OPM takes strategic planning process public
Director sets Oct. 1 deadline for new plan, and suggests agency reorganization could follow.
The Office of Personnel Management will offer up for public comment its proposed strategic plan, a process that could help determine a reorganization of the agency's components, OPM Director John Berry said on Tuesday.
"We're going to post this on the Web site and everybody at OPM, as well as everybody in the world, is going to be allowed to have access for four weeks," Berry said. "We'll take all of that input and get back together again, reconsider all of that … but the idea is by Oct. 1 to have a blessed, sealed and approved strategic plan."
OPM technology will let the public track debate on the plan during the month it is available for comment online, Berry said. The Office of Management and Budget and Congress must approve the agency's strategic plan as part of a review process that occurs every five years by law.
Berry said that the Oct. 1 goal would enable OPM to develop implementation plans during the first quarter of fiscal 2010 for the strategic plan's various components.
The strategic plan includes efforts that Berry already has outlined, including reforming the hiring process and improving agencies' employment of veterans. But on Tuesday Berry also emphasized the need to build a more effective retirement processing system and to honor federal retirees as part of a larger effort to improve the reputation of public service.
In addition, he said the decision to put the plan online was part of a goal to improve communication with the public, and with OPM employees.
"We're trying to make this user-friendly so you might actually read it, you might actually remember it," he said. "Not only us, but our customers might read it and recognize what we're about."
Berry said the efforts he first discussed in June to realign OPM's components to help the agency better meet its mission would not begin until the strategic planning process was complete, and the agency's goals were clear. He has not discussed a reorganization in detail yet, but some senators have said they would like OPM to re-establish an office dedicated to the training, development and diversity of the Senior Executive Service. The office was disbanded during a 2003 agency reorganization.