entertainment, but apparently, someone fainted at President Obama's appearance at the Federal Bureau of Investigation today. Gawker has video in which Obama appears almost preternaturally calm in responding, and additional video explaining why: he had to deal with a lot of fainting people on the campaign trail. I have a hard time imagining fainting over a political candidate (unless it was REALLY hot out, or something), but I suppose calmness and decisiveness are useful skills in a wide range of situations.

I realize this isn't quite management-related, but Sen. Specter's switch will give Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, making it much more likely that Democratic priorities will advance. And, on a personal note, I saw Specter do stand-up comedy once. He tells a quality dirty joke, and drinks martinis while he does it. Dude even dresses the part of a comedy lounge lizard.

I just wanted to call everyone's attention to the discussion underway at Government Executive's terrific message board, which we set up in response to President Obama's call for ideas from federal employees about how to make government more efficient. Please participate; I've been reading all the suggestions, and will try to blog about some of them.

Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor of the Washington Post, has a column out today on the need for federal workforce reforms. Normally, I'd welcome this with open arms. Hiatt has a big platform, and I think it's great that he's using it to call attention to the good work done by civil servants and the need to reform federal workforce processes.

But the piece itself has some serious problems, among them, skipping over the fact that the Obama administration has begun to shape its response to the federal workforce crisis. Hiatt only quotes Max Stier (a frequent source of mine), who condemns the administration's actions to this point. Hiatt doesn't appear to have spoken to anyone in the Obama administration, and he does not mention Michelle Obama's visit to the Office of Personnel Management, the president's challenge to federal employees to come up with ways to improve government, or the fact that Obama's OPM Director John Berry, is in place, along with almost his entire leadership team, much earlier than his predecessors. Not to mention the fact that the Obama administration is conducting a serious review of the largest Bush administration pay-for-performance system, or is working to stop the outsourcing of federal jobs and insource some others that were already contracted out (something Hiatt identifies as a major problem).

There's no question that the problems the federal government faces are serious. The hiring process is undeniably broken. Pay systems have to be reconciled. This is a key moment when government must fix those problems or risk losing out on a wave of enthusiasm for federal employment. But Hiatt says that "on the civilian side, no one feels responsible for making things work better." That does not reflect the reality of the Obama administration's actions. More reporting would have made that clear.

Last week was an interesting jaunt through the Obama administration for me. I saw the President speak on Tuesday, and the First Lady and the Commerce Secretary on Thursday. It was a great opportunity to get at least a partial look at how the administration is choosing what it says about federal employees and personnel policy.

While I remain concerned about the fact that President Obama isn't talking about federal employment and its importance (although I have to say, his pledge to meet with civil servants with the best ideas for improving government is an encouraging nod to front-line employees is promising), I was struck by the content of both Michelle Obama and Gary Locke's addresses.

Having a first lady who can discuss the merit system principles and sound like she understands them, and who draws a direct connection between the work that federal employees are doing and her own focus on working families is a very good thing. Having a Commerce Secretary who has worked with civil servants, even at a lower level of government, and knows both what they can do and what it takes to manage them is good for Commerce employees, and good for the Cabinet at large. That isn't to say that the Obama administration is going to make perfect, or even good, personnel policy. That remains to be seen. But listening to a First Lady and a Cabinet Secretary talk about workforce issues knowledgeably, to identify the issues and challenges in workforce policy accurately and forcefully, and to talk to federal employees about those challenges directly, is encouraging.

Our sister magazine National Journal has completed a poll on how tech experts see President Obama's online efforts, and so far the results aren't good. WhiteHouse.gov earned an average grade of C+ in the poll, while Recovery.gov earned a C. One of the key roadblocks to developing new features and upgrading the presidency's web presence? Staffing:

So what's been lost in the transition from the campaign trail to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Lots of staff, for starters. The administration has fewer than 10 full-time new media employees, Macon Phillips, director of new media for the White House, told NationalJournal.com earlier this month. That's down from the roughly 170 techies the Obama campaign's Web team accumulated by Election Day.

"It's a challenge because the team's small, a lot smaller than ours was on the campaign, and there's even a lot more to do," Joe Rospars, the campaign's new media director, said recently.

It also might be a little bit premature to grade Recovery.gov. The National Academy of Public Administration-run dialogue on how to improve the site is ongoing this week.

It's good to know that if swine flu strikes federal agencies, everyone will know to stand at least six feet away from anyone who appears infected.

Starting on Monday, if you head on over to Recovery.gov, you'll be able to find an online dialogue on how the government can improve the website. The dialogue strikes me as a good project for a couple of reasons. First, it suggests that the Obama administration is serious about soliciting a range of opinions on how to speed the recovery, and wants to know what the best, easiest, most intuitive ways are for people to share those ideas using technology they're most comfortable with.

Second, and far more important, is the fact that the Obama team is acknowledging that they don't have all the resources to improve their online presence themselves, and they're choosing strong partners to fill the gaps. Specifically, they've tapped the National Academy of Public Administration to host and manage the dialogue. NAPA's been working hard to improve their own use of technology as they seek to help government agencies do the same. The Obama administration's picked a partner organization that's in touch with what government can and can't do, and is self-critical. It seems like a wise decision.

I blogged earlier in the week about Rep. Gerry Connolly's efforts to build an identity for himself by tackling federal employee and federal management issues. My new NextGov colleague Aliya Sternstein continues the Connolly-fest with a look at one of the Congressman's top priorities, a bill to clarify and codify the role of the new Chief Technology Officer. Connolly says the bill needs to be passed because CTO Aneesh Chopra's been handed a much broader brief than Obama outlined for the position during the transition, but critics say it'd be better to wait and see how Chopra's experience shapes the job. Either way, it's a good, important piece of reporting.

And I'll be interviewing Connolly next Thursday. If you want to submit questions, send 'em my way, and I'll let you know if I use any of them.

Earlier in the week when I wrote about David Kellerman's suicide, I think some commenters thought I was implying that human resources folks don't do their job at preserving a proper work-life balance. No such slight was intended; it's clear that y'all work very hard to keep federal employees happy, healthy, and sane, something Michelle Obama focused on yesterday. And from this Wall Street Journal article, it's clear that Freddie Mac's human resources folks were trying to do the right thing and get Kellerman to take time off and rest up.

My college buddy Phil Rucker, now a reporter at the Washington Post, has a good story up that includes reporting that crystallizes the way I feel about the $100 million President Obama is cutting in spending:

"You're cherry-picking the base of the tree on stuff that is not innovative," said Paul C. Light, a scholar of federal bureaucracy at New York University. "Purchasing in bulk? Wow, that's a bold idea! Teleconferencing? Holy moly! None of this stuff is the kind of bold sweep you're hoping Obama will bring to the management of government."

Isabel V. Sawhill, a Clinton administration budget official who directs the Budgeting for National Priorities project at the Brookings Institution, said she feared the cuts would be "lampooned" on late-night talk shows.

"I'm not sure I thought it was a good step towards convincing people that he cares about fiscal responsibility," she said.

The things that are being cut are things that, well, it boggles the mind that they haven't been eliminated already. The Education Department has an education attache in Paris? Created by the Bush administration? The Department of Homeland Security hasn't found time SINCE ITS CREATION to institute a system for buying in bulk and isn't using department-wide purchase orders for 94 PERCENT OF ORDERS? Really?

Michelle Obama got a huge reception here at OPM, and no wonder. She delivered a pean to federal employees and the civil service:

From John Berry at his swearing in as OPM Director:

"The sweep of history is a little bit on display this afternoon as well. I would like to recognize a civil rights pioneer who is here with us today, Dr. Frank Kameny. Dr. Kameny was a military veteran and a life-long activist. For those of you who do not know, Dr. Kameny was fired from his federal job in 1957 solely because of his sexual orientation. In 1975, largely due to Frank's efforts, this injustice was corrected...it is the president's and my opinion that employees should only be judged by their ability to do the job and their performance on the job, and not by any other irrelevant practice. In no small part, Dr. Kameny's work and others like him made it possible for me to stand here today. For that, Frank, I personally thank you for your leadership, your passion, and your persistence."

Her nomination as chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management was just announced yesterday, and she's already MCing Berry's ceremonial swearing in. Quick star.

It's quieter than it was out at the SEED School on Tuesday when Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America (having a bunch of civil servants with between 39 and 47 years of service bracketing the podium instead of a group of extremely excited teenagers in the audience will keep things at a lower volume), but the auditorium was completely full at least 40 minutes before our scheduled start time, and folks are taking a lot of pictures of the stage, even though neither Michelle Obama nor John Berry has arrived yet.

(Pictures today will be slightly better than on Tuesday, I promise. I'm working with an actual camera, but worse lighting.)

I'm waiting for Michelle Obama to arrive and for John Berry's public swearing in to begin, and I noticed, as the hall fills with Office of Personnel Management employees, that the agency is playing Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" as background music. That seems like a step up from the standard filler music, doesn't it?

Further proof of the difficulties in staffing at the State Department. President Obama wants to send more civilians overseas as part of reconstruction teams. The problem? There aren't enough people available to go:

The shortfall offers more evidence that the government's civilian departments have not received enough money to hire and train people ready to take up assignments in combat zones. Unlike the armed services, nonmilitary agencies do not have clear rules to compel rank-and-file employees to accept hardship posts.

Senior officials said Wednesday that the president's national security team had not determined exactly how many people would be required to carry out the reconstruction portion of the strategy, nor which departments and agencies would be required to supply the people.

But not enough of those civilians are readily available inside the government, officials said, forcing the administration to turn to the military, Pentagon civilians and private contractors, at least for the initial deployments.

The folks who work at State are great. But there aren't enough of them to staff missions, much less rotate some of them out for training courses. President Obama has pledged funding to increase the size of the foreign service, but it's going to get them on board and up to speed. The State Department needs internal reconstruction before it's going to be ready to expand its reconstruction role overseas.

But, they did it at San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit authority meetings. I've argued before, and I'll argue again, that openness always is a positive thing. Sure, you may get caught saying that an Adam Sandler movie proves gay people will commit fraud to get insurance, or asking whether participants in a performance management system go through a ratings process. But if you're not able to accept the risk that you'll make a fool of yourself in public, you probably aren't cut out to be an elected official or an appointee anyway. Trying to cut down on what people communicate from public meetings is always going to produce more outcry than it prevents. Meetings should stay open. Folks shouldn't be afraid of coverage.

Of all the things I posted yesterday, I never would have guessed that my complaint about President Obama's use of the story about the little boy and the starfish on the beach would have attracted so many comments! But given that it has, I want to explain in more detail why it annoyed me so much.

In his speech kicking off a major call to public service by Americans, President Obama, who has something of a reputation as an orator, turned to an absurdly hackneyed story that everyone in America must have heard at some point. Instead of making the case for public service in a new and creative way, he and his speechwriters got lazy, and chose language that everyone's heard before. The starfish story doesn't articulate how public service benefits communities. It doesn't explain how volunteerism can help people figure out what they want to do. It doesn't address the specific needs of Americans today. Instead, it's a recycled, unattributed version of a 1969 essay by the American educator and writer Loren Eiseley that's been worn into pablum by motivational speakers for forty years. It's lazy, and that's why President Obama's use of the story annoyed me so much.

It also really annoys me that President Obama can't find it in himself to promote federal employment as a way to do good, either. I recognize that speaking to the limits of government has appeal to conservatives, and that to some extent, it's true. It doesn't make sense to have government programs to assign reading buddies to every kindergartner, or to take oral histories from every American over 60, or whatever. But this is a time when the federal government does need smart, talented employees to perform very specific tasks where they can do a great deal of good. A worker with financial oversight skills who decides to take a job at a securities firm and read to first-graders one day a week might be able to do a lot more good for the public taking a job in bailout oversight. Government isn't the answer to everything, but neither is volunteerism. Obama's done an okay job articulating the first half of the equation. He needs to do a vastly better job at the second.

The Chief Financial Officer of Freddie Mac has committed suicide. David Kellermann had a wife and daughter, and volunteered for the D.C. Coalition for the Homeless. He was 41. His death is a sad reminder of why work-life balance programs are necessary, and why employers should be concerned with the mental, as well as physical, well-being of their employees.

The new Office of Personnel Management chief of staff, Elizabeth Montoya, has a long record of public service. Among other things, she's been, according to OPM's announcement: "Deputy Chief of Staff at the U.S. Department of Energy, as Associate Deputy Administrator for the Small Business Administration, and Associate Director of Presidential Personnel and Special Assistant to the President. Most recently, Montoya served on the President's transition team for the U.S. Department of Energy as a member of the Natural Resources and Energy work group." It's interesting to see her move from reviewing energy policy to reviewing personnel policy, but she's done personnel work before.

One interesting note, though. Montoya comes to OPM from an Alaska Native Corporation, whose fate Rob Brodsky has chronicled in a series of articles. Sounds like it might have been a good time for her to get out.

Obama is telling the story about the kid throwing starfish back into the sea as proof that small actions can make a difference. It needs to be banned as the worst kind of saccharine cliche.

Looks frail, but delivered his remarks with conviction. Former President Bill Clinton helped him onto the stage. Kennedy said:

I will never forget the fifth anniversary of the peace corps, where I sat with the very first group of volunteers. I asked each one of them why they decided to become involved. They said it was the first time that anyone asked them to do anything for their country. Today, another young president has challenged another generation to give back to this nation.

Apologies in advance for the mediocre quality of the images. I'm shooting from my cell phone and it is bright here. It's always interesting to see who turns out for public service events. The biggest flashbulbs went off for R&B singer Usher Raymond, who's only one of a number of celebrities who seems to be doing some work on behalf of Obama lately:

Sen. Richard Durbin is one of the many senators from both parties in attendance; he's spent most of the warmup chatting up this group of kids:

Valerie Jarrett, Rosa DeLauro, and Colin Powell are just some of the other folks who have turned out as well.

The real action doesn't start for almost an hour, but observations so far include that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is REALLY short, and the Secret Service hasn't yet been trained to recognize the Amazon Kindle.

Rob Brodsky and Elizabeth Newell noted yesterday that the new chief performance officer, Jeffrey Zients, comes to government by way of Corporate Executive Board and the Advisory Board, the companies founded by Atlantic Media (and by extension, Government Executive)) owner David Bradley. Rob and Elizabeth reported in their story that some outside observers are concerned about how Zients will manage the political challenges of negotiating federal management:

"To get high level focus on management at OMB, let along the White House, you need to be pretty skilled at the game of politics," Robert Shea said. "[Former OMB Deputy Director for Management] Clay [Johnson] was able to do it by virtue of his relationship with the president. And even then, he didn't always have his way."

Zients would lead the president's efforts on contracting reform, eliminating waste in the budget, building a performance agenda and enhancing the transparency of federal finances, OMB Director Peter R. Orszag said on his blog Saturday.

That's a huge brief, and one that takes on substantial culture change issues. Zients will need good briefings, but he'll also need to be willing to spend substantial amounts of time with federal employees so he understands the culture he's dealing with. Management consulting isn't the public sector. And neither is necessarily the ideal model of a workplace. But they're pretty different, and going from one to another can't be the easiest transition.

Bit by bit, some jobs that were contracted out are coming back into government. The latest in? The Defense Finance and Accounting Service is bringing retirement and annuity payments processing back under the control of federal employees by next year. It'll be interesting to see what comes next.

President Obama said today after his first full Cabinet meeting that 100 federal programs are going to be cut in the next several weeks, and he's asked his Cabinet Secretaries to identify $100 million in savings. He pointed to a couple of examples of what he considers good moves to save money:

Veterans Affairs has cancelled or delayed 26 conferences, saving nearly $17.8 million, and they're using less expensive alternatives like videoconferencing. The USDA, under Secretary Vilsack, is working to combine 1,500 employees from seven office locations into a single facility in 2011, which we estimate will save $62 million over a 15-year lease term. Janet Napolitano at the Department of Homeland Security estimates that they can save up to $52 million over five years just by purchasing office supplies in bulk.

All of these things sound like reasonable moves to make. But amortizing the savings over multiple years overstates their value. And cutting $100 million isn't remotely a meaningful reduction in the budget. Obama said:

None of these savings by themselves are going to solve our long-term fiscal problems, but taken together they can make a difference, and they send a signal that we are serious about changing how government operates.

That first statement is correct. The second one--well, that's a lot more questionable.

The Government Accountability Office and its union have settled on a basis for the pay raise in the agency's pay for performance system. 2.65 percent will be the basis for raises; employees who are rated highly will get bigger raises, and under-performing employees will get smaller ones. Both GAO and the the GAO Employees Organization praised the agreement, which is retroactive to January 4. President Obama has proposed a 2 percent pay raise for civil service employees under the General Schedule system.

Sorry for the light blogging this morning; I'm at Government Executive's Excellence in Government conference, moderating a panel and attending some others. But I wanted to say how struck I was by the energy and urgency that the audience at my panel brought to their questions. We were discussing the new administration's evolving human capital policy, and people wanted to know how their lives would be affected. Is the Office of Personnel Management going to make it easier to review the steps in my hiring process? Does the Obama administration care about human capital? Will things get better? There's clearly an intense hunger to move forward quickly with a wide range of human capital reforms. This is not a theoretical moment when change is possible--folks are starving for it. I don't know how best to harness or channel that energy, but it's a powerful force. Folks have a lot of ideas. They need places to send them and the resources implement them.

When President Obama announced this weekend that he was appointing Aneesh Chopra to be his Chief Technology Officer, George Burke, Rep. Gerry Connolly's communications director, sent out an email reminder that Connolly and Jim Moran had pushed for Chopra's appointment. Connolly's worked very hard to position himself as a champion of federal employees, a stance that makes sense for him given the makeup of his district, but also given the balance of political power in the House. Federal employee advocacy isn't necessarily the most popular brief in Congress, and some powerful federal employee advocates, including Steny Hoyer in the House and Barbara Mikulski in the Senate, have moved on to more prominent positions. So taking up the cause of federal employees can be a route to a subcommittee chairmanship, and score political points along the way.

Let me be clear: the Department of Homeland Security's report on the risks of rightwing extremism seems, at minimum, to have been clumsily worded. Statements like "Rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat," are speculative, and don't necessarily address documented risks, like the presence of gang members in military units in Iraq. Veterans groups and others should feel free to criticize the report, and have. But it's not a good argument to say that the report is wrong because the people who contributed to writing it must be gay, as Pat Robertson said on the 700 Club. I've heard the "civil servants are lazy," and "bureacrats are inefficient," lines before. But this one's new and different.

If any of y'all are looking for fun things to do this weekend, my review of State of Play is up at The Atlantic. I recommend it, with some qualifications, and I'd be curious to see what you guys think of the movie if you go.

President Obama plans to nominate the current acting vice chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Christine Griffin, to be the deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management. This should be an interesting move both in terms of disability policy and the culture at OPM. Griffin is an outspoken advocate of getting more disabled workers into the federal government, and extremely impatient with any hedging on that goal. I actually started writing about the issue when Griffin emailed me directly after I wrote a story about a hearing on diversity and asked me why I wasn't looking into disability. She's also a labor law expert, which could come in handy if President Obama reinstates the labor-management partnership councils or revitalizes efforts to increase labor law training. I'm still waiting on more official reactions on Griffin's coming appointment, but my personal sense of her is that she's aggressive, though never unpleasant, committed, and deeply knowledgeable. Plus, no complaints from this blogger about having a deputy director who helped with the upgrades to Fenway Park to make it more friendly for disabled Red Sox fans.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has ruled that the Transportation Security Administration illegally discriminated against a disabled Transportation Security Officer, and awarded him back pay, attorney fees, and $150,000 in damages. It's always unfortunate, I think, when a turning point for an employer comes in the form of a lawsuit or a ruling. Disabled folks have as much to offer as the rest of us, and their skills are dramatically underutilized, especially in the federal workforce. I never really understand where the impulse to behave in a discriminatory fashion comes from. But I REALLY don't understand it when such discrimination runs counter to your own interests of finding the best folks and finding good ways to use their talent.

We have a new blog, Scott Eblin's Executive Coach! Scott will be giving y'all advice on how to advance your careers (and I'll be reading along with you), but his first post is also a useful piece of news analysis, looking at how Bob Gates has been able to work with so many presidents. In particular, I like this anecdote, although I don't think many of us are likely to have to avoid television appearances! Scott writes:

Compared to others in the administration, Gates is not someone you see on the news or in social Washington a lot. As the Times article points out, he spends most evenings at home eating carry out food for dinner. His clarity on the results he's trying to achieve and his emphasis on the relationships he's trying to build override any personal impulses to come across like a big shot. Clearly, he is a big shot. It's just that he doesn't feel compelled to remind himself and others of that all the time.

Lots of comments on my original post on the torture memos. I want to clarify something. I think cutting someone's head off is insane and barbaric. The thought that there are people in the world capable of executing each other with power drills fills me with revulsion. But the thought that our government spent a bunch of time considering the ramifications of putting someone in a box with something that terrifies him and trapped him there, that we considered how much you could push, or slap a person and have it remain civilized and legal, well, that makes me ill, too. All of those things constitute a range of behavior to me that is illegal and inhumane. The reason it repulses me that the United States has done these things is because I hold us to the highest standards. Cutting people's heads off and publicizing it is the refuge of terrorists and cowards. I think America is neither.

That's my reaction as a person. As a reporter, and specifically as a reporter on the workforce beat, this is the question I find interesting. In the Intelligence Community, you have a group of highly specialized workers who, in any given situation, are often under a great deal of pressure and experiencing a great deal of stress. Some members of that community are given orders to do very serious things. Other people in that community have to deal with the ramifications of those actions. Invariably, there will be debate, feelings of ambivalence, revulsion, pride, patriotism, etc. If you are the person tasked with maintaining the general happiness of that workforce, and with overseeing recruiting and retention, how do you cope with the introduction of something like torture to the mix of tasks your agency performs? The intelligence community is a large, increasingly diverse group of individuals, and the reaction to torture as part of interrogation procedures must have been mixed. The media attention must have taken its toll, as must the fear of eventual prosecution. It's a fascinating and important leadership question.

Have at it. And thanks for your patience.

Today, President Obama released the Bush administration Justice Department memos that condoned the use of torture. The memos make for horrifying reading. Among the things the Justice Department permitted were putting a man in a box and releasing insects into it to exploit his fears, shoving him against a wall repeatedly, slapping him in the face--only meant, by the way, as a violation of his personal space, not to hurt him, or anything like that. But, President Obama says:

In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution. The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world. Their accomplishments are unsung and their names unknown, but because of their sacrifices, every single American is safer. We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs.

His rationale makes sense to me, but I'm glad it's not a call I have to make. In my time covering personnel policy in the intelligence community, I haven't dealt with folks who were doing interrogations, since they're not usually simultaneously running personnel policy. But my reporting has given me a sense of some of the stresses the IC faces--I actually wrote my column this week on how work-life balance programs have been extended across ODNI to help employees cope with stress. I can't imagine what it's like getting orders to beat someone to get information out of them, or how you run programs to help people cope with that part of their job. I don't know if at some point we'll hear stories about intelligence officers who refused to torture prisoners, and how that response was dealt with in the chain of command. It seems an important part of the story how orders were issued, and how people responded to them.

Thanks to our awesome IT team, FedBlog is obviously up and running today. But something appears to be happening to our comments functionality. It'll be fixed as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience, and sorry for the delay!

My friend and colleague at National Journal, Bara Vaida, has the details of how agencies are starting to detail their contacts with lobbyists, and the Sunlight Foundation evaluates the quality of the agencies' disclosure. The agencies that have reported in include the Army Corps of Engineers, Corporation for National and Community Service, Department of Energy, Department of Transportation, Federal Communication Commission, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Small Business Administration.

Gail Collins has a good column in the New York Times today on the Tea Party phenomenon, and makes two important points. First, folks who want to dramatically reduce taxation and "Starve the Beast" are misunderstanding the way most Americans see the federal government, beyond Congress. Collins writes:

The problem with this whole line of reasoning is that it begins with the idea that government is a beast. We may whine about Congress, but a large part of the population still sees the federal government as a stimulus-providing, Social-Security-check-sending, Somali-pirate-defeating protector. How far do you think the Republicans would have gotten if they had announced that they wanted to Starve the Family Dog?

Perhaps his name was Bo. He was so cute, and Ronald Reagan wanted to let him shrivel away.

But she also points out something we've said in this space before, that most of the programmatic cuts that Obama is proposing as a way to bring government spending under control aren't really significant or painful reductions. We haven't gotten to the hard choices part of this process yet, but with spending continuing the way it is, it'll be painful when we get there:

Obama has been trying to set an example of prudent government, trotting out cabinet officials to describe the way projects are coming in under budget and proposing cost-cutting changes. For instance, he wants to get rid of a rule somebody in Congress inserted to make sure states will continue to get federal mine cleanup aid even after all the mines are clean. (We're looking at you, Wyoming delegation.)

But while all thrift is worthy, this stuff only provides tiny slivers of savings in return for endless, exhausting struggle.

Secretary of State Clinton announced a four-point framework for dealing with Somali piracy today, including sending an envoy to the Somali peacekeeping meeting in Brussels; expanding the actions of the International Contact Group on Piracy; sending a diplomatic team to work with the Somali government and regional authorities in Puntland; and working with shippers and insurance companies to beef up defenses against piracy.

Piracy, like terrorism (but, I think, distinct from it, since the motivations are financial rather than political or religious), is hard to solve in part because it stems from social failures. Colin Woodard's terrific history of Caribbean piracy, The Republic of Pirates, charts how the legends of an independent pirate republic, and the inequalities and inadequacies of colonial and British governments were a strong temptation to piracy. Somalia is an entirely different wreck, but it's a wreck none the less, and our interventions there have been less than successful. I don't know how you stop piracy unless you find all the pirates stable, dependable jobs, something that would be hard enough in a global recession, but is even harder when you're trying to build that stability in a failed state.

We're getting a server upgrade this afternoon so FedBlog will be static for a little bit. If you don't see a comment posted, or are wondering why we're not updating, that's why. We should be fine later this evening and back on a normal schedule tomorrow.

Okay, nerd alert. Fans of NCIS and Bones read on at your peril.

Slate is proposing a TV show based on the IRS's criminal investigation division. I would TOTALLY watch a cross-over of that show with NCIS and Bones. Every case would have to involve a member of the Navy who committed tax fraud, resulting in a body being horribly mutilated. There would be SO MUCH interagency cooperation that there'd have to be a character from the Federal Executive Boards just to coordinate.

So, it's Tax Day, and there are a lot of protesters in town who for "Tea Parties" are, to say the least, not so happy about President Obama's tax and fiscal policy. But fortunately, it's also a day when people say useful things about the impact of taxes and provide interesting charts about where our taxes actually go. And it's a good time to reflect on the art that taxation's created.

President Obama kicked off the serious bit of that tax conversation by noting that Tax Day "is an important opportunity for those of us in Washington to consider our responsibilities to the people who sent us here and who pay the bills." It's not quite as pithy--or snarky--as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' statement that “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization,” but it'll do. And if you need a specific reminder of what kinds of civilization you're purchasing with your taxes, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a useful breakout chart (on a workforce note, benefits for federal retirees and vets makes up 6 percent of the budget).

Continue reading "Tax Day and Art" »

I was talking to one of my editors yesterday about the challenges of covering the executive branch, and chief among them we identified the simple fact that the executive branch, infinitely more so than Congress or the Judiciary, is REALLY big and really complicated. I think if you're not covering the operations of the agencies, it's easy to forget that, which is why I'm often amused when folks I know who write about other things are surprised to discover, for example, that there are a ton of political appointees and it takes a long time to get them in place. But sometimes that turns around on me as well; as much as I skip from agency to agency, there are a whole lot of places I've never written about just because I haven't had time to get to them. Case in point: the Patent and Trademark Office apparently desperately needs new leadership to arrive soon to deal with mounting crises. Who knew?

By Robert Brodsky

Donald Kettl, a well-known expert and author on government reform has been named the new dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.

Kettl will assume the post in June, the school said in an announcement Tuesday.

“If I were to design a school from scratch to meet today’s unprecedented global challenges, it would look pretty much like what the Maryland School of Public Policy is now,” Kettl said in a statement. “It’s uniquely suited to grapple with the overwhelming policy challenges facing government. I’m enormously impressed by all the school has accomplished and where it can go.”

Kettl replaces former dean Steven Fetter, who has been appointed assistant director at-large of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which has responsibility in the areas of energy, climate change and nuclear weapons.

So this is why John Berry started his first day early: he spent the first two hours of that day standing in the lobby at the Office of Personnel Management, shaking hands with and introducing himself to his new employees. Folks I talked to said that's a first for a director, and it's certainly consistent with the tone Berry said he wants to set at hist confirmation. Another first: Berry is the first director to arrive with his top leadership team entirely in place at the agency, which should help him off to a fast start. That's been a huge problem at other agencies, noticeably Treasury. Obviously the strains and pressures are different. But Berry and his colleagues at OPM will play a big role in making sure agencies have what they need to spend and oversee stimulus funding effectively, so I'm sure he'll take whatever head start he can get.

I saw an advanced screening of the new Russell Crowe-Ben Affleck-Rachel McAdams thriller last night, and while most of my impressions have to be saved for the piece I'm writing about "State of Play" and journalism movies for The Atlantic this week, I will say if mainstream reporters and Congressmen brought as much energy and passion to examining government contracting as they do in this movie, it would probably be a good thing.

I've been meaning to write about Christopher Beam's ode to the TSA blog, Evolution of Security for several days now. And re-reading it, it struck me that sadly, the standard for government blogging is pretty low. Don't get me wrong. I like Evolution of Security. I link to it frequently. And compared to this sanitized-seeming account of democracy-building in Afghanistan courtesy of DipNote, the State Department's blog, it's a paragon of openness and willingness to admit fallibility.

But blogging is hard in the government sector. And it's hard for some of the same reasons press policies often seem calcified. Blogging is a Wild West form of expression. The deadlines are fast, the need for a distinctive voice is paramount, and evolution is important. Blogs are a great medium for soliciting feedback and putting ideas out there. They're much less readable when they're used as a message vehicle. The bloggers at Evolution of Security could never, for example, have said that they agreed with Jeffrey Goldberg's article in The Atlantic about sneaking prohibited items through TSA checkpoints as a demonstration of the absurdity of security theater. Similarly, the bloggers at DipNote are never going to be free to criticize the Secretary of State, no matter who that person is.

If agency and department blogs were free to launch critiques, within reason, that would be great. I'd love to see some agencies use their blogs as ombudsmen, places where the public can get answers, and as public editors, where bloggers can thoughtfully criticize policy decisions. The first agency blog to do that will be the true trailblazer.

Started early. He was sworn in at 6:30am this morning. There will be a more formal swearing-in at some point in the next couple of weeks, but this one took ten minutes and he was off and running. Buckle up, folks. The Obama administration's human capital policy is finally ready for liftoff. We don't know a ton what the plane looks like, or where it's going. But at least we're on the runway.

I like the idea of an initiative that would increase citizen participation in and feedback about policy-making. I hate the language that invariably accompanies such proposals. Instructions like "develop a high-level, interagency governance structure to oversee the implementation of the directive" don't actually mean a lot. Neither does "Take on traditional managerial resistance to public participation in agencies by designating a senior level champion."

There are real challenges here. Trying to find sensible channels for public feedback and integrating that feedback into the decision-making process isn't necessarily easy, and will add to people's workloads. Adding layers of public comment erodes management's power, and that's something that people will have to get comfortable with. But adding a high-level official whose job it is to cheerlead for public comment, or creating a panel to oversee how folks integrate public feedback, doesn't actually solve those very practical problems. And couching them in management-speak, sadly, isn't a very good place to start.

I retain high hopes for Hillary Clinton's tenure at the State Department, which badly needs revitalization. But I remain worried about the lingering distraction of her campaign debt. At minimum, it seems tacky that she's still holding a lottery for a day with Bill, a trip to the American Idol, and time hanging out in the District with James Carville and Paul Begala (which would only be remotely fun if Carville went around calling everything "Cajun-style" like he did during his "30 Rock" guest appearance). I'm sure the Clintons don't want to eat $6 million in old campaign debt. I wouldn't either. But increasingly, I'm thinking they should.

They have the money, and the capacity to make it back quickly if they want to. The Clintons loaned some of their own money to the campaign in the first place, and it's not necessarily reasonable for them to have assumed that they would get it back. The debt remains an undignified side show, especially since most of the money is owed to Clinton's gloriously incompetent pollster, Mark Penn. Hillary Clinton ought to be leaving pollsters, and campaign debts, and the embarrassment of auctioning off her husband behind. She has, after all, most interesting sideshows to deal with. There are pirates, and great power shifts, and a department to rebuild.

Clinton did a fairly ego-less thing by taking the Secretary of State job. It'll hurt more to eat the $6 million. But it's the right thing for her to do at this point.

It's a good day for federal employees. The Navy SEAL snipers who rescued Capt. Richard Phillips deserve serious respect, and they're getting a lot of attention this morning. They're not getting the same level of attention as the SEALs, but the Florida air traffic controllers who helped passengers land a plane when their pilot died mid-flight deserve similar credit.

It consistently amazes the things that federal employees pull off under pressure. There's value to consistent training, to expertise, and to time-tested techniques. And sometimes it's worth reflecting on that.

The New York Times did an interesting little Styles piece over the weekend about the decline of finance as a career, and the corresponding rise in stature of public service careers. Steve Lohr reports that 82 percent of the schools in the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration have seen a rise in applications, and that "The most-cited reason was the expectation by students that government will be hiring."

Continue reading "Public Policy Heats Up" »

My friend David Schultz is a reporter. On Tuesday, he was covering a public meeting at the Veterans Affairs hospital here in Washington, D.C. Routine, right? But when he started interviewing a veteran who had complaints about the care he was receiving at the hospital, Gloria Hairston, a communications specialist at the VA, demanded that Dave stop the interview and turn over his recorder. When he said he wouldn't, she called on the security guards at the event to intimidate him, demanded the memory card to his recorder, and threatened him when a vet tried to give Dave his phone number so they could talk later. WTOP has a fuller account of the sequence of the events here, but we shouldn't need to hear more to get outraged.

Dave was doing his job, doing it in an open, public forum, and as a result, he got harassed, threatened, and ultimately had his property stolen by a federal employee just because he was reporting news she didn't like.

Continue reading "Solidarity with David Schultz" »

Read Megan McArdle on the terrifying state of public pension funds.

I expressed some sympathy for the British counterterrorism official who lost his job for carrying a document the wrong way yesterday. But a couple of our awesome commenters explain why my sympathy is misplaced. TomS writes:

One of the first rules of handling classified information is that you use coversheets, and when acting as a courier, all classified is properly wrapped to prevent such a disclosure. He violated the simplest and most basic procedures for protecting classified information. I have no sympathy for someone in his position making such a mistake with classified, highly time-sensitive information.

And Bud chimes in:

Anyone in such a role knows - from day two at least - that you NEVER take any classified document out of the building to another location without the proper "cover", be it a secure, locked bag or whatever is dictated by your particular agency. It is NOT the kind of "unconscious mistake anyone could make" unless maybe they are in Congress or work as a political appointee. The slip does not come from pressure, it originates in either carelessness or ego. Neither of which is acceptable in our world.

Fair enough. Rules are rules, and procedures are procedures.

One item in the 2008 Intelligence Community Employee Climate Survey stood out at me. 85 percent of the nation's spooks and intelligence analysts, support staff, et.al. agree that "My supervisor supports my need to balance work and family issues." I thought the number was strikingly high--it's ten points higher than the government as a whole on the 2008 Federal Human Capital Survey. So I asked Dr. Ron Sanders, the intelligence community's chief human about it. This is how he explains it:

We’ve made a lot of progress there. Individual agencies have set a high standard in that regard, especially those agencies that deploy people overseas. We’re one of the few, perhaps the only federal entity that affords civilian employees family support in work-life programs in our strategic human capital plan. We’ve extended agency-restricted health and insurance plans across the entire intelligence community. In the last 6 or 8 months we rolled out an intelligence community-wide child-care placement program. We now have a subscription-based website called Work-Life for You that provides daycare search support, job search support, and even such things as quick and easy dinner menus for working families. There’s an intelligence community employee assistance fund. It’s a charity we’ve created to support intelligence community families in need. But I want to give credits where it’s due. This falls on the shoulders of first-line managers, and while we are a very, very mission-oriented institution, I think they’ve realized with our operating tempo, you can’t push too hard.

We tend to think of folks in the intelligence community as tough, hard-edged, aggressive, and totally committed to their jobs. We don't tend to think of them as people with families, and with lives outside of work. But not everyone lives in a John LeCarre novel. Folks have kids, and folks have hard times. It's great that the intelligence community is trying to anticipate the situations in which they'll need help.

The man who runs counterterrorism operations in the U.K. has had to resign because he grabbed a document the wrong way, exposing it to telephoto lenses. His resignation both does and doesn't make sense. The mistake put an operation at risk, but it was the kind of incredibly unconscious mistake anyone could make. It's a reminder of the kind of pressure top leaders live under, and I think it's worth considering. Most of us can make a small mistake, hit "reply all" when we meant an email to go to one person, show up 15 minutes late one day because of traffic etc. But in certain positions, grab a piece of paper the wrong way and you're done. I can't imagine operating under that kind of pressure. But a lot of political appointees do every day. I still think too much emphasis is placed on politicals, and there should be fewer of them. But I can't say I'd want their jobs either.

This is one of the bad things about serious backlogs: sometimes people lie to reduce them. At OPM Director John Berry's confirmation hearing, Sen. George Voinovich pushed him hard to commit to clearing the security clearances backlog and to familiarize himself with the proposals to do so. Berry said he would, but the news that federal prosecutors have charged six investigators in two states and the District with lying about whether they did the work to properly check the backgrounds of employees up for clearances will probably--and should probably--shoot that review to the top of his priorities list.

This week, the Washington, D.C. City Council passed a law saying that the District will recognize marriages between same-sex couples performed in other states. Mayor Adrian Fenty will have to sign the law, of course, and Congress and President Obama will also have to sign it. If the bill makes it to Congress, Ezra Klein points out that it will likely land in the lap, at least temporarily, of Rep. Stephen Lynch, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia Subcommittee.

Lynch, coincidentally, will also probably have some jurisdiction over the House version of the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, once it's introduced by Rep. Tammy Baldwin. That's good news for proponents of the expansions of rights for gay and lesbian couples. As New England gay newspaper Bay Windows reported in 2003, Lynch started his career with a somewhat socially conservative reputation but since has won the admiration and respect of his gay constituents, and a 100 percent vote rating from the gay rights organization Human Rights Campaign. It also places a lot of responsibility in Lynch's hands: he could end up guiding the progress of two of the biggest gay rights issues to come up in the new Obama administration.

Continue reading "Gay Rights Convergence" »

SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED MONDAY'S "HOUSE, M.D."

Okay, by now it's fairly common knowledge that Kal Penn has left the hit drama "House" and will be joining the Obama administration to be associated director of the White House Office of Public Liaison. I know one office that's going to see a SERIOUS spike in calls. But Penn's good looks aside, Michael Ausiello, the amazing TV reporter at Entertainment Weekly talked to him about the decision, and Penn had this to say about public service:

AUSIELLO: Safe to say you're taking a huge pay cut?
PENN: Oh, yeah. There's not a lot of financial reward in these jobs. But, obviously, the opportunity to serve in a capacity like this is an incredible honor.

But it's hardly like Penn isn't going to be paid less than a living wage. So if a movie star can live on a government salary, it says something about how he values public service, and how folks in the private sector who are bemoaning the loss of their multi-million dollar bonuses might have slightly skewed worldviews.

Laura Rozen's reporting that morale is up in Foggy Bottom, both because new policies are under review and because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a charm initiative going:

The secretary is doing thank-yous to the people who worked on her recent trips, one senior State Department official told The Cable. “She invited the drafters and desk officers from [the South Asia] bureau, Holbrooke’s office and the European bureau up this morning to the Treaty Room to say thanks and shake everyone’s hand. Unprecedented. I understand she’s done this four or five times, including for her Mexico trip.”

She also came down to shake hands and thank people from the Near East Asia bureau after her Sharm el-Sheikh trip, Middle East hands noted.

"I do think the secretary has been a real good thing for morale in the building," another senior State Department official said. "She goes out of her way to show appreciation."

“Morale is pretty high,” a State Department Middle East hand said. “People will be even happier when we can start talking publicly about a lot of the policies still under review.”

It seems to me the administration is doing a fairly good job thus far of reminding rank-and-file employees their work is important. Let's hope that's a long-term investment, and not just a getting-to-know-you making of the rounds that won't continue.

It seems that the scandal over on-site viewing of pornography at the National Science Foundation is going to stick around as a subject for a while, courtesy the outrage of Sens. Chuck Grassley and Barbara Mikulski. I'm always curious about how you deal with people who look at pornography in the workplace, in part because I have some personal experience with that kind of situation.

(There should totally be a rim-shot noise for blogs you can employ in times like these.)

I once had a coworker (NOT at Government Executive) who looked at pornographic material on their work computer. I'd walk by this person's desk every once in a while, and it was difficult not to notice what was on the screen. This person was always fairly nonchalant about it, which seemed odd to me. I didn't feel terrifically offended or sexually harassed. I was more just surprised that anyone would actually look at porn at work, and think that it was okay or that no one would notice, or that they were going to get away with it. There are things it's borderline to do at work like check your bank account or pay your bills. And then there are things that are huge, obvious NOs. It seems so brain-deadeningly clear that porn is one of those NOs. But I guess everyone sees the world a little differently...

You've seen those ubiquitous FreeCreditReport.com commercials, right? Well, Slate's Seth Stevenson chronicles the Federal Trade Commission's attempts to spoof the jingly ads to promote AnnualCreditReport.com, which unlike its commercial rival, is actually free. I basically agree with his assessment; the rhymes are much less good, although the flatness of the rhythm reminds me of the Kills a little bit, actually. Still, it's an attempt to compete, which is something, right?

Sen. Chuck Grassley pushed the IRS to ramp up its hiring of recently returned veterans, and the agency has delivered. Grassley announced today that the IRS told him it hired 1,203 veterans in fiscal 2008 and 700 more since the beginning of fiscal 2009.

A lot of you hate this term. Every time I use "human capital" in a post, I get a ton of comments complaining about it, which always make me stop and think, especially given the prevalence of "human capital" as a term in the workforce and personnel communities.

I think I can understand why some of you don't like it. "Human capital," as defined by Adam Smith, who is widely considered to have coined the term in Wealth of Nations, sounds kind of cold and detatched from. Smith writes:

"The acquisition of such talents, by the maintenance of the acquirer during his education, study, or apprenticeship, always costs a real expense, which is a capital fixed and realized, as it were, in his person. Those talents, as they make a part of his fortune, so do they likewise that of the society to which he belongs. The improved dexterity of a workman may be considered in the same light as a machine or instrument of trade which facilitates and abridges labor, and which, though it costs a certain expense, repays that expense with a profit.”

Continue reading ""Human Capital"" »

The Postal Service is cutting a rural airmail service, at savings of $46,000 according to Federal Times. I'm actually not shocked by this, and thing service contractions will probably become more common as electronic communication becomes increasingly dominant and universal. But getting mail remains one of the great simple pleasures of life, especially when it's something you're excited to receive, and for folks who aren't yet wired, it's a lifeline, especially because rural areas are some of the places most underserved by high-speed internet service.

The New York Times has a useful story out today that parses a number of decisions the Obama administration's made as it attempts to live up to--or backs away from--the campaign's promises to run a more open government.

He has bumped up against technological hurdles, privacy concerns and the entrenched culture of secrecy that has flourished for decades in Washington and culminated under his predecessor, President George W. Bush. Mr. Obama has vowed a break with the past, but he has not broken completely.

Press briefings by “senior administration officials” who demand anonymity, a standard feature of the Bush administration, are also commonplace in the Obama White House. Mr. Obama recently infuriated advocates of open government by asserting his right to restrict communications between federal workers and Congress. And while he has promised to be more forthcoming about his schedule, some meetings — like the time he dropped by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s office to see Mikhail S. Gorbachev — remain undisclosed.

“The administration is showing wonderful potential, but so far it is only potential,” said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian-leaning research organization. “Being transparent is politically tough. The habit in D.C. is to hold information as tightly as you can because information is power.”

I know the anonymous briefings are deeply annoying to a lot of the journalists I know, in particular because there rarely seems to be a good reason for requesting anonymity. I'm more sympathetic to the technological hurdles the administration is facing in terms of upgrading agencies' capabilities so they can stream meetings live or post large amounts of documents quickly. It'll take time to get the physical plant of transparency in place. But it doesn't take resources to affirm support for whistleblower rights, or for that matter to appoint a Special Counsel who is committed to protecting employees' rights. The Obama administration should move on both items as quickly as possible.

John Berry begins his first week as director of the Office of Personnel Management today, and while I'm sure he's relieved the confirmation process is over, I am as well. Nominations are a pain to cover. The person you're writing about typically isn't available to the media, so you spend a lot of time running around and talking to people who worked with the nominee five or ten or fifteen years ago and stringing together stories that do a lot of speculation about what positions the nominee might take and what they might be like in office. So I'm glad reviews are going to get underway, and policies are going to start getting made.

And it's not just me I'm glad for. Requests for personnel reform are piling up, and the stimulus in particular has created a real impetus for change. At the beginning of the last new administration, OPM director Kay Cole James didn't get confirmed until July 11, more than three months later than Berry got confirmed. Three months may not seem like a lot, but if Berry gets up to speed three months earlier, and starts making policy three months more quickly than his predecessor at the beginning of an administration, that's a good thing.

Jezebel, a women's blog in the Gawker Media family, runs an occasional series about old-school romance novels. This week, they feature one that centers on a progressive, spunky, 1955 human resources manager, that apparently features dialogue like this:

"It's so simple. People, employees, are the core of any business. No number of machines or methods or merchandise are of any use unless you have efficient, willing employees. They're human beings. You have to treat them humanely."

Cute!

The New York Times' Catherine Rampell crunches the numbers (via Ezra Klein) and reports that since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, federal employment is up 2.04 percent. It's the biggest gain in any sector since the downturn began.

The number is news, of course, but it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that the government is an attractive employer during a downturn, due to its generally safe jobs and stable salaries, and that the stimulus requires more hiring to manage beefed-up programs and budgets. USAJobs has 46,990 job listings as of this afternoon. A 2008 survey of 32,000 undergraduates showed that government and public service jobs are topping their lists of choices for post-graduate careers.

Ezra joked "I can see the recruiting posters now. 'The Federal Government: Because seriously, where else are you going to go?'" But a lot of people who work both inside and outside government are both excited and concerned about this new attention to government. It's a terrific opportunity to get a lot of talent into federal agencies at a time when they badly need the most qualified candidates they can get. But it would be a very bad thing for the federal government to continue to be seen as an employer of last resort. It's not ultimately good for government if the main motivation of the people who apply for jobs is stability and safety rather than the nature of the work. Instead, you want people who are deeply dedicated to the work they're applying to do, who see the government as the best place to pursue their ambitions. Folks like the Partnership for Public Service are trying to use this moment to increase the prestige of federal service, not to promote the government as a safe haven.

Unanimous consent, shortly after midnight. The vote wasn't recorded, because it wasn't a record vote, but it's a done deal. John Berry is running our personnel policy for the next four years. Story to come.

Office of Personnel Management nominee John Berry and Nancy Kichack, the agency's associate director for strategic human resources policy, checking their Blackberries at a book party thrown by the Partnership for Public Service to see if the Senate had gotten to Berry's nomination during their budget bonanza last night. Actually, it wasn't like I was spying. I said hello to both, who seemed in good spirits, but eager for Berry to get confirmed. As are we all. It'll be nice to cover policy-making again.

From my colleage Rob Brodsky:

At today’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, several lawmakers brought up my March 18th article detailing some of the concerns with the first 11 Recovery Act contracts. Included among those contracts was a $460,000 contract to install 22 precast concrete toilet buildings in Missouri's Mark Twain National Forest.

The article has garnered a good deal of attention [both positive and negative] from lawmakers, agency leaders and interest groups. But, much of the discussion has missed the intent of the story, so I wanted to take a moment to clarify what the article said and did not say.

The article does not suggest that agencies used GSA Schedules or blanket purchase agreements with the intent of avoiding competition. Rather, the story raised the question of whether these types of contracts are in compliance with the administration’s stated goal of awarding Recovery Act contracts with maximum competition. That is not to say that GSA Schedules or BPAs are not competitive. They are and can be a useful tool for agencies to find competent, pre-vetted contractors and move funds out the door quickly. However, I noted that it was unclear from the OMB’s initial guidance to federal agencies how these types of contracts fit into the administration’s state competition goal.

Secondly, the story deliberately did not suggest that the contracts, including the toilet building award, were wasteful or overpriced. Sen. Claire McCaskill said today that the contract was “not a bad deal.” She may be right. But my goal was not to debate whether this was a wise or proper use of taxpayer funds. The story simply described, in detail, the nature of the contract and used it as an example of the type of early awards that had been issued. No snarky toilet jokes or mentions of gold-plated military toilet seats.

Much of this discussion comes back to the central idea behind transparency. Government Executive and undoubtedly dozens of other media outlets are going to examine Recovery Act contracts with intense scrutiny. The administration has even encouraged such an examination. However, I would encourage readers not to leap to conclusions that the mere mention of specific contracts equals some form of criticism about its quality. Sometimes transparency is just … transparency.

I'm writing two stories and trying to finish a feature, so it's crunch time here around the GovExec offices. But my interview with Derrick Dortch airs on Federal News Radio at noon (1500 AM for those of you in the DC area, or streaming live here). And since I have to be kind of AWOL today, if you have requests or questions for potential entry topics, leave 'em in comments, and I'll try to get to them tomorrow.

I don't really have an opinion on whether Barack Obama's aunt is getting special treatment in her deportation proceedings, but I do think it's ironic that she's getting extra time in the country because of crazy backlogs at the Boston immigration court. If her nephew was inheriting a workforce in better shape, she might be gone.

Atlantic blogger Marc Ambinder reports that John Berry's Senate confirmation will be the trigger for an executive order by President Obama expanding workplace protections for gay and lesbian employees. He goes on to discuss a number of other options for expanding rights that might happen in this administration, but doesn't mention the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, which I think is likely to pass in this session of Congress. I'm not sure an Executive Order could supersede the need for the act, and I don't think it would prevent Joe Lieberman and Tammy Baldwin from pushing for it. But Berry's significance is, well, significant, if he's the tipping point for the rest of the administration's gay rights' agenda.

Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama just began a question by asking if employees who serve under NSPS go through a ratings system. I don't normally like to give lawmakers a hard time for what they don't know, but this one seems like a big omission...

I don't know the vote yet, but Colleen Kelley sends the following:

I am pleased to see bipartisan approval by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee of the nomination of John Berry to be director of the Office of Personnel Management. This office plays a vital role in the federal government and I believe he will bring to the job an in-depth understanding of the critical role federal employees and their agencies play in helping resolve many of the problems our nation now faces. I look forward to his speedy confirmation by the full Senate.

More to come.

Brad Bunn, NSPS's Program Executive Officer, provided some details on the upcoming review of the National Security Personnel System by the Defense Department and the Office of Personnel Management:

I can assure you that Deputy Secretary Lynn recognizes that there are a variety of viewpoints regarding NSPS, and is committed to a thorough examination that includes outreach to Congress, other federal agencies, personnel management experts, labor organizations, and other stakeholders....We expect that it will include a review of the underlying design principles of NSPS, including the guiding principles and key performance parameters found in the operational requirements document, and the extent to which the system is achieving its goals. We expect the review to also focus on key issues of fairness and transparency, not only in the design but also in the imlementation. Another key issue to be examined is the effect of operating under NSPS for the non-bargaining unit workforce and the General Schedule sstem for our bargaining unit employees, and the challenges associated with that approach.

It appears that there's no leader, and no start or end date set for the review set. But its parameters are taking shape.

I'm here, trusty laptop and broadband card in hand, at the House Armed Services committee hearing on NSPS, and I'll be bringing you updates throughout the hearing. One interesting element: in its press release announcing the testimony it's submitted to the committee, the American Federation of Government Employees said its received reports that employees continue to be converted into NSPS, despite the halt on conversions while the OPM-DoD review is underway. It seems like most of the conversions they're hearing about are coming from Base Realignment and Closure processes. I don't know if some exception exists for folks who are getting BRACed, but it does seem odd that such conversions would continue. AFGE says they've told DoD that this is proof that NSPS needs to be shut down. I'm not sure what it's proof of, but it's interesting.

Matt Yglesias points to Lee Sigelman's crunching of the numbers from the most recent Office of Personnel Management biannual survey. Sigelman found that the four dimensons federal employees rate their agencies on--leadership, performance, talent and job satisfaction--were closely correlated, and so you could use them to produce an overall ranking of agencies from best-run to worst-run in the eyes of their employees.

I'm glad to see this data get some wider play, if only because it reinforces the fact that rank-and-file employees are the folks who often have the best perspective on how their agency is doing. But I think it's not actually useful to boil the numbers down and say that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is doing quite well, and the Broadcast Board of Governors not so much. Combining all four dimensions makes for a handy chart, but it actually steers conversation away from the specific reasons why employees perceive their agencies well or poorly. Workers may think their agency does a poor job of recruiting strong talent, and then also does a poor job of rewarding excellent performance. But while they may be likely to think both of those things, the solution for each problem is different. And solving each problem individually has to happen for agencies to become fully successful.

From Rob Brodsky:

The non-profit Center for Public Integrity has obtained some stunning Justice Department data regarding the number of contracting fraud cases that were pursued by the Bush administration.

According to the investigative site, “Defense contracting grew from about $200 billion in fiscal year 1993 at the start of the Clinton presidency to nearly $400 billion in FY 2008 at the end of President George W. Bush’s administration (1993 dollars adjusted for inflation to 2008 dollars). But Defense Department investigators during the Bush administration sent 76 percent fewer contracting fraud and corruption cases to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution than were referred under Clinton.”

Richard D. Beltz, director of investigative operations with the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, told CPI that he did not believe case referrals from his agency were down but did not provide any data to support his claim, the report said.