Some good news (for a change) about shoring up protection for those unmasking waste, fraud, and abuse.  Several national legislators are working to reverse what some think is a diminution in safeguarding employees who speak out.

This measure is supported by well-known politicians in an apparent bi-partisan, bi-cameral effort to clarify how well-intended workers may be shielded from employer retaliation.

Stephen Barr’s column on this subject (6/26/06) offers more details. 

Look at what they are doing — or trying to do — at the Department of Agriculture.  Be still my heart!

As a long-time federal manager, I loathed these flexible work schedules:  Alternative Work Schedule (AWS) or Compressed Work Schedule (CWS).  They drove me nuts — NUTS!

Invariably, something would arise when my expert employees were out on their AWS or CWS days.  You could bank on it.  Plus, trying to schedule meetings on Mondays or Fridays was darn near impossible, and avoided at all costs.  It seemed as though the world was working a three-day schedule while I was working five.

I know that a gaggle of folks are on such arrangements and absolutely love them.  What's not to love?  A lot, if you're a supervisor or colleague needing to connect immediately with a trained employee to finish an important project or respond to a hot ad hoc inquiry that must be answered right now! 

On the other hand, four fingers and a thumb.  Seriously, on the other hand, this is a device to help recruit and retain those same-self experts on whom we depend, right?

Give us your good and bad about AWS and CWS.  I'd imagine a few of you may have some thoughts.

You may recall how impressed I was by Michael Grunwald's series on the Corps of Engineers that ran in the Washington Post six years ago.   It was the kind of reporting on a government agency that the Washington Monthly has not only sought to publish itself, but to encourage others to do.

Recently, Grunwald reviewed what had happened to the example of Corps boondoogles that he had highlighted in his story.  It was a $65 million flood control project in Missouri that would “drain more acres of wetlands than all U.S. developers do in a typical year, but wouldn't stop flooding in the town it was meant to protect.”.  Did the Corps cancel this ill-advised project?  Certainly not.  The only change that has occurred is in the cost.  It is now going to take $112 million to complete.  Grunwald wonders how the Corps has escaped the lion's share of culpability for Katrina.  In the blame game, it ranks far behind FEMA.  Yet FEMA didn't cause the flooding.  The Corps did–”a useless Corps shipping canal intensified Katrina's surge…Poorly designed Corps floodwalls collapsed just a few feet from an unnecessary $750 million corps navigation project, the Corps had promoted development in dangerously low-lying New Orleans flood plains and had helped to destroy the vast marshes that once provided the city's natural flood protection.”    

The reason the Corps successfully dodged responsibility and resisted reform until accepting some blame in June is the iron triangle, composed of career Corps bureaucrats, the contractors who make millions in profits from Corps projects, however lunatic, and the members of Congress for whom the Corps porjects offer some of the juciest slices of pork available.

This is something you don't see every day.  A Senator given the door when visiting a federal agency and exerting his Congressional prerogative.

Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), not just any run-of-the-mill Senator, if there really is such a thing, got his commuppens when he decided to visit Health and Human Services yesterday and get some satisfaction.  He got the boot.  Here are the details from The Washington Post today 

The on-again, off-again drive to use private debt collection agencies at IRS is on hold.

This issue has more sides than a buffet at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Rather than having federal employees, IRS Revenue Officers, come to your door and demand back taxes, private companies will be calling to persuade you to part with more money to pay the piper.

If this initiative gets off the ground, there will be more different companies participating in this effort than customers at a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream counter on April 15.  Up to 10, per Stephen Barr’s article today could be collecting taxes by 2008.

There is resistance.  It’s a hard nut to swallow when major changes are proposed in life, although I find it hard to believe that the American public really yearns to see the face of an IRS Revenue Officer versus a phone call from a faceless non-government agent.  Actually, I suspect people really don’t want contact from either.

Today’s privacy problems (Veteran Affairs and IRS laptops stolen or missing, which contained individual data) don’t help make the case to share more info with more people who may lose or share it with those not entitled to receive it.  Yet, with the government’s recent poor track in securing data, could the private sector do any worse?

Another argument against using private companies to perform a seemingly inherent governmental activity, which is non-contractible, is the fear of overzealous collection activity.  Colleen Kelley, head of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), noted it was odd that IRS will connect company fees to the amount of money collected, especially since it forsook using that approach with its employees recently.  Ms. Kelley doesn’t say that NTEU was probably the biggest single reason for that, as the union feared that those employees who did not, for whatever reason, collect as much revenue as their colleagues, would suffer financially with lower performance appraisals.

A Congressman, Steven Rothman (D-N.J.), added that government collection activity costs IRS three cents on the dollar whereas this contract promises companies 21 and 24 percent of garnered revenue.  What’s not in the article is the amount of money IRS expects to collect from so-called direct enforcement activities, which these are.  It would be interesting to do the math and see if what the Representative avers is accurate.  One benefit to the government of this proposal is that companies may ultimately pursue lower revenue yield cases, which IRS never assigned to its employees.

What do you think about all this?  Are you adamantly opposed to contracting out what some would see as an inherently governmental activity?  Are you merely against contractors in any case?  Do you believe this is sensible approach?  Or, not a sensible approach. Regardless of your point of view, please share it and tell us why we feel that way.

Thx in advance for your participation!

"It’s Flag Day!"

Some things take longer than others. Rome wasn’t made in a day.  Good things are worth waiting for.  At this point, you may add the cliché of your choice.

And so it went with the establishment of Flag Day, June 14^th.  In the United States, we take pride in our flag, as do those in other countries.  However, a brief look at the development and creation of this mini-holiday may be both instructive and entertaining.

It all began back in 1777, when the Continental Congress adopted what some called the Flag Resolution on, surprise!, June 14^th.  This decreed that the Flag would consist of 13 alternating red and white stripes, accompanied by white stars on a blue background.

Yet 108 years lapsed between the Continental Congress’ act and further recognition of June 14 as being something more significant than the day following the 13^th and the one preceding the 15^th.

In 1885, a Wisconsin public school teacher, B.J. Cigrand, decided that his students ought to observe this day as “Flag Birthday.”  Thus, more than a century passed before any known steps were taken to mark the 14^th of June as a day possessing some intrinsic worth.

Things now began moving, relatively speaking.  Within the next 10 years, many other localities prescribed observances.  For example, in 1889, a New York City teacher, George Balch, hosted an activity for his school’s pupils.  As a result, the New York State Board of Education shortly thereafter adopted the practice.  Thus, the first two meaningful moves in memorializing the anniversary of the 1777 Flag Resolution were initiated through our country’s public school system.

Next, other groups, associations, and societies got onboard.  The Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution and the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames of America passed a resolution in 1893 requesting that Philadelphia’s mayor and all other officials and citizens fly the Flag on June 14.  Colonel J. Granville Leach of the Sons of the Revolution, recommended that this day be referred to as “Flag Day.”  By 1894, the governor of New York ordered that the Flag be flown on public buildings.  By June 14 of that year, our friend B.J. Cigrand, joined with Leroy Van Horn, conducted flag festivities in Chicago city parks that reportedly drew some 300,000 children. 

For the next three decades, state and local observances grew.  On May 30, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the anniversary of the original Flag Resolution, approved some 139 years earlier, to be Flag Day.  Thirty-three years later, President Harry Truman sealed the deal, signing an Act of Congress, which designated June 14^th as “National Flag Day.”

Yes, some things take longer than others, 172 years to be precise, from the original Flag Resolution to recognition of what is today’s Flag Day.

Enjoy the moment.  Rest.  Reflect.  This was some time in the making.

Fred Apelquist, contributing editor

UG Note:  Charlie Peters is "tilting" again.  Here’s a tidbit from his latest, which can be found in the Washington Monthly magazine.

The chilling effect of hypothetical fines

You may recall that after the Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia, a number of news stories mentioned that the fines against coal companies for safety violations often went unpaid or were reduced to a pittance. It turns out that the problem is not confined to mine safety. It is true of federal fines generally.

“The government is owed more than $35 billion in fines and other payments from criminals and in civil cases, according to Justice Department figures,” report Martha Mendoza and Christopher Sullivan of the Associated Press. Another example: “When nuclear labs around the country were found to be exposing workers to radiation and breaking other safety rules, assessments totaling $2.5 million were quickly ordered.” The only problem was that the assessments were then waived.

This failure to collect fines also happens at the state level. “When a gasoline spill and explosion killed three young people in Washington [state], officials announced a record penalty against a gas pipeline company: $3 million to send the message that such tragedies ‘must never happen again.’” What happened then? The pipeline fine was reduced by 92 percent.

The hardship of taramasalata

Government programs have a tendency to outlive their usefulness, to continue long after their original purpose has been accomplished. One of my favorite examples of this comes from an article by James Bennet, the new editor of The Atlantic, written while he was working here in 1991. It described how the Rural Electrification Agency lasted long after every farm in America had been wired by finding other worthy projects, such as helping out country clubs.

The most recent example I’ve discovered was in an article about hardship pay for the State Department’s overseas posts. It describes how money to pay for posts in Iraq and Afghanistan has been found by eliminating hardship pay in Athens, Warsaw, Hong Kong, and Seoul, meaning that up until now, State Department employees at these posts have been pulling down the extra bucks. Athens was found suitable for the Olympics two years ago, Seoul 18 years ago. Warsaw has not been a hardship post for almost as long, and Hong Kong has not been one for at least 50 years.

In English, please?

Everyone tells me Michael Chertoff is a smart fellow, and no one can question his dedication. After all, he gave up a nice lifetime job as a judge on a federal circuit court of appeals. Still, he talks in a way that makes alarm bells sound in my mind as I recall long dull meetings in the bureaucracy. He calls for a “properly risk-managed approach to critical infrastructure” and “an integrated, sensible, systems-based approach.” And according to Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, to whom I am indebted for these examples, he speaks of “the critical points of triangulation” and of “better information about the constituents of the supply chain.” At DHS, he aims for “internal integration into a unified command structure.” I have to say that I have never known anyone who talked this way who was also an effective leader.

Executive Branch workers and Contractors speak out! 

This phrase may have neither the panache nor the punch of the “workers of the world unite” slogan, but that’s OK because we’re neither communists nor proletarians.  We’re either producers (workers) or consumers (taxpayers) of government.  From protecting against another September 11 attack to ensuring trash is collected from our abodes, Executive Branch work has direct, immediate, and significant impact.  Government operations matter.

This Forum is designed to engage those within and outside government to address and achieve the best possible service for the taxpayer, most effective program execution, and highest degree of workforce pride.  

It’s a big task, but then it’s a big government, isn’t it?

Let’s build a history, perspective, and pathway for key issues affecting policymakers, workers, and taxpayers.  We can benefit from our collective experience. 

One of today’s big questions is use of contractor services.  What are the benefits and costs of hiring a contractor workforce?  Is it really cheaper, quicker, and better?  Some believe contractors don’t always have the needed skills to perform the job.  Others counter that agencies can’t immediately secure employees with 30 years of relevant experience except through the contracting out route.

My experience is that for years Requests For Proposal (RFPs) were issued, calling for special goods and services to achieve program objectives.  When I was employed at IRS, such contracts usually resulted in phone equipment or computer programming for management information reports or the like.  Some contractor support existed to fix identified software bugs, but these folks didn’t usually work side-by-side with federal employees in government space.  Now, contracts come with non-federal employees doing the actual office work that employees once performed.

When did this happen?  In IRS, my memory recalls it occurring with the massive computer systems modernization effort in the late 1990s.  Many are unaware that IRS has been trying to significantly upgrade its 1960s-based computer systems since the early 1970s, yet the surge in contractor support took years to materialize. 

In my last agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, where government employees were called “govvies” and non-federal staff were referred to as FTEs, I noticed there a much greater dependency on contractors and, until recent questions were raised in the counterintelligence arena, the phenomenon seemed destined to continue unabated.

Throughout my government career, I’ve detected varying degrees of animosity towards contractors, in part because many federal employees felt that these employees were better paid to perform similar or identical tasks.  Others felt that contracting firms merely parroted back findings that management wished them to validate.  A smaller portion welcomed the new perspective that third parties added.

Through your responses, we can build a history of contractor support to the government and a case – pro and con, cost effective or not – for decision makers in the Executive and Legislative branches to consider as they determine the future of federal, state, and local government.

Please add your voice to this important discussion. 

Fred Apelquist, contributing editor

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Old-timers, such as myself, recall federal government pay (along with states and localities) based on pre-defined levels. The feds had the well-known GS system of 15 pay grades and 10 "longevity" steps within each grade.

At the federal level, this system still exists for the majority of employees, but a move has been afoot for years, under the moniker of "pay for performance," to change pay and destroy the rigidity — and predictably — of pay under the existing decades-old approach. 

The theory is reported to be intended to reward high performers.  I believe it’s also targeted to address low performers as well.  Of course, not as much is mentioned about them because they are sticky wickets.  It’s hard to demote or remove civil servants.  Reams of documentation are required, so much so that many supervisors feel they can’t fulfill their officewide responsibilities if they must monitor every moment and move of the offending gold-bricker.  Perhaps it’s easier to merely cut the pay.  That way the employee would leave on her or his own.

The departments of defense and homeland security are in the midst of this mess now.  Their new pay for performance systems are not progressing as quickly, as well, or on as large a scale as many had hoped by now.

This Washington Post article by Stephen Barr (06/08/06) assesses today’s pay picture.

Are the principles behind these new proposals flawed?  Or are people fearful, with good reason, that the objectivity, talent, and decency don’t exist in the federal workplace to implement this properly?

Fred Apelquist, contributing editor