GovernmentExecutive.com

The federal government has a problem with its personnel -- or its workforce, or its human capital, or whatever term of art you choose. That's not exactly news. After all, the Government Accountability Office and the Office of Personnel Management have been warning for years that agencies face a crisis of epic proportions as baby boomers begin to retire.

In a way, it would be comforting if all that agencies had to worry about was replacing their aging workers. But in fact, the situation is a lot more complicated than that. For some agencies, the retirement tsunami is still looming as a future threat. But others already don't have enough employees to get the job done. Still others have too many workers -- or at least too many new employees they've hired in recent years and are still trying to integrate into their operations.

Overall, civilian federal employment has been steadily rising since it bottomed out at a little more than 1.7 million employees in 2001.

It now stands at more than 1.83 million workers, and the Office of Management and Budget projects that figure will continue to rise to 1.87 million by next year. But the increase has been concentrated in a few pockets of the workforce, most of them related to defense and homeland security.

The Justice Department's workforce has increased by nearly 18 percent since 2001, and the Homeland Security Department's total is up by more than 8 percent since its creation in 2003. The Defense Department has been slowly but surely boosting its civilian workforce since it bottomed out at 650,000 employees in 2001.

But during the same period, employment at the Agriculture and Treasury departments has declined, as has the total workforce at agencies dealing with health, education and Social Security.

Lack of staff limits what many agencies can do. For example, the Associated Press reported in April that 13 percent of the food Americans consume is imported, but only 1.3 percent of incoming food shipments are ever inspected by U.S. authorities.

With limited resources and staff, the Food and Drug Administration focuses on foods that pose a high risk of contamination, such as seafood, fruits and vegetables. But that leaves out products such as the contaminated Chinese wheat gluten that recently poisoned dogs and cats nationwide.

Even at those agencies that are adding staff, managing people has become a major concern. In a recent C-SPAN interview, CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said that more than half of his agency's employees have been hired since Sept. 11, and 20 percent of its analysts were brought in within the past year.

"Right now, my biggest challenge is absorbing the growth we've had inside the agency and putting these new resources to work in an efficient and effective way," Hayden said.

Meanwhile, most agencies continue to rely increasingly on contractors to do the work they lack the staff to do themselves. Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., has noted that the government's acquisition workforce is half the size it was in 2001, while the number of contracts issued by agencies has doubled over the same time period.

Even at agencies whose workforces have increased in recent years, contract management is often a problem. The Coast Guard has seen significant staff increases since 2001, but members of Congress argued earlier this year that the agency needs additional contract oversight employees to address problems in its massive Deepwater acquisition program.

Moran has proposed boosting the overall federal procurement workforce, while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., has suggested attacking the problem from the opposite direction. On the presidential campaign trail in April, Clinton pledged to cut 500,000 federal contract jobs. That's five times the number of contract workers 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry had proposed eliminating.

In neither case was there much in the way of detail to back up the proposal. How exactly do you cut the contractor workforce? And if you do, who's going to do the work?

When it comes to 21st century personnel management, lawmakers and federal employees themselves haven't been able to reach agreement even on the basics. Witness the slow, painful efforts to overhaul the Defense and Homeland Security personnel systems.

Meanwhile, the clock is running, and the challenges are getting bigger and bigger.

COMMENTS

• I second Taxpayer's comments. I too am a long time DOD civilian, and have seen the same hypocrisy. It is more often than not, those that climb the ladder, dazzle with BS, or are so acidic they burn everyone they can make under them. There are just so many layers of management the few that do real work can support. The upside down pyramid is toppling. Civil Slave Posted May 3, 2007 2:30 PM
• My experience in DoD is a prime example of why people are leaving government. They screwed us with the new NSPS pay system, they move us and house us in cube far below any government standard for size, the room tempature is far too hot, the work assignments do not follow your job but go to those that will get them done, they put forth false data and plans because they only want to meet a deadline for the plan, the top managers are always out and never let the staff know what is going on or their position on anything other than an immediate problem, they try to answer every Congressional question even when the questions are ridiculous, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on falty policies that top mangers cannot even begin to evaluate, they respond to audits by incompetent auditors as if they were gods, there is no moral stand on anything - just do it, the DoD itself sends out a proposal for servicces to comment on and when everyone disagrees the DoD goes ahead anyway to meet deadlines rather than getting it correct, DoD also lies to the components by saying that this one or that one coordinated when they didn't and the components are so ready to go along with the pack that they then ok stupid proposals. Why do you think people want to get out? It has nothing to do with retirement per se other than that makes it possible to get out! Also, contractors aree a major problem. Contractors do as they are told or they do not get rehired - kind of like the volunteer military officers. Military leaders do not have to rely on civilian employees because they just go hire contractors to do what they are told and replace the civilian employees. The alternative is to hire retired military so they will do as they are told because that is all they know. taxpayer Posted May 3, 2007 7:00 AM
• Oooh, did I hear a biased opinion in there; an anti-representative shot at that? Here’s my return volley. I, too, used to see little or no use for unions in this day and time. Recent personnel initiatives have convinced me and many of my coworkers as well that we need to support our local. I think you’ll find a growing segment of the civilian population is merely doing what they think they must to survive; i.e. band together. And it’s a shame that it take something like NSPS to accomplish that. Just because folks take defensive postures against America’s biggest business, who seems willing to sacrifice them on the budgetary altar, doesn’t mean they aren’t productive. Many wished for an alternative; but, alas, there seems none. I am not sure what the anonymous poster meant by “labor unions apparently in league with some career SES leaders”. Trust me, the unions and we common folk would both be astounded if the SES leaders were in our corner. Personally, they seem oblivious to the needs of the masses. We only wish for only the status quo, with minor adjustments. If anything, we invite more true supervision. No, NOT micromanaging, but the reversal of most first line supervisors from being worker bees first and supervisors second. If supervision were the primary job of most supervisors, they would have the time to plan, organize, and train; something that seems rare these days. Is this desire what is setting the civil service up for a big fall? As for promotions which is worse; sympathy or nepotism? I think it all depends on which end of the looking glass through which you peer. Tip off GovExec.com reader Posted May 1, 2007 4:18 PM