More Management Nominations
By Robert Brodsky
President Obama on Thursday filled out some of his remaining administration management positions, nominating Daniel Werfel as controller of the Office of Federal Financial Management at the Office of Management and Budget and Frank Kendall III as deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition and technology.
Susan Tsui Grundmann was also nominated as chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board and Anne M. Wagner was slotted as the board's vice chair. The board is an independent, quasi-judicial agency that serves as the guardian of federal merit systems.
Werfel has served as deputy controller since March 2006 and as acting controller during the administration transition. As controller, Werfel will manage the day-to-day operations of the Chief Financial Officers' Council, run the government's financial management improvement plan and coordinate OMB policy on areas such as financial reporting, audits, internal controls, fraud and error reduction, and grants management
"His leadership in implementing the Recovery Act is just one example of his stellar work over many years - work that led the administration to recognize what those who have worked with him have known for years: Danny's an extraordinarily able public servant," OMB Director Peter Orszag said in a blog post Thursday evening.
Kendall, meanwhile, has 35 years of government, private sector and military experience in engineering, management, defense acquisition and national security affairs. Currently a managing partner at Renaissance Strategic Advisors, an Arlington, Va. aerospace and defense consulting firm, Kendall will serve as deputy to Ashton Carter in helping set DoD's acquisition strategy.
Grundmann recently served as general counsel to the National Federation of Federal Employees, a labor union which represents 100,000 federal workers nationwide. Wagner is currently the general counsel of the Personnel Appeals Board of the Government Accountability Office.
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Government Executive Editor in Chief Tom Shoop, along with other editors and staff correspondents, take a fresh look at news affecting the management and operations of the federal bureaucracy.
The MSPB is one of the three parts of the old Civil Service Commission and created under President James Earl Carter. It has an inherent design flaw. It should not be a board but an administrative agency headed b a single person. Also another design flaw most of its appointees and staff are Excepted Service not civil servants. What to do? Well with a single person head you could mandate an Appointee or Civil Servant as the head with a Deputy as whatever the Head person was not. Then routinely senior civil servants involved with adminstration of prohibited personal practices and human resources issues in various departments and agencies rotated in for 5 year assignment after they have already reached grade 13-15 level. Appointees and excepted service types should be limited to one or two 5 year term appointments. The current MSPD is very creeky and as always continues to erode the civil service system by being pro-political management when it decides. Statistical data on its rulings should be much more available and I guess still the oversight of Post Office and Civil Service Committee in House needs to be upgraded. Oddly it is not hard to get rid of a civil servant, even at the SES level, assuming you know the system and avoid prohibited personnel practices. I was amazed at the high level managers and even career types in HR in the old independent FEMA that had not the slightes idea of what a prohibited personal practice was, how you found out what one was, and how you could find training or advice to avoid such. Perhaps a post on this subject might draw some comments. Personally I would prohibit more than one change of boss for each employee in any given year but guess that is a dream from la-la land. I once met someone in FEMA that had 17 yes 17 different bosses in a 6 year period. And a very high quality employee at that (IMO).
William R. Cumming Posted Monday, August 3, 2009 10:24 AM