[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
WORKFORCE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY:
ANALYZING THE PRESIDENT'S MANAGEMENT AGENDA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 16, 2018
__________
Serial No. 115-96
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
http://oversight.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
31-422 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Trey Gowdy, South Carolina, Chairman
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland,
Darrell E. Issa, California Ranking Minority Member
Jim Jordan, Ohio Carolyn B. Maloney, New York
Mark Sanford, South Carolina Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Justin Amash, Michigan Columbia
Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri
Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Jim Cooper, Tennessee
Thomas Massie, Kentucky Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Mark Meadows, North Carolina Robin L. Kelly, Illinois
Ron DeSantis, Florida Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Dennis A. Ross, Florida Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey
Mark Walker, North Carolina Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Rod Blum, Iowa Jamie Raskin, Maryland
Jody B. Hice, Georgia Jimmy Gomez, Maryland
Steve Russell, Oklahoma Peter Welch, Vermont
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Matt Cartwright, Pennsylvania
Will Hurd, Texas Mark DeSaulnier, California
Gary J. Palmer, Alabama Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands
James Comer, Kentucky John P. Sarbanes, Maryland
Paul Mitchell, Michigan
Greg Gianforte, Montana
Vacancy
Sheria Clarke, Staff Director
William McKenna, General Counsel
Kevin Ortiz, Professional Staff Member
Julie Dunne, Government Operations Subcommittee Staff Director
Sharon Casey, Deputy Chief Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on May 16, 2018..................................... 1
WITNESSES
Panel I
The Honorable Margaret Weichert, Deputy Director for Management,
U.S. Office of Management and Budget
Oral Statement............................................... 5
Written Statement............................................ 7
The Honorable Jeff Pon, Director, U.S. Office of Personnel
Management
Oral Statement............................................... 12
Written Statement............................................ 14
Panel II
Mr. Bill Valdez, President, Senior Executives Association
Oral Statement............................................... 41
Written Statement............................................ 43
Mr. Max Stier, President and CEO, Partnership for Public Service
Oral Statement............................................... 61
Written Statement............................................ 64
Ms. Jacqueline Simon, Policy Director, American Federation of
Government Employees
Oral Statement............................................... 76
Written Statement............................................ 78
APPENDIX
Letter of December 19, 2017, from Mr. Cummings to Office of
Management and Budget submitted by Ms. Maloney................. 104
Letter of February 16, 2018, from Office of Management and Budget
to Mr. Cummings submitted by Ms. Maloney....................... 106
The National Treasury Employees Union Statement for the Record
submitted by Mr. Connolly...................................... 108
Response from Ms. Weichert, Office of Management and Budget, to
Questions for the Record....................................... 116
Response from Mr. Pon, Office of Personnel Management, to
Questions for the Record....................................... 119
Response from Mr. Stier, Partnership for Public Service, to
Questions for the Record....................................... 133
WORKFORCE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY:
ANALYZING THE PRESIDENT'S MANAGEMENT AGENDA
----------
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:30 p.m., in Room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Trey Gowdy [chairman
of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Gowdy, Jordan, Amash, Meadows,
DeSantis, Walker, Blum, Hice, Russell, Grothman, Hurd, Palmer,
Mitchell, Cummings, Maloney, Norton, Clay, Lynch, Connolly,
Lawrence, Krishnamoorthi, Raskin, DeSaulnier, and Sarbanes.
Chairman Gowdy. The Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform will come to order. Without objection, the presiding
member is authorized to declare a recess at any time. We do
expect a vote series around 2:00 this afternoon. At that time,
we will recess for the duration of votes, likely around 30
minutes, and then reconvene shortly thereafter.
With that, I will recognize the gentleman from Maryland,
the ranking member of the committee, Mr. Cummings, for his
opening statement.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And
welcome to our witnesses today for this very important hearing.
If the United States Government were a business, it would
be in the service industry. Most of the expenses in the service
industry are for salaries and retirement benefits. In other
words, most of the expenses are for the workers who provide the
services.
The people of the United States Civil Service are
secretaries; they are the firefighters; the scientists, and
attorneys; you know the ones, the janitors that are cleaning
the bathroom, the nurses, and the doctors. They direct air
traffic to keep our skies the safest in the world. They keep
our military planes, helicopters, and vehicles in optimal
condition.
They care for our veterans and our senior citizens. They
ensure that our Social Security benefits are delivered on time
and accurately. They enforce the laws of the Nation, and
protect the environment for generations yet unborn.
They are the ones that pick up the dead bodies. Come on
now. They do the jobs so often that nobody wants to do. And
when the government is not working as it should for our
citizens, they blow the whistle out of a solemn sense of duty
and patriotism.
Without those brave Federal employees, this committee could
not perform our job of oversight.
But government is not a business. The government's purpose
is to promote the interests of the American people, not to make
a profit.
Federal workers perform vital and essential tasks for our
Nation, without fear or favor. Our dedicated civil servants do
this work without any intention of getting rich.
In other words, they can work a lifetime, quite often, and
make far less than they would have made had they been in
private industry. But they feel a duty, they feel a calling to
help people. They are public servants, and they support middle-
class families.
Unfortunately, it appears that President Trump does not
value these workers or the critical services they provide to
the American people. Today's hearing will expose the aggressive
attacks the Trump administration is waging on middle-class
Federal workers and their agencies.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration submitted to
Congress a draconian proposal to cut more than $143 billion
over the next 10 years from the pay and benefits of middle-
class Federal workers, retirees, future retirees, and even
their survivors.
The Trump plan could eliminate, or would eliminate, cost-
of-living-adjustments for current and future retirees in the
Federal Employee Retirement System, and it will reduce COLAs
for other retirees and survivors, including children who
suffered a loss of a parent. This provision would erode the
value of retirement income, and would not even keep pace with
inflation. We can be a better country than that.
The Trump plan would impose higher costs on employees for
their pensions without any corresponding increase in retirement
benefits. I don't care how you look at it; this is a wage cut.
The Trump plan would reduce retirement pay by replacing the
existing system, which is based on 3 consecutive years of
highest pay salary, with a system based on 5 years of highest
pay. This provision would lower the retirement pay for many
Federal employees.
Enacting the changes that President Trump demands under the
guise of reform would betray the promises our Nation has made
to Federal workers who dedicate their lives to public service,
as well as their families. It also would severely degrade
recruitment, retention, and the performance of our civil
service.
This is not the first time Republicans had degraded the
paychecks of public servants. Over the past decade, they have
cut Federal pay and benefits by $195 billion, according to the
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. They instituted a 3-
year pay freeze that costs Federal workers $98 billion. They
increased required employee contributions to Federal retirement
programs twice, and cut employee take-home pay by an estimated
$21 billion.
More than 755,000 Federal employees were furloughed due to
sequestration cuts, costing Federal employees more than $1
billion. And Federal workers received pay adjustments that were
lower than specified by statute from 2014 through 2018, costing
them an additional $75 billion.
What makes the Trump administration's proposal so
disappointing is that it comes after the President and the
Republicans in Congress enacted $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for
wealthy individuals and corporations. Who is going to fund
those tax cuts for the rich? Middle class workers, that's who.
And that is just absolutely wrong.
President Trump has demonstrated contempt for public
servants from his first day in office when he prohibited
Federal employees from filling vacant positions. He has
attacked government watchdogs, ethics officials, law
enforcement officials, and career government employees. His
administration has issued illegal gag orders to try to stop
whistleblowers from telling Congress what their agencies are
really doing, and his agencies are attacking employee unions
that protect whistleblowers from retaliation.
We need to reject this latest proposal in a string of
terrible proposals, this sabotage of the United States civil
service. We need to begin building back up the confidence of
our Federal employees. They have already paid billions to help
pay down the debt. They should not be asked now to help fund
tax cuts for the rich.
And I say to our Federal employees, thank you for all that
you do every day and that you are doing today, for you are
giving your blood, sweat, and tears to lift us all up. And with
that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Gowdy. The gentleman from Maryland yields. The
gentleman from North Carolina, who has worked tirelessly on
this issue, Mr. Meadows, is recognized for an opening
statement.
Mr. Meadows. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership
on this effort and, certainly, for the witnesses who are here
today as we start to look at this.
Certainly, on March 20 of this year, the administration
released the President's Management Agenda. As we well know,
that agenda lays out the administration's long-term vision for
improving the performance of the Federal Government; states the
specific goals of this administration to improve the ability of
agencies to deliver mission outcomes. And I think that is a
critical point, is as we look at those outcomes, it is
certainly something that all Americans can welcome, provide
excellent service.
In this very hearing, we have had a number of hearings
where, with the IRS, and the ranking member and I have said
that the service levels in terms of getting a live person is
not something that we ought to be bragging about. So as we look
at that, it is really about being an effective steward of the
American taxpayers' dollars.
This administration has identified three key drivers of
this transformation: Information technology, modernization, the
data accountability and the transparency, and then certainly,
the workforce for the 21st century. All three of these drivers
are certainly interconnected, and success in improving that
performance of the Federal Government cannot be achieved
without progress in all three of those areas.
Today, however, we will focus on that third driver,
developing a workforce for the 21st century, which is a core
jurisdictional responsibility of this committee under the House
rules.
Federal employees underpin nearly all of the operations of
the government, and we must ensure that we continue to hire and
retain the best and brightest.
I have been very disappointed to find that many times,
Members of Congress only go to Federal agencies to complain,
not to assess what is going on; and so, I have found it very
illuminating and very rewarding, quite frankly, with our
Federal workforce when we go in, to actually have conversations
with the people that do the work. And I have been fascinated by
their ability to give great suggestions on how we might improve
the efficiency of the Federal workforce.
In fact, I would also say, their recommendations are better
than any that would come out of this committee on either side
of the aisle, because they understand both the barriers, the
roadblocks, and also the disincentives that we have within our
40-year old civil service way of doing business.
So I want to thank both of you. As we look at this
particular issue, I think probably the most important thing
that we can do is stay laser-focused on the ultimate goal of
this third rail, which is looking at how do we retain, how do
we make sure that we properly compensate--and yes, you are
hearing that from a Republican--and how do we make sure that as
we deal with all of this, whether it is the annual survey that
we sometimes--in fact, we get, the annual survey--I see my good
friend in the audience here. As we look at the surveys, how do
we actually take those and make an action point?
This committee is committed to do that in a bipartisan
fashion, but I also think that it is going to require many of
us to perhaps pull away the old thinking that we have that it
has to be this way or that way or no way, and work in a real
bipartisan way to make sure that we have an effective
workforce.
So I look forward to hearing from both of the witnesses,
and I thank the chairman for his leadership.
Chairman Gowdy. The gentleman from North Carolina yields
back.
We are pleased to introduce our first panel of witnesses:
The Honorable Margaret Weichert, Deputy Director for Management
in the Office of Management and Budget, and the Honorable Jeff
Pon, Director of the Office of Personnel Management.
Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn
before they testify, so I would ask you to please stand and
raise your right hands.
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony that you are about
to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help you God?
Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the
affirmative.
I think you are both familiar with our timing and lights,
so rest assured that your opening statements will be read by
all the members, and you are welcome to take 5 minutes to
summarize. We will recognize you first, Ms. Weichert.
PANEL I
WITNESS STATEMENTS
STATEMENT OF HON. MARGARET WEICHERT
Ms. Weichert. Chairman Gowdy, Ranking Member Cummings, and
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today to discuss the President's Management
Agenda, or PMA, which is designed to modernize government for
the 21st century.
Most Americans don't think about the Federal Government
every day, but when they need government services, they expect
them to work. The PMA lays out a long-term vision for effective
government that achieves missions, and enhances the services
upon which the American people depend. By modernizing the
Federal Government in key areas, we will improve the ability of
agencies to deliver mission outcomes, provide excellent
service, and effectively steward taxpayer resources.
The public believes that the Federal Government serves
critical roles, and in some areas, performs them well. Yet,
public trust in the Federal Government continues to decline,
currently sitting at near-historic lows. While the Federal
Government's business is to serve the American people in core
mission areas, this becomes too bureaucratic and complex to
meet the needs of the 21st century.
The Federal Government still operates with many
capabilities and processes established in the mid-20th century,
if not earlier, despite dramatic changes in technology,
society, and the needs of the American people in the digital
age. No matter how well-intentioned, complicated and
duplicative Federal processes can create confusion among
veterans, farmers, job seekers and others trying to interact
with their government. Those in government must recognize that
citizens today are not well-served by the same approaches,
technology, and skill sets of the past. We face complex and
interconnected challenges that cannot be solved via siloed
efforts.
If we want to get traction on fixing real barriers to
change, we must use broader system-level thinking to address
aging technology infrastructure, disconnected data, and an
outmoded civil service framework.
So modernizing government for the 21st century requires
work in three interconnected areas: Modern information
technology; data accountability and transparency; and a modern
workforce that enables senior leaders and front-line managers
to align staff skills with evolving mission needs. Our
management of the workforce will have to be more nimble and
agile with the capacity to reskill and redeploy the workers we
already have to keep pace with ever faster change.
We cannot underestimate how tightly woven these three areas
are, or the extent to which people are the linchpins of
success. The Federal Government is the largest single direct
employer in the Nation. Taxpayers invest more than $200 billion
annually in the productivity of our 2.1 million civilian
Federal employees. An even larger ``indirect'' workforce of
people employed by contractors supports mission work. We owe it
to the public to ensure that we are spending these dollars
wisely.
And it is people who drive the business of government. We
can purchase new IT systems, but do our Federal employees have
the optimal skills and tools to negotiate contracts and keep
computer networks safe and secure? We can turn to data to drive
results, but do we have enough data scientists who know what
the data means and can figure out how to fill in our knowledge
gaps?
As the majority of our career civil servants approach
retirement age, have we positioned the Federal Government to
compete effectively for the next generation of highly-qualified
individuals needed for key roles?
Today, the overarching answer to these questions is no.
Why? It starts with the Federal civil service system. The job
classification system is outdated and unwieldy. The
compensation structure is overly rigid. The lengthy hiring
process often results in top job candidates taking jobs
elsewhere before we can extend an offer. Employees and managers
alike agree that the existing employee performance management
system fails to reward the best and address the worst
employees.
The reality is that today's Federal personnel system is a
relic of an earlier era. It is rooted in the Pendleton Civil
Service Reform Act of 1883, and the Classification Act of 1923.
The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 made a series of changes,
including creating the Office of Personnel Management, but even
these reforms were enacted long before many current Federal
workers were even of working age.
In the intervening years, a complicated web of process
requirements, and confusing suboptimal policies have resulted
in an archaic system that does not address the needs of the
Federal workforce.
So a reexamination of the Federal human resource function
is needed. Healthy organizations are designed to change and
adapt, and the United States government is no exception. In
ratifying the Constitution, our Founders sought to establish a
durable governing framework that would ``establish justice,
insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty.''
Our Federal workforce goes to work each day dedicated to
this constitutional vision, so we must take care to ensure that
existing government policies and procedures help us to better
achieve the Founders' goals, and do not hinder the workforce in
pursuing the mission, service, and stewardship goals of
government.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Weichert follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Gowdy. Yes, ma'am. Ms. Weichert, thank you.
Mr. Pon, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF T.H. PON
Mr. Pon. Chairman Gowdy, Ranking Member Cummings, and
members of this committee, my name is Jeff T. H. Pon. I am the
Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Today is my first time before this committee as the
Director of OPM. I am excited to be here to discuss the
President's Management Agenda. This is an especially dynamic
topic for this administration which, under the leadership of
President Trump, is championing civil service reform concepts.
Working together with the Office of Management and Budget,
Margaret and I, and agencies and partners in developing the
rollout of the PMA, I believe the work is off to a strong
start.
The civil service system is long overdue for an update. The
last time there was meaningful overhaul of Federal personnel
systems was in 1978. President Trump is the sixth President
since overhauling the Federal personnel system, and then there
was a lot of change between the intervening years. However,
those rules governing the civil service have not kept up to
pace.
Today, Federal hiring and our pay systems are not simple.
As the private sector has found out adaptive ways to market
sensitivities, the Federal personnel system has remained
relatively unchanged and static. Federal jobs can take
sometimes more than a year to fill, and hiring managers often
are frustrated by what they perceive as layers of rules and
cumbersome and inefficient processes.
Specific challenges can emerge when the Federal Government
needs to provide a targeting hiring strategy to address
emerging needs and threats. This is not to say that we should
abandon the core principles of our current Federal personnel
system, and will remain a strong advocate for those principles.
For example, we all agree that merit systems principles and
the existence of Federal employment commitments such as those
made to our Nation's veterans should continue to hold strong.
While retaining these principles, though, we have an
opportunity to strengthen our execution of the Federal employee
experience.
Today's workforce is increasingly shifting towards a
``gig'' economy, where employees work for shorter periods of
time in mission-focused areas. Our ability to accommodate this
in the Federal work employment is constrained by our rules and
system of design at the time when most workers don't expect to
sign up for a long career.
The current rules can stymie innovation and, in addition,
like fostering public-private exchanges between the Federal
Government and the private sector. We should also examine the
current practices to bringing in students and recent grads to
be confident we are providing the best opportunities for
individuals starting new chapters in their careers. By
addressing bureaucratic hurdles, we can better align the
Federal Government's practices and the practices to the private
sector.
Further, as workers enter their careers, we should prize
mobility over stability. We should seek avenues to give
talented individuals opportunities to work in short-term jobs
with portable benefits.
As OPM modernizes key elements of the civil service, our IT
systems will need to keep pace. The world is becoming
increasingly paperless, and to address this IT challenge, OPM
will create a government-wide employee digital record that will
make government-wide H.R. Data accessible in a secure cloud
environment, and employees' records will include data from
various stages of an employee's career, which will then be
available to the employees' access for anytime anywhere.
We will do this by identifying cost savings areas and
opportunities for building greater protections for our systems,
while retiring existing systems as better ones become
available.
As we move forward, our best resource will always be our
people. The Federal Government should honor high performers and
those with mission-critical skills through creative,
innovative, and mechanisms that the administration's proposed
workforce fund--the workforce fund would allow agencies to
better target pay incentives for recruitment and retention for
top-performing employees with critical skill sets.
Further, through careful planning and consideration of the
results presented to each agency through tools like the Federal
Employee Viewpoint Survey, agencies can assess their successes
and address areas where they may be lagging.
Finally, in my communications role as Director of OPM, I
will make regular celebration of our Federal workforce. It will
be a cornerstone of my job. Our Federal workers need a strong
champion, and I am more than proud to fulfill that duty.
Thank you again for inviting me to testify, and I am happy
to answer any questions you may have.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Pon follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Pon.
The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized for his
questions, Mr. Meadows.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for
your opening testimony.
And so I guess, I ask the obvious question that we continue
to come to these hearings, we continue to hear great opening
statements. Why is this going to be any different than any
other time in the last 40 years?
Ms. Weichert.
Ms. Weichert. I think it's a great question, and I think
the thing that is different this time is we are really looking
at that system-level thinking, so solving problems as complex
as the ones that we face in balancing mission, service, and
stewardship, and in dealing with actually how we deliver
services in the digital age is complex, and it can't be solved
in a silo.
And what I mean by that is, solving people issues without
looking at data, solving people issues without looking at the
technology that those people have to deliver the services that
they are there to deliver, is not the leading practice. It's
not the leading practice for mission delivery, and it's not the
leading practice for serving our citizens the way they need to
be served. And obviously, it also is not the most cost-
effective way of delivering those services.
So really, what's different is taking this integrated
cross-functional view and cross-agency view from an enterprise
perspective.
Mr. Meadows. Mr. Pon.
Mr. Pon. In human resources we always look for two things
in candidates: One is, do they do it for a living; and are we
lucky to have them?
I do this for a living. I am a human resource professional
for over 25 years. I am probably one of the only OPM directors
that have had that significant experience, both Federal, and
also in the private sector.
I can appreciate a lot of the challenges that we have in
the Federal Government; time to hire, background checks, being
paper-based. Many of these things can be overcome. It's not a
question of technology anymore. We actually have the technology
that works on a private phone but not on our government phones.
We need to make that transition, we need to make sure that we
have projectized-type execution.
We have start and stops for different things, and that's
what the President's Management Agenda is doing.
In our 21st Century Workforce Plan, we have subcommittees
and sub goals with projectized plans, with milestones. We will
be able to share those progress and results each and every
quarter with you.
I am actually proud to be a part of the PMA because I was a
part of another administration's PMA, and we have a track
record of results and successes, and I look forward to seeing
those successes on this administration as well.
Mr. Meadows. All right. One of the tools that I use is
actually a survey that the Partnership for Public Service
actually provides to us each and every year. And on there, we
have employees who identify that one of the--really, the
motivator is the fact that senior management won't take the
appropriate action; whether it is either with merit increases,
or whether it is with developmental needs. So how are we going
to do that, especially in light--it was interesting, a GAO
report showed 99.6 percent of permanent, non Senior Executive
Service employees, in 2013, were rated fully successful or
above, 99.6. Now, I don't know of any place that is that
efficient or that good.
So how do we make sure that our managers are properly
recognizing good performance and dealing with those poor
performers? How do we do that?
Mr. Pon. Well, we have a lot of different programs that are
teaching our supervisors and managers.
Mr. Meadows. But it's more than just teaching.
Mr. Pon. It's a mindset.
Mr. Meadows. If you look at the surveys, it's not that they
don't know; it's that we have created a system that makes it so
laborious to deal with it that they don't deal with it. You
know what they do? Is they ship them from here to there and
there to there, and so they never get out of the system, they
just go to a different agency. So how are we going to deal with
that?
Mr. Pon. We need to streamline the process for making sure
that if there are performance differences, giving the employee
a chance to either correct them, but not go from each place,
from OIG to LRER to EEO. All of these different places have
different processes. We need to come up with a single process
for streamlining that type of a performance conversation so
that managers and employees can actually get on an even footing
and make sure that they can make some tough decisions if they
need to.
Mr. Meadows. I have 18 seconds. Ms. Weichert.
Ms. Weichert. Okay, really quickly, we are actually looking
at how do we use some of the authorities that Congress has
given to specific agencies like the Veterans Administration,
and how we might appropriately apply them across the civilian
workforce, and using the President's Management Council and the
workforce cap goal under the PMA to do that.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Chairman Gowdy. The gentleman from North Carolina yields
back. The gentlelady from the District of Columbia is
recognized.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I thank
the witnesses for appearing. I was impressed with your
testimony. I, in a prior life, ran a Federal agency, and at the
time, the important issue was efficiency, so I endorse your
ideas to make the agencies more efficient.
I also think you will agree that you can't have an
efficient agency if the workforce isn't right there pulling the
oars with you. Can I accept that--do you accept that personnel
is key to greater efficiency?
Ms. Weichert. Absolutely.
Mr. Pon. Absolutely.
Ms. Norton. Well, you are--the Department of Education--
this really goes to Mr. Pon. The Department of Education is
currently in negotiations, labor negotiations, and there are
very troubling accusations that allege that a toxic work
environment exists there. If that is what the newspapers are
saying, if that's what the employees are saying, then I'm
trying to understand what it will take to make sure that your
management improvements take hold.
So I think what I should ask you, Mr. Pon, is, if you can
assure the committee that negotiations that are apparently now
underway will proceed in good faith, and that you will meet and
negotiate in good faith with the union so that we can proceed
accordingly with the management reforms that you have just
discussed.
Mr. Pon. Delegate Norton, thank you for that question. I am
a relationship builder. Even early on, I have only been here 9
weeks, but I have met with labor union presidents, and I will
continue to do that. It is very important for me to make sure
that we have lines of communication and relationships. We don't
want to close the door on those relationships because it's very
important to hear their views. We might not always agree on
things, but we will at least have the dialog.
Ms. Norton. In meeting with the head of the union, I take
it you said, whatever union it is, were you aware of, and did
you discuss pending charges of bad faith, that is, formal
charges in the negotiations process?
And Mr. Chairman, may I ask that those charges be made a
part of this record?
Mr. Pon. We did not in that discussion, and one of the
reasons why is that education has a local and OPM does not
interfere in local collective bargaining unit agreements. We
represent the Federal.
Ms. Norton. I'm talking about at the Department of
Education, Mr. Pon.
Mr. Pon. I'm with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Ms. Norton. I know it, but that's the office that has
jurisdiction over personnel management in all the offices. I'm
not talking about the D.C. or the Virginia collective
bargaining agreement with the teachers union here. I am talking
about people or employees now at the Department of Education.
You mean you met with the union and you all didn't even
discuss this? And the union didn't raise that they are having a
terrible time in collective bargaining, and these notions of a
toxic work environment didn't come up? And they said just
pleased to meet you, Mr. Pon, glad to have you on board. Is
that all you discussed?
In fact, what did you discuss, Mr. Pon?
Mr. Pon. We discussed certain issues such as a pay freeze;
such as what our intentions were to help train employees and
use the workforce funds so that we could better up-skill
certain people so that the----
Ms. Norton. So you didn't mention the negotiations process
now underway?
Mr. Pon. We did not discuss that.
Ms. Norton. Are you aware that there is no general counsel
who could prosecute unfair labor charges? And if there is
nobody there to prosecute them, is there somebody acting so
that, in fact, at the Federal Labor Relations Authority, if
there are such charges, you are not hindered in moving ahead
because nobody is even processing unfair labor charges?
Mr. Pon. I am aware that there are certain entities like
the FLRA, as well as the MSPB, awaiting certain people to be
confirmed so that those functions----
Ms. Norton. And there is nothing that can be done at the
moment then. They are just piling up. There is nobody acting
that can begin to move on these, and therefore, move toward the
management reforms you are suggesting?
Mr. Pon. I believe that those two entities are waiting for
confirmed appointees.
Ms. Norton. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do need to know
whether anyone can act; and I ask the committee to find out, if
there is no general counsel who processes these charges,
whether or not there is the possibility, perhaps even the
committee can tell us whether it's possible that there could be
somebody acting, so that, in fact, the agency, FLRA, can move
forward. I appreciate it, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Gowdy. The gentlelady's unanimous consent request
is without objection. The gentlelady yields back.
The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the witnesses
for being here this morning.
First of all, I sense an indication that senior leaders,
and I think you, Ms. Weichert, mentioned this. Some of the
senior leaders in the agencies have reported some frustration
over a lack of empowerment and ability to drive the changes
that are needed. What are some of the impediments that they're
facing? Is it just institutional? I mean, is this something
that the culture makes it difficult to pursue change?
Ms. Weichert. I think there are a number of factors that
affect the ability to create the needed change. I think our
President's Management Agenda lays out some of the specific
elements that we're focused on, and areas where we're working
across agencies to, and both across the political and the
career representatives in that conversation; so things like
hiring and firing authorities, things like performance-based
compensation we're looking at, we're looking at attracting and
retaining the best employees.
Mr. Palmer. First of all, the fact that you have got senior
leaders within the Federal agencies expressing these concerns
seems to indicate that they support these changes and, you
know, there are some that might lead you to believe that this
is a great affront to Federal employees. And the fact that you
also mentioned, specifically, some of these issues about hiring
and firing. We've had issues of employee misconduct, now many
of those have come before this committee, in which the people
who were involved in the misconduct were, frankly, never
punished. They were put on paid leave. I mean, we had one had
stolen thousands of dollars' worth of equipment that was put on
paid leave.
Would that be part of the frustration?
Ms. Weichert. Yeah, that's absolutely--and you're exactly
right. The Deputy Secretaries who work with actually, you know,
motivating and driving change through these agencies, they are
concretely involved, and I'll actually mention something super
edifying. We launched the President's Management Agenda from
Kansas City on purpose because there are workforce members all
over the country doing great work. And we also rolled it out
here in D.C. after we rolled it out in the heartland. And every
place we've gone, we've actually had workers, both front-line
employees, and managers, tell us that they're glad that we're
tackling these issues in an integrated way. And we look to
collaborate and partner with Congress, with the good government
community, and unions, to actually make progress on these
issues because, as Congressman Meadows mentioned, we've been
looking at these issues for a long time. These are nontrivial
issues.
Mr. Palmer. I'm going to lean into this a little bit and
maybe step on some toes, and make some people uncomfortable.
But Mr. Pon, you mentioned this, about the need for updating
the IT systems; and with the improvements in technology which
has improved productivity, one of the concerns that I have
heard voiced is that you've got a lot of employees that frankly
don't have anything to do. They can't be moved to another
position. You can't lay them off; and that we're basically
paying people that really are not productive. That's a yes or
no. Is that a fair assessment, or do we need to dig into that a
little bit more?
Mr. Pon. No, I don't know if it's a fair assessment because
I believe that the Federal workers can be skilled up.
Mr. Palmer. I'm not saying they can't be. I'm saying that
you have people who are not necessarily productive and that
that----
Mr. Pon. We need to manage that.
Mr. Palmer. We need to manage that.
Ms. Weichert. And I'll just jump in here and say there are
a number of examples where projects that would save the
American people money and make service better actually don't
get done because we actually can't move the workforce to do
something else productive.
Mr. Palmer. Okay. And there's a reason I did this, because
I want to connect the dots here. I don't think we're going to
really improve productivity at the Federal Government until we
improve both the civil service issues and the IT. And we are
running into tremendous problems with improper payments,
because we have got antiquated IT systems; and part of that is
being able to attract top-notch IT personnel.
I know a guy in University of Alabama Birmingham, turned
out some of the top students in cybersecurity, who applied at
the Federal Government, but they wait months to even hear back,
and they are not going to do that. The private sector will snap
them up. So any suggestions?
Is this part of what we're trying to do is get our ability
to hire the best talent?
Mr. Pon. Yeah, we are. In regards to cybersecurity talent,
we're having direct hire authority for many different agencies,
with cybersecurity in particular. We're taking a look at those
vocations. But to your point, you can't do it in silos. That's
why the President's Management Agenda has those three gears.
It's data, technology, and the workforce working together.
Mr. Palmer. I'm really glad we're having this hearing Mr.
Chairman. I'm excited that Mr. Pon is heading up the Office of
Personnel Management; and Ms. Weichert, we're very grateful for
your work.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Gowdy. The gentleman from Alabama yields back. The
gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, is recognized.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The previous gentleman from Alabama mentioned nonproductive
Federal workers. I'm sitting here in Congress and I can't
remember the last time we passed a budget, so we don't have to
look far to find some profoundly unproductive Federal workers.
We only need to look at ourselves.
Let me ask you, as Ms. Norton raised earlier, there is no
counsel at the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and so right
now, as we sit, there are charges and complaints before that
authority that the Federal Government is refusing to bargain in
good faith. But because we have no general counsel there, those
charges keep on piling up, so there is no action being taken on
them.
If you think about the foundations of our labor law in this
country, private employees have the right to strike. If that
was happening to private employees--I used to be president of
the Iron Workers--I'd take my men and women out on strike until
that problem was resolved.
But in its wisdom, Congress has taken away the right to
strike from Federal workers. Now, the agreement was we would
take away the right of Federal workers to strike because we
were going to provide an arbitration and negotiations process
through collective bargaining, by which they could address
their grievances. Now, by nonfeasance, some would say by
malfeasance, we have destroyed that system.
So I am asking you, because we have taken the right of
those people to have their issues resolved peacefully, and in a
way that keeps the government going, shouldn't we restore the
right to strike to Federal employees so they can get some
action on their issues?
It's not rhetorical. I'm asking you.
Mr. Pon. Sir, I believe that the FLRA and the Office of
Special Counsel, and also the Merit System's Accountability
Board, they serve a vital function. In 1978----
Mr. Lynch. They would if they were working.
Mr. Pon. Correct.
Mr. Lynch. Right now, we don't have counsel, so the problem
I'm pointing to is that the system has broken down, and so
these Federal employees are not having their issues addressed
as we promised as a government when we took away their right to
strike. And I'm just saying, fair is fair. If we're not going
to put a system in place where they can have their rights
protected and their grievances addressed, do we not owe them a
restoration of their right to strike?
Mr. Pon. I believe that those entities need to be working--
--
Mr. Lynch. Me too.
Mr. Pon. --and be staffed up so that they can serve their
function.
Mr. Lynch. Are we working on that?
Mr. Pon. As appropriate.
Ms. Weichert. Nominations have been submitted by the
President, so we are waiting on them.
Mr. Lynch. How long has it been? How long have we been
without a general counsel over there? It's been a while.
Mr. Pon. To the best of my knowledge, I do not know the
specific dates, but it has been an extended time.
Mr. Lynch. Okay. Let me jump to something else. We have got
this new policy at the VA. And originally, it was to address
some of the substandard care that we have been seeing in some
of our VA hospitals. There were a couple of very troubling
cases. So we put in a new system to get rid of workers that
weren't measuring up.
But the way the system--I have been following the data, and
the data indicate that we are firing people who are food
service workers, very lower-level housekeepers, custodians,
like I say, you know, people that have nothing to do with why
the law was passed. And I'm just curious about your own
assessment of whether or not the law is being employed as
intended?
Mr. Pon. Sir, I think that the law was broad in terms of
giving VA the authority to implement a performance management
system across the whole entire Department and, in that
application, all employees were under this system.
Mr. Lynch. I understand that. But in the debate here in
Congress, it was to help with the care of our veterans, to make
sure they got the excellent care that they deserve and have
earned by their courageous service. Here, we have random
employees just being fired right off the bat. We have very
little in terms of a grievance procedure for these employees as
well. It's not what we talked about, and I'm just curious if
there was any sense of refinement of that policy that you saw
that might be needed. That's all.
I know that my time has expired and the chairman has been
very generous, and I yield back.
Chairman Gowdy. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman
from Georgia is recognized.
Mr. Hice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This will go to both of you. Ms. Weichert, I'll begin with
you. How would you characterize the relationship between
Federal unions and the administration today?
Ms. Weichert. So the administration supports the right of
the Federal workers to organize, and we would like to have a
productive dialogue on the items around the workforce of the
21st century that are critical, both to the workers themselves,
but also to the American people.
I think the reality is there's a lot of partisan
positioning that has made that difficult; but I would
absolutely and genuinely say we believe that we need all of the
people who care about good government and helping us deliver
good government through the people in our workforce, that we
invite those people to the table.
Mr. Hice. Okay. You kind of went around the issue.
Mr. Pon, how would you characterize the relationship
between Federal unions and the administration?
Mr. Pon. I think they're not so good right now. I'm trying
to build a relationship with the union. Since I am new to the
position of OPM Director, I'm wanting to meet with them, hear
what they have to say about our ideas, make sure that there is
open dialogue so that they can help us and we can help them on
the things that we agree on. There's not too much right now
that we can agree on, but at least we're having the talks that
we can disagree on. I think that's a good first step for us to
do, so that we can have some common understanding of what we
can mutually work on. I look forward to making sure that we can
change the next 40 years with employees groups.
Mr. Hice. I do too. Let me go on with some further
questions because, I mean, you're correct. The relationship is
not good. The unions are fighting the President on almost every
one of the issues right now that we're even discussing here
today. So what are the challenges in trying to manage the
relationship between unions and Federal managers?
Mr. Pon. I think it's really because we have been in a
system of government that has operated the ways in which it has
for quite some time, layering on different types of bargaining
agreements, layering on the different types of rules and
regulations for due process. These things need to be taken a
look at because it is very cumbersome.
Managers that we visited around the country have said the
one thing that you need to do is make sure that you manage bad
performers. And I hope everybody can agree, we need to manage
out bad performers. But the good performers, the people that
have great skills, the people that are the civil service, I
want to hold that up and make sure that they are held up in
esteem.
Mr. Hice. Yes. And it makes it very difficult to manage.
Mr. Pon. Absolutely.
Mr. Hice. One of the things that I've been particularly
involved in over the last few years is official time, where
union workers don't even do the work that they were hired to
do. They're working for the union and doing a host of things.
And all respect to Mr. Lynch a while ago, but the American
people have a right to strike too, and it's their money that's
paying for many of these people on official time who are not
even doing their job. And yet, we don't have any opportunity to
respond to that.
Does the administration believe that this is in the
taxpayers' best interest, Ms. Weichert?
Ms. Weichert. So I think that is something that we would
like that all the people focused on government be focused,
first and foremost, on mission, service, and stewardship, and
that last piece is about how do we use the scarce resources in
a fiscally difficult time, to do the work that the American
people brought all of us here to do.
Mr. Hice. That'd be a great idea to get back to that.
Mr. Pon, what do you think? Is official time, according to
the administration, in the best interest of the taxpayer?
Mr. Pon. Taxpayer-funded time needs to be taken a look at.
We can't just write a report and say how much time is being
used by each and every one of the agencies. We need to actively
manage it. We need to shed some light on how it's being used or
abused.
Mr. Hice. So the Department of Education came out with--
they're making some pretty aggressive steps to try to address
this. Is this something that could potentially spread to other
agencies?
Ms. Weichert. I think, absolutely, that people are looking
at the stewardship angle, as you mentioned.
Mr. Pon. And a lot of them are frustrated.
Mr. Hice. A lot of us are frustrated too. A lot of people
are frustrated. You hate to see your money go down the drain,
and this is one of those areas. And I'm not opposed to people
using official time, but number one, not on the backs of the
taxpayers when they were hired to do something else.
Mr. Pon. They need to do their jobs.
Mr. Hice. Absolutely they need to do their job. I
appreciate it.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Gowdy. The gentleman from Georgia yields back. The
gentleman from Maryland is recognized.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Pon, do you see official time as a major
problem?
Mr. Pon. Sir, I believe it needs to be examined.
Mr. Cummings. That's not what I asked you. I said do you
see it as a major problem?
Mr. Pon. Perhaps in certainly agencies.
Mr. Cummings. And Mr. Pon, you recently submitted to
Congress a draconian proposal to cut more than $143 billion
over the next 10 years from the pay and benefits of current
Federal workers, retirees, future retirees, and even their
surviving spouses and children. Is this really the Trump
administration's idea of developing a 21st century workforce?
That's a lot of money.
Mr. Pon. These proposals are to make sure that we're making
decisions around how we can operate the Federal Government in
the 21st century. I do believe that we need to take a look at
other vehicles, not just pensions, but actually defined
contributions plans so that they become much more portable for
people to leave government and come back with portable
benefits, versus ones that are based upon tenure and also years
of service.
I don't know too many young Federal workers that are
joining here are going to be working here for 20 years and then
working here till 62.
Mr. Cummings. Let me ask you this: In my office, there are
two words that govern my office: effectiveness and efficiency.
I assume that that's what you want too, right?
Mr. Pon. Absolutely.
Mr. Cummings. And it seems to me you take 143--it's one
thing to be aiming at efficiency and effectiveness. It's
another thing to take $143 billion out. Now, I could kind of
understand if you were taking that $143 billion and saying,
Okay, we know things are not working here, but now we're going
to make sure that we put money into training and things of that
nature so that we can get that effectiveness and efficiency.
Are you doing that? Where does that $143 billion go to?
Mr. Pon. So that's what we're intending to do. We're trying
to use the working capital or workforce fund for those reasons.
It's really targeting the different types of training that we
have so we can up-skill our Federal workers and preserve and
retain their jobs in the future.
Mr. Cummings. So you're trying to tell me that that $143
billion--and I haven't even started yet, because you all are
taking a lot away from Federal employees. That $143 billion,
you see that going into training now to lift up other employees
so that they can be the very best that they can be, so that
they can be most effective and efficient? Is that what you're
telling me?
Mr. Pon. The workforce fund is actual $1 billion, and it's
at the GSA in the Office of Governmentwide Policy.
Mr. Cummings. Well, what happened to the other $142
billion? Come on, man.
Mr. Pon. We're supporting the President's budget as puts
and takes across the whole entire Federal Government.
Mr. Cummings. Okay. I'm just curious as to what happened to
the other $142 billion?
Ms. Weichert. Yeah, so if I might interrupt.
Mr. Cummings. Yeah, please.
Ms. Weichert. So, in a fiscally-challenging time, the
President's budget included a number of proposals, including
the proposals that relate to the----
Mr. Cummings. You mean, where we just added $1.5 trillion
to the deficit?
Ms. Weichert. That wasn't in the budget.
Mr. Cummings. Yeah, okay. Go ahead.
Ms. Weichert. But the recommendations are actually
consistent around the workforce in what was in the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office evaluations on compensation, and
also consistent with things that came out in the bipartisan
Simpson-Bowles Commission looking at fiscal responsibility. So
I think that the most clear answer to the question, it's not a
one-for-one moving from one place to another; it's looking in
the entirety of government and our delivery model of service.
When we actually look at the data that the employees
themselves say about their biggest concerns, actually have to
do about resources to get their job done.
Mr. Cummings. I only have a few minutes. I don't have that
really.
Your proposal, Mr. Pon, would slash the pay and benefits of
men and women who support our military, care for our wounded
veterans, protect our homeland from terrorists and other
threats, ensure that our air, water, and food are safe. How
does that help the 21st century workforce?
Mr. Pon. We're taking a look at it on balance, sir.
Mr. Cummings. You don't think that would hurt the
workforce?
Mr. Pon. On the whole, we're looking at the whole entire
way of looking at compensation benefits and total rewards.
Ms. Weichert. And actually, the Federal workforce was
satisfied with their pay and their satisfaction rate.
Mr. Cummings. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, rewind. Say that
again?
Ms. Weichert. Sixty-one percent----
Mr. Cummings. They said they like the amount of money that
they're making?
Ms. Weichert. Sixty-one percent of Federal employees
surveyed in the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey were
satisfied. Considering everything, how satisfied are you with
your pay? That's actually above levels you would see in the
private sector around pay, for example.
Mr. Cummings. What about the COLA? One of your most
egregious proposals is to slash $50 billion worth of cost-of-
living-adjustments from current retirees and their survivors.
So you want to take from those who can least afford it and give
to the richest among us. How is that fair?
Chairman Gowdy. The gentleman's time is expired, but you
may answer the question.
Mr. Pon. Sir, respectfully, I think our retirement system
is a bit out of whack, and the reason why I say that is I don't
know of any other retirement system that actually pays for
COLAs for annuitants. We're talking about annuitants, not
Federal workers. When Federal workers actually get COLAs, it's
a part of the factor in their salaries; and when they become
annuitants, it is not up to the Federal Government for us to
determine where they move in retirement and pay for their--
paying for where they live.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Gowdy. The gentleman yields back. Votes have been
called and we're going to try to squeeze the gentleman from
Wisconsin in. We've got 10 minutes left in the vote. The
gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized.
Mr. Grothman. I'd like to thank you for being here today. I
know we recently passed an omnibus bill and our discretionary
spending is going up 18 percent this year. And I know there are
people who have all sorts of ways to say 18 percent isn't
enough, who want to go higher, but I appreciate that you don't
feel that way.
I'll start with you, Mr. Pon. Does the current general
schedule pay system incentivize high performers to continue
achieving at a high level?
Mr. Pon. I think we need to take a look at the general
schedule. I think it is title 5, it is the law. We're trying to
improve title 5, but I think there is a greater need for
looking at occupational series and having new pay systems for
them that are much more flexible, and then we can manage term
appointments much better.
Mr. Grothman. Ms. Weichert, I'll switch to you. There are a
lot of Weicherts in Wisconsin, so nice to see that last name.
Could you explain the proposed interagency workforce fund,
how it would work?
Ms. Weichert. So basically, we requested, in 2018, a $1
billion workforce fund that would allow us to spread across
agencies in consultation with Congress and provide greater
incentives around retention, recruitment, in high-skilled
areas. We would also operate in a way that if people wanted to
challenge and create new training or redeployment-type
activities.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. I'll ask you a general question,
because I know exactly what I'd do to solve the problem. One of
the criticisms of government is that everybody makes the same
amount of money, right? They throw the grid out of there, and
whether you just sit on your butt for 5 years or are the hard
charger, you wind up with the same, right? Isn't that a
problem?
Ms. Weichert. Right.
Mr. Grothman. Another concern is that if you are given too
much flexibility, and we've certainly seen examples of this
before this committee, people who point out problems, maybe
even illegalities in their agencies, they don't move up at all.
The boss doesn't--you know. Do you see any way to square that
problem?
On the one hand, you know, we want the better employee to
get a bigger raise; but on the other hand, we just don't want
the people to get a bigger raise, the ones who are, I don't
know what the word I should use is. You know, the people who
just try to ingratiate themselves to the boss.
Ms. Weichert. Yeah. So I think it's a great question, and
it's one of the classic underlying questions in all performance
management and performance-based compensation programs. There
is plenty of experience in the broader world of compensation,
especially in the private sector, around systems that reward
both the what, you know, mission, service, stewardship, and the
how, how do you work with others.
And so most successful programs are fact-based, they are
consistent, they are supported by technology, and they try to
really balance this.
And, frankly, I think this is one the most critical issues
that doesn't get enough discussion, because 31 percent, only 31
percent of the employees surveyed actually believe that awards
in my work unit depend on how well employees perform. So while
61 percent are pleased with their own pay, most people don't
think that pay and performance are linked at all.
Mr. Grothman. In other words, they can think of some of
their coworkers who are just time-servers who are getting
increases?
Ms. Weichert. Exactly.
Mr. Grothman. And I take it another problem is, if you are
really a go-getter, then maybe you leave the government.
Ms. Weichert. Yeah. Yeah.
Mr. Pon. We're going to change that.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. Good. Do you feel you can change that?
I'm kind of--don't exactly know an answer.
Mr. Pon. There are Federal employees that are amazing
Federal workers, despite the culture that we have that we
cannot manage bad performers out or it's very difficult to do
that. It's a disincentive for them to stay.
I want to make sure that there is differential pay, market-
based pay, so that we can, as a government, retain the best and
brightest for our Federal Government. That's what they deserve
and that's what they need.
Ms. Weichert. And I think we can actually make a difference
today because we want this to be a bipartisan discussion. We
want it to be a discussion between Congress and the executive
branch.
And so we need this to be an inclusive conversation because
this isn't just rhetoric, we really want to make a difference
here. Because when I look at it from sort of 30,000 feet, if we
don't, we don't have a delivery model for the 21st century.
Mr. Grothman. I appreciate both you folks for coming over.
I yield my final second.
Chairman Gowdy. The gentleman yields back. We will now
recess subject to the call of the chair and reconvene
immediately after votes.
[Recess.]
Chairman Gowdy. The committee will come to order.
The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes, is recognized.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank the panel.
I have been struck because your testimony, for the most
part what you're saying, the rhetoric of it sounds pretty good,
talking about mission and service and stewardship, you're
talking about making sure that we support the best within our
Federal workforce, et cetera. But managing scarce resources, we
understand we live in a world where money doesn't grow on
trees.
But then you come with what is what I would say is a
scandalously irresponsible budget proposal in terms of this cut
of $143 billion in terms of the salaries, pensions, other kinds
of benefits, as you look over time. And there was some
discussion back and forth about relationships with the Federal
employee unions and so forth and they could be better.
It seems to me it's not a good operating premise to go into
the room with the unions--or with the workforce, just the
workforce--and say, we're going to take a baseball bat or a
meat cleaver to the budget that's supporting your operations.
And after we do that, then we want to sit down and have a
constructive discussion about all the ways we can find new
efficiencies, streamline things, and so forth.
You're not going to get people to stretch, to be creative,
to be innovative, to self-reflect, which are admirable goals.
And Max Stier will be testifying on the second panel.
Partnership for Public Service has come forward with a lot of,
I think, constructive suggestions about how the Federal
workforce and the leadership within it can adjust themselves
for the future.
But to maximize the opportunity that that will happen, you
can't at the same time come in and say, we're going to pull
billions and billions of dollars of resources away from the
operations of these agencies.
So I just philosophically don't agree with the approach
because I think that it's counterproductive.
I did want to talk a little bit about how you're going to
provide for the 21st century workforce, because most of the
statements of consequence that have come from leadership within
the Trump administration seem to suggest that the main goal is
to just reduce the size of the Federal workforce, without
regard to the impact that it may be having on operations.
Director Mulvaney issued a memo last April directing
agencies to submit downsizing plans that include long-term
workforce reductions. President Trump wanted us to get a long-
term plan in place to reduce the size of the Federal
Government's workforce through attrition.
So how are you going to recruit the workforce of the future
if you're coming with these dramatic cuts? If the stated goal
is just to reduce the size, without, it appears, regard for
whether you're impacting the efficiency, the effectiveness, as
my colleague from Maryland, Congressman Cummings, has spoken
to, how are you going to get people to come join up, the best
and the brightest, in that kind of an environment?
Ms. Weichert. So I think they're all really valid
questions, and that's precisely the set of problems we're
trying to square. So square the issues of mission, service, and
stewardship in a fiscally challenging environment.
I think that the key thing in all of this is actually
looking at what are out-of-the-box ways of doing this, and
taking the best learning from players like folks in the private
sector who have been there and done this before.
There are many private sector organizations who faced with
fiscal challenges have gotten together with unions, have
figured out how did they energize the workforce. We are
actually going to the workforce itself. It's not rhetoric and
it's not showboating to go to Kansas City and meet with nearly
a thousand Federal workers and----
Mr. Sarbanes. Well, here's what I'm worried about. And I'm
sorry to interrupt because I'm going to run out of time. I know
that there's many employees in these Federal agencies right now
who, just based on the activity, the fiscal constraints, the
cuts that have been imposed on them over the last few years,
have 50 files in their pile where they used to have 25, where
having 15 would be a reasonable workload. And the cuts being
proposed are going to put another 50 in that pile and make it
100 folders in that pile.
And at the same time you're raising the stack of files that
they have got to deal with at the IRS or Social Security or
Veterans Administration or whatever, you're saying, oh, let's
now have a conversation about how to streamline and be
efficient and be innovative and creative. And that is not a
fair burden to put on somebody, if you have those expectations
of them.
So I would urge the administration to reconsider these cuts
because I think they are counterproductive to some of the
stated goals that you have here today.
With that, I'd yield back.
Chairman Gowdy. The gentleman yields back.
The gentlemen from Florida is recognized, Mr. DeSantis.
Mr. DeSantis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome.
Dr. Pon, we have seen situations where some of the union
contracts that are done extend far beyond the life of that
particular administration, and some folks, I know, like in the
CFPB, there was a contract done in I think late 2016, that has
limited the ability of the new Director to make some reforms.
So is that good policy, to tie the hands of future
administrations? I mean, if you're going to do these union
contracts, I mean, shouldn't there be an opportunity for the
new administration to come in and at least renegotiate?
Mr. Pon. I think the Director of OPM needs to have that
power and needs to have that authority, whether you're on one
side or the next. It's actually doing the business of the
government, making sure that you can negotiate on behalf of the
government and in good faith making sure that you can make
deals with it.
Tying the hands of the OPM Director does you no good in
managing the government, diffusing the powers of the Director
of OPM. I don't know of any corporation or nonprofit
organization that doesn't want their head of HR to be
responsible for the head of HR. And at times that's difficult
because there is such a diffusion of responsibilities.
Mr. DeSantis. So performance and firing people for poor
performance--I think we have a very high quality Federal
workforce. But at the same time, I mean, if you look at the
number of people who are terminated for poor performance, it's
like point-zero-something percent. And there's no business,
there's no industry in the country where 99.9-plus percent are
doing an adequate job, I mean. And so it's very difficult to
hold people accountable.
And one of the most recent examples, tragically, was the
FBI handling of Parkland, Florida. You had had people calling
into this hotline in 2016--or 2017--complaining about this guy,
identifying as a possible shooter. Then 2018, same thing
happened. Actually, the lady who called was a phenomenal--I
mean, she provided all this information, was worried about the
school. The FBI actually matched it in the database, knew it
was the same guy, and decided to do absolutely nothing with
that.
Now, they have admitted that that falls far below the
standard of acceptable performance, and yet there was no firing
of anybody, at least to my knowledge. I mean, it certainly
wasn't within a month of this. And there was a stress on due
process and all this other stuff, and I understand that.
But what about the right of the American people to have
some accountability if people drop the ball and don't protect
them? Shouldn't there be a way that people are going to be held
accountable for that swiftly.
Mr. Pon. I agree with that. We need to make sure that we
can manage bad performance, and we need to make sure that is
stressed. Our President in the State of the Union basically
said to every single secretary, award the great performance of
the United States, but get rid of the bad performers.
And I intend to make sure that there's enhancements and
streamlining effects so that you can have a single process for
making sure you can manage performance, manage people out that
need to be out.
Mr. DeSantis. How long would that process take? I mean, you
know, some of these folks are on leave forever, and I think
that could just move people around. You have a poor performer,
you've given them an opportunity to improve, they haven't.
What's a reasonable time to say, ``Okay, move on with whatever
process''? Because I think the process ends up just eating up
the accountability where you don't end you having any.
Mr. Pon. Yeah. Each agency has collective bargaining unit
agreements and sometimes these timeframes can go on for years.
That is not reasonable, obviously. In any enterprise, if you
have a bad actor in your own organization, you need to
basically take care of it in a reasonable amount of time--with
due process. But due process is not 2 years, it's more like 3
months to 6 months at the most.
Mr. DeSantis. How do you ensure the--I mean, the model of
the civil service was that it wasn't going to be political. You
know, it used to be an administration would come in, they'd put
their cronies in, the next one would come in, they'd put--and
they're like, yeah, no, we just want professionals and to be
apolitical.
But that is kind of good in theory, but that hasn't worked
in practice. I mean, the IRS targeting scandal was something
that was very problematic. We on this committee did a lot of
it. The Justice Department paid a settlement to all these
conservative groups for having been targeted for their
political beliefs.
And we see some of it with some of the oversight of, like,
the FBI, with some of the agents who were really, really saying
some things and appeared to have their actions motivated by
political bias.
So how do you deal with that? I mean, you can do great at
your job, have all kind of political opinions, but when it
starts infecting the actual actions or the work product, like
it did when the IRS and like I believe we have seen evidence of
with the FBI, you know, how do we--how do you guys do it? Is
there anything we can do to just make sure that we're following
the administration's directives and we're not acting as
individual political agents----
Mr. Pon. We need to remind everybody about the law, merit
system principles. We need to make sure that there is proper
education, training, and enforcement of that.
I know the next panel, my colleague, Bill Valdez, is going
to be representing SEA, Senior Executives Association. We're
talking with one another to make sure that we can have our
senior executives be the career senior executive service
without politics.
That's really the mainstay of the Federal Government, the
executives that are nonpolitical. We hold them up to a higher
standard than making sure that the political agendas get taken
care of. They run our government. We entrust them and direct
them to do certain things. But if it's in a partisan way, we
need to make sure that there's accountability.
OIG has been taking a look at these things in different
agencies, but I think that there should be actually a real hard
look at some of these quote, unquote, partisan type of
activities within our career civil service.
Mr. DeSantis. Thanks.
Chairman Gowdy. The gentleman from Florida yields back.
The gentlelady from New York is recognized.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I thank the panelists.
President Trump and his administration have been downsizing
Federal offices and agencies since the first day he took
office. On day one he prohibited agencies from filling vacant
positions, and I would say the downsizing began on day one.
Then, on April 12 in 2017, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney
issued a memorandum directing agencies to submit downsizing
plans by September that include, and I quote, ``long-term
workforce reductions.''
But OMB has kept this reorganization plan secret. When
Ranking Member Cummings wrote to OMB asking for copies of the
plans that agency produced for OMB, he received this refusal
from Mr. Mulvaney. And he wrote, quote, ``The deliberative
process within the executive branch will continue to play out
in an iterative fashion.'' Meanwhile, OMB continues to work
with agencies to begin taking certain administration actions.
So, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to put the letter
that he sent Mr. Cummings and Mr. Cummings letter into the
record.
Chairman Gowdy. Without objection.
Mrs. Maloney. Okay. Thank you.
And OMB's response is the polite way of saying that we're
not going to give you any of the reorganization plans, even
though we are reorganizing. So I wonder if Congressman Mulvaney
would have tolerated receiving such a response when he was a
member of this committee.
So my question, Ms. Weichert, OMB's description of a
deliberative privilege to evade congressional oversight is not
acceptable. Can you provide a legal opinion justifying citing
that privilege at this time?
Ms. Weichert. I'm not an attorney, so I'm not going to
provide a specific legal opinion.
What I can say is it is not the practice of OMB to share
internal deliberative documents prior to the release of an
actual report.
And we expect to be releasing the reorganization and reform
report in the coming weeks, and that will really start the
broader public deliberation process. And I think there will be
plenty of opportunity for this body to have conversations about
that.
I'd also like to share the fact that in the private sector
leading practice around reorganization takes very seriously the
disruption to the actual ongoing work of the workforce when
reorganization is taking place. And leaking out or dribbling
out items that have not yet been determined is actually fairly
disruptive and somewhat disrespectful.
So it is our view that by sharing, when we publish this
report in a few weeks, a holistic view that includes all of the
deliberations, all of the inputs, that include, in addition to
the inputs that we got from agencies, it also includes public
comment, it includes data from the Federal Employee Viewpoint
Survey, and it includes leading practices.
Possibly most importantly, it also includes a lot of data
from the General Accountability Office about the High Risk List
and areas where workforce is part of that. It also includes a
list of duplicative processes and duplicative activities of
agencies.
So I'm hopeful and very happy to continue to have this
conversation going forward when we are out of the predecisional
standpoint.
Mrs. Maloney. Well, it's already started, the downsizing
and the reorganization, without sharing any of this
information.
And to give one example, in June the Department of Interior
began reassigning dozens of career senior executives and other
civil service employees. And we learned this not because of any
sharing of information, but because of press reports. And many
of these senior executives were totally left in the dark and
knew nothing about what was taking place.
The President's 2019 budget proposal states that a
departmentwide reorganization plan will be implemented
utilizing a combination of attrition and separation. So are
attrition and separation deliberate tools in use by Secretary
Zinke to downsize the Department of Interior, Ms. Weichert?
Ms. Weichert. So I can't comment on all the specifics of
Secretary Zinke's proposal. I think the items that were able to
be done through an individual agency were included in the 2019
budget proposal that you have seen.
But I'd pull up a bit to say, the original language around
reform and reorganization was really about good government. And
in really digging in and looking at the data on this topic, the
focus is not primarily on downsizing. The focus is primarily on
mission, service to the American people.
And then where stewardship is problematic we need to align
the overall size. But a lot of what we're actually seeing is if
you deploy information technology appropriately, you may be
able to think differently about the numbers of resources that
you have.
Mrs. Maloney. We haven't seen the plan. All we've seen is
press reports and reports from workers of downsizing.
Now, the Founding Fathers loved journalism, protected
journalism, but they also wanted a checks and balance between
the executive and the legislative branch. And right now all our
information is coming from journalism, not from the executive
branch or a sharing of responding to the oversight
responsibilities of the legislative branch.
I hope that that changes with the report you say you'll be
sending out in----
Ms. Weichert. Yes.
Mrs. Maloney. --you said weeks. Do you have a time limit?
Ms. Weichert. It's in the clearance process now, so I can't
give an exact date, but it's in the coming weeks. And we would
like to have it be as holistic and thoughtful as possible.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you.
Chairman Gowdy. The gentlelady yields back.
I'll recognize myself, and I'll be the last questioner.
Ms. Weichert, I think it was you in your opening that
mentioned a diminution of trust, public trust in the government
in general, not just employees, but government in general. Is
there any data? And what does it show in terms of what
generates that distrust? Because it would be tough to work for
an entity that people didn't trust.
Ms. Weichert. So the data that I referenced there is
referenced in the document, the President's Management Agenda,
which I could bring out additional components.
But we actually looked at specific areas, and we highlight
in that report what the particular areas of problem that the
American people have. And in a lot of cases I think the issues
are issues of balance and issues of: Is government focused on
the right issues? Are they primarily focused on mission? Are
they focused on giving people the services they need when they
want them, when they need them?
I think a lot of the distrust actually comes from the
hyperpartisan kind of dialogues that they see on the
television. And what we see when we've done some of these
listening tours, talking to Federal employees, talking to
citizens all over the country about what they're looking for,
they value the services that our employees deliver. They
absolutely appreciate when FEMA is there to rescue them from a
flood or a USAID employee is there to help protect their home
in a fire, whether they are in California or Wyoming.
But what they don't like is all the blockages to getting
things done the right way, and when they have to hang on hold
forever, if they're trying to deal with death benefits, if
they're a survivor of a veteran, things of that nature.
Chairman Gowdy. So there is an efficiency component, if I
heard you correctly, and then there's just the general
political environment that we find ourselves in, and that when
you constantly hear how untrustworthy government is, it tends
to, shockingly, have an impact on the listener from time to
time.
Ms. Weichert. Absolutely. And I feel like we've got an
opportunity, and I mean this most sincerely. Good government is
an area where I absolutely believe we can have bipartisan
support. I've actually been completely gratified by the types
of dialogues I've had with Members of this body and other folks
about these issues. So I really believe we can help change both
the outcomes and the process.
Chairman Gowdy. All right. Well, this is what I want you to
do for me. I've heard you use the word ``bipartisan'' a couple
of times, I've heard Chairman Meadows use it a couple of times.
But I also had a really good opportunity to listen to the
ranking member's opening statement, and it was not
complimentary on the Trump administration and how they view
Federal workers.
Lay aside the fact that I disagreed with most of it and
have been a Federal worker for a large part of my life, as have
other Members on my side. Take the time I have left and
convince, not us, but people who may be watching that this
administration and the changes you proposed are rooted and
motivated in a respect for Federal workers and a desire to make
it better.
Ms. Weichert. Absolutely. And I think a lot of this starts
with listening. And I heard what the ranking member said, and I
think these are very valid concerns. They're not unique
concerns to government. These are issues that our fellow
citizens, whether they work in government or they work in the
private sector face. They face challenges of dislocation. They
face concerns about taking care of their families and doing
their daily business.
We need to have a fact-based conversation. And, you know, I
think it starts in this particular instance with the data
around the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, and it starts
with: How do we address the problems the Federal employees
themselves find to be the biggest barriers to serving the
American people?
And when I look at those things, there's things around
performance-based compensation, there's things around do they
have the resources to do their job, it's things around are the
right merit system principles in place so that the best people
get the best compensation and the worst people aren't there to
disrupt the work of everyone else.
I think those are the things that we legitimately are
trying to use a fact base to tackle and then use the tools that
blend the best of IT modernization, the best of data and
analytics, with helping elevate the work that our American
workers do to serve the American people.
Chairman Gowdy. I'm out of time. And I'm going to recognize
the gentleman from Missouri.
There have been a number of witnesses throughout the time
I've been on this committee that have sat at the table where
you are, and they have described conduct that is not just poor
performance, it is trending towards criminal. In fact, had it
been reported and investigated and prosecuted, it would have
been criminal.
So under the general heading of morale, I would think not
having to work for someone who is simply moved from position to
position after credible allegations of sexual harassment, I
would think being able to terminate that kind of conduct, that
is not poor performance, that's criminal.
So to the extent that you can address that, it would be the
right thing to do and also good for morale.
With that, the gentleman from Missouri.
Mr. Clay. I thank the chairman.
And thank you all for being here.
March the 20th, 2018, President Trump issued his
President's Management Agenda. I read through it, and the PMA
estimates that many Federal workforce occupations could be
automated, including 5 percent of occupations that could be
automated entirely, 60 percent of occupations that could have
30 percent-plus of their activities automated, and 45 percent
of total work activities that could be automated.
Let me share with you so you can share it with the
administration, no one on the chairman's side would defy this.
But what's so important about government service and the
service that the government renders to the citizens of this
country is the person-to-person interaction.
So, I mean, I'm looking at this and saying, well, you're
trying to reduce the workforce, which is going to hamper
government's ability to interact with its citizens, it's plain,
unless you can tell me otherwise. Isn't that the end result of
this?
Ms. Weichert. No, actually, I appreciate the question and
the concern, but what we're focused on are precisely the kind
of things that the gentleman from Maryland mentioned earlier
around if the pile of paper on the desk of a Federal employee
keeps stacking up because it's paper-based, they actually can't
serve our citizens in a face-to-face way.
And a concrete example was after Hurricane Harvey the Small
Business Administration designated some zones as special SBA
areas. And the Federal workers who were trying to help get
people money to start up businesses and restart communities are
taking information that was input on a system over here, print
it out, and then rekey it over here. Thirty percent of their
time was spent on that activity, which isn't directly serving
people, and they could have given a faster response.
Mr. Clay. Okay, I appreciate what you're saying, but you're
also talking about cutting down the number of Federal workers.
Is that right?
Ms. Weichert. So I think that's not the primary goal. When
we actually did the empirical analysis about jobs when we were
looking at this, there may be 5 percent of jobs that are purely
possible to be automated. But we also have more than that
number of jobs that we can't fill. And so reskilling and
redeploying resources is part of what we're looking at.
Mr. Clay. I have a limited amount of time. And I'm just
saying for the committee's concern, they know better. They know
better, because it's about when we interact with our
constituents.
And it may be that they need a visa or a passport from the
State Department. They may need to get their Federal records of
service in our military so they can bury a loved one in a
Federal cemetery. Anything. But they need to talk to a live
person, not a machine. That's what this is about.
Let me ask both of you. I read through your proposals to
slash benefits for Federal workers and retirees, and I was
appalled. One of the most breathtaking proposals is the
provision to eliminate COLAs for employee death benefit and
child annuity.
Let me see if I understand this proposal correctly. You and
President Trump want to cut COLAs for widows, widowers, and
orphans.
Look, I just read what you sent us. I don't know how else
to interpret this proposal other than to see it as a sign that
you and President Trump and this administration are attacking
widows and orphans who rely on COLAs just to keep up with
inflation. And eliminating or reducing COLAs would erode their
benefits over time.
This is why you want to do that, to save us money? Is that
right?
Mr. Pon. Sir, respectfully, thank you for your question. I
do think that COLAs serve a very important purpose for having
COLAs as a Federal worker. But when you are an annuitant, the
government does not control an annuitant's residence, and
government is actually paying the annuitant, survivor, widower,
child a COLA based upon their choice of where they live versus
where they work.
Mr. Clay. So am I able?
Mr. Meadows. [Presiding.] We've got a second panel. So I
thank the gentleman for his keen interest on this particular
item.
I want to thank the two witnesses for their insightful
testimony. I'm hopeful that this is the start of something new
after 40 years, and I believe that it will be. I appreciate the
commitment from both of you for being here.
And we're going to stand in recess for just a few minutes
while we set up for the second panel.
[Recess.]
Mr. Meadows. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Government
Reform will come to order, and I'm pleased to introduce our
second panel.
Obviously, we've been interrupted a number of times today
on votes and everything else, but I thank you for your patience
and for following this key area. So I'm going to go ahead and
introduce you. I think Mr. Connolly is on his way.
Mr. Bill Valdez, president of the Senior Executives
Association. Mr. Max Stier, president and CEO of the
Partnership for Public Service. And Ms. Jacqueline Simon,
policy director for the American Federation of Government
Employees.
Welcome to you all. And pursuant to committee rules, we'll
ask that you be sworn in. So before you testify, if you'll
please stand and raise your right hand. I don't know that this
is your first rodeo for any of you.
So do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony
you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the
affirmative.
And as you know, in order to allow time for the back and
forth, if you'll limit your oral testimony to 5 minutes, we
would appreciate that. Your entire written statement will be
made part of the record. And so you're recognized for 5
minutes.
PANEL II
WITNESS STATEMENTS
STATEMENT OF BILL VALDEZ
Mr. Valdez. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I'm
honored to represent the views of the Senior Executives
Association because we believe the President's Management
Agenda provides an opportunity to have a thoughtful and a
constructive discussion about modernizing the 1978 Civil
Service Reform Act.
The PMA correctly states that the decline in public trust
in government can be directly linked to public perceptions
about the effectiveness of the Federal workforce. I am
convinced that the vast majority of civil servants are
effective stewards of taxpayer dollars. I know this because
U.S. taxpayers routinely see the results of this dedication
through our secure homeland and improvements to our economic
productivity.
If this is true, why then have public perceptions of the
performance of civil servants declined? I believe the answer
lies in structural deficiencies in the CSRA.
The CSRA has served our Nation well, but it was passed over
four decades ago. The internet was the stuff of science fiction
and the Cold War was in full bloom.
Today, the Internet of Things is transforming our society
and international terrorism is our premier national security
challenge.
Put simply, the CSRA has not kept pace with these tectonic
shifts in our society. Decades of haphazard tinkering has
created a Frankenstein monster that hinders the ability of
civil servants to deliver optimal value to taxpayers.
Dr. Pon, in his testimony, referenced a number of latent
flaws in the CSRA that must be remedied. I agree, and I believe
that those flaws fall into four major buckets. In the interest
of time, I will address three of these four buckets, but I
refer you to my written testimony for a full discussion.
The first is performance accountability systems are
antiquated. Prior to the CSRA, the Civil Service Commission was
the one-stop shop that ensured that civil service merit
principles were upheld. The CSRA, however, created the MSPB,
the Office of Special Counsel, the FLRA, and the EEOC.
All of these forms have their purpose, but the unintended
consequence of a performance management system that enables
poor performers to forum shop and delay the resolution of their
cases.
We need to return to basics. There are two reasons why an
employee can be dismissed from Federal service, misconduct and
poor performance. We must update the CSRA to provide an
expedited forum for performance issues and let the other forums
be used for their original purposes.
Second, hiring and retention practices have become
ossified. When I was looking for work in 1978, I went to the
classified pages of my local newspaper, and if I was really on
the ball, I would go door-knocking. I was operating in an
information void that gave employers all the leverage.
Today, job seekers are much more empowered. They can search
the internet for jobs, and LinkedIn lets them know if an
employer is worth pursuing. In other words, the leverage has
shifted during the past 40 years from the employer to the
employee when it comes to hiring and retention.
Yet, as Dr. Pon clearly articulated, we have a hiring and
retention system that is mired in 20th century practices. It is
not nimble, it is not effective, and we are losing the talent
war as a result.
We need to completely rethink the General Schedule, the
classification system, and how we incentivize high performance.
If we do this, we will create a work environment that is
aligned with the needs of the current generation of workers.
And then, third, the CSRA has exacerbated the career-
political divide. The CSRA created the Senior Executive Service
as a bridge between administrations and to serve as expert
advisers to administrations as they pursued their agendas. It
also mandated that 90 percent of the SES slots be reserved for
career SES and 10 percent for noncareer SES. Today, most of
those noncareer positions are filled by political appointees.
This SES framework has had two unintended consequences.
First, political SES are increasingly occupying operational
positions, such as CFOs and principal deputies, that were
previous filled by career SES.
Two problems with this: Politicals rarely come into office
with the knowledge needed to manage these programs, and when
they leave there is a leadership vacuum that stops government
in its tracks.
Second, career SES have indicated in SEA surveys that they
believe they are being excluded from decisionmaking. NYU
researcher Paul Light analyzed the results of more than 40
failures of government over the past 20 years and he pinpointed
faulty leadership decisions as the primary reason for those
failures.
SEA strongly believes that if we properly align career and
political leadership roles, these failures could be mitigated.
In closing, let me again thank you for this opportunity to
discuss these important issues. And I would just note that if
the current Frankenstein workforce model that I've described
has resulted in so much good for our Nation, imagine what
dedicated civil servants could deliver with a modernized Civil
Service Act.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Valdez follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Valdez.
Mr. Stier, you're recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MAX STIER
Mr. Stier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Raskin.
It's a pleasure being here and it's terrific that you're having
this hearing. You're going to hear a build-on to some of the
things that Bill just said, and that's all to the good, because
I think there is some real common ground here.
The starting point is we do have a legacy government that
is not keeping up with the world around it. How could it? It is
a 40-year-old system. No other organization is operating under
the same rules as it did 40 years ago, and some of the stuff
even predates that. I'm not going to belabor that. I'm going to
give you five statistics that help set the stage here.
Number one, only 6 percent of the Federal workforce is
under the age of 30. That is number is closer to 23, 24, 25
percent in the private sector.
When you look at a specific segment there, number two,
there five times as many people over the age of 60 as under the
age of 30 in the IT profession inside the Federal Government.
The Federal Government spends $80 billion to $90 billion in IT.
Almost 70 percent of that goes to operation and maintenance.
That is a big challenge.
Number three, fewer than half of Feds believe that their
good work is recognized. That number is more than two-thirds in
the private sector. No organization gets better if all you do
is kick it, and that's what we have right now.
Number four, barely over 60 percent believe that they can
raise a violation of law or ethics without fear of retaliation.
So Chairman Gowdy raised a very important point. You can't
operate in an organization, especially a large one, if that
information doesn't get to leadership. If that information
won't get there, the people inside don't feel that they can
trust their leaders. Come back to that later.
And then last, almost half of employee attrition occurs in
the first 2 years.
So kudos to this administration for their PMA. I think it's
strong. One of the things that's really important to focus on
is that it's actually a continuation of what the Bush
administration did and the Obama administration did. That kind
of continuity is absolutely vital.
So, quickly, 10 things you can do about it that are very
concrete.
Number one, you have to hold the top leaders accountable.
The most significant difference between government and any
other organization is that top leaders aren't held accountable.
They don't own the organizations they run. They don't believe
that they're responsible for making them better. They're
rewarded for crisis management and policy development.
And that has to change. You can do that by requiring
transparent performance plans, by having oversight hearings
around management issues, and having a scorecard on some of the
issues that I just identified in the data.
Number two, we need to fix that hiring process. On average,
it takes the Federal Government more than 100 days to hire
someone. That number is more than double what you'd see in the
private sector. I just saw a study today that said only 12
percent of job applicants would wait more than 30 days for a
job. That's a giant problem.
How do you deal with that? We ought to have direct hire for
recent grads. That's really important if we're going to get
young people into government. You need to change the standard
for direct hires so that it's around a shortage of highly
qualified individuals rather than minimally qualified
individuals. And we need to use student interns, something that
almost never happens in the government that ought to happen.
Number three, you need a market-based pay system. The pay
system was created not 40 years ago, but over 70 years ago, and
it was for a world in which most of the workforce was clerical.
Today it's all profession. The nature of work has changed.
You have a medical center director for the VA that can't be
paid more than the SES cap, and they're competing with people
that are being paid more than a million dollars. Ain't
happening, and it has big impacts. You need that market-
sensitive pay system.
Four, we need to develop better career leaders. Improved
management is the way you're going to make the whole
organization work better. You need to look at the military as a
model. We need to be more investment in training new
supervisors. And creating a dual track so people who are
subject matter experts who need to be promoted can be promoted
to subject matter experts and don't have to go into management
to get promoted. That would make a huge difference.
Five, we do need to deal with the accountability issue.
That's what the survey shows. Firing Feds faster isn't going to
get you there. Better management will.
One idea there is to use the probationary period, right?
Change the presumption. If you aren't actually affirmatively
determined to deserve Federal service, then you don't stay,
rather than the reverse, which is what happens now.
Six, we need more mobility. We need a workforce that
actually is getting best practice from the private sector and
having good people here spend time in the private sector. That
means more public-private talent exchange.
We need this pass forward notion where people who are in
the Fed go out into the private sector, develop skills. They
have to be hired at the same level that they're now qualified
to come in rather than the level that they left in, which makes
no sense.
Mr. Stier. Number seven, customer service. That's an area
of huge opportunity here. There's legislation on the floor now
where that is in the House. One of the big barriers right now
is that the Paperwork Reduction Act doesn't allow government
agencies to collect the data they need voluntarily. That's an
easy fix, and would allow agencies to do what they want to do,
which is to get feedback and use it to make their activities
better.
Eight, we need to create a culture of recognition.
Something you are highly aware of we added a Sammie's finalist
to the testimony, and you're doing great stuff in terms of
visiting agencies.
Nine, we need to use data better, like the Federal
Employee's Viewpoint Survey.
And lastly, we need to address the lack of political
leadership, and that includes, bluntly, having fewer political
appointees and fewer that require Senate confirmation.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Stier follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Meadows. That's the best use of 5 minutes that I've
heard in 6 years. Thank you very much for the action items.
Ms. Simon, you're recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JACQUELINE SIMON
Ms. Simon. On behalf of the 700,000 Federal and D.C.
government workers represented by AFGE, I thank you for the
opportunity to testify today on the President's Management
Agenda, the PMA.
Its soothing words and colorful photographs try to convey a
sense that the document is a thoughtful and modern approach to
the management of the Federal workforce and the agencies that
employ them. Unfortunately, those pretty pictures mask a dark
intent, which is to sabotage the operation of Federal agencies
by degrading the Federal workforce.
If the PMA were implemented, it would sabotage the civil
service and agency missions incompatible with this
administration's political priorities. Paradoxically, the PMA
would shrink the Federal workforce, while simultaneously
increasing cost to taxpayers by shifting work from public
employees to more expensive contractors.
That's right. While proposing to lower the cost of the
Federal workforce by cutting compensation, it also proposes to
replace that workforce with the more costly and less
accountable contractor workforce. Federal employee pay,
benefits, job security, and due process rights are clearly in
the cross-hairs of this administration.
Despite the language about seeking to attract the best
people to government, the document clearly contemplates making
Federal employment less desirable by cutting pay and benefits
and weakening job security.
Having more government work performed by contractors puts
agency missions at risk. Increased contracting out undermines
management control, as well as the public service ethos. By
law, contractors' first loyalty must be to their private
profits, not the public interest. But duty and loyalty to the
American public should come first for those doing our
government's work.
The PMA would politicize government functions and
operations. Besides the erosion of due process rights, Federal
employment, even for those putatively still in the civil
service, would become an elongated probationary period,
consisting of temporary and term appointments. Federal
employment would devolve to a modified at-will employment, with
employees beholden to political or commercial interests that
would determine their future livelihood.
The administration's proposals to cut Federal retirement
benefits by $143 billion billion over 10 years should be
categorically rejected. Federal employee compensation has
already been cut by $246 billion over 10 years, about $123,000
per employee over the period.
The retirement system cuts that simultaneously charge
employees more and deliver less are not motivated by any
concern about the system's financial solvency. The Federal
Employees Retirement System is fully funded as is. No cuts are
necessary.
No, the motivation is something much darker. Likewise, the
proposed cuts to paid leave and Federal employee health
insurance benefits are entirely unnecessary and seem to be
driven by nothing more than a desire to reduce the living
standards of Federal employees.
Please do not think of Federal employees as nameless,
faceless bureaucrats who do nothing but impose unnecessary red
tape on heroic entrepreneurs. They are our brave border patrol
agents who protect us from criminals engaged in human and
narcotic smuggling. They are our Social Security claims reps,
helping your grandmother navigate her benefit eligibility.
They are our nurses at the VA Medical Center holding the
hand of a dying veteran. They are mothers and fathers and
church choir leaders and PTA presidents. They should not be the
objects of hatred and disdain. They are middle class Americans
trying to get by and raise their families, and they should not
be losing paid leave, having their health insurance made more
expensive, or their pensions reduced.
It is a noxious myth that today's workers, or tomorrow's
workers, don't want or need job security. Just because the gig
economy has made employment for so many Americans unstable and
insecure doesn't mean the Federal Government should follow
suit.
Indeed, contingent workers, like adjunct professors and
Uber drivers are doing whatever they can to organize so that
they can obtain stable career employment.
The administration's apparent goal of making the Federal
Government an employer of poorly compensated contingent workers
is not, I repeat, is not what the workforce wants; not older
workers, not mid-career workers, not younger workers. No
Federal worker wants his compensation cut or her job security
taken away.
For all the reasons described above, we think the best way
to describe the President's Management Agenda and the
administration's personnel management agenda is a set of worst
practices. The PMA is a worst practices document that would
sabotage government agencies.
This concludes my testimony. I would be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Simon follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Ms. Simon. Thank each of you for
your testimony.
I'm going to recognize myself for a series of questions. So
Mr. Stier, let me come to you. The Federal Employment Viewpoint
Survey that I talked about earlier with the first panel, do you
believe that that's a critical tool for helping us understand
the viewpoint of Federal workers?
Mr. Stier. Absolutely. I think it's incredibly useful data.
It's useful as an aggregate, but it's even more powerful when
you look at smaller components of government and compare and
contrast what you see, because there is huge variation across
agencies and within agencies, and there's a lot to be learned
from that.
Mr. Meadows. So if we're looking across agencies like that,
as we have had in a previous hearing, OPM was looking at
changing the questions, obviously is running a pilot. Is this
something that you would support?
Mr. Stier. I think you always have to look at how to
improve things. There's a lot of value in having the benchmark
data available to you. So I think changes, you have to be
careful about what you do change so that you can be able to
compare over time. I do think there are some things this year
they're doing a full census rather than a sample, and I think
that makes for much, much better data as well.
So I think there are places that you can have improvement.
The biggest improvement would be turning around the data
faster.
Mr. Meadows. So, I believe earlier this year that the
Department of Veterans Affairs made a decision to cease
offering the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. So at first, if
you don't succeed, change the matrix in terms of what you
measure that success. I say that, obviously, tongue-in-cheek.
I would assume that that's not something that you support?
Mr. Stier. So interestingly, in this instance, I think the
important thing, again, is to have comparable data.
Mr. Meadows. So are they going to compare the data?
Mr. Stier. Yes. And my understanding is that they're also
planning on doing quarterly poll surveys.
Mr. Meadows. So what you're saying is they're going to take
the model and actually improve on it?
Mr. Stier. Yes. So, as long as it's comparable. One of the
challenges in the government is that it's often not looked at
an integrated enterprise.
Mr. Meadows. So what are they doing to make sure it's
comparable?
Mr. Stier. Well, one, they're talking to OPM is my
understanding, and they're talking to us as well. And to my
mind, the biggest positive is the idea that if they want to
make it management useful, having it more regularly available,
i.e., on a quarterly basis, is very powerful. So you're not
waiting more than a year to get back information about whether
what you're doing is working. So I think that is actually a
best practice that more agencies should be doing. You don't
have to ask the full 80-plus questions, but to target smaller
groups of questions and have them taken more often is actually
really good.
So, again, I think there are some real positive there. Your
basic point is the right one, which is, no agency should be
going off and doing it on its own in a way that doesn't enable
the transparency.
Mr. Meadows. Yeah, I guess what I want to do is make sure
that I've got a benchmark so that I'm not comparing an apple to
an orange. So what you're saying is that you believe that we
can accomplish that?
Mr. Stier. I believe so, and I think, in fact, we might get
more or a nicer apple too.
Mr. Meadows. All right. So Ms. Simon, let me come to you.
From your opening testimony, obviously you're not a fan. So how
do we fix some of the problems that we have? Or is it your
testimony that we don't have any problems?
Ms. Simon. Well, obviously, there are problems in the
Federal Government.
Mr. Meadows. So how do we fix them, because we've got a 40-
year old system, and so, you know, tactically, the plan that's
been laid out, I guess you said it had a dark component to it.
So how do we make it, in your mind, a great way to make sure
Federal workers get properly recognized, compensated,
evaluated, the ability to hire and fire; knowing that that is
like nails on a chalkboard maybe to your union-covered
employees. But how do we make sure we do that?
Ms. Simon. Well, the idea of hiring and firing and properly
rewarding employees is anything but nails on a chalkboard. The
short answer is through the collective bargaining process.
Mr. Meadows. So you're saying everything can be solved if
we just had good negotiators and collective bargaining. I mean,
history does not--you've had collective bargaining for the last
40 years, so if we've got a problem and we've had collective
bargaining, how is that going to solve it?
Ms. Simon. I'm not sure that you and I would agree on what
the big problems are.
Mr. Meadows. That's why I'm asking the question. I truly
want to know if this is not the right approach, what's the
right approach?
Ms. Simon. Okay. I think that one of the big problems
currently, you know, very currently, is an effort to politicize
the work of Federal agencies. We see that in the Environmental
Protection Agency, for example, where----
Mr. Meadows. You mean with more political appointees, or
just political appointees you don't like?
Ms. Simon. It's not the political appointees that I like or
don't like, it's their attempt to thwart the work of scientists
in the agency to----
Mr. Meadows. So how does collective bargaining fix that?
Ms. Simon. I think that you have protections where
scientific integrity can be written into a collective
bargaining agreement that can protect the ability of Federal
employees to carry out the mission of the agency without fear
of retaliation from political appointees.
Mr. Meadows. So you're saying a collective bargaining
agreement would be paramount to any administration directive?
Is that what you're saying?
Ms. Simon. I do think that there is a tremendous risk right
now in this highly politicized environment that----
Mr. Meadows. But this is not the first time. I mean, it's
not just this administration.
Ms. Simon. This is the first time in my experience and I've
been doing this for over 30 years.
Mr. Meadows. So this is the first time that there's been a
political environment in the Federal workforce. That's a bold
statement.
Ms. Simon. It's substantially worse than it's ever been.
Mr. Meadows. And what matrix do you have that? I mean,
you've got a matrix for that?
Ms. Simon. Yea.
Mr. Meadows. What matrix?
Ms. Simon. There was a short period of time during the
George W. Bush administration where claims representatives at
the Social Security Administration were required to inform
claims applicants that----
Mr. Meadows. That's anecdotal. So what matrix do you have,
Ms. Simon?
Ms. Simon. I'm not sure what you mean by matrix.
Mr. Meadows. You're saying it's worse than it's ever been.
What quantitative matrix do you have to support your----
Ms. Simon. Reports from our members in almost every agency.
Mr. Meadows. So you can get those reports to this
committee?
Ms. Simon. They aren't necessary always written reports.
Mr. Meadows. Well, that's not quantitative.
Ms. Simon. I can certainly give you information that
demonstrates that Federal employees in several executive branch
agencies feel as though there are political pressures on them.
Mr. Meadows. So that's not a matrix, Ms. Simon.
Ms. Simon. I don't know what you mean by matrix.
Mr. Meadows. Well, I'm a math guy, so let me just tell you.
Just like with his surveys, you can look at the matrix and say
this many employees said this, that, and another. That's a
matrix, and that's what I was asking you for, and apparently
you don't have that.
Ms. Simon. I can put something together for you but it
wouldn't be very scientific.
Mr. Meadows. Okay. I recognize--Mr. Raskin has been here,
and so a very generous 6 or 7 minutes.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Chairman Meadows. What a pleasure to
have you sitting in that seat today.
Thank you all for your testimony.
I wanted to start by asking Ms. Simon something, following
up on a point she made about the President's proposal to lower
the cost of benefits for present and future retirees by $143
billion billion over the next decade. One of those proposed
cuts is for retirement annuities that qualifying Federal
employees earn, and I've got tens of thousands of those who
live in my district in Maryland. And this retirement annuity
provides a fraction of the income that they earned while they
worked.
It's called FERS, and they paid for the annuity over the
course of their working lives. The proposal is to increase the
amount that they pay for it, but not to increase the amount
that they get back from it. So I just want to be clear, does
this proposal really translate into a pay cut?
Ms. Simon. Well, there's two answers to that question.
First answer, yes, it does. The proposal is to shift cost for
the provision of that benefit from the government to the
employee. Right now, that would mean for most Federal
employees, most Federal employees who are under FERS pay 0.8
percent of their salary for their FERS annuity. Under this
proposal, eventually they'd pay about 7-1/4 percent of their
salaries for the annuity.
The annuity itself would also be lower. So they would
simultaneously pay more and receive less.
Mr. Raskin. And get less. Okay.
Ms. Simon. It would not--the trust fund that finances the
benefit is fully funded under the current benefit formula. This
is not about financial solvency of the retirement plan.
Mr. Raskin. Okay. Mr. Valdez, so will this effective pay
cut, the change in the retirement annuity package, affect
supervisor and managers and senior executives under the
proposal?
Mr. Valdez. Sure. Yeah. It affects all Federal employees.
Mr. Raskin. Okay. And so, and this question may be I will
come to you, Mr. Stier. I enjoyed very much your testimony
because you had some concrete positive ideas about how we might
move forward. But, of course, what we're getting instead is a
proposal just to cut, cut, cut.
What's the effect of that on the workforce? I mean,
intuitively, it would seem like that's demoralizing, but give
me your sense as an expert in the field?
Mr. Stier. Well, look, we have data, and what is shows is
that the Federal workforce is below a reasonable private sector
norm in terms of their engagement, and substantially so. So
what's most striking about the data is that when it comes to
mission commitment, that's the one place the Federal workforce
far exceeds that private sector norm. People who are in the
government are there because they want to serve the public and
they want to fulfill whatever mission is associated with the
agency that they are employed at.
Where they are being held back from achieving that mission
is mostly through their leaders, and so that's the place where
you will have biggest bang for the buck is improving the
overall leadership, and that's from the top down. And there are
a lot of very, again, positive things to do to address that.
Mr. Raskin. Got you. What do you think needs to be done in
order for us to be having the right conversation about
remoralizing the workforce, uplifting everyone, and making it
more efficient and effective?
Mr. Stier. In a minute.
Mr. Raskin. No, less than a minute because I've got two
more questions.
Mr. Stier. Okay. So sorry. I would say that we have done a
report on the broader civil service reform. If you force me to
focus on one point, that would be really on that leadership-
ownership point. One thing I did not say, which I should have
said, is that it's the executive branch leaders but it's,
bluntly, you and all of Congress, too. Congress is a steward of
the executive branch and could do better in oversight, in the
underlying legislation, on providing real longer-term budgets,
and obviously, in confirmation, which is not your piece.
Mr. Raskin. Right. There was some discussion earlier about
this whole controversy about so-called official time, which is
the idea that representatives at the workforce can do
representation of people in the workforce on their official
time, on their official duties, without losing their progress
toward retirement and so on.
And I made a visit the other day to the PASS office in my
district, which is under the FAA, but it's--they do work like
air traffic controllers and develop all the maps and so on. And
what I heard from both the managers there and the workers there
is that the official time process has been critical to
absorbing the shock of a lot of cuts that have come forward
because the official time enables representatives of the
employees to sit down with management to transition to new
projects.
And I'm just wondering whether you think this attack on
official time is, in fact, warranted and justified, or whether
it's something that is very much part of the culture of the
Federal workplace today?
I don't know, Mr. Valdez, perhaps you've got some thoughts
on that.
Mr. Valdez. Yeah, I think the discussion about official
time actually relates to your question, Mr. Meadows, about the
matrix. We don't know enough to be smart on this issue. There
hasn't been a good set of data developed to show what is being
done at different agencies in terms of official time and what
those practices are, so I think a lot of this rhetoric is----
Mr. Raskin. Well, the ones that I spoke to, again, the
Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, the PASS office they
thought it was just critical in order to do their jobs to have
all the employees represented at the table when they are
actually developing new work regimes.
Mr. Valdez. There's no question, you know, from our
perspective at the Senior Executive Association, that there
should be official time. But, you know, I think there are
questions about whether or not it has been an effectively
utilized resource in the Federal Government.
Mr. Raskin. Okay. I think I've taxed the patience of the
chair. Thank you very much, Mr. Meadows.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you for your insightful questions. The
chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly, for
5 minutes.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome to our
panel. Mr. Valdez, I was intrigued by your last observation. We
don't really have enough data to give Mr. Meadows the matrix
he's seeking on official time. You would agree?
Mr. Valdez. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. I find that remarkable, given the fact that
this committee has actually had hearings condemning official
time, characterizing it as, you know, something that ought to
be restrained, constrained, curtailed. How can we do that if we
don't have the data you say we don't have?
Mr. Valdez. I don't have a response to that question.
Mr. Connolly. Uh-huh. Okay. Just thought I'd make the
point. It works both ways when we want matrices. Data is data.
Mr. Meadows. If the gentleman will yield.
Mr. Connolly. Of course.
Mr. Meadows. My matrix had nothing to do with the official
time.
Mr. Connolly. Oh, I know. I thought I'd just throw that in.
But your matrix had something to do with, I think collective
bargaining and the union?
Mr. Meadows. With regards to performance. How do we know
where we are, and that is why Mr. Stier has always seen a warm
welcome in a bipartisan way.
Mr. Connolly. So, Ms. Simon, some things were characterized
as anecdotal, but the fact that there was a 3-year Federal pay
freeze, and there's another one in the President's budget this
year, that's not anecdotal. That's a fact; is it not?
Ms. Simon. That's correct.
Mr. Connolly. The fact that benefits were curtailed, the
money actually taken out of Federal employees pockets to the
tune of about $190 million, all in the name of debt reduction,
that's a fact, not anecdotal; is that correct?
Ms. Simon. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. And the fact that, for example, this
committee passed a 2-year probationary time period for future
employees of the Federal workforce, again, that's not
anecdotal. We actually did that; is that correct?
Ms. Simon. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. Now, I'm just spitballing here, but could
collectively, those kinds of actions, to say nothing of verbal
disparagements of the Federal workforce which, by the way, was
not anecdotal. The first significant negative comment with
respect to the last 8 years actually came from the person who
became Speaker of the House, John Boehner, when he gave a
speech in the fall of 2010 in Cincinnati, in which he
explicitly disparaged the workforce, being overpaid,
incompetent, too many, all that kind of thing.
By the way, from somebody who said the Federal Government
ought to be run like a business; I don't know a CEO of a
business who would hold his or her job doing that to the
workforce; but that's neither here nor there.
But that actually happened. Does this have an impact on
morale and productivity?
Ms. Simon. Of course it does. And I've been listening to
people talk about the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey as if
it were some kind of oracle. You know, people are fed a
particular list of questions that are, certainly, a good
portion of them are leading questions, and they are designed to
provide data to make a certain kind of case.
They also sort of bypass the union as the representative of
the workforce. And trust me when I tell you, we hear a lot of
complaints, and people, throughout the Federal Government, many
of whom are military veterans, certainly in the Department of
Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, large
percentages, up to a third of the civilian workforce in the
Department of Defense and in the Department of Veterans Affairs
are veterans themselves.
And the rhetoric that surrounded the accountability law
that was passed last year was so harsh and so demoralizing and
defamatory to that workforce, as if they don't care about the
welfare of veterans.
Mr. Connolly. I'm going to run out of time, but I do want
to say, the chairman of this session is not one of those
people. I mean, to my friend, Mr. Meadows' credit, he has gone
into Federal agencies and actually had work sessions with
employees to hear their perspective to learn more. I wish all
of our colleagues took the time to do that, because there is
such a sense of angst created by this kind of rhetoric and this
kind of behavior.
I'm going to run out of time, so if you don't mind, Ms.
Simon, I'm going to ask Mr. Stier and Mr. Valdez one last
question.
Impact on recruitment. We're going to lose--I mean a huge
percentage of the current workforce is eligible for retirement.
How do we find the replacement, especially at the higher end
skill set, with this kind of context, with this kind of
negative or hostile context with respect to the Federal
workforce and attitudes toward the Federal employee coming out
of this body, current administration, and previous
administrations, as my friend, Mr. Meadows, points out. How do
we do that?
And then I'll, of course, yield back my time.
Mr. Valdez. I think, and it's an excellent question, and I
think back to the 1970s when the military was under such
attack, you know, following the Vietnam War and the, you know,
morale in the military was so low. It's sort of analogous to
what's happening today.
What I think is important that we restore a sense of
purpose to the Federal Government worker, and a sense of the
nobility of public service; and that is a bipartisan effort
that needs to be done, and it needs to be done in conjunction
with Congress. You know, the American people deserve a good
government, but they are not going to get it with the kind of
rhetoric that we are hearing in the press and elsewhere.
Mr. Stier. So look, I think this is a very real problem,
and we heard the question earlier from the other chairman about
trusting government, and I think it's a fundamental issue
because we need--our government's our only tool for collective
action to address our most critical problems that has the
imprimatur the public and the taxpayer resources behind it.
It's a critical element of our democracy, and we have a set of
problems, and what you're describing is a real one.
But it's a little bit like the house with the leaky roof
that's also on fire, and you've got to deal with the fire
first. The fire first is that we don't have leaders, either on
the executive branch, or here in Congress, that truly own the
organization that they're responsible for. They are rewarded
for crisis management, policy development but not for making
their organizations better.
I would posit that if you required some sort of score card
on the data points we've talked about already and developed
better ones, had real transparency around whether the leaders
are performing in a way to drive that number up when you ask
how many people can raise a violation of law or ethics without
fear of retaliation, that would have a bigger impact.
If you require those leaders to take responsibility for
recruiting great talent in, that's not something that happens
today and it does happen in every other good organization.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your
patience. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the Record
testimony of Anthony Reardon, president of the National
Treasury Employees Union.
Mr. Meadows. Without objection.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the chair.
Mr. Meadows. I thank the gentleman for his kind words, and
right before I recognize the delegate from the District of
Columbia, Ms. Simon, I want to point out one thing because I'll
forget it if I don't do it now.
In your testimony, you talked about displacing Federal
workers with subcontracted or the like contracts. Just know
that the gentleman from Virginia and myself agree on this
point, that displacing Federal workers with subcontracted
services is not a good plan in my mind, unless it truly does
make us more efficient, and you will find someone who actually
supports that position really vigorously, because I think at
times, we act like we are saving money by just subcontracting a
service out, and so I wanted to point that out.
So I recognize the gentlelady from the District of Columbia
for 6 minutes.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for pointing
that out. That would be a matrix that we would have to measure
as well if we subcontract.
I'd like to ask the three of you, is my recollection of
statistics correct that the Federal workforce is the most
highly educated workforce in the country?
Ms. Simon. As a group, the answer is yes. On average, and
in terms of its median educational attainment, yes.
Ms. Norton. That's what I would be going by, speaking of
matrices. Yes.
Mr. Valdez, Mr. Stier?
Mr. Valdez. I actually am not familiar with that statistic,
so I'll rely upon my colleague to the left.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Stier?
Mr. Stier. I think you're entirely correct that it's a
workforce that has a very high level of educational attainment
and expertise, and that's one of the reasons why we need to see
a different system because 40 years ago, it looked very
different, and what we've seen overall----
Ms. Norton. 40 years ago, it was----
Mr. Stier. It's a workforce that has been moving from much
more in the way of clerical activity to much more
professional----
Ms. Norton. And that's really the point I'm getting to. If
we're going to have these, have the best workforce in the
country because of the nature of the work, Federal work, are we
recruiting people at the same level that the private sector is,
when you consider technology and at the same level so that we
would end up with the same, with a parity workforce today?
Are we keeping up, in other words, with the competition
that we're facing from abroad and from every place else as we
try to make sure we maintain these standards?
Mr. Stier. My answer would be no, I don't think we are.
Ms. Simon. I would say that people still want to work for
the Federal Government because the work is so important. But
there are certainly concerns about the relentless attacks on
the compensation package, with threats to reduce the number of
days of paid leave, threats to shift costs for health insurance
and retirement benefits, and turn everybody into either a term
or a temp employee, with no any kind of career tenure. It makes
the Federal Government a much less attractive proposition than
it was even a few years ago.
Mr. Valdez. I spent my time at the Department of Energy,
which is a highly technical organization, and we didn't have
trouble attracting the kind of high talent, high level talent
that we needed. But I would agree that there has been, you
know, in recent years a reluctance, particularly among young
people, to enter Federal service when they have options in the
private sector.
Ms. Norton. I really did have in mind that generation of
millennials who, ultimately, are going to have to replace--they
seem to be very opportunistic in how they look for work.
I'd like to follow up on this official time notion because
we have had hearings on that, and I believe that, in the course
of collective bargaining, the Department of Education may have
actually dispensed with official time?
Ms. Simon. For all practical purposes this faux contract,
and it's certainly not a contract, because a contract requires
two parties, right? This was implemented unilaterally. Official
time has been eliminated for all representational work.
Ms. Norton. So I don't understand how a collective
bargaining contract can work at all if there's no official time
in order to attend to--so somebody needs somebody to handle
their particular grievance. That's what official time is
largely for. How is that done?
Ms. Simon. Well, under this what we call it an edict,
sometimes, faux contract because, again it was not collectively
bargained, it was imposed unilaterally. The union
representative has to ask his or her supervisor for permission
to take some time off of work and----
Ms. Norton. Are you saying the person has to take leave?
Ms. Simon. Leave without pay, yes. And it has to, they have
to gain permission from the supervisor. It might be the same
supervisor against whom a grievance has been filed. And then
that representation has to occur either outside--it's
impossible. There's no representation.
Ms. Norton. Well, has the union done, your union or other
Federal unions, done any work to document how that is
happening? In other words, are people willing to ask for that?
I mean, I'm sure some people want to do it as good union
people, but we need some evidence of what the effect is. I
think that's the only agency that's done that.
Ms. Simon. Thank God, so far. It's been about 6 weeks.
We're really put in a corner because, as you know, we have a
legal obligation to represent members of our bargaining unit.
Ms. Norton. Is anybody suing? You actually have a legal
obligation. Under the law, is there a lawsuit about being
deprived of official time which would enable carrying out that
legal obligation?
Ms. Simon. Well, we've filed an unfair labor practice
complaint with the FLRA, but without a--the FLRA can't rule on
it right now.
Ms. Norton. Because they don't have--we went through that
in the first panel.
Ms. Simon. Yes. And I'm not an attorney, so I can't really
talk about our legal strategy.
Ms. Norton. Well, I am one, and I ask you to ask your own
general counsel to look into what I see as--I don't care what
the FLRA, if they get counsel or not, unless they correct this,
it does seem to me to be a violation of the ability to bargain
at all. So, I don't want to predict the outcome, but it's a
lawsuit just waiting to be filed.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Meadows. I thank the gentlewoman for her questions. I
thank each of you for your testimony, and here's what I would
like to ask each of you to do. Actually, Mr. Stier, put a 10-
point plan out there. So Mr. Valdez, if you're willing to look
at that 10 points, and if you need a copy of it, we'll get it,
but I'm sure you already have it. If you'll look at how, from
your perspective, some of the concerns you have with it, and
some of the ways that you could implement it, and report back
to this committee within 60 days. Can you do that?
Mr. Valdez. Absolutely.
Mr. Meadows. All right. Ms. Simon, if you would do the same
thing. And I hate to use Mr. Stier's 10 points as kind of the--
but in your testimony, here's--you suggested that there was
some concerns that you had in terms of some of the areas, so
I'd like you to look at his 10 points and, from your
perspective, say these are areas that we have real concerns
with. These are some areas that we think that we could support.
And that way it doesn't come in one bucket. We can take this as
the benchmark and all look to that, because what I'd like to do
is, from both of your perspectives, be able to take the 10
points that he's recommending, which really comes from really
the Federal employees.
I mean, those recommendations come directly from input, and
I know that you were not positive about the way that they get
that input because it bypasses the unions. But at this point,
it's really the only data that we have as I go down looking at
the data in terms of what Federal employees are saying.
And so if you could do that, Ms. Simon, and report back in
60 days, same timeframe.
Ms. Simon. I'd be happy to do that. However, I would also,
with your indulgence, like to share with you maybe a couple of
collective bargaining agreements because they really show what
the priorities of Federal employees are.
Mr. Meadows. Certainly, if you want to get that along with
that submission, but 60 days, is that enough time, Ms. Simon?
Ms. Simon. Yes.
Mr. Meadows. Okay. And Mr. Stier, here's what I would like
to ask of you. As you look at this, if you could look at it
from your perspective of the two different opinions we may
have, from our senior executive, and then from our covered
employees, if you could look at it and say, from an oversight
standpoint, here's some of the areas that you have to be really
concerned about. If you could get that back in the same 60
days, if that would be appropriate.
So, again, thank you to all of you for your testimony and
your graciousness for being here so late.
And if there is no further business before the committee,
thankfully, we will go ahead and adjourn.
[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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