GovernmentExecutive.com

Over at Wired Workplace, Brittany Ballenstedt reports that the Department of Homeland Security is expanding the IdeaFactory, a program piloted in the Transportation Security Administration to allow employees to submit and discuss suggestions for improving the agency, to cover all the DHS components. Larry Orluskie, a DHS spokesman, told Brittany that:

I like the idea that it's Web 2.0; it's interactive....It's not like some agencies that have an e-mail concept, where you send an e-mail or complete a form template on a Web page with your idea. IdeaFactory is interactive - you put in the idea and people vote on it and submit comments. It can even spin around and morph into another idea.

I agree that email inboxes can be a depressing place to send suggestions, especially if someone isn't monitoring them particularly closely, and a response is not guaranteed. But I think there has to be some genuine investment to make sure that the conversations IdeaFactory is meant to foster actually happen: you don't want queries to just sit out there.

I essentially agree with everything Joe Davidson has to say in his column today about the need for bills and regulations to be written in plain language (although I don't particularly know anyone who doesn't!). As frustrating as they are to read, all the subsections amending specific lines of specific codes are actually necessary to make bills operative, of course. I wonder what the best way to condense--or work around--those sections is. Should they be footnotes that are operative, rather than just explanatory? Appendices? Should there be entirely separate plain-language translations of actual working legislation? I do wonder, if translation is the option, what happens if plain-language versions of legislation can be interpreted differently from working, operative versions of legislation. It seems like that could risk opening up ground for lawsuits. And plain language should definitely be adopted in a way that doesn't risk dramatically increasing the workload for Congressional staffers who actually write bills. Plain language is a critical goal, although not one with an immediate and clear solution.

This DipNote diary by James Liddle, a desk officer in the State Department's Africa bureau on his time in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo is really well-written and powerful. I just wish they'd published it in installments, instead of all at once--it's a long read, but well worth the investment of time. I think these kinds of projects are extremely useful, because they don't assume that people know everything the government does. They open up government without being condescending, or without simply focusing on trouble-shooting or frequently asked questions.

The Office of Personnel Management put out a notice today that they'll be listing openings for Administrative Law Judge positions on USAJobs.gov shortly. The announcement was a warning to be quick if you want to be able to take the exams that qualify you for the jobs:

Due to the overwhelming volume of applications OPM expects to receive, the number of applications the agency will accept for processing will be determined on the basis of projected government-wide hiring needs. OPM will announce the limit at the time the examination opens to applicants. Completed applications will be accepted in the order they are received until 11:59 p.m. (EST) the day in which the limit has been reached.

In the last round, OPM got 600 applications in two days. So ready your resumes, folks. The starter's gun is cocked and ready to fire, even if we don't know exactly when it'll go off.

All eyes may be on President Obama as he signs the fiscal 2010 Defense Authorization Act into law this morning, finalizing the repeal of the National Security Personnel System (oh, and a few other items of importance to the federal government as well). But the event taking place today that I'm most interested in is taking place down the road at 13th and Pennsylvania. Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government is convening a group of very high-ranking federal management officials, representatives from key Congressional offices, union and federal employee group leaders, and representatives from the private, non-profit, and academic sectors for a high-level discussion of hiring reform in the federal government.

I obtained the list of participants, Kennedy School Dean David Ellwood's message to them, and the agenda for the day. The session is off the record, and Ellwood said that any reports out of the session would not identify who was associated with what ideas. The sessions include "Innovative Hiring Outside the Government," summarized as "Relying heavily on those from the private and non-profit sectors, we will discuss what seem to be the most successful elements of effective recruiting and hiring practices. We will also take a hard look at which of the lessons are generalizable to government and which are not," and "Innovative Hiring Inside Government," described as "Relying heavily on those who have been leaders in government practice and those who have learned from experiences across government, we will discuss what seem to have been the most successful elements of effective recruiting and hiring practices within government. We will also take a hard look at which of the lessons are generalizable to government and which are not." There are also some sessions on general federal demographics, and on solidifying some of the ideas from the day.

Ellwood wrote to the participants: "This feels like a once in a generation moment for all of us who are committed to bringing superb people into government and supporting them in that service to work collectively." I'll be very curious to hear what comes out of this session, which seems to be a scaled-down version of the vision for an extremely large, ambitious personnel reform conference described by Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry early in his tenure. And I'll be curious to see if it's the first of many, or a one-shot event.

(See a list of notable participants after the jump.)

Continue reading "Key Feds and Outsiders Gather in DC for Hiring Reform Conference" »

By Robert Brodsky

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., one of the chief congressional critics of the recent problems at the Defense Contract Audit Agency has released a statement about the reassignment of agency Director April Stephenson.

"This is just a first step in a long list of changes that need to happen at DCAA," McCaskill said. "There is a culture at DCAA and the Defense Department that has allowed the agency to go so far down this very wrong path. While I am encouraged by Comptroller Hale's recent decision, the Defense Department still has a long way to go before it restores DCAA's credibility as an auditing agency."

It looks like every federal department is getting into the blog act -- now, the Federal Election Commission has debuted its "Disclosure Data Weblog." According to its first post, the blog will highlight new disclosure features and Web site tools, as well as answers to common questions about the FEC's site.

It's a bit on the technical side. But if, like me, you're the type of political junkie who loves to use spare moments to peruse the FEC's searchable map, or to scan campaign finance forms, this site could become a must-click. Despite its streamlined and somewhat intimidating look, the FEC's Web site is often praised for its efficiency and thoroughness. Let's hope their experiment with user feedback increases this crucial government disclosure process.

By Robert Brodsky

The embattled director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency has been replaced and reassigned to the Pentagon comptroller's office.

April Stephenson, who has come under fire the last 15 months after two damaging reports by the Government Accountability Office questioned the quality of audit reports and the management of DCAA offices, will be reassigned Monday to the executive staff of Under Secretary of Defense and Chief Financial Officer Robert Hale as of Nov. 9.

The director's chair will now be filled by Patrick Fitzgerald, the auditor general of the Army.

More to come later.

I'm glad to see columnists and reporters who cover health care turn to the question of how reform, once it's passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama, will actually be implemented by the federal government. None of the spate of stories and columns on the importance of the Massachusetts model or of a mandate to purchase insurance discuss the formation of a new agency or division to handle implementation and oversight. But at least they're asking the right questions about implementation. For example, Alec MacGillis at the Washington Post dives into the question of how an individual mandate might work (and how it has worked in Massachusetts' reformed health care system). He writes:

The record of mandates is mixed, according to research done by Sherry Glied, a Columbia University professor of health policy who has been nominated for a position in the administration. The rates of people buying car insurance, for example, vary among states and do not correlate directly with the size of penalties for going without insurance. Overall, she found, mandates work best when compliance is relatively easy and affordable, when penalties are "stiff but not excessive," and when enforcement is prompt and routine.

But he also describes a massive community organizing effort that enlisted a wide array of public, private, and non-profit entities, ranging from churches to supermarkets, to spread the word about the mandate to purchase insurance. Massachusetts is a small state. Organizing such an effort would be vastly more complicated, both logistically and politically, on a nation-wide scale. Giving whatever federal office is tasked with that responsibility the resources it will need to accomplish it will be critically important to the success of health care reform. Paul Krugman is optimistic about the potential success of national reform efforts. I'd be curious to see him grapple with the organizational issues at stake.

The bloggers there are actually reading hipster-nerd comic XKCD. This is exactly what bloggers--in government and elsewhere--should be doing. Keeping eyes on trends and conversations bubbling up from the far reaches of society, contributing to and influencing those conversations, and answering questions where possible. This seems corny, I know. But it's genuinely important. And I continue to be impressed that TSA is getting it right. I wonder if that's an advantage for a new agency, that folks aren't set in their ways about communication, and so people who want to do things like this can.

By Elizabeth Newell

The Senate Budget Committee yesterday announced the creation of a new Task Force on Government Performance. The task force, to be led by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., will examine the federal government's management framework and identify opportunities to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of federal programs and services, the committee said.

""This bipartisan group of Budget Committee members will focus on making our government run more efficiently and effectively,

and ensuring that we get the most out of the investment of taxpayer dollars," Sen. Kent Conrad, D-ND and chairman of the committee said. " As a former governor and business leader, Senator Warner has tremendous insight and knowledge in this area and is the ideal person to lead this effort. I thank him and the other members for agreeing to serve on the Task Force."

The task force will examine current measurement systems and how performance and program evaluation information is used during the budget process. It will examine best practices from public, private and nonprofit organization, as well as previous federal performance reform efforts. Sen. Warner said he is very grateful for the opportunity to lead the task force.

"I strongly believe in the mantra 'what gets measured gets done,'" he said. We have put together a terrific bipartisan group of senators to take on the difficult challenge of making our government agencies and programs perform better through better measurements, enhanced transparency and greater accountability."

I mentioned briefly yesterday that some unions are concerned that Transportation Security Administration employees who apply for promotions at TSA but don't receive them aren't getting enough information about why. The National Treasury Employees Union has some broader concerns about the process. The union writes of their most recent meeting with the agency:

On promotion protocols, employees expressed concerns about promotions from D to E band being denied or delayed because of unscheduled absences or a past, sometimes trivial, disciplinary action that was still being held against the employee. TSA leadership discussed reasons why such promotions would be denied and said they would look further into delays in promotions to ensure national policies were being properly implemented. On the subject of split shifts, employees stated that there is no clear policy on what part-time or split shift employees need to do to move to full-time positions. TSA leadership said there currently is no TSA-wide criteria for moving from part-time to full-time status and that it appears such a protocol should be developed. Ideas were exchanged about what criteria should be used.

Consistency is important, especially on issues that employees are hinging their hopes on.

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry has already succeeded in getting his fellow senior administration officials to don Hawaiian shirts to generate enthusiasm about donating food for needy families. So I'm excited to see what he gins up next Tuesday to draw attention to the government-wide fitness campaign he's kicking off. Cabinet secretaries in sweats and head and wrist-bands? Federal officials squaring off against current and former professional football players?

I kid, but it's a serious effort to get federal employees to adopt more healthy behaviors. Check it out on Tuesday, October 27, from noon to 1pm on the National Mall between 7th and 14th Streets NW.

The Senate just passed the Defense Authorization conference report by a 68-29 vote. Full details to come in the story, but the big news is, absent a shocking veto by President Obama, the National Security Personnel System is dead.

And takes another step closer to the repeal of the National Security Personnel System. The vote was 64-35 to limit debate on the bill, moving it another step towards passage. Updates to come.

This summer, the Transportation Security Administration began a series of meetings with the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union, the two labor organizations that are organizing locals of the agency's workers in the hopes they'll eventually be granted collective bargaining rights. Those conversations were aimed at starting up a relationship that had been non-existent in the previous administration--and the unions have hopes that the conversations, their first opportunity to have substantial impact on behalf of the workers they represent outside a hearing room or a press conference, might produce actual, substantive policy changes in the department. AFGE has a press release out on their second meeting with the agency, and it hints at some of the changes that union is hoping will come about as a result of those conversations. Among them:

-Standardizing disciplinary policies across the regulations laid out by TSA headquarters and the individual airports, so individual airports don't adopt and enforce disciplinary rules arbitrarily, and without headquarters' approval.

-Setting standards for a doctor's note that allows employees to take sick leave.

-Providing a procedure that will explain to TSA officers who applied for promotions but were not selected for them why they were not chosen.

By Robert Brodsky

The fight may not be over yet for David Safavian.

The former head of federal procurement policy during the Bush administration filed a notice of appeal Wednesday, contesting his 2008 conviction for lying about his dealings with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Safavian was sentenced last week to one year and one day in prison and 24 months of supervised probation.

At this point, the notice of appeal is a formality. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman informed Safavian's attorneys last week that they had 10 days to file the necessary paperwork if they were going to appeal the conviction.

However, sources close to Safavian, who previously served as chief of staff at the General Services Administration, said he has yet conclusively make up his mind about challenging verdict. Safavian was successful in a 2008 appeal of an earlier conviction on related charges. He was retried and found guilty on four of five charges last year.

In all likelihood, Safavian has several months to decide. Friedman ruled last week that Safavian did not have to surrender until after his wife, Jennifer, gives birth.

Earlier this week, Safavian's attorneys filed paperwork requesting that his sentence be delayed until at least June 18, 2010, allowing him to witness the birth of his second child and to assist his wife in caring for the infant in the first weeks of his or her life. Friedman has not ruled on that request as of yet.

The Defense Department has just announced that they'll be offering special, retroactive payments to members of the armed forces who were stop-lossed (in other words, their contracts were reupped because the military decided it needed them, rather than because they wanted to keep serving). Soldiers will have to prove they were stop-lossed to receive the payments. Details are available through the following forms of contact for each branch of the service:

Army: Go to https://www.stoplosspay.army.mil or email RetroStopLossPay@CONUS.Army.Mil

Navy: Email NXAG_N132C@navy.mil

Marine Corps: Go to https://www.manpower.usmc.mil/stoploss or email stoploss@usmc.mil

Air Force: Go to http://www.afpc.randolph.af.mil/stoploss/

I get incredibly frustrated when I read stories like this one about Richard Lopez Razo, who first as a contractor, and then as a State Department employee, took tens of thousands of dollars to facilitate Iraq reconstruction projects. Maybe it's a sign of resignation, but rather than wondering about his motivations, or decrying committing fraud on behalf of Iraqis, I'm just wondering if any level of oversight can completely prevent fraud when this amount of money is involved. It just seems like the dollars are too big, and in the aggregate, humans are just too weak, for it never to happen.

I've been citing Josh Rogin over at The Cable a lot as I write about the turf division between State and Defense. And he makes the excellent point today, writing about the Iraqi elections, that the differences between diplomats and the military aren't merely a matter of staffing, or resources, though those differences exist as well. Some of the differences in approach are philosophical:

The clashing approaches speak to both the institutional culture of the two organizations and their different view of U.S. priorities and interests during this critical time of pullback in the U.S. presence in Iraq, the sources said. "State has a respect for sovereignty and institutional relations," one official explained. "DOD is much more activist and hands on in pretty much every area. Their attitude is if there's a problem you get in there and do what you can to fix it."

I'd be curious to hear Rogin's thoughts on the extent to which those philosophies stem from resource challenges: does State take a more limited approach because there are limits on what they have to work with? I can't imagine that's the only reason, but practical considerations do tend to impact philosophical ones. And while it's healthy to have a clash of policy ideas within an administration, how do you ultimately resolve them, not simply in the sense that the president picks a strategy, but to get to a point where the military and the diplomats are working seamlessly together?

By Robert Brodsky

It's been nearly a decade since Congress enacted the women's contracting program through the Small Business Reauthorization Act of 2000. But the Small Business Administration has yet to implement the program and its long-awaited regulations.

On Tuesday, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, sent a letter to SBA Administrator Karen Mills urging her to finally kick the program into high gear and to set a timetable for implementing the program prior to Oct. 31, which marks the end of National Women's Small Business Month.

"I repeatedly expressed my frustration to the previous administration for dragging its feet in developing women contracting regulations," Snowe said in the letter. "I was further outraged when the proposed implementing regulations that were eventually produced - eight years after enactment of the law - did not provide the tools envisioned by Congress and basically thwarted the law's intent. Now, with over nine months having passed in this new Administration, I am deeply concerned that the regulations have yet to be established."

Snowe is also frustrated that the federal government has not met its goal of awarding five percent of Recovery Act contracts to women-owned small businesses. The group is the only socioeconomic category whose small business contracting goal has not been met or exceeded since the Recovery Act's passage.

By Emily Long

If you've got something to say, the White House is listening. Monday marked the launch of the GreenGov Challenge, a call for federal employees and military members to submit their best clean energy ideas. From now until October 31, the end of the inaugural National Energy Awareness Month, anyone with a government email address can log on to WhiteHouse.gov/GreenGov and suggest ways to 'green' their workplaces. To add some excitement and a little friendly competition, feds can also vote for their favorite strategies, and in November officials from each agency will review the top ideas. This latest request for employee input comes less than a week after the Office of Management and Budget announced it had received more than 38,000 submissions for making the government more effective and efficient. There's no limit on creativity or quantity, and now is as good a time as any to be heard.

I realize most of you who read this don't need that headline. But in the wake of the reporting by the Boston Globe and Talking Points Memo's reports this morning on the state of the Secret Service, I think it's worth a reminder that federal staffing and federal agencies' mandates aren't just a matter of obscure policy implementation--people's lives are at stake. Most people forget that the Secret Service, originally part of the Treasury, is a financial crimes investigative unit, in addition to the security force for top government officials. The report obtained by the Boston Globe suggests that perhaps it's time to reevaluate that role--and get the agency the basic resources to do its job, which it currently lacks:

The report, which was provided to the Globe, said such a review should look at how money and staff are allocated, and whether some of the agency's functions and workers should be transferred to the Treasury Department.

"This is a discussion going on not only in some quarters in Congress, but inside the Secret Service. Should there be a re-look at the mission?'' said a government official, who like others was not authorized to speak publicly about security matters or reveal details about the number or nature of the threats.

Already, there are signs of strain on the agency, officials said. Budget documents submitted to Congress this year said the agency lacks the necessary technology to keep up with threats.

"The network and mainframe system used today struggles to support basic operations,'' the agency said, requesting an additional $33 million over last year for computers and other information technology.

TPM points out that Secret Service staffing is up 5.3 percent over the past two years, while the number of threats they have to investigate is up 400 percent. It's a real shame that statistics like this, or a dire lack of basic resources, only get highlighted when something sensational, like an increase in threats, happens. The president's life--and the qualities of federal financial crimes investigations--are never more or less important, day-to-day. The Secret Service should always have the resources to do all of its jobs.

Apparently, the FBI Recreation Association, which sells merchandise at the official Federal Bureau of Investigation gift shop and elsewhere, has a new product: a cologne called "Integrity," and will have a fragrance for women in 2010. I know those FBI and "Witness Protection" t-shirts are pretty popular with tourists here in DC, but I didn't know the FBI's brand was that strong...

I'm broadly sympathetic to the point Helene York, writing for our sister magazine The Atlantic, is making in her post arguing that federal employees deserve much, much healthier, and even more importantly, better food in on-site dining facilities. I'm all for anything that makes federal employees happier or healthier, or that allows the federal government to model best-practices policy. But a strain of condescension in York's post really brought me up short. Apparently, she believes America has bad policy, because the food available in federal cafeterias is somehow reflective of what employees know about food, or what kind of food they like best. "How can we expect USDA employees to passionately defend needed changes if their imaginations about food options are stuck in the 1970s?" she writes. Later, she reiterates the point, saying "Most college students wouldn't put up with this. Why should public servants? They deserve better than this, especially if we need them to see the connections among fresh and healthy food, well-raised food and healthy ecosystems, their personal health and great-tasting produce."

First off, as one of York's commenters notes, the dining facilities in many federal agencies aren't run and supplied by the agencies themselves. As a result, the idea that what's served in federal cafeterias is reflective of federal employees' opinions and knowledge about food is, to a certain extent, factually inaccurate. Worse, it's incredible patronizing. It's not as if federal employees only eat food in their agencies' cafeterias. Some of them might go elsewhere for lunch. Or, you know, cook and bring their own food Suggesting otherwise implies that federal employees are dumb, or uninquisitive, which seems like a pretty odd assumption to showcase if you're going to be working on federal employee policy. And the idea that federal employees ought to act like college students and agitate over the food they're served in agencies cafeterias seems a little...reductive. Federal employees do have unions who do work on wellness issues. But they're also dealing with things like pay and work conditions, of which food and fitness facilities are a subset. They're important, but by acting as if it's shocking that food just doesn't automatically cause a revolution, York's revealing a prejudice of her own.

It's always marvelous when people outside the government or good government community take up the cause of federal employees. (And we've got our own special report on lifestyle issues for federal employees up now and continuing over the next several weeks.) But it's useless if these newly-minted advocates end up condescending to and misunderstanding the people they want to help.

This is one reason it's important for agencies to have not just blogs, but good, regularly updated blogs that are reasonably well-read. That way, when a story about a woman who claims she was separated from her baby by Transportation Security Officers begins to circulate, the agency can fact-check the rumor. And when security footage of the alleged incident takes place, they can post it. It's public relations, of course, but it feels much less like the agency is trying to nuke someone who was upset, and for some reason is giving a false account, and much more like a reliable voice is explaining something that happened. Agencies have to establish credibility on their blogs first. But once they do, they'll be in a much stronger position to be treated like a trusted voice who should be considered--and potentially deferred to--when something like this happens.

I'm blogging from the 2009 public meeting of the Federal Salary Council. And in the report of the Federal Salary Council Methodology Working Group is the average pay gap for 2009, incluing the average locality payment of 19.40 percent: 26.42 percent when incentive pay is included for General Schedule-12 administrative pay in the Rest of U.S. (which became the subject of some controversy last year when the Bureau of Labor Statistics found there had been a significant increase in the gap between those employees and their private-sector counterparts when incentive pay was factored in), or 22.13 percent when the incentive pay for those employees is factored out. The pay gap in 2008, including the incentive pay for the GS-12 administrative workers, was 25.17 percent. It's a reminder that even though the economy is struggling, private sector salaries that still exist aren't necessarily falling.

Whether it's Peter Orszag's pedometer, or the plans for a campus of shared health programs across agencies in Foggy Bottom, work-life balance is a hot issue for federal agencies. We'd love to know how your agency is approaching programs ranging from telework to childcare. If you've got a moment to fill out our work-life balance survey, I'd appreciate it.

By Elizabeth Newell

David Safavian, former head of federal procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget under Bush, was sentenced to 12 months and 1 day in jail and 24 months probation today, according to Robert Brodsky who was at the sentencing hearing. Safavian was convicted in December of obstructing an investigation by the General Services Administration, lying on a financial disclosure form, and two counts of making false statements. Safavian is free until his wife gives birth, after which he will be required to turn himself in. Full story from Rob later this afternoon.

The National Security Personnel System lacks a director, and lies on the brink of repeal. But President Obama has appointed a new Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Clifford Stanley. Stanley will have overarching responsibility for NSPS and other policies affecting both civilian and military personnel. Stanley spent 33 years in the Marine Corps, and left the armed services as a Major General. But his professional experience isn't limited to military service: he was also Chief Operating Officer of the University of Pennsylvania, and president of Scholarship America, which administers a range of college scholarship programs, and has distributed $2 billion in funds to more than 2 million students since the organization was founded 51 years ago. And interestingly, Stanley has a masters in Counseling Johns Hopkins a bachelors degree in psychology.

That educational background might prove useful as Stanley takes on a discomfited civilian workforce at the Defense Department. It may sound squishy, but when it comes to personnel, morale matters. And morale is just a fancy word for people's feelings. Someone who comes in prepared to sympathize may get the feedback he needs to create and oversee strong policies.

Amidst the brouhaha about hikes in the price of long-term care insurance and rising premiums in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, agencies got a bit of good news on Monday. The fees they pay to support the Flexible Spending Account Program will stay the same in 2010. Agencies will still have to pay $3.25 per Dependent-Care Flexible Spending Account and $4.35 per Health-Care Flexible Spending Account. But at least prices aren't rising.

Over at The Cable, Josh Rogin has a smart post up about the interactions between the search for a U.S. Agency for International Development Director, the State Department's first Quadrennial Review, and a raft of bills pending in Congress that would improve funding and support for the agency. Perhaps most importantly, he notes:

Development-community sources said that the administration has its pick for USAID administrator in mind, but that person has told the White House he won't accept the job until questions about his role and authorities are settled.

More generally, the independency of the agency, its ability to have an intellectual identity, and its control over its own funding are all at stake in State's ongoing review, which is called the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, or QDDR.

This seems like a real double-bind for the administration. It might be better for the agency to have a head--and thus a champion--during the Quadrennial Review. And what happens if the Quadrennial Review doesn't turn out the way this potential nominee would like? That leaves the Obama administration back at zero for a second time, given their earlier tango with Paul Farmer. It may not be a lot of fun to take a job and to have its requirements and powers change afterwards. But in this case, it could be a real act of public service to give USAID some leadership through what could be a complicated if rewarding time.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, said something in his statement this morning's hearing on Domestic Partner Benefits that I found interesting:

I am also pleased that the Office of Special Counsel recently updated its website to reflect that discrimination based on sexual orientation is a prohibited personnel practice and is subject to investigation by OSC. During the past Administration, Federal employees were provided inaccurate and inconsistent guidance on this very important issue. I am hopeful that a new Special Counsel will soon be in place to make sure that this protection is rigorously enforced.

I'd never heard this as a complaint before, but if OSC was, in fact, misleading anyone about the law, it's pretty shocking.

I'm at a Senate hearing on the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, just made an argument in favor of the bill that is entirely logical, but not one that I've heard anyone make before: that some of the biggest federal contractors offer standard employment benefits to the domestic partners of their employees. The Senators are also pushing hard on an equal-pay for equal-work argument, saying that gay and lesbian federal employees are being compensated at a lower rate than their heterosexual counterparts because they can't extend their benefits, like health care, to them.

Both of those arguments are reasonably logical, and they have a leading moderate Republican lined up behind them (as well as Joe Lieberman, who is essentially a moderate Democrat, no matter what he calls himself, leading the charge). The passage of this bill isn't, I don't think, actually about getting enough votes for it to pass. It has 121 cosponsors in addition to Rep. Tammy Baldwin in the House, and 24 in addition to Lieberman in the Senate. Really, it's a matter of getting floor time, and convincing lawmakers that it's not too politically risky to vote on a gay rights bill, particularly with the 2010 Congressional elections. Lieberman joked that the schedule for a vote depends on "higher authorities...earthly authorities." He's not exactly exaggerating.

About a million federal retirees who do not receive Social Security payments would get a $250 boost from an economic recovery plan touted by President Barack Obama, according to a release from the White House.

The White House's proposal comes in anticipation of an announcement from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that there will be no cost of living adjustments for Social Security and federal civilian and military retirees in 2010.

National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association President Margaret Baptiste called the proposal "welcome relief" for those federal employees, who must still pay for anticipated increase in health insurance premiums such as Medicare Part B.

For more background on this issue, you can read here.

By Robert Brodsky

The Senate on Tuesday evening confirmed Danny Werfel as head of the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Federal Financial Management. Werfel, who served as the principal deputy to the controller since March 2006 and completed several stints as acting controller, will now assume the position permanently.

"This is great news for OMB, as Danny brings broad experience and financial acumen to the table," wrote OMB Director Peter Orszag on his blog last night. "His skills will be tested, as there are serious challenges facing the federal government to improve transparency and drive better results for the American people. I look forward to his leadership in furthering President's agenda and in our work going forward. He is, as he has been, vital to what we do."

During his confirmation hearing last month, Werfel told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that eliminating inefficient spending, including payment errors and investments in unnecessary real property, would be a priority.

And, as Orszag helpfully points out, the new controller is not to be confused with former Heisman Trophy award winner and subsequent NFL bust quarterback Danny Wuerffel.

So, I wrote yesterday about the uptick in conversation about regulation and how it should work in the Obama administration. Which of course means I wake up this morning to find that one of the more aggressive regulators Obama nominated, Lorelei Boylan, the New York State wage law enforcer, who was tapped to run the Labor Department's Wage and Hour division, has withdrawn from consideration. Boylan faced considerable opposition from Republicans, who objected in particular to her role in a program that trained employee advocate groups to spot and report labor law violations. Perhaps she decided that a confirmation battle would be too bruising, leaving her unable to operate as aggressively as she would have liked even if she made it through. Perhaps she thought she could simply do more by going back to New York. But her decision to withdraw is a reminder that the regulatory agencies are important, and treated as such by legislators and issue advocates alike, even if they're not in the headlines.

So, Michelle Obama is back making the rounds at federal agencies again after a summer hiatus. And while I suppose it does seem like a morale-boosting gesture, I'm still curious as to whether the First Lady is doing more than hosting very targeted pep rallies. Certainly, when she spoke at the Office of Personnel Management, Mrs. Obama delivered a fairly specific message about the President's interest in work-life balance programs for federal employees. But while agenda-setting in a broad way certainly makes sense, I'm more curious to see if Mrs. Obama is reporting back to the administration any of the impressions that she's getting from those visits. Is she getting any substantial time to talk to rank-and-file employees? Are there things she's looking for, leading indicators of satisfaction--or lack thereof? It seems to me this tour she's doing would be most useful if the flow of information went in both directions. And I'd be interested to know how the First Lady sees the federal workforce, even through the prism of the fairly choreographed visits she's doing.

There's nothing remotely surprising about this Washington Post story about how the Obama administration is attempting to move aggressively to revitalize the regulatory apparatus in federal agencies. In the reporting I've done about private-sector labor issues, for example, both the Chamber of Commerce and labor organizations like the AFL-CIO have said they fully expect the regulatory apparatus to start moving, and to start moving as rapidly as is possible within current constraints. What is going to be much more interesting is the conversation between Cass Sunstein at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and all the regulators who are champing at the bit to issue new rules, something the piece alludes to a bit. While I don't think the choice of Sunstein suggests the administration wants to put permanent breaks on regulation, I do think it means that they want a vigorous conversation about the risks and rewards of new regulations, something that will force regulators to sharpen their arguments and consider carefully what they propose.

One of the significant complications of any meaningful bureaucratic reform is the need to reconcile competing desires and demands. For example, Elizabeth Newell reported on Friday that there's concern over whether the competitions that lead to federal contracts are actually meaningful, useful processes that drive costs down and the quality of services up:

"It's the quality of competition we need to look at in combination with the quantity of competition," Sharma said. "For example, if we determine we're increasing full-and-open competition, are we attracting the best suppliers and the best capabilities?"

While the Obama administration and other stakeholders agree that competition is an important element of a healthy acquisition system, there isn't consensus on whether the government is making progress. "There is no consistent definition for competition. To be able to say whether competition is increasing or decreasing, when there's no consensus definition, is hard," Sharma said.

That same day, Megan Scully reported for CongressDaily that some in the Army want more frequent competitions for smaller batches of products. Given that the request for more frequent, smaller contracts is coming from within the military, and that challenges to the nature of competition in the procurement process are coming from an outside group, it's a decent bet that the Army proposal has a better chance of being adopted. But if the military moves towards more frequent competitions without making sure they're better, they could end up magnifying the problems with individual contracts. Perhaps it's a six of one, half-dozen of the other, since getting a large competition wrong and getting many small competitions wrong could have essentially the same effect in terms of quality of the product. But just holding a competition is a cost for the people who have to put them on and sort through the proposals. Magnifying that cost and still ending up with substandard services, or services that might have been improved through a meaningful bidding process, is a waste.

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry has put out a notice to agencies that they have to figure out how many Presidential Management Fellows they'll need for next year, and make projections for 2011, by October 30. And he's issued a reminder that a bunch of current PMFs are still available for agencies to hire. I have a number of friends who have been Presidential Management Fellows, and they all seem to have had quite good experiences. But the fact that OPM needs to remind agencies that PMFs are prime candidates for full-time jobs is an indicator that agencies are still not perceiving the full range of possible candidate sources. That aperture should be as wide as is humanely possible: federal agencies are going to need all the great applicants from all the sources they can get.

I can imagine that many of you were as surprised as I was to wake up this morning to find that President Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I have no insight into the prize committee's decision-making process, the merits of their conclusion, or the wisdom of President Obama accepting or rejecting the award.

Can I suggest, though, a couple of potential uses for the prize money, should Obama choose to accept it? He could donate the money to paying down the federal debt. He could put it towards funding for the food stamps. Or he could put it towards paid internships for federal service. But there's no question that Obama should donate the money if he accepts it rather than keeping it for himself. And while almost any charity is bound to be controversial and become the subject of partisan debate, putting the money towards good government would be both productive and hard to argue with, and would suggest that Obama has a personal investment in the issues he's pushing.

Just because you're the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn't mean you have superpowers that let you avoid internet scams. Apparently, Robert Mueller entered his personal information into a scammer's website, leading him to have to change all his passwords, and his wife to ban him from banking online. It's pretty funny, but it's also a reminder that this whole internet security thing can bedevil the smartest, most vigilant of us. But that's not actually a reason to withdraw from the internet, just to be careful, and build good precautions into our systems.

281-146. Next up, the Senate and the President's desk...

By Robert Brodsky

In a somewhat surprising announcement today, the office of Vice President Joe Biden publicly identified more than 170 projects that federal or state agencies had hoped to advance with Recovery Act funds but which were subsequently modified or cancelled.

The projects, some of which are way too obvious and silly to have ever gotten off the ground, are enough to give a muckraker like myself goose bumps. But, give the administration credit for nipping them in the bud before they were snared by the Recovery Board or its army of citizen inspector generals.

Here is a sampling of projects that did not meet the administration's standards:

-A plan by the Department of the Interior to use funds to purchase a supplemental freezer, one use of which would have been to freeze fish sperm, at the Gavin's Point National Fish Hatchery was halted.

-Defense Department projects to steam clean bird droppings from a building and repair the roof of a fast food franchise on a military base were cancelled.

-A state Department of Transportation planned to use funds to resurface a road. Subsequent to that project, an EPA remediation project was planned that would have multiple heavy trucks hauling waste across the newly laid road - most likely severely damaging the road in the process. The DOT project has been rescheduled and will be reinstituted after the EPA project is complete.

-A GSA proposal to repair and rehabilitate the East Wing of the White House was halted

-Proposals by the USDA to use Rural Development Business and Industry loans for a ski resort, a gas station, a luxury spa and inn and to refinance a Rite Aid were all cancelled.

Back in August when a mediation panel settled the final contract issues remaining between the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the mediators wrote: "No one to this process assumes the relationship will somehow be healed overnight...But the existence of this dispute resolution process signals recognition by the leadership of these parties that there is a relationship worth maintaining."

NATCA ratified the contract and elected a new president since that statement. But the argument that the relationship between the agency and the union would be difficult to mend is correct. The latest flare-up? Tests of the En Route Automation Modernization, the system that's supposed to upgrade air traffic control across the country. NATCA complains that the union isn't being looped in on the exercises, and that they're failing as a result. The implementation of new technology is always complicated, but it's too bad that, in addition to the actual problems with the technology itself, ERAM is sparking any sort of employee dissatisfaction.

President Obama and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are rolling out a suite of efforts to enhance the number of people who are disabled in both the public and private sectors. They'll start with four forums around the country in Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco and New Orleans, which will take place by November 20 of this year. And then next spring, the government will hold a major job fair for people with disabilities who are interested in federal employment.

I think this is a great initiative, particularly for federal agencies who might find new, and overlooked, sources of terrific employees. I do worry, though, that the forums in the cities outside of D.C. are dividing up their sessions for employers and disability advocates. It seems like having those people in the same room might make for a productive, if occasionally difficult, conversation.

I've gotten some emails asking about this, and the answer is yes. It's not just the National Security Personnel System that is repealed in the conference report (and the House is scheduled to vote on that report today). It's the Defense Civilian Intelligence Personnel System, which throws a major kink in the efforts underway there under Chief Human Capital Officer Ron Sanders to create a common pay system there to go along with the performance management system he's been putting in place. Implementation of the rollback of NSPS was never going to be simple. This won't be either. But at least the challenges they create may open up a space for conversation about performance management and pay-for-performance government-wide.

And available here (it's an extremely large file, so be prepared to wait). More details to come in a couple of stories shortly.

By Robert Brodsky

The Office of Management and Budget expects to release its next, and final, round of contracting guidance in the coming weeks, according to an agency spokesman.

President Obama's March 4th acquisition memo directed OMB Director Peter Orszag to issue the administration's final set of guidance on a host of acquisition topics by September 30.

But, OMB spokesman Thomas Gavin tells Government Executive that the interim guidance issued by the administration in July addressed many of the concerns in Obama's memorandum.

"The guidance released in July is by far the most important guidance in setting priorities," Gavin said.

The final guidance was initially expected to cover the appropriate use and oversight of sole-source and other types of noncompetitive contracts, as well as issues related to the acquisition workforce. Both topics, however, were addressed in July. The upcoming guidance could still address outstanding questions related to outsourcing and defining "inherently governmental.".

In a related note, the Government Accountability Office issued a report Tuesday which found that civilian agencies are late in developing their insourcing guidelines. A provision in the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act required civilian agencies to develop a plan for bringing contracted work back in-house.

Agency officials the GAO that they delayed their efforts as they were waiting for OMB's July guidance to ensure their instructions were consistent. Some officials added that they are waiting on additional direction from OMB, particularly concerning the definition of inherently governmental functions and when it is appropriate to outsource.

The repeal of the authority behind the National Security Personnel System is the biggest surprise in the Conference Report on the Defense Authorization bill, but a wide range of other government-wide personnel provisions, mostly relating to retirement, but including a transition from the COLA in Alaska and Hawaii to the locality pay system, survived the conference. They are as follows:

• Allows former federal employees who receive a federal annuity from other than the Civil
Retirement and Disability Fund to retain their annuity if reemployed by DOD.
• Authorizes federal agencies to reemploy retired federal employees under certain limited conditions, without offset of an employees' annuity against their salary, and requires the Comptroller General to report on the use of this authority.
• Phases out cost of living allowances for federal employees working in Hawaii, Alaska, and other non-foreign U.S. territories, and would phase in locality comparability pay in place of the allowances.
• Phases in the allowance of unused sick leave to be applied toward length of service for
purposes of computing a retirement annuity under the Federal Employee Retirement System.
• Provides certain District of Columbia employees whose positions were converted into federal positions with pension credit for their service prior to the transition for the purpose of determining federal retirement benefits.
• Allows former federal employees under the Federal Employee Retirement System who
withdrew their contributions to the retirement trust fund, thereby waiving retirement credit for those years of service, to redeposit their earlier contributions, plus interest, upon reemployment with the federal government.
• Allows employees under the Civil Service Retirement System to take their highest salary, including their deemed full-time salary for years of part-time work, to be used in computing benefits derived from a pre-1986 salary.

And a full summary of the conference report can be found here.

From the press release on the Conference Report on the Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2010:

The conference report repeals the authority for the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) and requires the transition of NSPS employees to previously existing civilian personnel systems, while providing DOD with new personnel flexibilities - in the areas of hiring and assigning personnel and appraising employee performance - that would extend across the entire DOD civilian workforce. The Secretary of Defense would be afforded an opportunity to propose additional personnel flexibilities, if he determines that such flexibilities would be in the best interest of DOD.

For all the reasons I've written about before, it's important to see federal agencies represented in pop culture, if only so Americans know more about what their government does. But Telemundo's decision to show a character on one of its top telenovels getting a job with the Census Bureau and going to work making sure Latinos aren't underrepresented is smart for a whole host of reasons. First, it's a effectively a public service announcement, countering the statements of some Congressmen who have suggested avoiding the Census, making the case that it's important to be counted and represented. Second, the show will put a face, albeit a fictional one, on the Census, making it a process conducted by people, rather than a faceless data-collection machine. And third, the show will demonstrate a simple truth: the Census is a vehicle for employment, even if it's only part time. And the federal government can guarantee it's probably better than pole-dancing or relying on a hunky-but-doomed gangster as a means of support.

Dipnote, the State Department's official blog, and Josh Rogin, over at Foreign Policy, have posts up this morning that don't directly engage with each other, but that I think illustrate different elements of a common problem: how to demilitarize American diplomacy. Dipnote's post illustrates the challenges of staffing and equipping the Civilian Response Corps, who need to be prepared to parachute into reconstruction efforts in dangerous situations without unduly burdening embassies already in place, and while keeping members of the Corps safe. That means transporting and equipping Corps members with things that the military has already has, including armored vehicles and vests. Given those kinds of requirement, it's not surprising that the military has slipped into diplomatic roles that State can't perform because its teams aren't prepared to go in safely. And once members of the military are doing a job, it's hard for State to reclaim those tasks.

Rogin makes the case that State is having an even harder time with clawback because the Pentagon is much, much better at fighting Congressional battles than the State Department is. Defense has more Congressional fellows, and attaches more prestige to working in legislative affairs, Rogin argues. It's an illustration that the value of a policy proposal really is only one of very many factors determining whether that proposal is adopted, and that it's much, much easier to let things go than to get them back.

Does it ever. If you have a minute in the next few days, cruise over and check out the Federal Labor Relations Authority's dramatically revamped website. Normally I wouldn't call attention to an agency's website relaunch, but the FLRA hasn't gotten a major refresh since 1997. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say the old site was almost criminally bad: ugly, difficult to navigate, and lacking a lot of useful information. The new site is night and day better.

The Obama administration has paid a lot of lip service to the web as a tool of transparency, which has mostly meant dumping data, rather than promoting disclosure in a meaningful way. But the FLRA's update is a reminder that the web is a crucial tool for information-gathering, and federal agencies need to meet basic guidelines and expectations for what their websites should look like and include. Once every agency meets those basic standards, then we need apps and tools that can help the public find useful and important data easily.

FedBlog does not endorse political candidates, as this is a non-partisan blog with journalistic ethics. However, I do recommend that federal employees consider, as a matter of pride, voting for Attorney General Eric Holder, who is up for the Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year. Holder is up against some stiff, or shall I say well-waxed, competition, so I imagine he could use feds' support.

One of the interesting things about reading through the press releases of federal agencies is that you see trends in a different way than how they are reported in the press. I was catching up on a backlog in my Google Reader this morning, and was struck by one feed in particular: the sheer number of businesses the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ends up suing after they violate employment law, whether because they fired someone because they became pregnant, because they retaliated against a deaf employee, because they refused to provide someone the training they needed in order to get a promotion. Now, illegal discrimination tends to happen for two reasons: either someone is ignorant of the law, or they know what it is, but they believe they can get away with subverting it. It's hard to combat the latter case, since venality is part of the human condition. But I'd be interested in what sorts of education programs might be able to combat ignorance about discrimination law, and to help people walk back from discriminatory behavior and make voluntary redress in appropriate ways. There are a lot of businesses in the United States, but surely it would save everyone time, money, and energy, if discrimination could be avoided, rather than punished.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse announced something interesting yesterday: substantial progress towards a vaccine that could reduce cocaine use. I'm curious about this from two perspectives. First, it's an example of the kinds of scientific research the federal government makes possible that happens largely out of the public eye, unless, of course, there's a major breakthrough. Second, the idea of a vaccine for drug addiction raises interesting questions about consent and medicine. Would people convicted for possession and sentenced to treatment programs be required to take such a vaccine? Would it be strictly voluntary? In any case, it's big news, particularly if it's ultimately successful and goes into manufacture.

So, I taped a segment of Bloggingheads TV with Matt Yglesias on my day off, and I thought I'd share a section of the episode where he and I discuss NCIS, the existence of the NCIS spin-off, the Ron Howard-Brian Grazer IRS show in development, and the need for more television about what people in government do, period, all very much informed by my posts here and your comments:

You guys should know you've really talked me around on NCIS...I like it more now than I used to, even if I still think Bones is the best.

Between the Office of Personnel Management and Congress, we've seen a lot of news on health care benefits in the past week and a half. Sen. Grassley has backed off his plans to end FEHBP, the transition to a new long-term care contract is underway, and FEHBP premium hikes have gone public. As Open Season begins, we'll have a lot more coverage for you. But if you see changes to your health plan that you want us to look into, give me a heads up.

By Robert Brodsky

The Obama administration finally has a leader for its procurement policy shop.

As we first reported on Tuesday, Daniel Gordon, deputy general counsel of the Government Accountability Office, has been nominated as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the Office of Management and Budget.

The administration made the nomination official shortly before 5 p.m. Friday evening.

Gordon is a veteran of the procurement and oversight community, spending 17 years at the GAO. He spent several years adjudicating bid protest decisions and later ran the watchdog's procurement law division.

"Dan is a career contracting professional who understands that the top goal of our procurement efforts is to use taxpayers' dollars smartly and effectively - that we get the most value for every dollar we spend," wrote OMB Director Peter Orszag in a blog post Friday evening. "Dan will bring a fresh approach to procurement policy, but he also will rely on the expertise of the career procurement workforce to improve our procurement processes.

More to come on Gordon's nomination on Monday.

As my always-observant beat partner Alex Parker reported yesterday, stakeholders met on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to discuss whether there's a need to change the way the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program negotiates over the prices of prescription drugs. And Nancy Kichak, the Office of Personnel Management executive who oversees FEHBP said at my meeting with her on the same day that she and others at OPM are in the process of meeting with health care providers to see if there are best practices that FEHBP can adopt. I'd be curious to see if this turns into a movement for a full-scale reform of FEHBP. Such a process would pale in complexity to the health care debate currently taking place in Congress, but it would provide an interesting space in which to discuss some of the issues around large-scale health plans and exchanges. I'll be keeping an eye on this question in coming weeks and months.

And just to let y'all know, FedBlog is going to take a brief break tomorrow. I hope everyone has a good weekend. See you on Monday.

I've put the full list below the jump, but the White House has just released an extremely ambitious list of goals for departments and agencies to achieve under the auspices of the Recovery Act by December 31 of this year. On a macro-level, the administration wants to see 60 percent of the $499 billion allocated under the Recovery Act obligated to specific projects by that time. But Vice President Biden wants to see ground broken on a lot of projects over the next three months. It's a reminder of government's capacity--no matter what you think about the virtue or vices of that capacity, the federal government can do a huge number of things when some serious money is tossed in its direction.

Continue reading "Ambitious Goals for the Recovery Act" »

It's worth mentioning that this year is the 20th anniversary of the Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program, which helps agencies provide a wide range of adaptive technologies to their disabled employees, whether they're civilians or veterans. I've written some about the CAP program and its tireless head, Dinah Cohen. But my sense that has always been that CAP would like more folks to know that their services, which can really do amazing things in enabling people to work no matter their physical capacities, are available not just in the Defense Department, where the program is based, and not just for veterans. So here's to CAP's continued expansion of the good work that they do, and happy anniversary.