GovernmentExecutive.com

From Anonymous 2, on the holdup on getting agency content on YouTube:

One of our folks in public affairs passed on the following information to me about why we can't do YouTube and it probably applies to other agencies: "DOI has cleared the use of Twitter, but YouTube and several others have clauses that give them ownership of content. Some of our logos, photos, graphics and other material was done by contractors, and is only authorized for agency use, so they're trying to iron out all those intellectual property concerns before we move forward.

By Robert Brodsky

The fine bloggers at OMB Watch raise an interesting question for the administration and for the folks running Recovery.gov . For months, the administration has been pressing the brakes on the amount of spending data that will be immediately put up on the site, noting that Recovery Act recipient data will not flood into the government until October.

That all made sense until Wednesday when, to celebrate the first 100 days of the Recovery Act, the Vice President's office released a report highlighting 100 projects throughout the country funded using the stimulus. These project "snapshots" include information on funding recipients, contract amount and a cursorily examination of the project. In other words, exactly the information that the administration promised will be available on Recovery.gov.

"So which is it?" writes OMB Watch's Sam Rosen-Amy . "Does the Administration have the data or do they not have the data? It doesn't seem likely that they are waiting for all the information before filing a report, since USAspending.gov is apparently already releasing information on some Recovery contracts (none of which are in the 100 Days report, though). So what's going on? Things like this 100 Days report don't give us a lot of confidence that the Administration is moving as fast as possible to release Recovery Act information as soon as it is available, or even that everyone in the Administration is on the same page. Sadly, this document, which was supposed to be an effort at transparency and accountability, only highlights how much more information we need about the Recovery."

He has a point. The administration seems to want it both ways with transparency. They want to cherry pick the spending projects that show the early success of the stimulus but doesn't seem in any hurry want to put it in a format - and in a location - where the general public goes for constant updates about the Recovery Act.

And, if the concern is that Recovery.gov is not capable of displaying the data in the format they envision, then put the information the government has already collected in a simple Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Something, anything, is better than nothing. As Obama frequently says, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

The administration's Cyberspace Policy Review is out. NextGov will have more later, but the document is up on the White House site, and from the beginning, its conclusions are somewhat grim:

The architecture of the Nation's digital infrastructure, based largely upon the Internet, is not secure or resilient. Without major advances in the security of these systems or significant change in how they are constructed or operated, it is doubtful that the United States can protect itself from the growing threat of cybercrime and state-sponsored intrusions and operations. Our digital infrastructure has already suffered intrusions that have allowed criminals to steal hundreds of millions of dollars and nation-states and other entities to steal intellectual property and sensitive military information. Other intrusions threaten to damage portions of our critical infrastructure. These and other risks have the potential to undermine the Nation's confidence in the information systems that underlie our economic and national security interests.

The Federal government is not organized to address this growing problem effectively now or in the future. Responsibilities for cybersecurity are distributed across a wide array of federal departments and agencies, many with overlapping authorities, and none with sufficient decision authority to direct actions that deal with often conflicting issues in a consistent way. The government needs to integrate competing interests to derive a holistic vision and plan to address the cybersecurityrelated issues confronting the United States. The Nation needs to develop the policies, processes, people, and technology required to mitigate cybersecurity-related risks.

Commenter RH wrote yesterday that he was frustrated by "All this talk of 'reform' and finding a better system - when the current GS system offers all of those capabilities THAT GO UNUSED by supervisors and managers." It's not the first time I've heard that complaint, and I'm certain it won't be the last. But I think, ultimately, it's less important to ask if the General Schedule system, as written, contains provisions to tie performance to compensation, and much more important to ask why it hasn't been enforced as a pay for performance system.

Psychology is part of it, certainly. John Berry, at our meeting with him on Wednesday, said "It deals with human nature. Parents do not like to discipline their kids. Why do we think managers like to discipline their employees?" And to overcome that natural tendency, it makes sense that managers will need substantially more training than they get now to get comfortable evaluating their employees, and good at doing it. But I'm not sure that's the entirety of the problem. And I think figuring out what happened to the General Schedule system is going to have to be the first step in any meaningful reform of the pay system.

Allan Holmes as a good point: if government agencies want to use new media to create buzz, they need to not hide that media on their websites, and in fact, would probably be better off not using their websites to disseminate material at all. Controlling the medium isn't really the point anymore. If putting your material on a site like YouTube is where it'll get seen, even if its quality gets mocked, and kids post chain-letter style messages in comments, then YouTube is where agency videos should go.

The the CIA is looking to investment bankers and other finance types as recruits, and however silly, Gawker's comparison of the two careers is pretty entertaining.

Obviously, the big news of yesterday is Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry's announcement that he, with the support of the President, intends to pursue a reform of the federal pay system, with the aim of finding a comprehensive solution that will improve the quality of employee appraisal and its connection to compensation. I think there are a couple of things to keep in mind as this effort moves forward:

1. There are a HUGE number of conditions that need to be met for Title V reform to become a reality: The conditions Berry laid out in our meeting yesterday were as follows: the performance evaluation and management system needs to be credible and effective, but Berry said he doesn't think there is a private-sector model that exists that anyone would hold up for emulation, meaning reformers may be starting from scratch. There needs to be funding appropriated for a truly comprehensive management training system that probably would involve substantial curriculum development. The administration needs to be able to build public support for the concept of pay comparability. And the system that's designed needs to be able to function in a wide range of different agencies. Every single one of those things will be difficult to accomplish, and without any one of those elements, it seems extremely unlikely that reform will move forward.

2. Employee engagement will be critical: This is true for a number of reasons. First, if the performance appraisal system is going to be successful, both managers and employees will have to trust it and be willing to participate in it fully. The term "pay for performance" has become so electrified that it makes conversations unnecessarily difficult. The administration will have to find a way to diffuse that tension before it even begins serious negotiations. And beyond the simple workability of the system, employee groups have clout in Congress. A lot of lawmakers are convinced that employees have been wronged in the National Security Personnel System, and they will look to employee groups for signs that they trust any comprehensive pay reform before it passes.

3. We have no idea what a reform bill would look like. No one does. And until we do, it's impossible for anyone to judge the merits of such an effort on policy grounds. But Berry's primary points yesterday, that the federal pay system is balkanized, and that it makes sense to look at the systems out there to figure out in a methodical, serious way, what is effective and what isn't, seem uncontroversial.

The new class, that is. This is the first presidential transition that Chief Human Capital Officers have gone through, and so far the jobs left open when political appointees departed haven't filled up super-quickly. But Janet Napolitano appointed a CHCO for the Department of Homeland Security today, tapping Jeff Neal, who formerly held the same position at the Defense Logistics Agency, and served as deputy human resources director at the Commerce Department. Napolitano's announcement doesn't suggest a major change in the direction of the department's human resources strategy. Like everyone else:

"Neal will focus on retaining and developing the Department's current highly-skilled workforce and ensuring that DHS is able to recruit the additional talent necessary to achieve its mission. He will work to enhance diversity at DHS to reflect the composition of the nation and build department-wide capabilities and systems to provide the best training, education and professional development opportunities."

But even if the priorities aren't dramatically changed, at least Napolitano's put someone in place to pursue them.

I just got out of a meet-and-greet with Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry, who just said he and President Obama are committed to a substantial reform of Title V, and within the next two years will attempt to pass legislation creating a government-wide pay for performance system. "It is my belief that our federal pay system is straining and has become balkanized to the point of a risk of failure," Berry said. More details to come shortly.

By Robert Brodsky

Last year, we reported on the case of Efraim Diveroli, a then 22-year-old arms dealer from a fabulously wealthy Los Angeles family who allegedly sold the government banned Chinese ammunition through a $300 million Defense Department contract. Diveroli, the president and owner of AEY Inc., was indicted last July and charged with 71 counts, including conspiracy, procurement fraud and making false statements to the Army.

AEY officials falsely told the government that the decades-old munitions, which was later delivered to Afghan security forces, was from Albania, the indictment said.

The Associated Press reports that David Packouz and Alexander Podrizki, two AEY business associates, pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal fraud charges. Both men face a maximum of five years in prison.

Meanwhile, Diveroli and another business associate, Ralph Merrill, have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.

AEY has run into other questions about its honesty with federal contracting officials.

An investigation by Government Executive in April 2008 showed that the company had been improperly designated as a small disadvantaged business less than a year before receiving the massive arms contract. Since that label was applied, AEY earned more than $204 million in federal contracts.

Alex Parker pointed me to this court decision Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's pick to join the Supreme Court, wrote in deciding a case about insurance reimbursements and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. It's not a hugely complicated case: a FEHBP participant was injured in an accident, resulting in more than $150,000-worth of care paid for by his insurance company. When his family won more than $3 million in a lawsuit over his injuries, his insurance provider put a lien on them for the money and then sued them to recover it. The provider argued that the rules governing FEHB contracts constitute federal common law, giving judges the ability to enforce them, saying that if state reimbursement laws could preempt FEHB contracts, it would result in uneven enforcement. Sotomayor ruled that her court did not have jurisdiction because the contracts are contracts, rather than common law, and that the risk of uneven enforcement is very low. In other words, the case doesn't strike at any core benefits issues. But it does show that Sotomayor views FEHB as a business arrangement rather than federal law.

Scott Eblin has a post over at our Executive Coach blog on some good behavior exhibited by leaders in government in recent weeks. The title "In Praise of Grown-Ups" struck me, because there's nothing particularly age-specific about the behaviors Scott describes: staying civil and polite, keeping conflict in-house rather than going to the media or playing dirty, and choosing service. We should encourage--and expect--such behavior from all employees, no matter their age or managerial status. And those behaviors should be included as competencies that are used to evaluate employees, and identify potential leaders, no matter how far along in their careers they are.

I wrote on Friday that I thought it was likely that the Obama administration would move quietly to extend more rights and benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian federal employees, rather than making a public splash. And on Saturday, the New York Times reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did just that, sending a memo outlining policy changes she intends to make to treat the domestic partners of diplomats overseas the same as husbands and wives of heterosexual diplomats, giving them access to diplomatic passports, medical facilities at diplomatic posts, rights to emergency evacuation, and access to a range of training. The State Department didn't confirm the changes to the Times, and the story sunk swiftly off the front page. I'm not surprised, and I'd guess this will be the way things continue to go.

I hope everyone has a great, safe, relaxing Memorial Day weekend. This blog will be off for a couple of days, and back on Tuesday morning. Take care y'all.

The Advocate reports that Berman is confident that President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton will announce a suite of policies in June that will give the domestic partners of gay and lesbian federal employees the same benefits and responsibilities as the husbands and wives of straight federal workers. But just in case, he's introduced legislation that includes a provision to treat the spouses of gay and lesbian foreign service officers equally--currently, they're considered "members of household" and denied access to a wide range of protections and benefits overseas. Michelle Schohn described her experience with those restrictions in our May issue. The Advocate says:

Berman said he agreed to remove that section of the bill based on his understanding that both the Obama administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were committed to equalizing treatment for same-sex partners in the very near future. He suggested that declaration might be part of a greater package of policy pronouncements from the White House.

"My expectation with respect to the issues that were originally part of my bill, is that the State Department and the secretary will provide the kinds of benefits that I sought," he said, adding that he was committed to ending discrimination against gay and lesbian foreign service officers. "If I'm wrong, which I don't think I am, we still have a ways to go on this bill and we can reverse course."

It'll be interesting to see if Berman is right. My sense is that Sec. Clinton is, in fact, planning to roll out reforms to member of household policy. But I'm less certain that the Obama administration plans to make a big deal of this. Because it's federal employee policy, I wonder if they'll back Berman's bill and the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, but sign them quietly, and move on with other policy priorities.

DHS is consulting with science-fiction writers on how to improve law enforcement and defense technology, which is awesome. It also makes me feel justified in writing this piece on the continuing relevance of science fiction. But I also feel compelled to say that, as Terminator: Salvation opens this weekend, if you're going to explore sci-fi technology, please, please don't build Skynet.

Commenter William R. Cunningham has some smart suggestions on how to rank agencies. He thinks they should be sorted into categories by function so agencies with similar functions can be measured against each other. He writes:

My hope was that someone would come up with a better set of combinations or permutations rather than viewing all federal departments and agencies as equivalent in their cultural dy namics. Just as the Princeton College Review got into the "FEEL" of various colleges the same needs doing for employees and potential employees. The cultures are vastly different. In some the only really interesting policy work goes out to contractors despite inherently governmental restrictions on that outsourcing.One example of cultural statistics might be how many "Whistleblower" complaints in an organizations history? How many successful?

It's an interesting idea. The Partnership for Public Service's Best Places to Work rankings do pit wildly different agencies against each other, and sort them by size and scores within different categories. I do still wonder if having a system that measures the causation of different scores would be helpful in achieving what Cunningham is looking for.

Help support suicide prevention efforts at the state level. Edwin Shneidman, the doctor who was the first head of the Center for the Study of Suicide Prevention at the National Institute of Mental Health passed away today. His obituary in the Times is a reminder of how far we've come in developing an infrastructure to support people who need help.

I'm not sure if Ezra Klein realizes how much interaction there is between two posts he published one after the other. In the first, he commented on the prestige of federal employment and retirement wave issues we've been kicking around here for a couple of years. Then, he says it's a good thing that government is in a position to compete with non-profit websites to see who can present information best.

I think part of the reason the federal government has a problem recruiting the most talented people is that a lot of college students, and a lot of mainstream reporters, don't know much about what government does. Ezra says "Smart college graduates interested in social justice go work for non-profits that push for better welfare benefits. They don't go work for the agencies that administer welfare benefits." But the idea that that's all government has to offer or does is hugely misleading. That's why events like the Service to America medals, or the Distinguished Presidential Rank Awards are so important. They tell great stories about the incredible, non-bureaucratic things federal employees are doing in federal jobs. But mainstream reporters don't go to those events, perhaps because they're not invited, perhaps because they're not looking for them. These awards ceremonies invariably include a plea to those of us in the audience who are reporters to do something, anything, to get those stories out there.

And the real problem isn't that awards ceremonies don't get enough coverage. It's that government agencies aren't always great about conveying information about the amazing things they do on a regular basis. Web presence is a part of that. So are aggressive, promotional, out-reach oriented press operations. The government needs to catch up online and everywhere else, because if it doesn't communicate, it won't get the young, talented people it needs to keep functioning.

Bob Tobias said yesterday at the release of the Partnership for Public Service's Best Places to Work rankings that he believes the ratings provide an incentive for agencies to improve their management. What he didn't say is that the ratings also provide ammunition for organizations, like unions, that are trying to push management changes of their own. I got no fewer than three press releases from the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union saying that the rankings prove the need for change at the Social Security Administration, the Transportation Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Homeland Security, and Customs and Border Protection.

Using the data is a smart move by the unions, at least strategically. It lets them praise a ratings systems that agencies buy into and tout when they do well in (the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office both sent out press releases trumpeting their ratings). But because the ratings are based on the Federal Human Capital Survey, and thus measures satisfaction in broad gagues rather than linking satisfaction causally to specific policies, the unions can also use the ratings to suggest that their approaches are effective. For example, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission consistently tops the ratings. And so, NTEU writes to reporters:

One agency where NTEU's efforts to increase frontline employee input has met with success in years past is at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) which again earned the survey's top ranking--it also was the top-ranked agency in the 2007 'best places' rankings. At the NRC, NTEU has successfully negotiated workplace rights and benefits that address employee working conditions and work-life balance, such as alternative work schedules, flexiplace and student loan repayments

Does the rating prove the efficacy of any single one of those programs? Of course not. But the rankings provide information that's useful, both politically and practically, to both agencies and their stakeholders.

Judge Richard Posner, now blogging at a terrifying rate for The Atlantic, has a guest-post up at Andrew Sullivan's place in which he expresses some concern about two separate but intertwined problems. First, Posner worries about the magnitude of the challenges the Obama administration has taken on. Second, he worries about the concentration of management power over those agencies in institutions above the Cabinet level, namely the White House. Posner write:

The tendency in American government in recent times has been to centralize power more and more in White House staff. The effect is to insert a layer of managerial control above the Cabinet officers, who themselves constitute a layer of control above a number of other political appointees in their departments (laterals), who in turn are layered over the career civil servants. A recent and very pertinent literature in economics--"organization economics"--emphasizes the costs of hierarchical management in slowing and distorting the flow of information up the chain of command and the flow of orders down it. The problem is compounded when as in the federal government the top layers are political appointees who may have little experience with the operation of the agency they find themselves managing...But the capacity of brilliant people, appointed to high positions in the federal government from outside, to screw up is legendary. The danger is amplified when the government tries to do too much.

Continue reading "Layer Cake" »

The Partnership for Public Service's 2009 rankings are out, and the top 20 large agencies are, in order:

1. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
2. Government Accountability Office
3. National Aeronatics and Space Administration
4. Intelligence Community
5. Department of State
6. Environmental Protection Agency
7. Department of Justice
8. General Services Adminsitration
9. Social Security Administration
10. Department of Commerce
11. Securities and Exchange Commission
12. Department of Veterans Affairs
13. Department of the Army
14. Department of the Navy
15. Department of the Air Force
15. Defense Department (Tie)
17. Department of the Treasury
18. Department of Labor
19. Department of Energy
20. Office of Personnel Management.

I posted a couple of months ago on a Center for American Progress study of political attitudes that suggested Americans are more receptive to an expansion of government power. The liberal think tank's released some of that data broken out by age, and it suggests that younger Americans are particularly comfortable with government playing a more active role in the economy:

But wouldn't a lot of this mean a larger and stronger role for government? The Millennial generation does not seem scared by this possibility. When asked in the 2008 National Election Study whether we need a strong government to handle today's complex economic problems or whether the free market can handle these problems without government being involved, Millennials, by a margin of 78 to 22 percent, demonstrated an overwhelming preference for strong government.

I suggested back in March that a new friendliness towards government was an opportunity to gain support for resources where they're needed. As these survey results make clear, it's also an opportunity to woo new recruits.

I'm glad Gawker's Valleywag authors are digging into the backgrounds of President Obama's technology appointees, truly I am. But it seems like they're making a little bit of a mountain out of a molehill in getting upset that Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra contributed $2500 to Mark Warner, who was a strong supporter of his confirmation. Chopra gave $1000 to Gerry Connolly, another strong backer of his nomination and confirmation as well. And he gave money to the Virginia Democratic Party. All in all, he made about $12,000 in contributions in the 2008 campaign cycle. In comparison, Tom Daschle made more than $71,000 in donations in the same cycle. Ari Emanuel, Rahm's brother, threw around more than $74,000 in Hollywood money. Making a lot of contributions is what you do when you would like an administration job. It's not exactly surprising. Although, for the record, John Berry gave a mere $2,300 to Obama's campaign in the whole 2008 election cycle.

Tom Shoop and I are both massive Bruce Springsteen fans, so it's worth pointing out Scott Eblin's awesome post on leadership lessons from the Boss.

Carolyn Duffy Marsan has a terrific feature in our May issue about what it will take for agencies to comply with the Obama administration's directive, due Thursday, that they take public comment more into account. Marsan writes:

What worries federal officials most about the OMB directive is how they will manage millions of public comments in a meaningful way without tying up too many resources. They want to benefit from real-time constituent feedback, but they need to set realistic expectations so the exercise doesn't come off like a publicity stunt. Automation is the answer. Observers say business intelligence software - including data mining, decision support, reporting and Web analytics tools - will help agencies extract useful information from public comments.

...

Web-based commentary can provide agencies with information on all aspects of government policy. "The issue is how to mine it, how to tap into it, and how to look at patterns and trends," Kobielus says. "The geeky parlance is to look for entities and relationships and sentiments that are expressed in that unstructured content."

I think this feature is critical reading for a couple of reasons:

Continue reading "Cutting Through The Clutter" »

By Rob Brodsky

The House today passed the Enhanced Oversight of State and Local Economic Recovery Act which modifies certain terms of the $787 billion economic Recovery Act.

The bill, which was sponsored by several members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, would allow state and local governments the flexibility to set aside a small portion of their stimulus funds for auditing, contract and grant planning and management, oversight and data collection.

The legislation would also let state and local governments use Recovery Act funds to purchase goods and services off the General Services Administration's federal supply schedules through a process known as cooperative purchasing. And, finally the bill would require the federal government to give detailed guidance to state and local governments about tracking jobs that were created or saved because of the stimulus

I just wanted to call attention to a new feature we're running that is a compendium of discounts for federal employees. I have to admit I'm a little jealous of some of these benefits: I'd like a job that hooks me up with vacation travel rewards!

More from Robert Brodsky:

The watchdogs at Pro Publica's excellent Eye on the Stimulus blog note that today is the 90th day since American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law. That deadline means that agencies are responsible for delivering a report to congress on how they are spending stimulus funds.

Earlier today, those reports were made publicly available on Recovery.gov, the administration's central site for the stimulus. Twenty-eight agencies receiving Recovery funds have submitted their plans, which include details on program goals, the level of contract competition; types of contracts that are expected to be used and plans for accountability over the funds.

By Robert Brodsky

Deidre "Dee" Lee, former administrator for federal procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton administration, has joined the Professional Services Council as the contracting association's executive vice president of federal affairs and operations. The position begins June 1.

"Dee is one of those unique leaders with deep knowledge and insight that will greatly enhance PSC's ability to work collaboratively with our government colleagues as we collectively seek to address the plethora of issues and challenges before us" said Stan Soloway, president and CEO of PSC. "She brings with her an enviable and exceptional history, built through her long and distinguished federal career, of leading change and advocating for balanced and smart business practices. She will be a great addition to our leadership team."

Lee has served as the senior acquisition leader at no less than four agencies. In addition to OMB, Lee has led procurement efforts at the Defense Department, FEMA and the General Services Administration. She is currently the director of the defense and intelligence business unit for Compusearch, a private sector IT firm.

Purely in the spirit of journalistic curiosity, here are some things I wonder about the three-man review board appointed to review the National Security Personnel System:

1. Is three people too small? Presumably they'll have a staff, but also, presumably, there is a lot of data to review and a lot of interviews to conduct. I'm surprised more people weren't included, both to handle the workload, and to represent more stakeholder groups.

2. What do these choices for the review team signal about how the administration views pay-for-performance in general? Bob Tobias, for example, is a former president of the National Treasury Employees Union, but he's also not a hard-line opponent of pay-for-performance. I spoke to him for a story last year on the state of federal labor relations, and he said at the time: ""I believe, for example, if the administration had really been serious about involving unions in creating a pay-for-performance system, there would be one in place today....But because they wanted to do it unilaterally and to diminish the scope of collective bargaining, unions fought back, and as a result of winning, created a very, very hostile environment."

3. Why wasn't one of the major federal management non-profits included? I'm surprised not to see a representative from the Partnership for Public Service, for example.

Robbie Kunreuther, writing in FedSmith, frames a problem with performance management in a new way this morning. The problem, he says, isn't just that our managers don't know how to manage for performance. It's that we don't know how to effectively evaluate managers:

Organizational metrics are fickle - especially when delegated down the chain. For example, if budgets are cut 5% across the board, not all supervisors will experience equal impact regarding their goals. Likewise, if senior management settles an appeal by placing a horrible employee under your supervision, shouldn't someone expect that action to affect your metrics?

I'm not sure that solving the problem of evaluations at any one level is the key to everything. But a holistic view of management and how to make it more effective, and how to evaluate it better once new tactics are being deployed, makes sense.

Or will. After they're confirmed. Anyway, Rosa Gumatao Rios will be United States Treasurer, and Daniel Tangherlini will be Assistant Secretary for Management and Chief Financial Officer, as well as Chief Performance Officer for the Treasury. So far, I haven't noticed any other Cabinet-level departments getting CPOs, so I'd interpret this as a sign that Obama is attuned to Treasury's management concerns, not just policy ones. DCist has a nice little wrapup of Tangherlini's time in DC city government, from whence quite a few Obama nominees have come.

Full announcement after the jump.

Continue reading "Details of the NSPS Review Are Out" »

Alex Parker reports that the Department of Homeland Security is holding back on endorsing having Transportation Security Administration employees wear facemasks for lack of evidence:

Elaine Duke, undersecretary of management for DHS, said there wasn't enough evidence to warrant a departmentwide policy endorsing the use of face masks.

"There has to be a reasonable probability that our employees are going to encounter the sickness in their line of work," Duke said. "It did not seem appropriate."

Some lawmakers complained that DHS seemed overly worried that they'd send the message that the risk from swine flu (sorry, H1N1) was more serious than it was. But as someone who has friends who work with a swine flu diagnosee, I feel like I'd feel a little safer seeing TSA employees wearing face masks. Perception can work in two directions.

The House Speaker Nancy Pelosi-Former Sen. Bob Graham-Central Intelligence Agency catfight over who knew what, and who briefed who, about what interrogation tactics, when, is going to get extremely ugly very quickly. Forget that. It's ugly already, although some of the issues its dredging up, like whether Bob Graham's obsessively meticulous diaries mean he's always right, are entertaining. But to my mind, there are a couple of ways this could go, and all of them are bad:

1. Nancy Pelosi is lying about the CIA, and using a federal agency for political cover. This would be bad because if it works, it would continue to legitimize beating the bureaucracy to cover any manner of sins, and further a rift between the intelligence agencies and Democrats in Congress. No matter your political beliefs, it's good for agencies to have strong relationships with both parties, so they can, and will, provide accurate information and useful opinions.

2. The CIA is lying. This would be bad because it would undermine the agency's reputation as an honest broker of information to Congress. The agencies need to do their jobs when it comes to getting good information to lawmakers. Whatever your politics, I think we can agree we need a credible spy agency and intelligence community at large.

3. Everyone's lying because they're not incredibly clear on what happened. This could drag on forever, and be a horrible embarrassing, death-spiral kind of fight that could tie up folks who could be more productively doing other things. It would be a huge mess. But then it is already.

I wrote in my column today that the move to send the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association back to the bargaining table with the addition of mediators could make it easier to pass legislation reauthorizing the agency. Now, Doug Elmendorf is writing on the Congressional Budget Office's Director's Blog, giving details of how the administration's position on funding systems is shaping up. To me, this sounds like a preference for a user fees system:

Most of the taxes are linked closely to the number of passengers and the fares they pay--not to the number of aircraft operations. But the cost of the air traffic control system and the amount of congestion in the system is driven largely by the number, timing, and location of aircraft operations. For example, over the past several years, the number of aircraft departures has grown much more rapidly than the number of passengers--because air carriers have tended to substitute higher frequency service with smaller aircraft for less frequent service with larger aircraft.

Finding a way to allocate costs that accurately reflects the impact that various kinds of users have on the aviation system is a real analytical and political challenge, but a better alignment of taxes with costs could help reduce congestion and delays.

Blogging may be light today, folks. I'm taking a class called Leadership Skills and Techniques as part of a story about the values and tactics that are taught to managers by a variety of programs, and today involves a lot of self-assessments and exercises. I'd be extremely interested to hear from any of you who have taken leadership or management training programs, and to know what you thought was effective and what wasn't. We did one exercise yesterday involving three teams racing to build a battery-powered vehicle under the command of leaders with three different styles, and I have to say, it was one of the most effective short-term demonstrations of the impact of different leadership approaches I've ever seen. Apparently, when I'm being managed by a passive leader, I end up sitting on a conference table, wielding a screwdriver and giving orders to everyone in the vicinity.

Donald Trump apparently just bought a D.C.-area golf course to capitalize on the region's increased vibrancy, due to federal spending.

Apparently, the federal government could save $440 million annually by adopting a common-sense printing policy. The combination of things like this, and the Department of Homeland Security saving money simply by buying office supplies in bulk, makes me wonder if the General Services Administration needs a Common Sense Czar. Has everyone seen Dave, the Kevin Klein-Sigourney Weaver movie in which a presidential impersonator gets stuck in the role when the president has a heart attack? One of my favorite scenes is when Dave (Klein) brings in his accountant buddy to make some budget cuts so they can save a program. Obviously, that's not actually viable for most of the budget, but for addressing common wasteful office practices, it just might work.

Philip Zelikow, who was counselor to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, wants an independent investigation into who knew what about interrogation practices when. And he wants it in part because of the impact the policies surrounding those practices had on the people inside agencies who pushed back against them. Laura Rozen writes:

Zelikow, who revealed last month on ForeignPolicy.com that the Bush White House tried to destroy all copies of a 2006 memo he wrote opposing the policies, has generally sought to avoid the political spectacle, but describes the program as a collective failure. He is calling for an independent commission to investigate what happened.

"I think the record will show as CIA wants it to be known that quite a number of people from both parties were aware of this program, and endorsed it over a period of years," Zelikow told The Cable on the eve of his still-embargoed testimony Tuesday. "Goodness knows, this was a problem for the people inside" like himself "who objected to the program. We were constantly told, we briefed XYZ and they had no problem with that."

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry will be delivering the closing keynote at our July 20 session. Having seen Berry speak A LOT since he was appointed to run OPM, I can say it's a worthwhile experience, especially considering that he's sometimes used even ceremonial remarks to outline new approaches and policies. And as someone who has both spoken at an attended Excellence in Government, I can our events staff does a terrific job of putting together interesting panels. Check us out and register here.

Everyone's excited about the discussions under way about costs savings, public options, and individual mandates, etc. that are part of the health care reform debate kickstarted by President Obama over the past couple of days. I realize that some of this will have to wait until the details of a reform bill are worked out, but what I want to know is how the damn thing is going to be administered and forced. No matter what the result is, I see no way that a significant federal effort isn't going to be required, either to administer a public option, to enforce an individual mandate, or to set treatment standards. And getting the management of that effort right is going to be a major effort.

As part of overall efforts on health care reform, President Obama is pushing for workers to maintain their health better by encouraging physical fitness, closing smoking lounges, etc. But this isn't exactly a new idea: Tommy Thompson pushed workplace fitness as Secretary of Health and Human Services, and agencies are pretty conscious of gym and health maintenance benefits as a competitiveness factor.

About a month ago, I wrote that I thought it was important to acknowledge that there probably had been disputes in the intelligence community over how prisoners who were terrorist suspects were treated:

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?

I was writing hypothetically, since I obviously wasn't privy to those internal discussions. But Walter Pincus has an excellent piece in the Post today about the divisions of opinion among a small group of soldiers about the interrogation tactics they were using. It's worth reading. I just wish we knew a little bit more about the consequences of that disagreement.

Fun fact: Wanda Sykes, this year's comedian at the White House Correspondents Association dinner, was a procurement officer for the National Security Agency before she started acting and performing.

Alex Parker, my new(ish, at this point) beat partner had a good story up on Friday about how John Berry plans to pursue hiring reform independent of Congressional action. He'll be focusing on a move to resumes rather than knowledge, skills and abilities statements, something Sens. Daniel Akaka and George Voinovich have introduced a bill to do as well.

I think this is significant, not only because hiring process reform is important, but because it indicates a pattern. This is the third (at least on this beat, anyway) move the Obama administration has made to tackle problems by executive action that have been awaiting legislative solutions. Berry's announcement that the Office of Personnel Management will implement a new telework policy similar to the change proposed by a group of Virginia and Maryland lawmakers was one step in that direction. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's announcement that he had appointed arbitrators to handle negotiations on a new contract between the air traffic controllers' union and the Federal Aviation Administration was another: the lack of a ratified contract between the two became a sticking point in passing FAA reauthorization legislation in the last session of Congress. It seems clear to me that the administration is designing an activist role for the executive branch agencies, given Congress room to innovate, rather than cajole the agencies to take action.

I'm currently reading Bryan Burrough's Public Enemies, his history of the Midwestern crime wave during the 30's that included criminals like John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, and Pretty Boy Floyd, and that led to the transformation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I'm about a third of the way through it, and what's striking is how incompetent the FBI, and in particular, J. Edgar Hoover, was. Originally, the bureau didn't have arrest powers, and had an informal policy forbidding its agents to carry guns. Melvin Purvis, the agent who would later catch Dillinger, once missed a chance to catch Machine Gun Kelly because he FORGOT ABOUT A TIP. Hoover came close to losing his job as head of the FBI when Franklin Roosevelt appointed a senator who didn't like him to head the Justice Department, and his job was saved when the senator died on his honeymoon with a much younger woman, presumably after a too-vigorous bout of sex.

That a credible law enforcement agency emerged from this muck of self-parody is astonishing. But it's a useful reminder that even though the government faces substantial challenges today, we could be starting from a lot further back. The Department of Homeland Security is about infinitely more functional now than the FBI was at the same point in its own history. Fixing what's broke is one thing. Starting from nothing is another. In any case, the book is highly engaging both as a bureaucratic adventure, and as a series of interconnected heist tales, and worth reading before the movie of the same title bows later this summer.

Thanks to my colleague at National Journal, I got to spend some time yesterday with some of the leaders of the Center for the Study of the Presidency to discuss their new report "Saving America's Future: A Challenge to the American People" (not yet available online). One thing that struck me about the report was that its requirements, including major revitalization of the diplomatic, public health, education, and economic systems was its frank acknowledgment of a need for greater capacity, and a greater focus on performance: it's one of the first reports I've seen to include recommendations for the Chief Performance Officer. So I asked a couple of the speakers, including Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Rear Admiral Susan Blumenthal what they thought needed to be done to meet that need for greater capacity.

"We have a fantastic young generation coming on," Pickering said, noting that federal pay may not be terrific, but the other rewards can be substantial. He said it's important that the education system be improved, both to produce a bench of qualified candidates for federal jobs, and to encourage students to enter federal service.

Admiral Blumenthal praised President Obama's call to service, but she said as a practical matter, the budget and the Recovery Act would be a major help to agencies have the will to hire, but just need the money.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a somewhat questionable piece on how underdogs can succeed by looking at a basketball team of 12-year-olds (starting complaint: the zone defense is not a cure-all). Fortunately, we have Scott Eblin blogging here on Executive Coach who can explain the actual strengths of and winning strategies for underdogs. And just as a note, you should be reading Scott's blog no matter where you are in your career. It's great, strategic advice for folks at any stage.

Folks should head on over to read Elizabeth Newell's smart piece on how the Obama administration decided what programs to cut. It's important, I think, because while the Obama team is going to spend a lot of time discussing what the cuts mean, suggesting for example that the eliminations show that they're serious about cutting programs where other administrations just talked the talk, the way they decide what to eliminate is just as consequential in terms of what it says about how the administration will evaluate programs.

For example, anyone who flipped through the booklet of programs to be terminated yesterday might have noticed that the footnotes justifying the cuts looked more like those of a 9th grade social studies paper by a student just learning how to do non-parenthetical citations than a graduate paper, the thick brush of research and explanation we might have expected. Sure, it's a lot of programs, and a couple of months. But there are a lot of good people working on the budget. And a report from the Government Accountability Office doesn't seem like it should be the only thing dooming a program.

Continue reading "A Philosophy of Cuts" »

If you're not a 30 Rock or NCIS fan, feel no need to read on. I was just reminded of this earlier debate we had in this space...

But, I'm watching 30 Rock right now, and Liz, Pete and Twofer were debating how old Tracy is. They decided it's possible that he is 61 because, among other things, he doesn't know how to use a computer, has diabetes and a lot of dead friends, gets angry at the television, and "his favorite TV show is NCIS!" Whatever my criticisms of NCIS, it doesn't strike me as an old-person show!

Over at The Atlantic's politics channel, Conor Clarke considers the argument that the Obama administration's budget cuts, while small, represent a change in mentality of the kind advocated by John McCain. I'm not sure I buy it, but it's an interesting position.

When Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry announced a new government-wide telework policy last week, he said he'd be moving fast on guidance for the program. He wasn't kidding. Guidance on the program is out, and agencies have until May 25 to submit their telework policies and designate a point person for OPM to work with.

President Obama used his speech on the budget today to sound his own note of public service recognition, saying:

I want to be clear: there are many, many people doing valuable work for our government across the country and around the world. It's important that we support these folks - folks who don't draw a big paycheck or earn a lot of praise but who do tough, thankless jobs on our behalf. This is not a criticism of them.

That said, he appears to be sticking to his proposal for a 2 percent civilian pay raise...

By Rob Brodsky

A leading contractor trade association has come out swinging against legislation introduced this week by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., which would indefinitely suspend all public-private job competitions and encourage agencies to bring contracted work back in-house.

The Professional Services Council said today that the Correction of Longstanding Errors in Agencies Unsustainable Procurements (CLEAN UP) Act would set back the administration's contracting and government performance agenda.

"Regrettably, this legislation inappropriately limits the Obama administration's ability to achieve its goals and only drives yet another unnecessary wedge between federal employees and federal contractors when we should be building partnerships." said Stan Soloway, president and CEO of PSC. "It is the wrong bill, based on the wrong premises, proposing the wrong 'solution,' at the wrong time."

And Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee just said he opposes passage of the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act both because he says it would be too costly in an economic crisis, and because it would allow federal employees to take leave when they adopt a child or bring a foster child into their home, saying such an allowance could costs to mount if federal families adopt or foster new children annually.

Rep. Danny Davis pointed out the timing of Issa's opposition, and said he disagreed, especially because 34 percent of the children in his district live with someone other than their birth parents.

"I would be delighted if federal workers or any other workers were adopting one of these children every year," Davis said. "In fact, I'd give them a Medal of Honor, because there is a tremendous need for children to be adopted."

I'm off to the lunch for the Service to America Medal finalists. For those of you not familiar with the program, the Sammies honor outstanding federal employees, and the Partnership for Public Service, which runs awards, tells me they've been especially impressed by the quality of the candidates and finalists this year.

And the National Nuclear Security Administration announced its Security Professionals of the Year today. That full announcement is below the jump. But clearly, this is a day for good vibes.

Continue reading "A Good Day for Good Feds" »

John Grobe has an interesting piece up at FedSmith about how to get the most out of Individual Development Plans. Among other things, he cautions against mandating IDPs if they're inappropriate (for instance, if someone is a year from retirement), and advises:

* Don't wait for your manager to suggest that you develop an IDP. Take the initiative and approach your manager with your desire to improve and/or advance yourself professionally. Ask for a career discussion with your manager. If you don't tell your manager what you are interested in, he/she might never be aware of your career development desires or concerns.
* Don't fill your IDP with training courses and not include any developmental assignments. Training budgets are perennially tight, and lack of money should not derail your career. Challenging work assignments can be of equal or greater benefit than training classes.
* Don't let the IDP gather dust in a drawer, either yours or your manager's. Schedule periodic follow-ups with your manager on your progress toward your developmental goals.

I'd add a note to this. Managers should be careful not to stigmatize IDPs, and suggest they're only for employees whose performance is in need of improvement. All employees can benefit from strategic planning for their careers, no matter how high-achieving they are.

Most of my work spam is the conventional stuff: Nigerian 419 scams, lots of stuff in Chinese and Cyrillic, etc. But today, one of the subject lines was "Seeking Tender Contractors." Bet we can all guess what that was about, but at least the spammers have some sense of what our target audience is!

So, I was talking to folks who work on human capital issues at the Central Intelligence Agency today, and what do you know, today's Doonesbury has Jeff Redfern sitting down with HR at CIA. The human resources officer tells him that the benefits package is "the basic civil service package...paid leave, sick days, flex schedule, full health, credit union, 401k, etc." Hah. Right. But thanks to Randy Moon, I can report that the agency has an aggressive talent assessment system and a rigorous onboarding program...

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is marking up the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act again on Wednesday, and Ranking Member Darrell Issa is weighing in, declaring in a letter to his colleagues "I fully recognize that, like their private sector counterparts, most Federal employees work hard and deserve competitive compensation and benefits packages. In these perilous economic times, however, when many in the private sector are having to make difficult cuts, it is inappropriate for us to heap even more generous benefits on federal employees."

I don't know how this will affect committee Republicans. Some of them had already come out in opposition to the bill, but at least one, Brian Bilbray, said he would support the bill on the grounds that it sets a non-coercive model for private-sector employees. Should be an interesting debate.

Apparently, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood doesn't care that much about transportation, and would have been just as happy to be Agriculture Secretary. Actually, given the New York Times description of how he's going about his job, it sounds like LaHood would have been cheerful just being Barack Obama's liaison to Congressional Republicans. As the Times says:

As transportation secretary, Mr. LaHood leads an agency with 56,000 employees, a $70 billion budget and a huge barrel of economic stimulus money. While that gives him some influence inside the cabinet, his bond with Mr. Emanuel, his former House colleague from Illinois, most likely gives him more.

I can't decide if I'm more worried about the fact that LaHood doesn't seem super-passionate about managing those employees and that money (though to be fair, he moved to end one of the longest-running conflicts under his jurisdiction, the feud between the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, and he and Vice President Biden have done some road-tripping on behalf of high-speed rail) or the fact that the Times didn't seem to think it was remotely important to explore the implications of how LaHood feels about his job for the Department's management.

Spencer Ackerman has a terrific piece up over at the Washington Independent about the gaps between what the Afghan government under Hamid Karzai wants out of the Obama administration, specifically, a huge surge in civilian advisors in a range of capacities, and what the administration is able to provide. Spencer writes:

While Afghan officials familiar with the plan did not expect the Obama administration to be the sole provider of the 676 technical advisers -- the need is described as one for the international community to fill -- one said that the United States would "likely provide a good number of them," since it was the Obama administration that came up with the idea for a "civilian surge" of governance and development advisers to supplement the 17,000 new troops it has sent to Afghanistan....The Obama administration has found that its desire to send civilian governance and development experts to Afghanistan exceeds its ability. In March, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said the department had only identified 51 additional civilian personnel it could send to Afghanistan as part of a "ramp up" of its efforts in Afghanistan for a "wide range of activities." The State Department has not traditionally maintained a corps of governance experts that can deploy to the outskirts of foreign countries on short notice, and its efforts at constructing one over the past four years have been arduous. Last month, Pentagon spokesman Geoffrey Morrell acknowledged that the administration was looking to find as many as 300 military reservists to bolster the State Department's deployable personnel out of "a realization that they are not going to be able to provide the 'civilian surge' in the near future and the need is now." Such a total would still fall short of the needs identified by the Afghan government.

Continue reading "Seeing the Cracks" »

DipNote has a nice little photo gallery up of Sec. Hillary Clinton's first 100 days at the State Department. I liked that the first two pictures are her with and talking to department employees, and that the emphasis on the initial photos is of her getting to know the department and putting her team together. There are the obligatory glamor shots of her with overseas bigshots of course, but I thought it was a good idea for them not to ignore the folks who stand behind Clinton, both literally and figuratively.

1,500 employees who work at an Internal Revenue Service center in Andover, Massachusetts, are going to lose their jobs this year. The IRS is closing the center on the grounds that more people are filing their tax returns online, and so fewer people are needed to process online filings, something some lawmakers and advocates dispute, but is sort of besides the point for the point I want to make. Understandably, this is terrible for them, particularly in this economy, when many people are looking to government jobs as a safe haven. And so some Congressmen and the National Treasury Employees Union are asking that those employees be given a preference in hiring for jobs in the Troubled Asset Relief Program and other economic oversight positions.

Preferences are a really difficult issue. I had a conversation with someone a while ago who said that veterans preference was the unspoken elephant in the room of hiring reform, a roadblock to truly focusing on the most qualified candidates. Alternately, NTEU has argued that hiring authorities like the Federal Career Intern Program are a way to work around veterans preference and discriminate earlier. Clearly, there is an extremely difficult balance to be struck between rewarding veterans for their service in appropriate ways, and making sure that the quality of job applicants is the most important factor in hiring. In an ideal world, preferences would be extremely carefully tailored to make sure that they serve both purposes: appropriately rectifying a wrong or acting as a reward, and promoting extremely qualified candidates who might otherwise get lost in the shuffle.

The Office of Personnel Management announced late on Friday afternoon that they've awarded a 7-year contract to John Hancock Life and Health Insurance Company to provide long-term care insurance. Long Term Care Partners will still manage the program, so I wouldn't expect major changes, but we'll have more details later.

The Pennsylvania Senator's decision to become a Democrat means that the bill to create a public service academy is left without a Republican co-sponsor in the Senate.

FEMA's pulling a September 11 educational coloring book on the grounds that it was misinterpreted too often to be uesful. It's too bad. I remember on 9/11, my school district banned all information about the unfolding crisis from my sister's middle school, creating, I think, a greater sense of shock when kids got home, and denying them the opportunity to learn about what was going on in an environment where teachers could discuss context, counselors were available, and everyone was accounted for and safe. Almost 8 years later, the need for education and reasonable discussion remains.

I forgot to mention this yesterday, but GovLoop, a fed-specific social networking site for federal employees,has passed 10,000 members. That's about half a percent of civilian federal employees, but the growth is a good sign at a time when folks may feel overwhelmed by the proliferation of social networking sites, and some metrics suggest that even if they're trying services like Twitter and abandoning them. I'll be curious to see how GovLoop does in the long-term.