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One of the questions Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry was asked at yesterday's work-life town hall was whether folks could contribute money instead of food through the food drive OPM is currently sponsoring in federal agencies. Berry said that agencies can only solicit financial contributions through the Combined Federal Campaign, but explained why he's hoping federal employees will lug food to work, even if it's inconvenient:

"The three months that have the lowest donations to our area food banks are June, July and August. And yet with the economic situation we're facing, our food banks are really under stress, there are people relying on them more or more, especially if they're children. During the summer months, children are not getting access to their school lunch or school breakfast programs."

Berry isn't exaggerating about food banks facing crunches: in DC, for example, Bread for the City has had to seriously go over budget to meet need.

I've received a lot of questions in comments about how the State Department and other agencies are going to define "domestic partners" for the purposes of extending benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian federal employees. Here's the language from the revisions to the State Department's manual:

A. Definition of a Domestic Partner

A domestic partner for purposes of this section is an individual who meets all of the criteria listed in and who has been declared to be a domestic partner of an employee in accordance with subpart (B) below.

B. Declaration of a Domestic Partner

To obtain benefits and assume obligations of a "domestic partner" under the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) and Department of State Standardized Regulations (DSSR), an employee must file an affidavit of eligibility for benefits and obligations (3 FAM 1610 Appx.) with

• the Bureau of Human Resources, Executive Office, Assignment Support Unit (HR/EX/ASU) (for Department of State employees),
• Office of Human Resources/Foreign Service Personnel Division (for Agency for International Development employees)
• Office of Human Resources/Operations and Benefits (OHR/O) (for the Broadcasting Board of Governors employees)
• Office of Foreign Service Human Resources (OFSHR) (for Foreign Commercial Service employees)
• Office of Foreign Service Operations (DAFAS) (for Foreign Agricultural Service employees)

identifying the domestic partner of the employee and certifying that the employee and the domestic partner of the employee -

(1) are each other's sole domestic partner and intend to remain committed to one another indefinitely;
(2) have a common residence, and intend to continue the arrangement;
(3) are at least 18 years of age and mentally competent to consent to contract;
(4) share responsibility for a significant measure of each other's common welfare and financial obligations;
(5) are not married to, joined in civil union with, or domestic partners with anyone else;
(6) are same-sex domestic partners, and not related in a way that would prohibit legal marriage in the State in which they reside;
(7) agree to inform the Department of State of any dissolution of the partnership in accordance with subpart C below;
(8) understand that the domestic partner will be held to standards of conduct in the FAM that apply to family members; and
(9) understand that falsification of information within the affidavit may constitute a criminal violation under 18 U.S.C. 1001 and may lead to disciplinary action.

By Robert Brodsky

Sen. Claire McCaskill's influence in the watchdog/auditing community continues to grow. On Monday, one of the McCaskill's top aides, Peggy Gustafson, was nominated as inspector general for the Small Business Administration.

Gustafson currently serves as general counsel to McCaskill, D-Mo., advising the first-term senator and former Missouri state auditor on government oversight issues.

According to an administration announcement, Gustafson helped write two bills that strengthened the roles of IGs: the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008 and the legislation that created the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief. From 1999-2007, she served as general counsel in the Missouri State Auditor's Office.

Peter McClintock is currently the acting inspector general at SBA.

Over at Wired Workplace, Brittany checks in with some of our sources from the piece we wrote on the generational shift in the workplace. The point Brittany's making in the post, and that the folks she's referencing is trying to make is that technology can be a point of connection rather than division in the federal workforce. I think this is true, but it requires receptivity on both sides.

Older workers, who may be less familiar with the latest hardware and software, have to be willing to learn more about technology, and comfortable with the idea that technology can be beneficial. Younger workers have to be willing to help their colleagues learn, and not treat lack of familiarity with technology as a signal of ignorance or failure. Everyone's got to be aware of the rules and regulations regarding technology and information security and be willing to follow them. If those conditions are met, I think conversations about technology in the workplace can be an area where folks come together. But if folks don't follow the rules that they really should follow for all interactions on the job, it's going to divide people rather than help them learn from each other.

The New York Times is inveighing against Senatorial holds on Obama administration nominees today, thundering that "Good governance requires Republicans to drop groundless holds." I think there's no question that Senatorial process is, um, deeply if not irretrievably broken, and holds on nominees does gum up the works a lot. But there's a far bigger problem here: many of the officials who are going to do the actual management work, in other words, who are going to be doing the actual "good governance" at the agencies, haven't been nominated. And some critical nominees who have been selected haven't gotten Senate hearings.

The Washington Post's very valuable Head Count tracker has a list of 241 jobs the president hasn't even tapped people for yet--and it doesn't even include CXOs! Christine Griffin, the president's nominee to be deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management, has been languishing for months without a confirmation hearing. I realize that the Senate calendar is packed, especially with the House on overdrive passing legislation. But frankly, when it comes to management confirmation hearings, it doesn't exactly seem like Senators are busting down the doors to attend. So the Senators who are interested should prioritize getting nomination hearings moving. And if President Obama is super-concerned about governance, he should send them management nominees to question. Holds are one problem, but they're not the only issue here.

I'm over at the Office of Personnel Management where director John Berry is holding a town hall meeting on work-life balance with his employees. Back in May, Berry said he hoped to create an innovation zone for work-life balance programs at OPM, the General Services Administration, and the Interior Department, all of which are grouped together in Foggy Bottom. Today, Berry said that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar convened a meeting of the heads of those agencies and the Federal Reserve at Interior last Thursday, and the four agencies agreed to go ahead with the program.

Admittedly, State had a heads-up on other departments and agencies in equalizing benefits for the domestic partners of gay and lesbian employees and for the spouses of heterosexual workers, since Secretary Hillary Clinton ordered a review of department policies long before President Obama announced a government-wide review. But as of June 26, the changes to State's operating manuals governing those benefits were in effect. I'll be interested to see what role State's example plays in the agency-by-agency reviews, which I think were underlooked in the mainstream coverage of President Obama's benefits order. As Office of Personnel Management director John Berry proved as an assistant secretary at Interior, a deep review of a department's policies can turn up a whole mess of ways that a department treats gay workers different from straight ones. Policies get calcified, ignored, perhaps not even really enforced, but they're still there, and can still present a problem. If the reviews are substantive and thorough, agencies may end up changing a whole bunch of policies that disproportionately, or only, affect their gay employees. They still can't extend access to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program--Congress is going to have to do that. But agencies could end up taking on relocation benefits and other issues. The full impact of Obama's order remains to be seen.

Marc Ambinder reports that Joe Biden will mediate a beef between the CIA and the Directorate of National Intelligence. He's got good details about how the dispute is impacting the viability of each institution, but what I want to know is: which Seamus Heaney poem will Biden quote to start the proceedings? I think this may not be a "hope and history rhyme" kind of setting.

Ezra Klein thinks we don't need the Congressional Agriculture Committees any more. But the argument he's making also makes the case for getting rid of the Agriculture Department (though the department doesn't have the pernicious influence the committees do on other legislation). Ezra writes:

There was a time in American history when that made some sense. In 1862, the year Abraham Lincoln founded the Department of Agriculture, farm products made up 82 percent of American exports. The agricultural industry was one of the country's most important employers. And in an age of wars, famines, and general instability, there was a direct government interest in keeping an eye on food producers.

But that went the way of powdered wigs and, well, sharecropping. In 2007, agricultural products weren't one of our Top 12 exports (and, interestingly, the top 12 exports combined only amounted to 38 percent of total U.S. exports; a far cry from the 82 percent that agriculture once controlled). Nor was agriculture one of our top 10 employers.

Most folks would probably say abolishing the Agriculture Department is crazy. But if Congress does manage to pass major health care reform, an environmental bill, immigration legislation, whatever, agencies are going to need to staff up and authorities are going to be rearranged. It might not be insane to do some major rethinking of the departments if that ends up being the case. Or, it could be a rehash of the Department of Homeland Security's growing pains all over again. But at least considering the idea has merit.

So, the thing I don't understand about Carol Shea-Porter's amendment rolling back the National Security Personnel System is this: why didn't she call the Obama administration to coordinate it? The amendment was always going to conflict with the NSPS review the administration has under way. I don't see any particular reason the amendment HAS to be attached to the appropriations cycle. I understand Shea-Porter's desire to get things under way, but the review committee's going to issue its results in August or early September. Would it have been so disastrous for her to wait a couple of months, coordinate with the White House, and have everything go smoothly?

The union presidents testifying before the NSPS review board began their appearance with a series of sarcastic remarks: John Gage of the American Federation of Government Employees said he was too "stunned" by the (fairly self-critical) comments of the previous panel to speak immediately, and asked if Rick Brown from the National Federation of Federal Employees could speak first. Brown asked if there was vodka in the water pitchers at the witness table, saying he needed a drink. It seemed like an odd way to get started. But Brown's doing something that seems smart in his testimony: he's using the union's objections to NSPS to set some of the terms for NFFE's participation in a debate over government-wide pay reform, saying the union's ongoing conversations with OPM director John Berry about pay reform show a good-faith dedication to fixing flaws in the pay system.

"Just because we favor GS system to NSPS does not mean we are only interested in maintaining the status quo. We are all aware that the GS system has significant flaws, and we are willing to work with Congress and the administration," Brown said. "We are ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work to address the problems facing the federal government."

But Brown also suggested that further expansion of NSPS could hurt efforts at government-wide pay reform by increasing mistrust between the parties who will be stakeholders in that effort. There's the stick, of course. Berry's asking the unions a lot in asking them to consider moving away from the GS system. NSPS can be an excuse not to cooperate.

Interesting exchange between review board member and former NTEU president Bob Tobias and NSPS program executive Brad Bunn:

Tobias: It is really a good piece of work that you sponsored, you put together, and you published. I assume from your testimony that you believe NSPS motivates people who are covered by NSPS to increase their performance. What I mean by that, if I'm a level 4 performer, and I produce 1.0, that without NSPS I might produce 0.8 instead of 1.0. My question is, what data is available to support the assumption that this system, as it's currently designed and implemented in DOD, motivates employees to actually increase their performance.

Bunn: Frankly, I don't have a database that shows net increase in performance of either organizations or individuals. We're able to track performance over time of individuals. I mentioned that most of the folks who got a 1 or a 2 improved their performance, or got a higher rating. Whether the system motivated that, we don't have data that says exactly what motivated that. What the system is designed to do was promote a performance culture.

Continue reading "Is NSPS Necessary?" »

Before the Defense Business Board's NSPS review team began its first public meeting, American Federation Government Employees workers picketed outside the hotel where the meeting is being held. Some of their chants implied sentiments that are not reprintable on a family blog, but the mood was mostly good-natured, and the atmosphere within the hearing room is similarly calm. AFGE's packed the room, but folks are sitting and listening. And so far, the strongest statement has come from review board chairman Rudy de Leon, who said the labor-management provisions of NSPS, repealed last year, "served to greatly damage the strong sense of partnership and commitment that had existed between labor and management in previous administrations."

The House has added an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for fiscal 2010 that will allow department employees to choose to wear face masks on the job. This seems entirely logical to me; if I were going to be in proximity to thousands of people I didn't know every day, in varying degrees of health, I'd want to mask up, too.

It's been an insane couple of days for those of us who cover federal pay, and for those of you who receive it. In my column today, I try to grapple with what the administration is trying to do as it sets a course for pay reform. But I want to draw a couple of other conclusions:

1) Just because the administration doesn't like Carol Shea-Porter's amendment doesn't mean it plans to continue with the National Security Personnel System: Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry has already said that whatever vision of pay reform he ultimately pursues, it's "not NSPS." Union leaders are understandably upset about Obama's opposition to the amendment, which they're backing. But Obama is genuinely a process guy: I think his belief that the amendment is premature is genuine, but also that the prematureness is all that he objects to. If the president decides he's going to get rid of NSPS, he'll need a mechanism to do it, given that one currently doesn't exist, and Shea-Porter's amendment, no matter how it was timed, provides an initial template for such a rollback.

2. The administration is genuinely undecided about what kind of pay system it would like to advance: And that seems like a good thing. If they were sure all pay-for-performance systems were dismal failures, they'd have had no problem suspending them, which budget chief Peter Orszag has declined to do. The conference Berry has planned for fall is intriguing, especially because the inclusion of Google and Harvard people will bring in voices that don't typically dominate the Washington debate over pay. I have no idea what solutions will emerge out of the debate, but I'm looking forward to sitting in on it.

Ed O'Keefe reports that Virginia Saunders, who worked at the Government Printing Office for 63 years, has passed away at 82. It's hard to imagine that there will be many people in the future who have government careers that long, so it's worth remembering Ms. Sanders both for her service, and as of a passing of a certain kind of career-long dedication to a single employer.

Remember that recruiting program I blogged about in May, where the C.I.A. is looking for a few good former investment bankers? Shane Harris, National Journal's intelligence correspondent and a good friend of FedBlog, predicted it last year: He wrote:

Obama ran into trouble with his "Intelligence for the 21st Century" plan, which critics said favored hiring analysts and policy wonks over clandestine operatives. Obama pointed out that advances in surveillance technology and unmanned aerial vehicles had kept terrorists on the run, but that analysts were leaving in frighteningly high numbers. The intelligence community managed to keep its recruitment numbers high through targeted advertisements aimed at business school graduates. They also tapped into a huge pool of unemployed but highly skilled financial analysts, who found themselves in need of steady work after the 2009 implosion in the over-the-counter derivatives market.

Seem far-fetched? Right on the money? Somewhere in between? We'll all find out soon enough.

Continuing his streak of making news with speeches, OPM Director John Berry just told the audience here at the Coalition for Effective Change that he's asked former Sen. Paul Sarbanes, Laszlo Bock, Google's Vice President for People Operations, and David Ellwood, Dean of Harvard's Kennedy School, to chair a major conference on human resources operations in the federal government in September. Berry says he's met with all the heads of the major public policy schools and gotten their agreements to participate in the conference, and he's inviting labor leaders and the Coalition for Effective Change member groups as well. The conference will be open, Berry says, and focus on the question of how the federal government can become a model employer.

I'm here at the Coalition for Effective Change's 15th anniversary conference, and OPM Director John Berry just said that "there will be a partnership executive order at some point. It will happen. We're very close. As you know, there are so many pressures in the White House and they're being pulled in so many different directions...The best solutions are always found through good, open, honest communication." Unions and Congressmen alike have been somewhat impatient with the administration, so Berry's announcement should come as welcome news to them.

Our Editor-in-Chief Tim Clark reports from last night's American Society for Public Administration awards:

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and two longtime civil servants were honored last night with awards from the National Capital Area Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration.

Voinovich received the "Champion of Public Service" award, recognizing his Senate service and his earlier work as Ohio governor and mayor of Cleveland. ASPA president Paul Posner of George Mason University praised the Voinovich for his sustained interest in issues that may have seemed below-the-radar but had long-term importance to key institutions, including the civil service. The senator was unable to attend Monday's ceremony because of a schedule change that kept him in Ohio. An aide accepted the award for him.

Reginald F. Wells, deputy commissioner for human resources of the Social Security Administration, received the David O. Cooke Award for Leadership in the Public Service. The award, which recognizes career achievement in federal service, was presented by Office of Personnel Management director John Berry and by Myra Howze Shiplett, a recognized leader in human resources management issues, who remarked on Wells' many contributions in the human capital arena.

Beverly H. Godwin, director of online resources and interagency development in the White House Office of New Media, was honored for her recent achievements in public administration. Presenting the NCAC President's Award to Godwin, I remarked on her 20-plus year history as a change-maker in government, including her eight years as a staffer and then deputy director of the Clinton Administration's Partnership for Reinventing Government and her subsequent eight years in the General Services Administration's Office of Citizen Services, where she was responsible for USA.gov and governmentwide online best practices. Godwin now continues to push adoption of new media by federal agencies from her post at the White House.

The Office of Personnel Management says that, despite the horrible crash on the red line of the Washington, D.C. metro yesterday, offices remain open, but is urging managers to remain flexible. If you've got a telework agreement, they're asking your manager to let you work from home, and if you're not, managers are supposed to be tolerant of late arrivals of up to two hours.

I've been thinking all day about what to write about the shocking New York Times expose of the cancer unit at a Philadelphia Veterans Affairs hospital, where a clearly irresponsible, though highly pedigreed contract doctor botched prostate cancer treatments for all but a few of 92 veterans who received bad implants. But all I can really come up with to say is that fixing this list of problems seems to be a decent place to start:

Peer review, a staple of every good hospital, in which colleagues examine one another's work, did not exist in the unit. The V.A.'s radiation safety program; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates the use of all nuclear materials; and the Joint Commission, a group that accredited the hospital, all failed to intervene; either their inspections had been limited or they had not acted decisively upon finding problems.

Over all, the implant program lacked a "safety culture," the nuclear commission found. Dr. Kao and other members of his team, the commission said, were not properly supervised or trained in what constitutes a substandard implant and the need to report it.

And for the love of all that is decent, folks should have to be certified in procedures, whether they involve radiation or not, before they start performing them en masse.

Brittany has an interesting post up on Wired Workplace about turnoffs for potential employers in a digital era. Some of the items seem quirky, but fair. Job-seekers should probably have their own, professional-looking email addresses rather than shared accounts; obviously, doing research on a company or agency you're looking to hire makes sense; Facebook friending someone you don't already work with or have a serious, established relationship with is far too forward. But, for example, picking on folks who have America Online email addresses just seems like a form of age discrimination to me. Sure, AOL is kind of old-school, and most folks have shifted to free forms of email with bigger storage capacity like Gmail. But unless a candidate shows a broad inability to adapt to new technology, penalizing someone for their choice of email provider seems arbitrary.

By Robert Brodsky

The Senate on Friday confirmed management consultant and entrepreneur Jeff Zients to be the deputy director of management at the Office of Management and Budget. Zients will also serve as government's first chief performance officer.

"He's a proven leader who has an impressive record of success everywhere he's worked," wrote OMB Director Peter Orszag on his agency blog Friday. "And now, with the Senate's approval, he's ready to bring his talents to public service."

At the beginning of each new administration, National Journal, Government Executive's sister publication (and my first employer) takes on a crazy project: to profile as may new political appointees as possible. This time around, we got 366 of 'em. And here they are: the folks who will be setting policy and tone at your agencies for the next several years.

The Washington Post's Greg Sargent reported earlier in the day that attorneys for gay federal employees who are suing the government to get benefits coverage for their partners were complaining that the Obama administration, specifically the Office of Personnel Management, had refused their requests to meet to discuss the legal reasoning the administration was using in those cases. I called over to OPM, and Elaine Kaplan, the agency's general counsel, told me that wasn't the case. She says she's talked to Gary Buseck, the legal director for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders who complained to Sargent that the Justice Department had turned down his request for a meeting, and described their conversation as productive. And Kaplan said that she wasn't sure who Jennifer Pizer, the marriage project director for Lambda Legal who complained that OPM had been unresponsive, had reached out to (Kaplan has only been at OPM since March 30), but said she called her and left a message on her cell phone.

"it's my policy to talk to anyone who wants to talke to me about legal cases before OPM," Kaplan told me. "I'd be glad to talk to her, I think it would be very worthwhile."

The database that provides salary data on every federal employee has its 2008 numbers up--but good luck accessing it. The site is so overwhelmed by requests that it's timing out. So if you have to know what your cubicle-mate or your boss is making, it might be best to wait a couple of days, or sneak down for a peek in the small hours of the morning.

By Elizabeth Newell

The watchdog group Project on Government Oversight is hailing legislation introduced by Republican senators John McCain, Ariz., Tom Coburn, Ok., and Charles Grassley, Iowa, that would set firm deadlines for the Defense Department to undergo a complete audit of its financial statements.

"It's only fitting at a time when we are calling for increased fiscal responsibility from companies that we demand the same from the Department of Defense," said POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian.

In introducing the 2009 Department of Defense Financial Accountability Act, the senators said they find it unacceptable that the department, with a base budget of over half a trillion dollars, has never been fully audited. Accounting problems at Defense have cost taxpayers about $13 billion in a single year, according to the Government Accountability Office.

"The consequences of not having an audited financial statement in the Department of Defense is costing lives," Coburn said in a statement. "The waste from this lack of financial accountability, estimated in the billions, results in fewer weapons and less resources for our troops in combat. The Constitution demands financial accountability throughout the government, and the Financial Accountability Act will finally force the Department of Defense to comply with this requirement."

It's been an ugly couple of days for the Obama administration when it comes to Inspectors General. He fired the AmeriCorps Inspector General without, it appears, giving the man the proper notice required in a bill passed by Congress last year--which he co-sponsored. Not to mention suspicion that the firing was politically motivated. Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Ed Towns said in a statement yesterday that "Based on the information provided at the briefing and my review of other information, it appears that there was cause to remove Mr. Walpin based on misconduct. However, due to the importance of preserving the independence of Inspectors General, I am continuing to review this matter."

The Treasury Department is trying to assert legal authority over the Special Inspector General in charge of overseeing the bailout, who has asked the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel to intervene to settle the question. But it would be extremely odd--and seemingly counterproductive--to jeapordize the independence of the SIGTARP by forcing him to report to the man whose work he is attempting to oversee. And given the importance that's been placed on stimulus and bailout oversight, this decision seems extremely politically shortsighted. And Chuck Grassley is calling for investigations into the firing of the International Trade Commission IG as well.

It's possible these are a series of unrelated, but equally boneheaded moves. Sure, the Inspectors General may need some better performance measures, and they certainly could use more resources. Sure, the Obama administration may want to make some changes of the guard. But if you're in office as an advocate of transparency, accountability, sweetness, and light, it seems like at minimum you should follow the rules you've set up for yourself, no? And avoid appearing heavy-handed and evasive? Just a thought...

Nice reminder from GovGab that in addition to it being Father's Day this weekend, today is Juneteenth, the anniversary of the June 19, 1865 arrival of Union soldiers in Galveston, TX, to spread the news of the Emancipation Proclamation to what were then the furthest reaches of the country.

Okay, it's not quite a party. But the Coalition for Effective Change, one of the longest-standing good government groups, is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary on June 23 with a morning-long discussion of workforce issues in the Obama administration. RSVPs should go to Maya Laws at maya@totalmerit.com with your name and contact information. I'll be there, so please say hi if you make it.

The American Federation of Government Employees is pressing its case on face masks and other precautions for federal employees who are at risk of exposure to the H1N1 virus. The latest cause for concern? The baby of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement employee who works at a Miami center where six of her colleagues have been diagnosed with a flu has come down with H1N1. It isn't clear to me that the baby's parent, an ICE agent, is one of the six cases at the center, or if the baby necessarily contracted H1N1 via contact with either the parent or anyone else who works at the center. But it is an unfortunate reminder that even if adults with access to good medical care are healthy enough for H1N1 not to be a risk, they almost certainly all have contact with people who are much more vulnerable, and whose health is much more fragile.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has an intriguing piece in U.S. News & World Report today in which he suggests that National Intelligence Director Admiral Dennis Blair and Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta should switch jobs. I wrote back in January that Panetta's experience as director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration might prepare him to improve morale and performance at CIA, an agency similarly dominated by extremely smart, specialized professionals. But I take Issa's point that:

The challenges are there for Director Panetta too--from the burden of reinvigorating an agency hard hit in a current climate of congressional accusation to working within a legal framework that potentially buffers his direct access to the president. Panetta's strengths--the ability to direct the traffic of government at both the Office and Management and Budget and as White House chief of staff--are naturally predisposed to coordination and administration.

In this instance, the Obama administration has selected two outstanding and experienced leaders to serve America's national security interests. If internal conflicts now threaten the effective coordination of these interests, the president may need to intervene personally and reorganize his national security team. Perhaps Panetta, with his vast administrative and political experience, is better suited as DNI while Blair, with his extensive background as a commander, would thrive at the CIA.

In other Panetta reading, Jane Mayer's New Yorker profile of him asks a series of tough questions about how Panetta, a very strong opponent of torture is managing the consequences of Bush administration policies at CIA.

President Obama's plan to regulate the financial system, announced yesterday, has sparked a lot of debate in Congress. But no matter the politics of the overhaul, I'd like to see more discussion of the resources agencies would need to take on expanded responsibilities, and a sound, detailed plan for standing up a new regulatory agency:

The plan would give the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation new powers to seize troubled banks and other companies when they falter and could harm the larger financial system. It would also give the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the power to put in place new rules for derivatives, including credit default swaps.

And it would create a federal agency to oversee consumer products like mortgages, annuities and credit cards. That proposal has already provoked a barrage of criticism from banks, which would have to face a new set of examiners in addition to the ones that already supervise them for safety and soundness.

As folks ought to have learned from the standup of the Transportation Security Administration, creating a new agency, even when it's a matter of shifting an existing private-sector industry to governmental control, is not easy. President Obama should probably resist the urge to experiment with a new personnel system at his new agency, if Congress gives it to him. But he'd better have a plan for how it will be staffed and managed sustainably.

In the overall coverage of President Obama's memorandum on benefits and anti-discrimination measures, and on John Berry's conference call with the national media, there's been a clear dichotomy at work, between gay rights advocates who are interpreting the order as a meaningless attempt to pacify them, and between the administration's argument that they are trying to do something meaningful for gay federal employees. Both positions are, to a certain extent correct.

President Obama's order will affect a small number of gay Americans who work for the federal government, and it will have no immediate material impact on people who don't work for federal agencies. As the nation-wide gay community goes, the order itself is not a meaningful step towards equality. But at the same time, it seems like a poor strategic decision for the gay community at large to basically dismiss the impact the order will have on gay federal employees. Long-term care insurance may not be an absolute necessity, but especially as people age, it's a nice thing to have. Some supervisors now may allow gay employees to take sick days to care of to care for their partners and their children, but that doesn't mean that all of them do, and having a policy in place guaranteeing that is a definite plus for employees whose supervisors don't currently allow them to do that. Dismissing benefits because they only extend to federal employees is short-sighted, if you believe the model employer theory has any value. If the federal government does end up extending a wide array of progressive benefits to all of its employees, no matter their sexual orientation, it would put pressure on private-sector employers to do the same. More than half of Fortune 500 companies offer similar benefits, but not all do, not even a supermajority. Extending workplace benefits and protections has been a priority of the gay rights movement, and having the federal government on that movement's side could be useful.

At the same time President Obama's attempt to placate the gay community through federal workplace policies probably won't work because of another area he's let slip. Despite his stated goal of making government cool again, Obama's done almost nothing to talk up federal service as meaningful. In fact, his remarks yesterday were significant in part because they were his first major statement as president about the government's need to attract top talent. If Obama had done a lot of groundwork to improve the prestige of federal service, and of federal employees, his attempts to extend benefits to them might have been seen as more significant. Instead, the gay community seems likely to dismiss this initiative because, hey, it only affects federal employees, and they aren't that important anyway.

The fact sheet is here and after the jump:

Fact Sheet: Presidential Memorandum on Federal Benefits and Non-Discrimination

In an Oval Office event later today, President Barack Obama will sign a Presidential Memorandum on Federal Benefits and Non-Discrimination. The Memorandum follows a review by the Director of the Office of Personnel Management ant the Secretary of State regarding what benefits may be extended to the same-sex partners of federal employees in the civil service and the foreign service within the confines of existing federal laws and statutes.

Over the past several months, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management and the Secretary of State have conducted internal reviews to determine whether the benefits they administer may be extended to the same-sex partners of federal employees within the confines of existing laws and statutes. Both identified a number of such benefits.

Continue reading "The Details on the Benefits Memorandum" »

To me, one of the most interesting aspects of the amendment added to the Defense Authorization bill yesterday that provides a mechanism for ending the National Security Personnel System is the role it creates for Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Essentially, Gates would have to decide within six months of the amendment's passage if he wanted to keep NSPS, and issue a report defending the decision to do so. The amendment doesn't explain what happens if Gates' rationale isn't very strong, or if he can't demonstrate progress in making changes to the system--there's no arbitrator or committee or vote required by anyone. Federal employee unions are thrilled by the amendment, but it seems to leave the decision pretty solely in Gates' hands, and Gates supports NSPS. During his confirmation hearing, he said ""Reforming civil service rules to make our civilian work force more adaptable, flexible and agile is critical to the future of the department....I believe NSPS is integral to the department's human capital strategy of developing the right mix of people and skills across the total force." Now, Gates may have changed his mind, or Obama may change it for him. But the bill may be less of a death knell for NSPS than it sounds like, as long as Gates is in the SecDef slot.

From Spencer Ackerman. Apparently, a 27-year-old named Jared Cohen is leading the way.

The State Department asked Twitter to stay live instead of pausing for scheduled maintenance so activists in Iran could keep communicating both with each other and the outside world. A great deal has been made of the fact that the protests in Iran and communication about them has been driven by social media, and I agree that it's an important and unusual development, although one of limited value. Even in reasonably wealthy, reasonably educated countries, only a segment of the population both has access to and is using social media like Twitter, Facebook, etc. In poorer or more repressive countries, like Burma or North Korea, protest can't flow out through those tools, which makes it both harder and more important to find out what ordinary people think.

But I digress. To me, the really interesting part of the story is that State appears to have recognized the importance of social media very early on after the elections, and to have acted quickly to request that lines of communication stay open. That suggests that State is far enough along in its social media analysis programs to be analyzing the information coming out through social media channels. And that's encouraging. DipNote, State's blog, may sound pretty stilted sometimes. But it's far more important for agencies and departments to be Web 2.0-savvy in operations than in their public affairs strategy (though ideally they'd be comfortable in both areas).

When he signs an executive order on Wednesday evening. Our cover story on the backround leading up to and impact of such a decision is here. Details on the Executive Order when I get them.

UPDATED: The New York Times says the order won't include access to coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The full list of benefits will be released along with the order. But FEHBP is the big one, and they seem to be waiting on the passage of the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act for that one.

That's when, according to Greg Sargent at the Washington Post, the Obama administration has to submit a brief in a case where gay couples, who are legally married in Massachusetts, are suing the government because one partner in the couple is a federal employee, and the couples have been denied spousal benefits. Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry has said that he believes President Obama supports and will sign the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act. This brief may be a test of that belief, given that the Obama administration recently submitted a brief in a separate case defending the Defense of Marriage Act (though the Benefits and Obligations Act is written to avoid conflicting with DOMA). Either way, it'll be an interesting date for gay rights groups and federal employees alike.

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approves Zients' nomination to be Chief Performance Officer. His nomination will now move to the full Senate. (via GovExec's Twitter Feed)

Noam Scheiber's profile in The New Republic of Zeke Emanuel is pretty great, in part because Emanuel is an entertaining character who is going to play a significant role in the Obama administration's health care reform efforts. But the piece also has a great look at what kind of place the Office of Management and Budget is these days. I have to say, it sounds kind of fun:

Other government agencies also have their share of academic types, of course. But OMB's may be unique in their range of interests. Sunstein, who will be the government's "regulatory czar" pending Senate confirmation, has written about everything from law and economics to the Internet and democracy to Moneyball. Liebman, who is OMB's fourth-ranking official, is part of the health care team and spends considerable mental energy helping incorporate behavioral economics into administration policy. (He recently convened an in-house seminar on the subject. ) This collection of personnel can sometimes make OMB feel more like the RAND Corporation than the administration's in-house budget scold.

As Alex and I reported yesterday, Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., is set to introduce an amendment today that would set the stage for a rollback of the National Security Personnel System. In conjunction with the review of that system that's already underway, I can see several scenarios for how progress on NSPS might move forward.

Scenario One: The Obama administration is committed to rolling back NSPS, but needs to look like it's giving the program a hearing to placate Congressional Republicans, like Sen. George Voinovich, who have wanted a more rigorous examination of NSPS. The review continues, but no one intervenes with Shea-Porter, and her amendment is able to move forward, carried ahead on a wave of Democratic resentment of the Bush administration's largest personnel experimen. The Obama administration looks warm and fuzzy and considerate, and still gets rollback of a program it doesn't really like.

Continue reading "NSPS Scenarios" »

Where do you go if you want to find more than 3,000 candidates for federal jobs, 67+ agencies, and hundreds of federal recruiters all in one place? The National Building Museum on July 16, from 3-7pm, for the Partnership for Public Service's monster-sized job fair. Registration for students is free, and agencies can get a discount if they register before June 19 (the cutoff is July 3).

Marc Ambinder has a great post up about how to look at the information streaming out of Iran via video, Twitter, blog, mainstream media, etc., as if you were an intelligence analyst. It got me thinking about other issues than Iran, though. In keeping with Brittany's post earlier, everyone is going to have to learn how to handle Web 2.0 appropriately, and to interpret it. This seems to pose a particular challenge for the intelligence agencies: how do you tell what's real, what's the creation of folks living out part of their lives online, what's rumor, what's subjective, what's indicative? Online, everyone is living out a covert identity to a certain extent, and intel analysts will have to learn how covert those identities are, and what the forms they take mean. Fortunately, it seems, a new generation that's deeply steeped in Web 2.0 and social media may be well-primed to do that interpretive work. If we're doing it in our spare time and our social lives, and even for our jobs, already, it'll be easier for the intelligence community to find employees who are prepared to live, examine, and interpret in a new information regime.

According to a commenter, Rob Brodsky's post on the Defense Contract Audit Agency is now blocked to folks on computers in that office. DCAAers out there--can you reach Rob's post? What about the rest of FedBlog?

Smart post by Brittany over at Wired Workplace, reminding us that generational stereotyping isn't useful when it comes to making sure use of Web 2.0 is secure. It doesn't matter how old you are--Pete Hoekstra and Chuck Grassley have proven you don't have to be young to be indiscreet or unwise on Twitter--you can use social media for ill. And young people may be uniquely aware of the consequences of sharing your life online because of past mistakes.

I know we all like to moan about various aspects of federal management: the hiring process is a mess! The modernization of the retirement system is a disaster! We still don't have viable, workable performance metrics! But this New York Times story about employees who are working through their furloughs, is a reminder that it could be much worse. The piece focuses mostly on several California state government employees who are supposed to take two unpaid furlough days each month, but have been unable to schedule the time off, or have been asked to keep working for free because there's so much work to do. California is a special case, of course. But it's a reminder that no matter how unevenly federal agencies can be run, there are states that are doing much, much worse.

In keeping with an emerging pattern of taking executive action on issues where Congress has bills pending, the Office of Management and Budget announced that, in conjunction with the Office of Personnel Management, the administration is requiring agencies to make some significant changes to their hiring processes by December 15. Our commenters are divided on whether or not the requirements will work, but one thing they seem to agree on is this: agency heads need to truly understand how arcane the language surrounding hiring is. Jeremiah writes:

If I might suggest one way to bring home the dimensions of the problem to the new management team on board in each agency: OMB should require each agency head to review personally a random sample of his/her agency's current USAJOBS vacancy announcement postings. I guarantee this would be eye-opening and do more to focus attention on this issue than all the End-to-End initiatives and the well-meaning but toothless OPM Pledge to Applicants (a 2003 initiative of former OPM Director Kay Coles James). If senior managers can see with their own eyes what atrocities pass for recruiting literature in their own agencies, this in itself may galvanize long-needed action. Something certainly has to do so.

The Commodore writes "The real issue is weak postion descriptions and marginal HR reviewers that allow too many candidates to qualify frustrating the selecting official."

And bdr says "Until you hold the agencies heads accountable nothing will change."

Today, I'll be following up on the question, not of if agency heads need to be held accountable, but how the administration intends to do that.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Congress is concerned that the Federal Housing Administration could need a bailout, sunk in part by staffing that isn't nearly enough to meet the demand. I think we're going to see a lot more of workforce concerns filtering up to the surface of mainstream journalism.

From the always-thoughtful William R. Cumming, some thoughts on his experiences with gay federal employees through the years, and a concern that minority employees stick together and recommend each other for jobs in a kind of reverse discrimination:

A moving reference to those who have died that the OPM Director once and still loves. Yet having worked in several different agencies I can tell you some personal history that may make you draw your own conclusions. Recruited by IRS for what now would be considered a Presidential Intern position--then called Management Intern and qualifying in part on the old FSEE I joined others in July 1967 for what was to be a years program. Having already received a draft notice knew full well would be reporting for active duty at some point. But thankfully IRS did not discriminate against me because of that notice. Needless to say that would have been illegal. In my class was a brilliant young CPA who always carried a black briefcase. Given our class and IRS no one thought about that briefcase much. Then over 18 months later when in the Federal Republic of Gernmany I received an odd phone call from a senior IRS official. Did I know XX was gay and were there others I knew about? It turns out that xx had committed suicide and his briefcase was recovered. Referred to as incriminating evidence by the Senior IRS official. I said I did not know that XX was gay nor anything about the briefcase. I did ask the official something like so what if he is gay? He told me official IRS policy was to fire anyone openly gay and this was also Treasury policy. At the time I had discovered two of my best sargents were gay and to avoid the unit from going off status did not do anything except to warn them that if someone else discovered this fact it would be a problem for them (and of course for me). Nothing happened and the unit stayed on status and both received by commendendation. Later in my career I went to FEMA. It turned out by events that FEMA was a gay/lesbian friendly agency except in the matter of security clearances. When an openly gay employee was required to get a clearance he was asked if he was gay and stated yes. Then he was asked if he knew of others. Most of those he named were in my Office of the General Counsel. Not surprisingly all terrific employees. This led to a Congressional hearing and a blue ribbon panel. Report available from Steve Aftergood's National Security Archive (FAS). Okay a post script what I did not know at the time when I recruited one employee/lawyer at the time who was gay but not openly gay. I asked another gay lawyer (he was not openly gay at the time) for a recommendation for a recruit. I respected his judgement and I did in fact recruit his recommended person. What I was later told and this may be inaccurate is that in my time in FEMA when asked for recommendations for recruits, GAYS and LESBIANS always recommend one of their own. I find this to be discrimnatory but not all are OUT. So I leave to a new generation in civil service and OPM to fathom out this conundrum. To my knowledge all the gay and lesbians I knew in FEMA were wonderful civil servants and therefore clearly a huge loss if somehow discrimination against them. My Army experience says that in a highly technical unit with need for the best of the best it happened that my best were gay. So I leave to others to draw their own conclusions. If it was in my power I would end discrimination of all kinds in the Civil Service.

Some of you have complained about why I highlighted a long excerpt from Berry's speech on the blog. I chose it for two reasons. First, his remarks were the single most detailed and pointed remarks by an Obama administration official on gay rights issues, and therefore significant and newsworthy. Second, I thought the speech was indicative of a significant change in style and level of passion at the Office of Personnel Management, and therefore also worth excerpting in some more detail. Policies that affect gay and lesbian federal employees are likely to stay in the news for a while. I'm curious to see what the impact of those rules has been in the past. Keep the stories coming, please.

"The tree of liberty grows but in one direction--by adding rings. it is that miraculous quality that has produced the proud sheltering and living tree whose branches have withstood the lightning strike of secession and the gale force winds of fascism and communism. The rings of that tree are nourished by honesty and truth, warmed by love and justice, and rooted in respect and dignity. It is my belief that Frank Kameny's fight to hold a job he did well and the passionate fight for dignity and respect that began at Stonewall were not isolated events. They were in fact the formation of a new ring of life on the American tree of liberty.

...

In the years before he died, my father told me that he didn't know what all the fuss about gays in the military was about. He said 'we didn't call 'em gays--but they were there and they died as bravely as everyone else."

...

My family has never known divorce. My first partner of 10 years died after a protracted and grueling bout with AIDS that reduced a 6'2" athlete to 90 pounds at his death. I was his primary caregiver--and I held him in my arms as he died. I would have gladly traded my lie for his that night, just as I would do so now for my current partner of 12 years if ever need be. Were we married? No, but I dare anyone to say we were not in love. I was blessed by two supportive families and dear friends who honored our relationship. If I hadn't been--I shudder to think--because no power on earth could have kept me from his side.

Again, I ask: where do you stand? Honoring love as precious and true wherever you find it, or with those who would demean or deny it? I urge you. Stand where you can be proud. Stand with service and truth. Stand with love. Stand for liberty and justice for all."

-Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry speaking at the Justice Department on June 10

By Robert Brodsky

The General Services Administration has issued a solicitation to redesign Recovery.gov. We'll have more tomorrow on our Next Gov site but here's a snapshot of what the Recovery and Accountability Board is looking for:

RATB and its contractors understand that the Recovery.gov solution shall, for automation and efficiency, allow for:

1) Evaluation of data quality to provide optimization of large, highly complex, rapidly changing data sets

2) Automated data replication

3) Standardization, normalization and cleansing capabilities necessary to support robust reporting solutions overt time.

4) Build for Speed and Responsiveness: This rapid response solution must be able to provide not only citizen-centric access but also the ability to respond to press requests, legislative branch inquires, and questions from different agencies.

5) Consider Information as a Service: Focus on developing an architecture that not only provides trusted, accurate information per the OMB guidelines, but also makes the information available as a service to a wide range of people, processes and applications.

6) Build to support Business Optimization: Adopt a flexible, services-based architecture that delivers high-quality trusted information to set the stage for true business process optimization, and link to adjacent high-value business processes, such as fraud detection capabilities.

In an unexpected move, the solicitation is open only to the 59 IT contractors on GSA's Alliant governmentwide acquisition contract - a fact sure to ruffle some feathers in the procurement community.

Proposals are expected to be due around June 26.

Rajesh De, a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, is testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Federal Workforce Subcommittee, and is proposing an interesting solution to the challenge of balancing whistleblower protections and national security concerns. He's suggested creating an intelligence community whistleblower review board within the executive board that could review cases, order security clearances restored if they're revoked as a form of retaliation, and inform Congress if agencies don't comply. The last proposal seems intriguing--much in the same way proposals to urge Inspectors General to report on the actual state of agency action on their recommendations make a lot of sense. But I don't know if it makes sense to situate such a review board within the executive branch, where it could be pressured, obfuscated, abandoned, underfunded, etc. Thoughts?

79-17. Burr and DeMint, who come from tobacco-growing states, unsurprisingly voted no.

Federal employee groups aren't happy that provisions governing federal retirement credit for sick leave were stripped out of a big tobacco-regulation bill that the Senate is voting on tomorrow today. But it would be a fairly big deal if the Thrift Savings Plan provisions, including the Roth option, automatic enrollment, a mutual fund window, and allowing the spouses of deceased feds to keep managing TSP accounts, pass. Those provisions have been subject to debate since I started covering the TSP. And Senate passage would make them the first major federal employee benefits bill to make it to President Obama's desk.

I'm at a press conference right now where the American Federation of Government Employees is launching an all-out assault on the Bureau of Prisons for failing to address safety issues faced by prison guards. John Gage, AFGE's president, just said:

"We have lost all faith in the BOP management. We think their whole understanding of the mission of the bureau is outdated, it's wrong. They care more about public relations than they do the safety of our officers. We are taking our case to the Attorney General; we believe it is his responsibility to correct this situation immediately, and that would be by removing Mr. Lappin, as well as, for heaven's sake, give us the simple tools we have been requesting: vests for our officers to wear in dangerous posts, as well as some non-lethal weaponry such as tasers, pepper spray, or batons. It's incredible to us that the bureau is making this a labor dispute, that they refuse to give these basic, common-sense tools to our officers. We feel, in the Rivera case, if these simple things we are asking had been granted, he would be alive today."

They're working with the lawyers for Jose Rivera, a 22-year-old prison guard who served two deployments in Iraq as a member of the Navy, who was killed by inmates in the prison where he worked on June 20,2008. The family wants $100 million from the Bureau. AFGE wants officers to be able to wear stab-proof vests and carry pepper spray, tasers, and batons in high-risk facilities.

I've written before about the pay disparities between federal judges and Administrative Law Judges in comparison to their private-sector counterparts. But pay isn't the only area where ALJs feel they're getting a raw deal: the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers notes that the Office of Personnel Management decided in 2008 that ALJs wouldn't accrue annual leave at the same rate as other senior-level employees. Now, Sens. Daniel Akaka and Mark Pryor have introduced a bill to let ALJs, and several other categories of judges, accrue 8 hours per pay period, just like other senior workers.

Two people--a security guard, and the gunman himself--were injured in a shooting at the Holocaust Museum early this afternoon. The U.S. Park Service is handling the response. My friend Dana Goldstein is reporting over at The American Prospect that the shooter has a long record of white supremacist publications, and served time in jail for trying to perform a citizens' arrest on members of the Federal Reserve Board. (He also, apparently, had a testy and unpleasant correspondents with novelist Tom Clancy). In light of this shooting, and the assassination of abortion provider and doctor George Tiller in Kansas, the Department of Homeland Security's report on domestic extremists, which engendered so much ill-will when it was released, looks unfortunately prescient, on the subject of domestic terror broadly if not in its comments about the recruitment of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Updated: My colleague Mark Blumenthal has a personal remembrance of the museum that's well-worth reading. And he reports, sadly, that the guard who was shot has died.

Ed O'Keefe has a nice roundup of all the different recovery-related websites the government has launched or is launching, and a little bit of background on the politics behind them this morning, which got me thinking. A lot of the discussion around Obama's push towards greater openness and transparency, particularly online, has focused on the barriers to getting that done, be they regulatory or technological backwardness. But one question that doesn't always get addressed is how much information is too much. Data dumps are of course hugely useful for reporters, muckrakers, and educated amateurs who want to plow through lots of information in search of proof of wrongdoing, or simply to satisfy their own curiosity. But they're not necessarily useful, and large amounts of data, or conflicting data with equally strong pedigrees, can obfuscate an issue. In the case of the recovery websites, if the RAT board is evaluating the stimulus one way, and the White House is pushing back in multiple other ways, it may not be clear to ordinary Americans what analysis of the stimulus ought to prevail. That's a substantial problem, and not one that can be solved by rulemaking or the purchase of upgraded servers. It requires judgment, discretion, and lack of ego, not all things that are found in surplus when something as politically charged as the stimulus is up for grabs.

By Robert Brodsky

When it rains at the Defense Contract Audit Agency, it certainly pours.

In the past year, the embattled agency has taken a pounding by the Government Accountability Office , the Defense Department Inspector General and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for charges that management was too cozy with some of the contractors they were assigned to audit. The GAO also said auditors who complied with their investigation were subject to harassment and intimidation from their supervisors.

Now Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has another complaint. Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, has sent a letter to the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services seeking an explanation for why they are using DCAA to conduct an audit of its Quality Improvement Program, which is responsible for improving Medicare quality.

"The fact that CMS is relying on a substandard auditor to review the QIO program is discouraging and calls into question the agency's commitment to using the resources it has to improve Medicare quality," Grassley said.

The senator has requested that CMS provide his office with:

All contracts, memorandum and other other agreements between CMS and DCAA regarding the performance of audit functions for the last five years; How much DCAA is paid annually for these contracts for the last 5 years; The procedures in place to insure that DCAA is abiding by government auditing guidelines and that it produces an accurate report.

I'm sure many of you remember Brittany Ballenstedt, my former beat partner, fondly. For those of you who care about technology in the workplace (and I imagine that's just about everyone), you're in luck. Brittany's back writing our Wired Workplace blog over at sister site NextGov. Head on over and welcome her back into the fold: we're thrilled to have her back with us.

As the debate over the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, and a possible repeal thereof, heats up, Spencer Ackerman points out that Defense Secretary Bob Gates ended the process of asking candidates for Central Intelligence Agency positions whether they were gay as part of lie-detector tests when he ran the agency, and did it two decades ago. The military is different than the CIA obviously, but whatever problems the latter agency has, it doesn't seem that there's been a breakdown of continuity of operations, or problems with blackmail, associated with having openly gay intelligence officers.

Given the amount of time discussion of the diversity--or lack thereof--in the Senior Executive Service consumed in the last Congressional session, I guess I should be surprised that it took this long for the legislation on the subject that passed the House last year to be reintroduced. The bill would create a Senior Executive Service-specific office within the Office of Personnel Management to track SES demographics and help create and coordinate programs for senior executives and potential senior executives, and require agencies to formalize their plans for increasing diversity within the SES. OPM Director John Berry has already said that he plans an ambitious diversity effort, to be headed by his deputy, former Equal Employment Opportunity Office commissioner Christine Griffin, once she is confirmed. My guess would be that Berry may be able to do a great deal of what legislators would like him to do without legislation pushing him into it, but that remains to be seen, especially since Griffin's confirmation hearing is yet to be scheduled.

Many tears have been shed over the fate of the Congressional Budget Office Blog since Peter Orszag left for the Office of Management and Budget, taking his Diet Cokes and geek-chic with him. But though it's not updated extremely frequently, the CBO blog is often extremely useful: it tackles specific questions, provides new information, and doesn't manufacture posts--instead, the office posts when they've got something to day. Today's post, which explains how programs are scored for cost, using Medicare and Medicaid as examples, is perfect: we were just having a debate in the office a few days ago about the vagaries of scoring bills that rely on lifestyle choices. This doesn't answer all the questions we had, but it's a good start.

Greg Junemann, the president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, has just publicly announced that he is running to be Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO. This strikes me as potentially significant for a couple of reasons.

First, the none of the AFL-CIO's presidents have ever come from a union that primarily or even truly significantly organized and represented public employees. John Sweeney brought the National Association of Government Employees into the AFL-CIO, but that's not the same thing as doing substantial organizing in the government sector. Rich Trumka, the current secretary-treasurer, comes from the United Mine Workers. Junemann represents private-sector workers too, but the union has been organizing aggressively in the federal government, and, with 250 percent growth over the past ten years, IFPTE claims to the be the fastest-growing union in the country, something that would surely appeal to leaders in both the AFL-CIO and the growth-oriented unions who split to join Change to Win, a rival labor federation, in 2005. Public-sector growth is a promising alternative for the labor movement: federal-sector unions gained 78,000 members last year for a 1.3 percent bump in membership. If the AFL-CIO wants to grow in the public sector, Junemann could point a way towards doing that.

Second, Junemann says he doesn't want to criticize current leadership, but he is running on a platform of financial stability for the labor federation. Trumka, the current secretary-treasurer, has been discussed as a possibility to replace Sweeney. Junemann's announcement might encourage Trumka to encourage Sweeney to step aside, so he doesn't have to fight a reelection fight that might make him weaker in an eventual bid for the federation's presidency. Update: Sweeney's not running for re-election. So he's not a factor in the power shift, but the dynamics between Junemann and Trumka could still be interesting, depending on how Junemann's campaign shapes up.

As I've said in the past, it can be a great thing for lawmakers to take to blogs and Twitter in their own personal, informal voices. But there's a peril in Twitter: if you use an allusion and don't explain it in your 140-character allotment, as Sen. Chuck Grassley did this weekend, you can end up sounding both unclear and petulant in that small space, and having to clarify yourself. The same rule should apply to Twitter and all other new media: go ahead and use it, but be absolutely sure you're comfortable with the format, and understand both its risks and rewards.

Obviously, the news that a retired State Department employee and his wife have been arrested and charged with spying for Cuba (they have pleaded not guilty) is troubling and disappointing. But I also don't think it's particularly shocking. While it would be nice to be able to believe that all federal employees are governed solely by the better angels of their nature, followed rules, were loyal and devoted to the United States government, etc., that is insanely unrealistic. In a workplace of 1.9 million-odd people, it's particularly unrealistic.

The U.S. government maintains an active and robust espionage program. I would assume that some of our agents are overseas embedded in other country's governments, or at least are trying to get there. I also imagine other countries are trying to do the same thing. It would be fairly stupid of them if they weren't.

So why the outrage when we catch federal employees spying? I suppose part of the attempt is deterrent--we want to increase the sense of shame other spies or would-be spies feel about spying. But I'm not sure pulling an Inspector Renault on something so obvious actually inspires shame, rather than just telegraphing naivete. Rather, spy cases seem like a good incentive to treat federal employees better, to increase the prestige others attach to their jobs, to make their salaries competitive. I'd imagine it's fairly easy to be talked into spying if you hate your job, if an espionage agency is offering you a lot of money, if you don't feel the federal government is much to be proud of. And so the best defense seems, in this case, to be a good offense: create employees who are less vulnerable to the commercial enticements of espionage. You may not be able to deter the people whose deep and true loyalties lie to another country or another ideology. But you can probably deter the people who are on the fence.

Not that it's starting yet, but Vangent has locked itself in for another five years as the service provider handling a bunch of Open Season functions. Theoretically, the web end of the enrollment process should be getting more sophisticated, and Vangent will be running a call center to respond to enrollees' needs. Let me know if you see changes, for better, or for worse.

As some of you might know, I spent some time in Beijing and Shanghai last March, during the run-up to the Olympics. Among the things I did there was take a trip to the Forbidden City and sit in on a public policy class at Tsinghua University. I thought about both experiences yesterday, on the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Continue reading "China" »

Now that we've returned to our regularly-scheduled blogmistress, it's time for me to pack my bags and go. Sincere thanks to Alyssa for having me on, and thanks to all of you for playing along in the comments.

Before I depart, I have the honor of breaking a little bit of news (you heard it here first!): Pending the confirmation of Martha Johnson as GSA Administrator -- which is looking like a pretty safe bet -- the National Academy of Public Administration's own Danielle Germain will be leaving to take a position as the agency's Chief of Staff.

If I may, a point of personal privilege: I had the great good fortune to work with Danielle here at the National Academy for nearly a year, and she is a stellar choice for this position. Aside from a host of great personal and leadership qualities, Danielle's passion for collaboration (both the Interwebs kind and otherwise) will be a key asset in making sure that GSA -- which has been a real leader in government's social networking efforts -- maintains that position and continues to be a pacesetter across federal space. All of us here at the National Academy wish her luck and success in this exciting new challenge. (And for once, I get to cover a National Academy personnel change before Chris Dorobek!)

This is smart. Meetings between high-ranking administration officials (up to and including the president) and the Senior Executive Service tend to get recited back to me as high-water marks, indications that an administration cares, really, truly, cares about federal workers. The point isn't that these meetings are where policy gets made, or alliances get formed, or whatever. In fact, they aren't necessarily consequential at all. But doing briefings on the Obama agenda for new senior executives is a great way of suggesting correlation: you need to know about the agenda because you are important to it.

And everything goes crazy. Clearly, every time folks want to move a lot of legislation on federal management issues, I should be shipped out to a conference in Las Vegas.

But seriously, having movement in a single week on the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act, TSP and FERS reform, and the National Security Personnel System review is significant. I'm not sure what the Paid Parental Leave Act's prospects are in the Senate, since all the debate we've seen on it has been in the House, and I'm not sure if Republican arguments about the bill's price tag will be any more convincing in the Senate than they were in the House. The real sign of momentum will be if the Senate moves expeditiously on any of these things, actually.

Paid Parental Leave, which the administration publicly supported, clears the House 258-154.

With the tide turning against competitive sourcing, it was just a matter of time until proponents of the private-public competitions got organized and got active. A coalition along those lines was launched yesterday. Called the Business Coalition for Fair Competition, the group aims to counter efforts by federal, state and local government agencies to provide products and services which are available from the private sector. BCFC accuses public agencies and organizations of engaging in unfair competition with private, for-profit companies.

"It is time the 'Yellow Pages Test' became national policy," said John M. Palatiello, president of the coalition. "If an activity is being performed by government or a non-profit that can otherwise be found from a business listed in the Yellow Pages, that activity should be reviewed for performance by a tax-paying, for-profit company, not a government-sponsored or subsidized entity."

Sens. John Thune, R-SD, and John Duncan, Jr., R-Tenn., speaking at the same Heritage Foundation session where Palatiello announced the launch of the coalition, said they have introduced legislation -- the Freedom from Government Competition Act -- to establish statutory process for evaluation government performance of commercially-available activities.

In a press release, Thune said the legislation would codify the "Yellow Pages Test" to ensure that products and services available in the commercial market are subject to competition. Thune then cited studies which show that taxpayers save as much as $28 billion annually as a result of these competitions.

Anndddd we're back to the debate again. People on both sides of this issue present numbers that "prove" their way saves taxpayers money. Until someone can come up with concrete, verifiable, unchallengeable numbers, the pendulum will continue to swing on competitive sourcing.

On Monday, I reported that new OPM Director John Berry plans to put some teeth into his agency's proposals by marching lock-step with OMB Director Peter Orszag, who has considerably more leverage over how various departments and agencies allocate resources. (For example: Making increasing use of pots of money that an agency loses unless the funds are put against workforce training.)

With that in mind, OMB's issuance of a Statement of Administration Policy (link to PDF) in support of paid parental leave for federal employees has to be seen as some early evidence of Berry's ability to drive action in the EOP. Quoth OMB:

The Administration supports the goal of H.R. 626, which would provide Federal employees with access to paid leave upon the birth, adoption, or fostering of a child.

Being able to spend time at home with a new child is a critical part of building a strong family. The initial bonding between parents and their new child is essential to healthy child development and providing a firm foundation for the child's success in life.

Measures that support these relationships strengthen our families, our communities, and our nation. The Federal government should reflect its commitment to these core values by helping Federal employees to care for their families as well as serve the public. Providing paid parental leave has been successfully employed by a number of private-sector employers, and can help to make job opportunities accessible to more workers.

The Administration is currently reviewing existing Federal leave policies to determine the extent of their gaps and limitations. The Administration looks forward to working with Congress to refine the details of this legislation to make sure it meets the needs of Federal agencies and employees, as well as their families.

Say what you will about him, but for every 10 minor-league gaffes, there's at least one instance in which Joe Biden manages to get a point across with pretty much unmatchable succinctness and clarity. Here he is making the case for increased federal transportation funding:

"This is how the interstate highway system started folks. It wasn't like the Lord on the eighth day said, boom, there's the interstate highway system."

No, I don't mean Obama's vulcan salute. According to its official blog, the White House has set up the first-ever government-sponsored TED talks. The topic is Secretary Clinton's Global Partnership Initiative, an effort to partner the State Department with "foundations, businesses, non-governmental organizations, universities, and faith communities" to advance the Administration's key development goals.

For the uninitiated:

I realize that you might be wondering what all of this excitement is about and who or what TED is anyway. If you don't know about TED, then click away from this page immediately and visit www.ted.com. Spend a few minutes watching the videos that pop up on the screen. While it is easy enough for those minutes to rush away and turn into hours (or whole afternoons and evenings, in my case), no matter how much time you spend watching these videos, discovering for the first time that TED exists is one of those phenomenal little moments in life that is only rivaled by a few experiences -- for me, traveling abroad (anywhere) and learning about other people (anyone) elsewhere in this world, or watching that first Blu-Ray video and not even caring about picking my jaw off the floor because the effects were just so incredible, or listening to the Beatles for the first time and realizing that there was a whole new level of genius I just been missing out on entirely. TED often has that kind of a spontaneous, drastic impact. And it should: these futurists, visionaries, scholars, and experts are challenged to give the best speech of their life on any topic of their choosing in eighteen minutes or less. Now that's setting the stage for something really magical to happen. And I have not even mentioned the best part: TED shares all of this wisdom, inspiration, and passion on the internet for free by posting the videos on their website. Really, you have to visit www.ted.com. You are going to get addicted to this stuff.

Two personal favorites in the TED-o-sphere: Hans Rosling dazzles with data on public health in developing nations, and Malcolm Gladwell explains why we have so many different kinds of spaghetti sauce.

It seems to be Whoops Day today. Bullet point one:

The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked "highly confidential," that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation's civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons.

Then, there's this:

Nearly a fifth of the equipment -- including computers -- assigned to Lawrence Livermore Laboratory workers laid off in 2008 could not be immediately accounted for after their departure, according to a report released Tuesday by a U.S. Energy Department inspection office. In addition, nine laptops were reported stolen from the lab's employees between July and January -- four of them having been left in plain view inside cars, the report noted.

Amid budget cuts, Livermore laid off more than 2,000 staffers last year, with roughly 750 receiving termination notices on the same day they were asked to leave. "All of these terminations potentially necessitated updates to the property database, but the involuntary terminations had the potential to pose particular challenges because of the immediacy of individuals' departures." (Departing workers may have been more focused on stunned good-byes than mundane paperwork related to the disposition of government computers. Shocker.)
...
The big problem here? Training. The lab didn't provide adequate guidance to employees about keeping tabs on equipment, relying instead on an informal training process. Chalk this up as another example of a government agency trimming training costs from tight budgets. But also add this to a long list of incidents involving the loss of government property at the hands of employees who fail to follow the rules.

As might be expected, the ghost of Lurita Doan was present at today's nomination hearing for likely GSA Administrator Martha Johnson. After Doan's much-documented feud with GSA inspector general Brian Miller, which she says led to her ousting, the relationship between the GSA administrator and inspector general was a fairly prominent feature of today's hearing. The second question asked of Johnson in her pre-hearing questionnaire under "general management" was "what is your view of the relationship between the GSA administrator and the GSA inspector general?" I have a feeling this may have some historical context.

In her written response, Johnson said inspectors general play a "critical and valuable role" and said the relationship between the IG and administrator can and needs to be respectful, regular, open and productive. In the hearing, Johnson lavished praise on Miller individually and said that "a good IG allows an administrator to sleep at night."

As much fun as public intra-agency squabbles are for us reporters, the drama does a tremendous amount of damage to the efficiency of an agency, so here's hoping Johnson, Miller and everyone else at GSA can help each other get a good night's sleep.

From the home office in Wahoo, Nebraska:

• GSA has created an awesome combined RSS of news feeds throughout the federal government. Today, via the feed, I learned from the Census Bureau that the current U.S. population is approximately 306,569,004!


• Congressman Mike Honda (D-CA) wants you to help redesign his website. He's using a platform called crowdSPRING, which encourages users to "just post your project, watch the world submit ideas and choose the one you like." Oh, if only it were that simple.


• It looks like Recovery.gov, the site designated as a central portal for stimulus information, is getting a makeover! Key quote: "It's going to shift from an inside-the-Beltway Web site to something that people from throughout the country can use to find out what's going on in their neighborhood." The hunt is on for a vendor who is up to the task. (Full disclosure: My employer, the National Academy of Public Administration, worked with the Recovery Board earlier this year to run a national online dialogue soliciting ideas on this very topic.)


• The White House's Beth Noveck posts an update on the results of the Office of Science and Technology Policy's online open government brainstorm that went live May 21st. The main themes highlighted here will feed a "discussion phase" in which they are subject to more focused discussion and elaboration. (Full disclosure: Yup, this one, too.)


• Federal News Radio's Chris Dorobek captures a phenomenon rarer than an upside-down rainbow: All three e-gov administrators in the same photo!

This morning brought news that President Obama had nominated Congressman John McHugh (R-NY) as the next Secretary of the United States Army.

Now, as the old saying goes: One is a fluke, two is a coincidence, three is a trend. So this may just be a coincidence at this point, but this morning's news reminded me of Obama's choice to be Secretary of the Navy: Former Mississippi Governor Ray Mabus.

Bracketing the remote possibility that Mabus is in fact Nostradamus' third antichrist, this is still a fairly interesting trend, because what McHugh and Mabus have in common is that they're both former politicians. This may seem mundane, but it's actually fairly uncommon for either service secretary to be a former politician. Don't believe me? See here and here: Post-war, Army has had only three pols take the helm, and Navy hasn't had any (though plenty of Navy Secretaries -- Chaffee, Warner, Webb -- have gone on to become pols).

This points at the broader point that the White House seems to be taking a fairly enlightened view of politicians. We tend to think of "politician" as a type of person rather than a skillset, but the word really does describe a demeanor and skillset that is highly applicable to jobs other than holding elected office. Recognizing and drawing on the talents that successful politicians have, particularly for building coalitions (note that McHugh and Mabus both hail from places where the opposite party is arguably politically dominant), is an interesting management insight from our Administrator-In-Chief.

The command overseeing U.S. operations in Afghanistan today announced the launch of its social networking strategy, which includes a Twitter feed and pages on Facebook and YouTube. Being touted as the "first-ever effort by the military in Afghanistan to engage non-traditional audiences directly with news, videos, pictures and other information from Operation Enduring Freedom", the strategy marks a move towards open communication stereotypically uncharacteristic of the military.

Since U.S. Forces -Afghanistan began testing the initiative on May 12, they have drawn more than 4,700 friends on Facebook and more than 1,400 followers on Twitter.

"Importantly for the war effort, the pages have quickened the pace at which commanders can get information to the public, allowing them to preempt extremist propaganda," USFOR-A stated in a press release. "The Taliban regularly make false claims of military victories to the Afghan press, which more often quotes insurgent groups than western spokespeople."

The release stated that the social networking activities are not focused on countering insurgent claims in the Afghan press, public affairs personnel hope the sites help strip militants of their attempt to influence the international press.

I am skeptical that Twitter and Facebook are tools which will significantly help the military combat insurgents' powerful PR machines, but applaud USFOR-A for working to promote their hard work through whatever channels available.

(Thanks to our Defense reporter Katherine McIntire Peters for sending this over.)

Those of you who joined me the last time I guest-hosted here will remember my ongoing fascination with the reports that the Government Accountability Office releases on a regular basis. Obviously GAO studies an extraordinary range of issues, and performs a vital function as an independent investigative apparatus of government. And there is a real value to just having an established fact-of-the-matter about even the most basic issues of public service provision.

That said, I still get a kick out of their report titles, and today does not disappoint:

Hospital Emergency Departments: Crowding Continues to Occur, and Some Patients Wait Longer than Recommended Time Frames

DHS is moving into the second phase of its Department-wide Efficiency Review, which will include reviews of service contracts to ensure that inherently governmental work is not being outsourced.

Several things about this stuck out to me. It is clearly an extension of the tide turning against competitive sourcing, which we have written about at length. The Bush administration fought tooth and nail with unions and many lawmakers to hold as many public-private competitions as they did, and by the end they were facing congressionally mandated moratoriums on the practice almost governmentwide. The debate over competitive sourcing is extremely political, especially with advocates and detractors coming up with wildly disparate numbers on cost savings. In this heated environment, the term "inherently governmental" became almost a trump card.

No one thinks inherently governmental work should be outsourced to contractors. Not even contractors. The problem with this term is that it seems to be one of those "I'll know it when I see it" things. The existing definitions are vague to the point of including everything or nothing, depending on your interpretation. In order to go forward with these reviews, DHS - and all agencies - need a stronger working definition of "inherently governmental."

Obama has ordered OMB to take a fresh look at the term and clarify it. The DHS reviews are certainly in keeping with the administration's agenda, but given that the definition of the term is in flux, freezing renewals of service contracts pending assurance that no "inherently governmental" work is contracted out may be jumping the gun.

Alyssa herself may be away, but that's no reason that her ongoing quasi-obsession with new OPM Director John Berry has to go with her!

As fate would have it, I was fortunate enough to hear Director Berry speak to an intimate group this past Friday at the National Academy of Public Administration (a.k.a., my employer) at an event convened by government IT legend Alan Balutis. (Here's a blurry iPhone picture of them together!) Like Alyssa, I found that Berry's unique mix of expertise and enthusiasm around people issues (he hates the term "human capital," and now I kind of do, too) makes for a really encouraging and energizing encounter.

I've put some general observations below the fold, but one thing Berry said was particularly interesting to me: He announced that, as part of recruiting efforts specifically as well as public engagement efforts more broadly, he would be assembling a group of 20-somethings who would be tasked with engaging young people in the missions of government and, ultimately, with attracting them into the federal workforce. Obviously a lot of this game is won at the paying-off-some-of-your-student-loans level, but a non-trivial part of it really is just about getting the message out.

Berry's focus on a squad of 20-somethings reminded me of someone I once met in federal government. She was in her mid-20's, had just graduated with an Ivy League MBA, and was recruited by the FBI right out of school as a GS-14. (Talk about public-private pay parity!) But the rub was, despite her relative inexperience in FBI's mission, she was incredibly effective because she knew how to connect and share information with other people across FBI who were in this same program. Her skills had little to do with law enforcement, and everything to do with collaborating and connecting.

The moral of this story, I think, is that increasingly, "collaboration" -- defined roughly as "the ability to build and lead purposeful social networks that act as agile problem-solving communities" -- is going to be a critical skillset in the federal workforce. So-called "digital natives," who grew up using these skills as a matter of daily life on sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter (and more recently GovLoop!). What's truly noteworthy is that our new OPM Director -- who is by his own admission not a Tech Guy -- recognizes the importance of this skillset and is leading by example.

Continue reading "To Build Social Networks, Hire Social Networkers" »

Greetings, FedBlog readers! Thanks again to Alyssa for letting me invade her space (and yours) while she's out partying it up in Vegas stimulating the economy one of our nation's fastest growing counties.

While I'm proud to be an all-around government geek, my particular beat centers around the use of collaborative tools in government to enhance transparency, innovation, public engagement, and other Good Things in that vein. To that end, today brings some intriguing news: The White House blog is slated to receive its own comments section. (h/t gov 2.0 superstar Gwynne Kostin)

This, of course, raises the question: Why? Now, it's certainly unalloyed Cool that they've defaulted in the direction of transparency; having a comments section because there's just no justifiable reason not to. And in the case of the White House, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that every comment or even most will receive a response. But this does raise an issue that arises in nearly every example of public engagement that I've seen in government: What's the value exchange? What can people expect in exchange for the time and effort they spend providing feedback?

The challenge here is that "official" blogs work best when they're staffed by people who can plausibly be even mildly responsive. To my mind, the best example of this today is the TSA Blog "Evolution of Security." Some of the less effective blogs I've seen, by contrast, purport to be written by actual cabinet secretaries -- which is both implausible, and a little disturbing if true. ("Yes, I know we're in the midst of this key debate about regulating carbon emissions, but this guy just posted the funniest LOLcat!") Peter Orzag is a laudable exception, but in general, people would much rather get real feedback from less-senior people than canned responses from implausibly senior officials.

So, three cheers to the White House for embracing the blog format and giving folks yet another way to give government some feedback. It will be interesting to see what "they" -- meaning both the White House and citizens -- make of it.

I'm in Las Vegas through Thursday at a conference for the leaders of the Federal Executive Boards. I'll be checking in periodically, but Elizabeth Newell and Dan Munz, who rocked this blog while I was away in February, will be in charge until I return.