Innovative military engineers discovered a non-lethal way to stop immediately suspicious vehicles without loss of life or property.  These employees were recognized and received cash for their life-savings efforts.  Here is still another example of your Executive Branch at work.

AirForceTimes.com carried a recent USA Today article, which explained these developments.

What a difference a few days make.  Originally, this article was to be in ironic juxtaposition to yesterday’s piece about the Army Corps of Engineers discarding plans to pursue a competition between its 2,000-employee lock and dam operations with the private sector.

Earlier this month, Daniel Pulliam (govexec.com) reported that IRS was pushing forward with its intention to pit its 2,000-employee Information Technology (IT) support staff against private company aspirants to determine who could best keep IRSers’ computers purring like contented cats.

Well, lookee here.  IRS has now backed off its initial idea. 

Yep, this is a sign of the times.  Contracting rules and conventions are being altered.  This will be interesting to follow, interpret, and analyze. 

Two a trend doesn’t make, of course, but…

Is this the dawn of a new, better day?  Or is it merely a case of supplanting one set of insufficient policies with another?

Fred Apelquist, contributing editor

We’ve said it before and we’ll probably refer to it again and again.  Being a contractor in the not-too-distant future will likely not be such a profitable enterprise.

Contractors won’t go away; however, the manner and frequency in which they are selected and analyzed will most assuredly change.  Policies and procedures surrounding contractor work will almost certainly become stricter.

Today’s article in The Washington Post makes this very point.  Aided by a new Democratic Congress, we can expect a different approach.  I also suspect we can anticipate seeing different companies being chosen to perform certain government functions.  Call it a hunch. 

We know that the new Congress will be paying more attention, and providing less moral and political support, to job competitions between federal employees and contractors.  Yet, it was the old Congress– actually the still current one – that balked at earlier efforts to proceed with this initiative.

Many people feel that enough is enough; the contractors have had their days in the sun and should now go sit in the shade for the next few months or decades.

The Army Corps of Engineers has determined that its 2,000 employees can manage lock and dam operations better than some wet-behind-the-ears consultant crews and will no longer pursue the public-private competition process for this work.

Jenny Mandel of Government Executive recounts developments over the past two fiscal years that have brought the Corps to this decision.

Fred Apelquist, contributing editor

What is the cost of whistle-blowing?  What is it when reporting someone or something to the Inspector General‘s office?  What is the result of not exposing malfeasance?

What is the price of silence?

There are so many human emotions and dynamics swirling around offices that it is virtually impossible to accurately identify and dissect them.

Where should we start?

For me, two factors explain the silence.  First, we do not wish to appear to be snitches, malcontents, or failing to be team players.  Second, we could be wrong.  Our emotions of hurt and anger may cloud our judgment.  Those whom we adjudge and assail as the legal and moral equivalents of Al Capone or Adolph Hitler may actually have some good reasons for doing what they do.

In those two rationales and fears lay all disincentives for coming forward and exposing abuses. 

You may say that I missed the biggest danger:  Fear of Job Loss!

That’s legitimate, for sure, but I feel it is a corollary of the two main reasons.  If we did not harbor thoughts of fallibility or rejection, why would we believe our jobs were at risk? 

On the contrary, we would expect that those who expose high crimes and misdemeanors would be lionized, praised, and promoted (figuratively and literally) as protectors of the common good.  Yet, such results are not often reported and, likely, may not occur in the real world with any meaningful frequency.

Thus, we have reached critical mass in this essay.  The price we pay for silence.  It is incalculable.  Sure, a portion can be quantified.  In their reports, General Accountability Office (GAO) and Inspectors General (IGs) identify specific costs of program mismanagement.  However, the human cost – the real cost – can never be plumbed.  This is the cost of an organization’s soul. 

People remain silent as their enterprise deteriorates into anguish and oblivion.  They do not want to rock the boat.  They do not want to raise questions that may not have simple, clear solutions that can be easily implemented. 

It would be wonderful if the waste and sickness and heart-break could be eliminated immediately without untidy fallout.  Yet we know that simple antidotes do not exist.  We bump up against the true price of silence.  We keep plugging along either hoping that the illness will cure itself or that we can adapt sufficiently to perform our jobs and be able to look at ourselves in the mirror each morning without feeling a knot in our stomachs.

Sometimes the problem is so pervasive and endemic that nothing short of a neutron bomb can fix things.  When the state of your office has reached that point — and I have both experienced it and heard of it from others — action is needed.  Once an organization has rotted so extensively that the troops are at least in a passive-aggressive mutiny, the decay becomes so apparent that others ultimately will act.  This could be an agency executive who has finally discerned the scope of the problem and realizes that changes – usually reassignments or reorganizations – must be taken quickly, or a third-party, such as an IG or the GAO, submits such damning narratives that Department heads must respond with alacrity and resolve.

Meanwhile, we have this outlet:  “The Forum.”  Here we can share problems and concerns.  This is a vehicle where reasoned discourse can occur, where the pros and cons of issues can be debated and resolved.

I have heard that more agencies are restricting employee use and participation in such Internet forums as ours to ensure proper use of government Information Technology (IT) assets.  This is understandable given recent reports of computer security breaches and misuse of government resources.   Therefore, we may not enjoy as many voices in our debates as we would like.

However, in the end, each of us must judge whether the price we pay for silence exceeds the cost we incur in our government operations and, perhaps most important, our souls.

Fred Apelquist, contributing editor

All together now:  “Hip, hip, hooray!”

There’s something to cheer about in how federal agencies are improving responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from the news media and citizens.

However, backlogs are rather large in some organizations and much work remains to be done.  One option is to send postcards to advise requestors that their inquiries are being addressed.  Such communications can be done quicker and cheaper than drafting full-fledged, fancy memorandums or letters.  Read Daniel Pulliam’s article (from govexec.com) to learn more details.

Another option I’d suggest is to post as much relevant agency information and statistics as possible on the Internet to preempt FOIA requests in the first place, as desired information would be easily plucked from agency web sites.   In cases where taxpayers request information that is already available on the Internet, government staff could quickly call or e-mail the customer and direct him or her to the data desired.

Would that work?  What other steps would speed response to citizens’ questions?

You’d think that “free” is good, but this joint IRS-private sector venture has been buffeted by critics ever since its inception in 2003.

Many folks within and outside of the IRS have been questioning many things about this initiative.  Should IRS be partnering with private tax software companies who’d rather have customer pay for services, lest they go bankrupt?  Are the taxpayers being served or exploited?  How many sales pitches should taxpayers be exposed to while they are trying to electronically file tax returns at no charge?

From the industry’s point of view, when this initiative first hit the streets, they were up in arms.  Businesses are in business to make money. 

A little historical perspective would be helpful.  Several years ago, many in the U.S. government felt that IRS should develop and offer free electronic tax return for the public.  This, of course, would represent a huge departure in U.S. (Executive Branch) policy.  The government would essentially be competing directly with existing services developed and offered by the private sector.

Needless to day, tax software companies were not too thrilled with the prospect of a multi-billion dollar industry potentially drying up and blowing away.  Industry interests successfully lobbied to kill a free government-developed software option; however, in the process, they had to agree to give something up in return.  As a result, an uneasy truce was forged, and companies agreed to offer “Free File” to American taxpayers.

[Interestingly, years before this evolved, Intuit, a California-based tax software company, had offered free electronic tax return filing to people with incomes of $25,000 or less.  This was part of the company’s own philantrophic proclivilties, and may have played as big a role as anything else in ultimately creating “Free File” and pressuring other companies to join in.  After all, it could be argued, if one company was providing such service on its own, why couldn’t others?]

Daniel Pulliam’s October 26, 2006, article in Govexec.com provides a good summary of the policy – and political – issues surrounding this seemingly wonderful means to help taxpayers fulfill their civic duty of filing and paying federal income tax.

How expansive should such an effort be?  Should for-profit companies be allowed to entice those using a free filing service to choose some other ‘for-fee’ goods or services?  Should only lower-income taxpayers benefit, or should it be available to the likes of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates?

Have you used “Free File” for filing your federal income tax return?  If so, what was your experience, and what do you believe the future of such service should be?

Fred Apelquist, contributing editor

As the expression goes, you can’t make chicken soup without a chicken.

At the Army Corps of Engineers, it appears as though the workers have flown the coop.

Check out Jenny Mandel’s account in Government Executive about the turn of fortunes at the Corps.  It seems as though the OMB A-76 Circular-guided process to determine who can best perform the work — private companies or in-house resources – has tied the agency’s IT support resources up into a knot.

As hard as this may be to believe, the task of updating and bolstering IRS’s tax processing capabilities has been in the works for the past 30+ years.  I know because I was part of one of the first projects in the early 1970’s to move IRS into the future of technology. 

Well, after three decades, it appears as though IRS has decided it’s time to change course — again.  The agency has concluded that taking smaller bites at this elusive apple are preferable to big, gagging chomps.

This article is not intended to criticize IRS or its managers in striving to stay abreast of the technological power curve.  I think that being one step ahead of the game is virtually impossible.  That basically explains the IRS quandary in a nutshell, and such a phenomenon is not restricted to only one government agency.  It’s endemic in the nature of government procurement, organizational culture, etc.

Just when IRS decides to move on Course Correction #1, technology makes a huge left or right turn, and the Service has to adapt and begin work on Course Correction #2, and then #3, and so on.  The problem is that the procurement and development processes don’t move as quickly as technology evolves.  In short, IRS and others are always behind the power curve.  It’s as if only smaller, more nimble organizations can possibly hope to move fast and frequently enough to stay abreast of what’s the latest and greatest Information Technology capabilities.

David Perera’s article (from govexec.com) provides interesting background, including an IRS Executive Summary about how the agency plans to deal with this challenge.

What’s the solution?  How can federal procurement policies parallel real-life technology developments so that needed operational improvements can be made while also maintaining sound review of acquisition practices?

Fred Apelquist, contributing editor

“Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back,” my dad would say when I was getting too full of myself as a child.  I’d imagine several members of Congress are walking around Capitol Hill with their arms in slings.

Of course, savings billions of dollars is no mere feat.  And it’s certainly better than not saving anything at all.  Yet, I believe my father would say that Members of the House Government Reform Committee should visit their orthopedic doctors tout de suite. 

Read Jenny Mandel’s article in Government Executive about the House Government Reform Committee’s finding of its value in furthering cost effectiveness in government operations. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not doing a Mark Anthony at Julius Caesar’s funeral by announcing to bury Congress and not praise it; however, the Reform Committee’s proclaiming a $6 billion savings over five years of $10 trillion of overall federal government spending is like coming home beaming to your spouse and saying, “Honey, I just bought us a beautiful $1,000,000 home in the country.   But instead of giving in to that exorbitant asking price, I managed, through tough negotiating skills, to get it for only $999,400.”

I suppose saving $6 for every $10,000 spent is better than saving only $5, but is it worth crowing about?