GovernmentExecutive.com

Is the Army National Guard a dead end?

(Hat tip: BoingBoing)

The Washington Nationals are saying thanks to the nation's civil servants -- in the form of discounted tickets. The team, in conjunction with the Partnership for Public Service, has designated Saturday, May 24 as Federal Employee Appreciation Night at Nationals Park.

The best part for those of us on the outside of government looking in is that you don't have to be a federal employee to get the discounts. You just have to use this link to order tickets.

The team also will be offering the discounts in recognition of federal employees at games on July 12 and Sept. 20.

Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, says the non-profit has had an unprecedented response from federal agencies in response to training the organization is offering on how to improve the process of bringing new employees on board.

“We have been struck by the overwhelming response this report has generated in just a single day,” Stier said. “We are conducting a workshop tomorrow with a set of federal agencies that is so oversubscribed that we had to set a second date that is also oversubscribed.”

More than 60 people are signed up for tomorrow’s workshop, from every major federal agency, Stier said. They may be attracted by evidence that strong onboarding programs can increase retention rates by 25 percent, a key statistic as the retirement wave looms over the federal coastline. --Alyssa Rosenberg

Many federal employees lead double lives, doing something in their off hours that has nothing to do with their civil service work. But NASA aerospace engineer Mark Branch may have the coolest second life.

By day, Branch works as the technical lead in the electromagnetic test engineering section of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the Washington Post reports today. But at night, he becomes "DJ Scientific," cranking tunes at some of the hottest clubs in the Washington area.

"I may be the only rocket scientist hip-hop DJ in the country," says Branch. "My colleagues at NASA find it hard to believe that I spend my nights deejaying at nightclubs. The people I meet at the clubs can't believe that by day I supervise people testing instruments for satellites."

Steve Barr reports today on a new survey showing that a third of younger Americans would give a "great deal of consideration" to working for government, if only their parents would ask them. Almost as many said they would consider such urging from a teacher, or even a newly elected president.

This once again raises the question of whether the "millennial" generation -- or whatever they're being called these days -- is receptive to the "ask not..." type of call to service from on high. Pat McGinnis, head of the Council for Excellence in Government, which sponsored the survey Barr cited, is in the "yes" camp. The poll, she said, shows "the potential for the new president and administration, especially as we have the retirement wave getting under way, to ask people, not just millennials but older people as well, to serve. There's a sense that many would respond and step up, as they did when John F. Kennedy asked."

Max Stier, head of the Partnership for Public Service, which specializes in trying to attract the next generation of civil servants, is on record as being skeptical of that notion. "Kennedy's message is no longer the right one," he told Newsweek earlier this year. "It's not about what you can do for government. We need to convey what government can do for you."

To be fair, Stier's not just talking about what government can do for the younger generation in terms of pay and benefits, but in providing an opportunity to do good, rewarding work. And that's the key point: My sense is that young people aren't that different from their elders. They'll readily respond to a call to serve their fellow citizens. But they've seen government at its worst (and, as a result, also have seen it caricatured endlessly), and they want to make sure that by going into a government organization they actually will be able to make a difference.

If you work in human resources at the Food and Drug Administration, your job is about to get a lot more challenging. The agency says it's going to hire 1,300 biologists, chemists, medical officers and other employees by October. That would triple the number of people hired between 2005 and 2007.

In the wake of the deaths of 81 people in the United States who took tainted versions of the blood thinner heparin, FDA has been under intense pressure from Congress over holes in its oversight and inspection processes. Yesterday, agency officials told Congress that they need $225 million annually to inspect foreign drugmakers every other year and another $100 million a year in their budget to keep up the pace of inspections with domestic plants.

Speaking of uniforms, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden will be giving his up in July. He's not going anywhere, though. Hayden is going to continue in his job in a civilian capacity. The four-star Air Force general says he's making the shift due to "practical considerations related to military retirement."

Remember the item about the Air Force's move to require its air reserve technicians (who technically are civilian federal employees, but must join the reserves as a condition of their employment) to wear military uniforms on the job? Officials at the American Federation of Government Employees, who represent the technicians, were not happy about the move, and now they've taken action. AFGE has filed an official complaint challenging the policy.

“We are arguing that the regulation regarding the uniforms is capricious and contrary to law,” said Eugene Fidell, an attorney handling the case on behalf of AFGE. “A civilian employee cannot be required to wear a military uniform. Requiring ARTs to wear military dress while serving in their civilian capacity improperly upsets settled expectations and confuses military and civilian status.”

Last night, I had the good fortune to attend the Presidential Distinguished Rank Award Banquet, sponsored by the Senior Executives Association (with a little help from Government Executive).

Everything about the event is a great reminder of the importance and value of public service. Before the dinner, you get to hang out in the State Department's Diplomatic Reception Rooms, where you can casually gaze at the 1783 Treaty of Paris and you need to be careful not to set your drink on Thomas Jefferson's writing desk.

Then you get to hear about the truly stunning accompishments of the winners of the distinguished rank awards. (You can read more about them in our special supplement in the April issue of the magazine.) It's genuinely inspiring to be in a roomful of people who have devoted their careers to public service and performed at such a high a level. And it's all the more amazing -- especially in such a classically Washington context -- when you talk to them and realize that they're virtually ego-free about what they've done.

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to SEA for a terrific evening.

Yesterday, members of a House Appropriations subcommittee celebrated Tax Day by grilling new IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman about the agency's use of private debt collection agencies. IRS Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson reported early this year that the program has a "dismal return on investment." But that didn't stop the IRS from renewing its contracts with two debt collection firms last month.

Shulman pleaded ignorance of the whole issue, saying he's only been on the job for three weeks and needs more time to study it.

House members seem disinclined to give him that time. After Tuesday's hearing, the House voted 238-189 to prohibit the use of private firms for tax debt collection. “The collection of taxes is an inherently governmental function that should be restricted to properly trained and proficient IRS personnel,” said National Treasury Employees Union president Colleen M. Kelley after the vote.

Forgive me for a little promotion of one of our events. A big one, actually -- our annual Excellence in Government conference. This year, it's actually two one-day conferences, focusing on key issues in federal management. The first, devoted to human capital topics, is coming up on May 12. Here are some of the featured tracks:

• Bring on the Next Generation: Did Your Agency Have You at Hello?


• Why Some Leaders Thrive Where Others Fail in Times of Transition


• The ME Factor: Social Networking, Virtual Worlds


• Reducing Risk during the Presidential Transition in a Post-9/11 Environment


• "The Office:" Working Across Cultures & Generations


• Data-Driven Decision-Making in a Flexible Multisector Environment

Here's a schedule of all the day's events.

The conference will be held at the Ronald Reagan building in Washington. Here's full registration information.

The Chief Human Capital Officers Council released a report last week that could help federal agencies develop better human capital strategies. In the 96-page report, called “Collection of Human Capital Practices,” 12 high-performing agencies describe their approaches to not only performance management, training and telework programs, but pandemic influenza planning, and preparations for the transition to the next presidential administration.

The CHCO Council chose the agencies featured in the report -- which include the Social Security Administration, the National Science Foundation and the Homeland Security Department -- for their human capital successes based on two studies (here and here), and a performance culture index established by the Office of Personnel Management. OPM described the “high performing” agencies as having had “the greatest improvements in performance management.” -- Rafael Enrique Valero

Once you get past issues of basic pay and benefits, nothing raises the ire of federal employees faster than dress codes -- especially those involving uniforms. The Air Force waded into this tricky area last summer by moving to require all of its air reserve technicians to wear uniforms on the job. The technicians technically are civilian federal employees, but they're required to be in the reserves as a condition of their employment. They always have worn uniforms while in military status, but they used to have the choice of deciding whether or not to suit up while working in their civilian capacity.

The shift to required uniform wear has drawn the ire of Joel Perry, vice president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 1764 at Travis Air Force Base in California. In a letter to the editor of the Vacaville, Calif., Reporter, Perry ripped the new approach, noting that air reserve technicians have served well under the old policy since 1958. "To have them play dress-up soldier to please the Air Force Reserve commander is a waste of taxpayers' money and a detriment to the welfare of the ART employees who serve this nation," he wrote.

Will a former federal employee become the next American Idol? Chikezie Eze, who's among the finalists in this season's competition, is a former Transportation Security Administration screener at Los Angeles International Airport.

TSA reports that Raul Matute, Chikezie's former boss, says he was "a fun guy to have on staff." TSA notes that "during breaks or on his way to work in the bus, Chikezie would sing along with his iPod for everyone to enjoy."

Really? People "enjoyed" a guy -- even a guy of Chikezie's talent -- singing along with his iPod?

You can make up your own mind about Chikezie's ability -- and federal experience. Here he is talking about his work at TSA and putting his own spin on the Lennon/McCartney classic, "She's a Woman":

Harvard Law School is putting its money where its mouth is in promoting public service. The school, the New York Times reports, is offering third-year law students free tuition if they agree to spend five years working for a government agency or nonprofit organization. Right now, around 90 percent of Harvard Law grads choose to join law firms, where they can earn upwards of $100,000 right away.

The old labor-management partnership councils at federal agencies created under the Clinton adminstration are ghosts of their former selves since President Bush dissolved them in 2001. But now the one at the Environmental Protection Agency is officially out of business, the Washington Post reports today. Unionized scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency have severed their official relationship with management, citing concerns that leaders are failing to follow "principles of scientific integrity."

"It's gotten worse than ever in terms of the agency just doing unilateral decision-making," said J. William Hirzy, executive vice president of Chapter 280 of the National Treasury Employees Union and a senior scientist in EPA's risk assessment division. "We're tired of it."

The Veterans Affairs Department is looking for a new undersecretary for benefits. But VA officials can't pick just anybody. By law, VA Secretary James B. Peake must appoint a commission to come up with a slate of non-political candidates for the position. Their names are then forwarded to the president, along with any recommendations the VA chief himself has.

The 10-member commission will be led by VA Deputy Secretary Gordon Mansfield.

The new undersecretary will replace retired Navy Vice Adm. Daniel L. Cooper, who announced his resignation as undersecretary for benefits recently after six years on the job. That's longer than any previous holder of the position.

The Wall Street Journal has a great story today about Martin Bennett, who spends his days hunting down unsafe products and hassling their makers to comply with federal laws and regulations. So he must work for the Conusmer Product Safety Commission, right? Not any more.

The 69-year-old Bennett retired from the agency more than six years ago. But he just can't stop spending his days researching products at his computer and making unannounced visits to manufacturers and suppliers -- even if that results in him getting thrown off the premises from time to time.

"It's part of the job," he says. "I mean my old job."

From DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff's roundtable with bloggers Sunday:

Question: What else would you propose that Congress do, just to make the functionality of the department work better?

Chertoff: I think consolidating us; I think funding our budget requests for the not-particularly-glamorous-but-indispensable things having to do with management, acquisition capability, IT capability. You know, this is stuff which -- you know, when they're trying to make the budget at the end, and often, in order to have more money for grants, they cut that stuff. And the problem is when you cut that stuff, invariably what happens is, six months later, we get a criticism for, we're not managing our acquisitions well. Well, you can't manage your acquisitions well if you can't hire people to do it.

Newsweek takes up the subject of federal recruiting this week, with a story about agencies' efforts to intensify the hunt for talent. A few thoughts:

• The piece picks up on the age-old notion that "the biggest hiring crisis in U.S. government history" is right around the corner, which, of course, is where it seems to have been since the turn of the century. As Brian Friel reminded us on GovernmentExecutive.com just a couple of weeks ago, this long-awaited retirement tsunami seems to be turning out to be more of a manageable trickle.
• The piece contains some "ouch" quotes. Like this, from John Cassidy, 29, who plans to take a job with consulting firm Deloitte & Touche after graduating from Harvard University's Kennedy School this spring: "Why would you want to work for government when you can earn more and get more done working for a government contractor?" And this, from Matt Volner, who spent a year as a building management specialist at the General Services Administration, before quitting to become an actor: "The whole year was a Kafkaesque nightmare in which my job was to find out what my job was."
• Max Stier of the Partnership for Public Service, again promotes his anti-JFK notion of inspiring today's youth. "Kennedy's message is no longer the right one," he says. "It's not about what you can do for government. We need to convey what government can do for you." As I've said before, I hope Stier turns out to be wrong, both because I think that today's youth are no less likely than their elders to be motivated by a desire to serve and because of what John Cassidy says above: If it's about getting something for yourself, you're always going to be able to do better outside of government. The problem now is that people who have grown up being told that government is a bureaucratic morass -- and then seeing it underperform in key situations -- think they can make just as much of a difference outside of government, too.
  
  Link  | Comments (8)
  
  

Apparently Hillary Clinton wants to hire more federal employees to guard U.S. personnel and bases in Iraq -- a lot more. She has cosponsored legislation that would ban the use of private security contractors in the country and require that "all personnel at any U.S. diplomatic or consular mission in Iraq be provided security services only by federal government personnel."

But as Robert Brodsky pointed out in Government Executive in December, there are limited options when it comes to bringing all protective services in-house -- and they're expensive.

The Transportation Security Administration is still trying to figure out why so many of its employees leave its workforce every year -- about 20 percent, USA Today reports, compared to a governmentwide average of about 8 percent.

One possible reason, according to TSA Deputy Administrator Gale Rossides: The job involves hard work. "It is frequently not the job they expected," she says of recruits. For many people the job's requirements, from lifting luggage to spending hours studying X-ray images of bags is "more physically demanding than they expected," Rossides says. But Rossides doesn't seem too concerned. TSA's attrition rate, she says, is in line with other private-sector transportation jobs.

The Park Police made it to the front page and home page of the Washington Post today, but not in a way the agency would like. Apparently, staffing issues are worse than ever. The agency is down to 576 officers, its lowest level in 20 years, and several key top slots remain vacant.

Considering that former Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers got suspended and later fired for saying in 2003 that the agency couldn't get by on 620 officers, things look pretty grim.

And the problem extends beyond the uniformed officer ranks. "Key civilians have departed and not been replaced," the Post reported. That has led to delays in scheduled pay raises for some officers, and the postponement of promotion exams for aspiring sergeants and lieutenants.

I was reading the print version of the Wall Street Journal today, and came upon an ad (which, according to this press release I dug up, has been running since Sept. 2006) that I think says a lot about how public service is viewed in this country now. I'll let the text of the ad speak for itself:

There’s an old saying: “The sins of the father will be visited upon the son.” But the same can be said about the father’s good deeds. Take Justin Kawabori, for example. His father is a civil servant in Seattle who develops programs for the elderly. From that influence, Justin became interested in public service at an early age. And after graduating from college, he became a campaign consultant for various political organizations and candidates. But rather than change policy from the top down, Justin wanted to make a difference from the bottom-up, grassroots level. So he left campaign consulting and went to work for several charitable organizations, where philanthropic entrepreneurship and fundraising allowed him to help advance initiatives in family-friendly business and faith-based welfare reform. Recently, Justin returned to consulting, but this time with an expanded expertise. He formed his own company, KC Communications, which covers a broad range of PR, marketing and communications. He enjoys his new line of work. He’s proud that he’s been able to make a difference. And so is his father.

Justin Kawabori drives the Infiniti G Sedan.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to suggest by posting this that there's something illegitimate about what Kawabori is doing with his life -- just that today's concept of "public service" doesn't necessarily involve working for the government, and doesn't preclude making enough money that you can afford to drive an Infiniti.

I know I'm somewhat obsessed with generational issues, but I can't help myself.

Have you ever been to a Chinese restaurant that uses those placemats listing all the animals in the Chinese zodiac (dog, dragon, horse, rat, etc.) for each year, along with the personal characteristics of the people born that year? The notion that everybody born in a particular 365-day period shares the same personality traits has always struck me as hilarious.

Increasingly, though, the federal government seems to have adopted the Chinese animal zodiac approach to future workforce planning. As agencies become more and more obsessed with baby boomer retirements, they're becoming increasingly reliant on sweeping generalizations about the workers of the future based on when they happen to have been born. The latest example I've seen is in a new Air Force publication on future training and education efforts. It contains the following "description of generational differences:"

Baby Boomer (Group I)

• Born from 1946 to 1954
• Key characteristics: experimental, individualism, free spirited, social cause oriented

Baby Boomer (Group II)

• Born from 1955 to 1964
• Key characteristics: less optimistic, distrust of government, general cynicism
• Digital Immigrants

Generation X

• Born from 1965 to 1979
• Key characteristics: quest for emotional security, independent, informality, entrepreneurial
• Digital Immigrants

Millenial (Generation Y)

• Born from 1980 to 2001
• Key characteristics: quest for physical security and safety, patriotism, heightened fears, acceptance of change, technically-savvy, environmental issues
• Digital Natives

The Pentagon is pushing President Bush's proposal to provide federal hiring preferences for spouses of military service members. Kathleen Ott of the Pentagon’s Office of Civilian Personnel Policy has met with officials at the Office of Personnel Management to discuss the concept, Army Times reports.

The Defense Department already has a spousal preference program in place for its civilian jobs. One reason that Pentagon officials want to extend it to the rest of government is that military spouses must move frequently, and "often do not have a portable occupation which they can take with them,” Ott said. But the civilian federal government has offices all over the world.

Implementing the new hiring preferences across government probably will require legislative action, and it's unclear at this point when or if that might happen.

If you weren't among the hundreds of people who participated in our webinar yesterday featuring the Pentagon's Mary Lacey talking about the implementation of the National Security Personnel System, you can still go in and view the archived version. It was a lively event, and timely, too, since the Defense Department just issued performance-based raises to thousands of employees under the new system.

Earlier this week, the Office of Personnel Management put out this somewhat curious announcement:

Because of technical difficulties, the deadline for the application process to the Federal Candidate Development Program has been extended to midnight Friday, January 25, 2008, or until the end of the day when 500 Fed CDP applications have been received, whichever comes first.

Now, OPM says it won't provide any information to Government Executive on exactly what those "technical difficulties" were. Anybody have any intelligence on that?

As federal agencies become increasingly concerned about losing baby boomers who are reaching retirement age, they are looking to pick up experienced workers from the private sector to fill the gaps. Hence the announcement last week of the Partnership for Public Service's FedExperience program involving IBM and the Treasury Department.

Also last week, the Dallas Morning News reported on the Senior Environmental Employment Program, under which 1,500 people 55 and older have been hired to work on a full- or part-time basis at the Environmental Protection Agency as clerical staff, data administrators, engineers and inspectors. The program is run by the National Older Worker Career Center, which manages a similar effort for the Agriculture Department and is looking to extend its reach to other agencies. Private sector workers seem eager to sign up, given the generous federal benefits they can receive after working for the government for only a few years.

This seems all well and good, but here are a couple of caveats:

• Bringing a lot of new baby boomers into government could end up costing taxpayers a lot of money. Last year, the Bush administration implicitly recognized this by including a proposal in its fiscal 2008 budget to scale back the government's contribution to health care premiums for new federal retirees with less than a decade of government service. The government's current subsidy is "the envy of many people in the private sector," said OPM Director Linda M. Springer. (That proposal hasn't gone anywhere on Capitol Hill yet, and federal labor unions have vowed to fight it.)
• Recruiting replacement boomers shouldn't come at the expense of giving the people who have been in government a long time, but who are not retiring soon, a shot at the top career jobs in agencies. The last thing the government needs is to force out talented younger people by denying them the chance at advancement for which they have patiently been waiting.

Most of the recent scary stories about the loss or theft of federal employees' personally identifiable information involve the theoretical possibility that such data could be used for fraudulent purposes. Now comes a story where it came much closer to really happening.

On Jan. 5, four people were arrested in Bensalem Township, Pa., for attempted identity fraud, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. One of the suspects had two pages of a 1994 report that included names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, salary information and other data about roughly 100 employees of the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division in Dahlgren, Va. The listed employees all had last names beginning with the letter B.

Officials don't know whether the suspects have all of the pages of the report, but as many as 10,000 employees may be at risk of identity theft. Dahlgren officials say they notified employees on Jan. 10 of the situation via an all-hands e-mail. Those possibily affected could have worked at the Naval Facilities Command, NSWC Dahlgren, NSWC White Oak, Md., NSWC Panama City, Fla., the Joint Warfare Analysis Center, the Naval Space Command and the Aegis Training and Readiness Center. The Navy has set up a call center at 1-800-352-7967 to provide more information.

(Hat tip: Fedsmith.)

Everybody knows Americans have developed a tendency toward obesity. Now research shows the trend is taking its toll in the workplace. The Washington Times reports that studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and North Carolina-based RTI International show that obese workers cost their employers an extra $2,500 per year on average due to medical expenses and missed work. And research from the University of Cincinnati shows that overweight employees are less productive than their slimmer counterparts, costing their employers an average of $1,800 a year.

One of those little-known facts about federal employment is that if you're a man, and you failed to register for the draft when you turned 18, you're ineligible to work for Uncle Sam. This ensnared Chris Freking, 39, a GS-12 technician at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, last year. It also hit Michael B. Elgin Jr., 42, an 18-year employee of the Internal Revenue Service in Boston, who was fired in 2007 despite an appeal for leniency on the part of the agency by, among others, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

Now, the Boston Globe reports, Elgin has filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging his dismissal, saying he was discriminated against because he is a man. (Women don't have to register for the draft.) But the IRS and the Office of Personnel Management aren't budging: those who fail to register must go, they say.

The National Treasury Employees Union isn't the only labor organization that has been busy signing up Transportation Security Administration employees lately. In the wake of NTEU's announcement that it had chartered a second TSA chapter, at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the American Federation of Government Employees has issued a statement noting that it has recently launched four new TSA locals, in Atlanta, Houston, Florida and Puerto Rico. AFGE, which says it will stand up many more TSA locals in the months ahead, also takes pains to note that it is "the only union to represent and stand behind transportation security officers since the agency’s inception."

Congress wants the intelligence community to take a fresh look at its use of contractors. The Washington Post reports that the conference report on the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization bill orders National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell to prepare a report by the end of March on use of contractors at all 16 intelligence agencies.

On top of that, the legislation gives McConnell the unusual authority to increase personnel levels at those agencies (but by no more than 10 percent) in order to convert contractor jobs into government positions.

The conference report takes note of an estimate that a civilian employee costs the government an average of $126,500 annually in salary and benefits, while the average contract employee costs $250,000.

In her blog on outsourcing in the intelligence community, RJ Hillhouse notes that this is a problem largely of Congress' making:

By limiting the number of positions within the Intelligence Community while adding funds for services, Congress set the stage for the wide scale outsourcing we see today, with some 70% of the de facto workforce of the CIA's National Clandestine Service made up of contractors.

That's a story that could be told at a lot of other federal agencies, too.

It looks like Marta Perez, the top personnel person at the Homeland Security Department, is out, at a time when the department is struggling to integrate its operations, overhaul its proposed personnel reforms and deal with morale problems.

Here's the press release from DHS headquarters:

STATEMENT BY HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY MICHAEL CHERTOFF ON THE RESIGNATION OF THE CHIEF HUMAN CAPITAL OFFICER

Chief Human Capital Officer Marta Perez has announced her departure from the department effective Jan. 6, 2008. Marta’s knowledge and experience in developing and managing personnel systems has helped to make the department a model in human capital service for the federal government.

Marta set plans in motion that will ensure the department hires and retains a talented and diverse workforce. She led the way to create a department-wide culture of performance, and established high-quality learning and development programs. Under Marta’s direction, we implemented a department-wide integrated leadership system. Although Marta will be leaving soon, she leaves in place a strong transition plan and team that will carry the department through 2009 – and beyond.

I am grateful for Marta’s service and dedication to the federal government, and thank her for her contributions to America’s security. I will miss Marta personally and professionally, and wish her well in her future endeavors.

Now that President Bush has made it official that most feds don't have to work on Christmas Eve, OPM has come up with some details on his order.

Those of you who already planned to take annual leave that day should note this proviso: "If an employee has scheduled "use or lose" annual leave for December 24, 2007, and is unable to reschedule that leave for use before the end of the leave year (i.e., January 5, 2008), the leave will be forfeited."

Fred Thompson may understand that the real money in deficit reduction comes from entitlements reform, but apparently he's not going to be able to resist the temptation to package together some more conventional attack-the-bureaucracy proposals aimed at burnishing his small-government credentials.

In the Wall Street Journal's opinion section today, Kimberly A. Strassel writes, "According to a campaign source, in upcoming weeks Mr. Thompson will unveil plans to reduce federal spending by limiting nondefense growth to inflation, earmark reform, and a one-year freeze on the hiring of non-essential civilian workers and contractors."

Of course, that "non-essential" part, if it turns out to be true, is a rather gigantic loophole.

Rudy Giuliani was at it again last night in the CNN-YouTube Republican debate. Asked what he would do to reduce the national debt, he once more took the opportunity to flog his pet proposal to slash federal spending and the federal workforce. Here's what he said:

I think you have to do across-the-board spending cuts like Ronald Reagan did -- 5, 10 percent per civilian agency. It should be done right now, actually. President Bush should do it to strengthen the dollar. We should commit not to rehire half of the civilian employees that will retire. That's 42 percent of the federal workforce that will retire in the next 10 years. Don't rehire half of them. Use technology -- one person doing the job of two or three. Every business has done it; the government has to do it.

Isn't it about time somebody started calling him on this stuff? Such as:

• Nobody knows how many federal employees actually will retire in the next 10 years. That 42 percent is merely a projection of people likely to retire based on estimates that have proven less than fully accurate in the past.
• Is Giuliani really in favor of a haphazard cut to federal operations based on who happens to retire? So if FEMA gets an unusually high number of retirements, he's fine with cutting our disaster response capability and potentially leaving excess capacity elsewhere?
• Government, just like the businesses Giuliani touts, already has replaced hundreds of thousands of workers with technology. Bill Clinton proudly claimed credit for slashing nearly 400,000 jobs during his administration, and agencies spent billions of dollars on technology (and contract workers) to continue to meet their missions. (By the way, does anybody think the federal government improved as a result?) Since George W. Bush took office, thousands of jobs have been added back, but mostly in the homeland security and defense areas. Does Mr. 9/11 really think that those are the jobs that we need to eliminate?

As I've said before, issues like these are simply too important to let candidates slide by with glib promises.

Today's breaking news is that Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's Vice Chief of Staff, has issued a memo ordering commanders to plan for furloughs of civilians and contract workers if members of Congress can't iron out their differences on an Iraq spending bill.

"Military manpower, if available at your location, will be authorized to replace civilian and contractor workforce," Cody writes. " Military personnel other than those preparing to deploy should be considered available."

Here's the text of the memo:

-----Original Message-----
From: Cody, Richard A GEN VCSA
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 7:32 PM
To:

VCSA SENDS

TO ALL COMMANDS AND AGENCIES

SUBJECT: Contingency Budget Planning

REF A. SecDef Memo, 16 NOV 07, Subj: Contingency Budget Planning

REF B. SecArmy and CSA Memo, 20 NOV 07, Subj. Contingency Budget Planning

REF C. VCSA Email, 26 SEP 07, Subj. Outlook for Funding in FY 2008

1. The FY2008 DoD Appropriations Act did not provide funds for the Global
War on Terror (GWOT) and we do not know at this time when or if the GWOT
funds will be approved by Congress.

2. References A and B directed that we take immediate action to begin
planning to reduce operations at all Army bases. This message provides
instructions for developing these plans. Send your initial plans through
your RM channels. They are due on 4 DEC 2007. Your plans will be reviewed

by a G3-led task force here at HQDA.

3. This is a planning effort, repeat, a planning effort to reduce OMA
funded operations to the minimum mission essential level. Your initial
plans will identify the weekly cost to continue those OMA funded minimum
mission essential activities allowable under Feed and Forage after 23
February 08 and will include the amount of OMA funds available for return to
the Department when all other services and functions are discontinued.

Guidance in reference C stands; take no action at this time to slow any
program. Continue to execute your approved programs and do not implement
any spending restriction or reduction in the scope and pace of operations
until notified. Continue following existing guidance to review civilian
hiring actions and contracts.

4. Include these assumptions in your plans:

a. On or about 22 February 08, all distributed Operation and Maintenance,
Army (OMA) funds will be fully obligated or committed.

b. On 23 February 08, installations and commands will move to a "warm base"

status and all OMA funded activities will cease except those noted in
paragraph 4 below.

c. Civilian furloughs may last more than 30 days and therefore require a 60
day notice.

d. Military manpower, if available at your location, will be authorized to
replace civilian and contractor workforce. Military personnel other than
those preparing to deploy should be considered available.

e. Only direct funded OMA activities are affected. Programs, projects and
activities funded with other than OMA will continue as planned.

5. Your plans should identify the minimum mission essential activities
along with their estimated costs that are permissible by Feed and Forage (if
approved by OSD) and the impact of discontinuing all other services and
functions effective 23 February 08. For these planning purposes, consider
the following as minimum mission essential operations:

a. To protect the life, health and safety of occupants and residents of
Army installations.

b. To protect and maintain assets vital to the national defense.

6. Your plans should also provide a separate estimate of the weekly minimum
essential costs in order to determine what is permissible under Feed and
Forage:

a. Support forces deployed overseas including Europe, Korea, Japan and
COCOM activities.

b. Prepare forces for deployment to include recruiting, individual training
and unit training.

7. The ASA(FM&C) will provide a reporting format through RM channels. You
should be prepared to report the following information:

a. Life, Health and Safety. Those activities and services and their
estimated weekly cost that must be continued to protect occupants and
residents of Army installations to include military, civilians and Family
members.

b. Training. The amount of OMA funds by week necessary to support training
activities for deploying forces.

c. Quality of Life. Those activities and services for Soldiers and
Families that will be impacted and/or terminated once all existing OMA funds
are fully obligated or committed.

d. Depot Level Reset. To the maximum extent possible, plan to work off FY
07 carry over and new orders received from customers funded with other than
OMA appropriations. Identify the amount of OMA (both base and GWOT) by week
necessary to fund only the organic depot work required to keep production
lines operating and the total amount of OMA Reset funds available for
return.

e. Recruiting: Report the minimum weekly cost to continue to recruit the
force and train the load.

f. Mobilization and Demobilization: Provide the weekly cost to continue
mobilization and demobilization activities to support rotations into and out
of theaters of operation.

g. Field Level Maintenance: Plan to suspend all field level maintenance
except that necessary for life, health or safety or to support the war
fight. Provide the weekly cost for the latter.

8. In the report, you will be asked to break out the activities in
paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 into these categories:

a. Civilian Personnel. Identify the number of minimum mission essential
(Life, Health and Safety) and non-mission essential civilian personnel
funded through direct OMA appropriations. You should anticipate that the
Department will issue furlough notices to civilian employees with sufficient
lead time to implement a furlough on or about 23 February 08. For foreign
national personnel, provide the equivalent of furlough procedures under the
respective Status of Forces Agreement. Identify the weekly payroll cost of
mission essential civilian personnel. Furlough dates will be provided for
US Civilian personnel by G1.

b. Contracts. Identify the total amount of OMA funds needed for minimum
mission essential contracts. Also identify the amounts that can be returned
to the Department when all other services and functions are terminated or
suspended on or about 23 February 08. Factor in termination costs before
reporting the amount available for return.

9. DoD is considering the use of other authorities, Feed and Forage for
example, to continue essential operations as directed. The ASA(FM&C) will
issue instructions on these special funding authorities. The G1 will
provide additional guidance on civilian furloughs.

10. POCs are:

It's time for federal agencies to stop using the special Outstanding Scholar and Bilingual/Bicultural hiring authorities, the Office of Personnel Management says. The agency "strongly advises against further use" of the authorities, officials said in a statement issued earlier this month.

The programs were created after a 1981 lawsuit challenged the civil service hiring examination on the grounds that it discriminated against blacks and Hispanics. They enabled agencies to circumvent the traditional civil service hiring process to bring highly talented students and minorities into the workforce quickly. But after years of use, the two hiring authorities came under fire themselves. Last year, the Merit Systems Protection Board said agencies couldn't use them unless they also applied veterans preference procedures. OPM says that just isn't possible, so agencies should quit using them altogether.

That still leaves the Federal Career Internship Program as an option for agencies looking to make quick non-traditional hires. But as Karen Rutzick reported earlier this year, that program, too has come under legal fire.

Carol Brown has a problem.

She's a member of the Hailey, Idaho, city council. And that body just passed a series of measures to water down its laws against marijuana use. The Idaho Mountain Express reports that the measures also require city officials to lobby for reform of marijuana laws statewide. That presents a problem for Brown, because she is a federal employee, and as such, can't do such lobbying under federal ethics laws.

"Council member Brown will have to recuse herself from any discussion of these laws in order to retain her federal position," city officials noted in a press release. "Stated differently, council member Brown may have to resign from the Hailey City Council."

Jeff Klein of CQ Homeland Security notes one reason diplomats didn't respond with relish to the notion of forced assignments to Iraq: "Wrecked physically and mentally from terrorist attacks or duty in combat zones," he writes, "State Department employees from senior diplomats on down to foreign aid workers say they have too often had to fend for themselves when they were hurt."

GovExec's Alyssa Rosenberg reported on this issue back in August, as did Brittany Ballenstedt in June.

While we're at it, here's some more perspective on the whole issue of directed assignments, courtesy of commenter Doug Ellrich on a previous item I wrote:

There is a lot of misinformation about this issue. Not one single FSO has refused, or even attempted to refuse an assignment to Iraq. There is just no truth to that belief. Sending FSOs to Iraq cannot be compared to sending soldiers and sailors to Iraq. DOD creates an entire cacoon around their people that includes families. DoD families live in familiar communities for several years while the soldier is deployed. They go to familiar schools, are supported by extensive social support systems. FSOs families will be relocating for the year of the Iraq assignment, attending unfamiliar schools in unfamiliar communities. Nothing like what DoD provides exists for the FSO families who are left behind. Most of the concern from FSOs has nothing to do with their personal safety or desire to serve in Iraq, it's usually about specific family situations. Only 16% of the military has served or ever will serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. Already 25% of all FSOs have served in Iraq or/and Afghanistan, and the number will go higher as time goes by. That doesn't even include the FSOs who go to all the other dangerous posts abroad and leave their families behind. 65% of the FSOs are abroad serving, mostly in dangerous posts. Only 16% of uniformed personnel are overseas at any one time. DoD is so huge compared to the Foreign Service. It has more bandmembers than there are members of the Foreign Service total. If the State Department had as extensive a support system for families left behind as DoD does, there would be less concern. But in any case, FSOs do serve, they don't refuse, and that will always be the case.

Thanks to Chris Dorobek of Federal Computer Week for linking to this Wall Street Journal piece I missed on Mitt Romney's management style. Romney was a consultant for 10 years, and it's pretty clear he'd bring that perspective to bear in running the executive branch.

Here's the key section of the article:

When asked for details about how he would reduce the size of government if elected, he mentions two things: The organizational chart of the executive branch, and consultants. "There's no corporation in America that would have a CEO, no COO, just a CEO, with 30 direct reports."

Running a government organized like this is, he explains, impossible. "So I would probably have super-cabinet secretaries, or at least some structure that McKinsey would guide me to put in place." He seems to catch a note of surprise in his audience, but he presses on: "I'm not kidding, I probably would bring in McKinsey. . . . I would consult with the best and the brightest minds, whether it's McKinsey, Bain, BCG or Jack Welch."

Dorobek also notes that after the Journal piece appeared, TIME columnist Michael Kinsley took some potshots at Romney, consultants and the whole concept of trying to introduce businesslike efficiency into government. "The notion that the cacophony of politics can be replaced with the smooth hum of expertise and that all the challenges our society faces can be solved by making the government run more efficiently has a long and generally laughable history," Kinsley wrote -- and a bipartisan one, too.

So the State Department has determined that it has all the volunteers it needs to fill positions in Iraq, and won't have to force diplomats to go to the country against their will. Which begs the question: From a management perspective, wouldn't it have made more sense to make that determination before telling people they'd be forced to go if the department couldn't find sufficient volunteers? Why create all kinds of angst in your workforce when it turns out you didn't need to? The answer isn't that State needed to send a message that forced assignments might be coming. That message already had been sent loud and clear.

This part of Alyssa Rosenberg's story yesterday on the perils of falling back on generational stereotypes in recruiting really stood out to me:

According to an upcoming MSPB study that will include a review of hiring records and a survey of 2,000 federal employees who were hired in 2005, young employees say they valued the stability of federal government jobs and the pensions and traditional benefits that come with those jobs as highly as their predecessors, and they value these even more highly than workplace flexibilities.

That finding doesn't exactly surprise me. When you set up and perpetuate a system in which the primary value proposition for prospective employees is job security and traditional benefits, then you're going to end up with a self-selected set of workers who value those things -- no matter what generation they come from. And you'll miss out on a whole lot of other highly talented potential employees who are more interested in things like workplace flexibilities and the opportunity to advance quickly. That doesn't seem to me like a path toward attracting the best and the brightest.

Memo to State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard: When a report by congressional Republicans who are trying to defend you against charges of political bias concludes that you have "an extraordinarily abusive management style," a "a poor regard for government workers," and that you'll "give anybody, any time, anywhere, a hard time," it might be time to rethink whether leading a very important federal operation is the right job for you.

John Edwards is still flogging his promise to cut off health care for members of Congress and senior administration officials if the legislative and executive branches fail to agree on a comprehensive health care reform bill within his first six months in office. In fact, Matt Yglesias notes, Edwards is even running ads in Iowa touting the idea.

This is a terrific rhetorical device, but if Edwards is even halfway serious about it, I hope he's going to think it through a little more. Say what you want about political appointees, but they already have enough incentives not to serve their country. Why add more in the form of uncertainty about benefits? Here's what would be truly political courageous: For one of Edwards' opponents to say, "I see your point, John, but getting the most highly qualified and talented people to run government's programs and operations is too important to play games with the basic benefits they might receive in exchange for agreeing to serve and to help lead the effort to make government as efficient and effective as possible."

For all the talk about federal employees who can't wait to get out of government, some people would do just about anything to get in -- or at least to pretend they're in. The Associated Press reports that a federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, has sentenced Christopher Wayne Ralston to 12 months in prison for impersonating a high-ranking federal employee.

Ralston pretended he was a Justice Department "operations director," and convinced a homebuilder to construct a house for him by promising that Justice would wire him $320,000 to pay for it. Ralston also gathered personal information on 13 people under the guise of having them fill out applications for "national security positions."

It looks like Ralston will get his wish in a way: If he gets a prison job, he'll be working for the Justice Department -- just for a lot less than $320,000.

While GAO and the unions are saying that Customs and Border protection has some serious staffing and training issues to deal with, the agency is pushing a different message. "CBP's front-line personnel were better equipped in fiscal 2007 than any period in the nation's history," agency spokesman Michael Friel told the Washington Times. The agency has made "significant progress" this year on securing the country's borders, he added.

What's the biggest problem federal managers and supervisors face on a daily basis? Dealing with employee attendance issues, writes Bob Gilson in Fedsmith today. As much as 75 percent of day-to-day supervisory problems involve attendance, he says, outlining 10 steps for dealing with them.

This Federal Times headline just about says it all: "One Solution to Staff Shortages: Hire Felons."

By the way, this is anything but a joke to Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., who is weighing whether to introduce a bill next year to make it easier for agencies to hire recently released felons. Under current rules, felons are eligible for federal jobs, but agencies can consider take felony convictions in to consideration in deciding whether to hire somebody.

Looks like I'm not the only baby boomer on a technicality who feels like a man without a generation. Here's Barack Obama (who was born in 1961) in a profile in the December Atlantic by Andrew Sullivan:

“My mother, you know, was smack-dab in the middle of the Baby Boom generation. She was only 18 when she had me. So when I think of Baby Boomers, I think of my mother’s generation. And you know, I was too young for the formative period of the ’60s—civil rights, sexual revolution, Vietnam War. Those all sort of passed me by.”

The stories about the town hall meeting at the State Department in which several diplomats complained about potential forced assignments to Iraq are certainly generating a lot of comment (see here and here). And I have to say, the diplomats aren't winning a lot of support.

In the midst of all the shouting, I thought this comment, from "Jake," offered some interesting perspective:

As one of the 2,000 or so FSOs who have volunteered so far to work in Iraq and Afghanistan, all I can say is cut us some slack. We're 68% forward deployed overseas. FSOs are around 20% already rotated through Iraq/Afghanistan, the percentage for the three services is about the same. Due to chronic shortfalls in hiring, the average FSO is pushing forty with family, but we still stepped up over the last three years. A fifth of overseas positions are now unaccompanied, most embassies have been ordered to do more to support GWOT while shedding positions to keep Iraq staffed, and the choice European posts were downsized years ago to fill "transformational diplomacy" slots in China, India, and other fun postings. So yeah, labor relations are stressed. It didn't help that the selected two hundred first heard about the draft from CNN Friday night.

I have no doubt that whiners in particular found the time to attend the Town Hall (I didn't), but I imagine legitimate questions were raised and the responses were less than convincing: will the extra slots for the Embassy in the Green Zone contribute or will those folks just get in the way? Will FSOs embedded at the brigade level have the professional experience, language, programmable funds, and access to Iraqi society to contribute to the reconstruction and stabilization mission or will they just be civilian targets w/o firearms?

I have to say I was a little taken aback when I got this update in my e-mail from the backers of the U.S. Public Service Academy:

Any time you can get both Christ and Marx to endorse your proposal, you've really achieved something.

The Office of Personnel Management has created a new register of qualified candidates agencies can draw from to hire administrative law judges. I'm guessing this guy's not on the list.

Baby boomers are supposed to be making way for the next generation of federal leaders to move into top management positions. So how many Generation Xers have entered the Senior Executive Service? Peter Ronayne, dean of faculty at the Federal Executive Institute, says the answer is 325. That's not exactly a groundswell, but it's the beginning of a trend, notes Brian Friel (a bona fide Gen Xer himself) in his latest Government Executive Management Matters column.

It also begs the question of who exactly is a Gen Xer. Wikipedia notes that "the exact demographic boundaries of Generation X are not well defined, depending on who is using the term, where and when."

But we know that it's the group that comes after the baby boomers, right? So here's Wikipedia's take on how that generation is defined:

There is some disagreement as to the exact beginning and end dates of the baby boom, but the range most commonly accepted is as starting in 1946 and ending in 1964. The problem with this definition is that this period may be too long for a cultural generation, even though it covers a time of increased births.

I'll say. In fact, this definition puts a bunch of us into the baby boom who have little or no association with the majority of boomers. I was born in 1962. I was a toddler when John F. Kennedy's term came to a tragic end, and I have no recollection of Woodstock or any of the other cultural touchstones of the 1960s. Heck, I was barely old enough to pay attention to Watergate. And while I'd love to be contemplating retirement, I'm nowhere near that stage of life yet.

Still, I always get a good laugh out of Brian and other Gen-Xers when I try to force my way into their generation, too. Generationally, people my age are doomed to perpetual tweener status.

Here's the Partnership for Public Service in its latest report on college students' perspectives on government and the possibility of working for federal agencies:

"With so many students applying for government opportunities and so few entering government, it is possible that the problem lies on the government side. The [federal hiring] process appears to be turning students off."

Do ya think?

At first glance, this report seems to be more evidence, in case we needed it, that the problem isn't that young people aren't civic-minded or interested in federal service, but that they just aren't aware of the opportunities out there and aren't impressed by the government's hiring process.

And yes, I know I'm running the risk of beating a dead horse here.

In Brittany Ballenstedt's story yesterday on workforce challenges, I was struck by the comments of Jeffrey Risinger, chief human capital officer at the Securities and Exchange Commission. He said the SEC sets aside a certain amount of funding each year to develop its people. Managers keep "ledgers" on every employee to keep track of how much training the agency has invested in them and how much it would cost to lose them.

"If we've invested in our employees, then the risk of losing them is a liability," Risinger said. "The balance of that -- the ones that we've retained -- is our equity."

I can understand not wanting to lose employees after you've put a lot of time, effort and money into training them, but what if the training didn't take? If an employee is still not up to par even after receiving training (and aren't poor performers the ones who tend to get a lot of training in an effort to improve their performance?) it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to hold on to them just to protect your training investment. Conversely, if someone has excelled even without having received a lot of formal training, doesn't an agency have even more "equity" in them?

Here's a sampling of some recent GovernmentExecutive.com headlines about various agencies and types of federal operations:

• Workforce issues complicate planning for cyberattacks


• Report: Contracting workforce needs more training


• DHS encouraged to improve IT workforce planning


• NASA urged to consider morale in reshaping workforce

Some gloomy news from Forbes.com this week about future job growth in the American economy. People in manufacturing jobs can expect hard times ahead, along with computer programmers (blame that on outsourcing) , radio announcers and -- gulp -- journalists. But then Forbes adds this:

Worse off? Federal employees and their amazin