Government Executive - Authors - Frank Micciche

Black hole

Frank Micciche — Sun, 01 Apr 2001 00:00:00 -0500

On one hand, it is forward-looking and progressive, much like the city's renowned academic community. Relying on cutting-edge technology and construction techniques, it will replace 7.5 miles of antiquated highway with a sleek subterranean monument to advances in transportation infrastructure. When the project is completed, a new road will emerge from Boston's depths to span the Charles River on a futuristic suspension bridge-at 10 lanes the widest of its kind in the world-supported from 270-foot towers by gleaming pearl-colored cables.

On the other hand, the Big Dig is a testament to the old-school traditions of a city where politics and revenge are said to be the two favorite pastimes. Born of the disproportionate congressional influence of its patron, the late Democratic House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, the project, which traces its roots back to the early 1970s, has embroiled five different gubernatorial administrations and tried the patience of commuters, under whose tires the Big Dig has been moving forward fitfully for almost a decade. In the process, its date of completion has slipped six years, from 1998 to 2004, and its price tag has grown from $2.6 billion to more than $14 billion.

The most dramatic moment came on Feb. 1, 2000, when state officials announced the Big Dig would cost $1.4 billion more than expected, just hours after they filed a finance report with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) that failed to hint at any overrun. That announcement ended up bringing down both the iron-fisted state transportation czar-who had linked his own larger-than-life persona with a promise to finish the project "on time, on budget"-and the federal administrator responsible for overseeing the project. It also set off a furious search for blame in the state legislature, Congress and the federal transportation community, each of which expressed puzzled outrage at the enormity of the apparent cover-up and the amount of the overrun, which eventually ballooned to $3.2 billion.

As of early this year, it appeared that a new Big Dig management team had succeeded in putting the effort back on track. But the Big Dig raises troubling issues for similar multibillion-dollar undertakings that involve cooperation among numerous federal, state and local agencies. One thing is certain: Before a single car has passed through the newly paved underbelly of Boston, the project has left a psychic scar on the world of transportation management as real as the gaping hole it has ripped through the center of this thriving metropolis.

Digging Deeper

Almost from the time the Central Artery/Tunnel project was approved by Congress in 1987, federal officials have been concerned about potential cost overruns. That's because Uncle Sam is footing a major portion of the bill for the project. When the Big Dig began, the federal government was slated to cover 90 percent of its costs. Now, the federal contribution is capped at $8.5 billion, or roughly 60 percent of the current projected cost.

It took several years for the project's state and local managers to admit that costs were out of control. The Massachusetts state auditor, the Transportation Department's inspector general and the General Accounting Office all warned at various points that a 1995 estimate of $10.8 billion as the final cost was too low. Nevertheless, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, given authority for the Big Dig under a 1997 reorganization of the state's transportation jurisdictions, repeatedly refused to budge from the figure.

So in October 1999, when the turnpike authority submitted a new plan for the project-three months late-to the Federal Highway Administration's regional office in Boston, there was little surprise that the overall cost figure remained the same. Turnpike Chairman James Kerasiotes and Big Dig Director Patrick Moynihan, blasted a draft report by the Transportation inspector general claiming expenses would run to $11.8 billion and lobbied hard for approval of the plan. They said the IG's report was the product of a "backward-looking management technique that shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how a multimillion-dollar megaproject needs to be managed." Yet Kerasiotes and Moynihan did acknowledge that cost overruns totaling $500 million were possible.

On Feb. 1, 2000, FHWA agreed to conditionally approve the finance plan, but ordered a more detailed assessment, due in April, of the potential cost overruns. What happened next would inexorably alter the eight-decade highway-aid partnership between the federal government and the states. It also would cement for many observers the perception of the Big Dig as the epitome of government waste and mismanagement.

Just hours after the FHWA's Massachusetts Division administrator, Peter Markle, had signed off on the finance plan, and with no warning to federal transportation officials, Kerasiotes announced at a press conference that the Big Dig was actually $1.4 billion over budget. The increase included $915 million in unforeseen construction costs and $482 million in areas such as design, right-of-way acquisition and project management expenses. Jaws dropped as the level to which federal managers had been kept in the dark became clear.

"We felt deep disappointment that things could get so far out of hand and still be represented as [being] in good shape," says Mortimer Downey, who was then Deputy Secretary of Transportation. "To push so hard for approval of a finance plan one day and make the announcement that same day that they were that far over budget was very disappointing."

By Feb. 10, 2000, Transportation's inspector general had identified an additional $942 million in additional increases and scathingly criticized Markle's office, which had also objected to the October 1999 IG's draft, for "an alarming lapse in oversight." The report recommended that FHWA perform an independent assessment of all future data provided by the turnpike authority before approving any further Big Dig operations, a startling break from the established state-federal partnership.

On Feb. 17, 2000, then-Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater announced the formation of a task force to examine what led to the problems with the Big Dig and to make recommendations for revamping the FHWA oversight system to prevent future fiscal debacles. Those who had long opposed the project for both its price tag and autocratic management seized on the announcement.

Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee panel that oversees highway funding, called for an immediate freeze on funding and a criminal investigation of the Big Dig's managers. "Most projects in the country don't cost $1.4 billion, and this was just the increase," said Wolf. "It's almost become comical up in Boston." Wolf added that the crisis had reduced Transportation's standing to the point where "I don't think there's any confidence left" in the department's ability to independently assess the project.

Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., openly discussed the possibility that the final cost of the project could be as much as $20 billion and pushed for a cap on federal money for the project. Within weeks the Securities and Exchange Commission would join the FBI and Justice Department in probing the failure of Big Dig officials to reveal the overruns earlier to the turnpike authority's bond investors and federal officials.

Back in Massachusetts, Gov. Paul Cellucci expressed full support for Kerasiotes, not only rejecting calls to jettison the turnpike chairman, but claiming that "his stewardship has been superb." In the headstrong manner that had allowed him to acquire virtual free reign over all things transportation in the state, Kerasiotes vigorously defended his Big Dig efforts. "What keeps getting missed in all this is that this project has been managed, I think, better than any other project of its kind anywhere, ever," he said. "On many levels, the state should be applauded on its approach to this issue."

Big Man at the Big Dig

Kerasiotes' detractors, and even some of his supporters, would tell you that he has an ego to match the scale of the largest urban transportation project in U.S. history. For better or worse, Kerasiotes, who was named Massachusetts' Secretary of Transportation and Construction by former Gov. William F. Weld in late 1992, had become the face of the Big Dig. In the formative years of the project, his gruff, can-do persona was seen as the perfect fit for such a complex effort. He insisted that the cost be capped at $10.8 billion in 1995, instituting an official policy of "managing to the budget" that required any increases to be offset by decreases elsewhere in the operation.

He was so unwavering in his assessment of the price tag that Weld, now a venture capitalist in New York City, was willing to take his word over that of a top official from Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, the consulting firm that has earned nearly $2 billion as chief consultants on the project. The official warned in a 1994 meeting that the cost of the project was rapidly spiraling, but Kerasiotes dismissed such concerns as a ploy to get more money out of the state. Weld went along with his transportation secretary and won a landslide reelection later that year, despite claims by his opponent that the Big Dig was in deep financial straits.

Cellucci, who became acting governor in 1997, when Weld was nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Mexico, shared Weld's confidence in Kerasiotes and admiration for the vigor with which he took on the difficult job of containing the Big Dig's costs. In 1998, campaigning for his own term as governor, he responded to all questions about the project by pointedly repeating the "on time, on budget" theme. When State Treasurer Joe Malone, Cellucci's Republican primary opponent, challenged the claim, Kerasiotes questioned Malone's facts and suggested he might consider checking into the local mental hospital.

Kerasiotes stood firm in the wake of the Feb. 1 revelation that the Big Dig was way over budget. Claiming that the announcement showed a commendable willingness to confront fiscal unpleasantries, he disavowed the possibility that he might be removed. Kerasiotes noted the work he had done to "beat the living daylights" out of the project's cost, saying the overruns would have been three times higher without such diligence. In a stunning denial of what had been his trademark position, Kerasiotes even disavowed the $10.8 billion figure. "I haven't been out there selling the number $10.8 [billion]," he said, despite having publicly staked his reputation on delivering the project at that price. "Instinctively, anybody who's ever looked at anything like this knows it's going to cost more."

Political observers and Big Dig adversaries shook their heads at Cellucci's unwillingness to remove the chairman, even after a Wall Street Journal article appeared in which Kerasiotes asserted that the governor feared him, and called Cellucci's top political adviser a "moron" and his former chief of staff a "reptile."

The Federal Highway Administration's Markle, a career federal manager, met a far different fate than Kerasiotes. He was quickly reassigned in March 2000 after congressional critics, led by Wolf, demanded accountability for the overruns. Many career FHWA engineers quietly objected to the move, claiming political appointees suspected increases were coming but scapegoated the longtime administrator when their suspicions were confirmed.

After two months of fallout, it appeared that the controversial Kerasiotes had weathered the storm and would remain at the helm of the Big Dig to its completion, even with powerful federal forces such as Slater and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., implying that the project's future depended on a clean slate at the turnpike authority.

Taken to Task

All that changed in April 2000, when Cellucci received the report of a special FHWA task force on the Big Dig. The report was blisteringly critical of Kerasiotes, Markle and the existing state-federal partnership for highway aid. The task force accused the turnpike authority of "intentionally withholding knowledge" of the overruns and jeopardizing the "integrity and future success of the federal/state partnership by repeatedly and deliberately failing to disclose the full scope of the . . . project's finances."

Claiming Markle was too closely allied with turnpike authority representatives to perform his role as independent overseer, the report called the crisis "one of the most flagrant breaches of the integrity of the federal/state partnership in the history of the nearly 85-year old federal-aid highway program" and called for Kerasiotes' removal. Within an hour of receiving the report, Cellucci had telephoned Kerasiotes and requested he resign. Kerasiotes holed up in the office of the turnpike authority's legal counsel, making calls and consulting aides to gauge whether he should fight the request. In the end he gave in, but his publicly aired letter of resignation indicated little remorse or acceptance of responsibility and seemed to cast himself as a good-government hero done in by his dedication to the cause.

"Clearly, people feel I did mislead them," Kerasiotes wrote. "I must accept that verdict and move on. But I tell you, in my heart, I feel I pushed back on the budget's bottom line for only one reason: It was how I did business, to push back, to demand. Maybe I pushed too hard, maybe I demanded too much."

With the personnel struggle behind them, federal transportation officials dug into the structural flaws that the task force's report had laid bare. How did FHWA officials on the ground in Boston allow more than $3 billion in overruns to go virtually undetected, particularly given that the 1998 Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century had explicitly required review of the project's annual finance plan?

The report asserted that Markle's office lacked the sophistication or inclination to challenge the turnpike authority's figures. As a result, FHWA issued detailed guidelines for reviewing the Big Dig's finances and created a Headquarters Major Projects Team to oversee megaprojects. According to the task force, Markle's unwillingness to explore accusations of trouble at the Big Dig stemmed from mistaken trust in the Kerasiotes team, that eventually cost him his job in Boston.

"The division administrator's trust in his [Big Dig] project counterpart was misplaced, as demonstrated by the state's actions before and after the finance plan was accepted conditionally," the task force reported. Had the division administrator taken other steps within his delegated authority . . . the FHWA might have avoided the resulting embarrassment and loss of public confidence in its stewardship."

Oversight Overload

Among its many "firsts" and "mosts," the Big Dig may be among the most audited projects in the nation's history. On the state level alone, the project has been the subject of 15 reports by the state auditor and similar numbers of investigations by the Massachusetts inspector general and attorney general. The web of scrutiny is so complex that the state legislature, in which at least four committees spend weeks each year deliberating Big Dig-related issues, created an Oversight Coordination Committee for the sole purpose of overseeing the state's overseers of the project.

Federal efforts are similarly extensive, with Transportation's inspector general the most ardent watchdog, followed by the department itself, FHWA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the General Accounting Office and several congressional committees. Before the project's completion, its managers will need to get specific approval for more than 1,000 "permit actions" from city, regional, state and federal agencies. Still, Kerasiotes and the turnpike authority managed to conceal a 30 percent cost increase for months last year and had not been compelled to provide a budget revision since 1995, although sources as varied as the state inspector general and GAO pegged the likely cost at $12 billion as early as 1997.

When Kerasiotes was finally forced out, he was replaced by Andrew Natsios, who had been Cellucci's secretary of administration and finance and a longtime personal friend. After nearly a year on the job, Natsios had a theory on how the Big Dig slipped through the elaborate net of oversight. "At the state level, the project had a highly centralized system, a very feudal system," he says. "There were no connections between departments, so no one could put all the figures and all the information together. Within the federal government, maybe the FHWA thought the IG was taking care of it and the IG thought the FHWA was. There's a point at which the complexity of the oversight becomes self-defeating." Natsios adds that while Kerasiotes' deception was unacceptable, there are also dangers in spending too much time looking over the shoulders of project managers. "There's always a balance you have to achieve between getting the project done and accountability. And if you get too far on either side, you either have serious accountability problems, which is what we had, or you can't get the project finished."

Downey concurs that the Big Dig has highlighted a deficiency in the state-federal relationship, but hopes the February 2000 meltdown will be a lesson for future megaproject coordinators. "This has been a learning experience for us," he says. "It's about getting our people to recognize that there's an appropriate federal role, much like the role of a banker. You don't just hand money over. You trust but verify. Through evolution, it got too far away from accountability-too close to a partnership."

Few in political and managerial circles doubt that Natsios is the right kind of manager to follow Kerasiotes. A squeaky-clean policy wonk and one-time professor of public administration, he headed disaster relief for President George H.W. Bush's U.S. Agency for International Development, helping to coordinate the nation's humanitarian effort in Somalia and befriending the President's son. He also knew the internecine world of Massachusetts politics, having been a state representative and chairman of the Republican State Committee in the 1980s. Ironically, he had been one of the most vocal critics of the bill that launched the Big Dig, speaking vehemently against it as it came to the floor of the state legislature. "It was inconceivable to me that I would one day be running this project," says Natsios, who made no secret of the fact that he was taking the job out of obligation to his close friend Cellucci and not because he relished the challenge. But early this year, both Cellucci and Natsios announced they would leave their posts to join the Bush administration. Cellucci was nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Canada, while Natsios was named to head the Agency for International Development.

Natsios tore into what he considered to be a bloated turnpike authority with plans to eliminate 10 percent of its staff positions within five years. He also pledged to open the Big Dig to unprecedented public scrutiny and embraced the $14.05 billion price tag as a legitimate cost to complete the project. His candor has been well-received.

"I think he's bringing the kind of hands-on, results-oriented business approach to move the project forward," says Slater. "He's been open." Downey agrees. "Chairman Natsios has done a terrific job. He immediately recognized the importance of good management. He came in and took the appropriate steps."

The most important of those steps was the signing of an 11-point agreement with FHWA that caps the federal contribution at the $8.549 billion committed before the latest overruns. It also codifies the transparency Kerasiotes resisted, making all documents on Big Dig costs open to federal officials, and bolsters monthly reporting requirements to prevent any future February surprises. The arrangement signals a dramatic expansion of federal highway-aid oversight.

Natsios also took on the project's partners at Bechtel/Parsons. Several reports have criticized the closeness of the turnpike authority and the firm. In negotiating the firm's final contract, Natsios demanded that it reduce its fee from the previous 11.5 percent of cost to 7 percent, with the possibility of earning back one point for every $50 million the project comes in below $14.05 billion.

Natsios was not alone in taking issue with the status quo in light of the Big Dig's troubles. Transportation launched a task force to recommend revamping the oversight and monitoring of major projects.

The task force's recommendations focus on identifying and training megaproject oversight managers who will report on each project costing more than $1 billion to a new Transportation Department Executive Council. They would require state and local governments to document their ability to take on large infrastructure projects and complete them as planned and create mechanisms to allow Transportation and FHWA to step in when a project is at risk of overruns or delays.

Moving On

Downey says that the Big Dig's lessons will shape federal transportation policy for some time. "I wish we could have learned them a little cheaper," he says, "but this new level of scrutiny is definitely a legacy of the Big Dig. On any project there may be problems, but there should never be surprises."

If Natsios' designated successor, retired Army Corps of Engineers Brig. Gen. Richard Capka, can bring the project in at $14 billion, the Big Dig's new managers may yet demonstrate they can keep a lid on project costs. But wherever the next Big Dig is dug-and there are several megaprojects in the appropriation pipeline-it will undeniably be shaped by Boston's decades-long underground drama.

Frank Micciche, a former legislative director in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, is a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is pursuing a master's degree in public policy. ]]>

Bootstrap Business

Frank Micciche — Wed, 01 Nov 2000 00:00:00 -0500

Leaders of the blind and disabled groups who sell goods and services to federal agencies are struggling to adjust to the new federal procurement arena.

onald Hinson leaves his wife and daughter at 4 a.m. to make the series of connections that will take him from his Baltimore neighborhood to the Agriculture Department's George Washington Carver Center in Beltsville, Md., by 6:30, employing an exhaustive combination of public and private transportation. He speaks of his tortured commute so resolutely that it's easy to forget he accomplishes it all without the benefit of sight.

"I had an option to stay in Baltimore, but I wouldn't have been doing what I wanted to do," says the former Washington law clerk, who became 100 percent blind in 1993 when an operation to stem the effect of glaucoma actually hastened the loss of his vision. "I spend 15 hours a day away from home, but you do what you have to do to provide for your family." Hinson is one of six blind people who work in the copy center of the Carver Center, which handles administrative services for various USDA agencies. The employees troubleshoot the 66 photocopy machines that dot the Carver Center's labyrinthine campus. The team also produces many of the documents published by USDA's Washington-area offices. The copy center's employees operate under a contract with Blind Industries and Services of Maryland (BISM), one of more than 600 state and local nonprofit organizations employing people who are blind or severely disabled under the federal Javits-Wagner-O'Day (JWOD) Act.

A review of the comment sheets that accompany each order processed by the copy center yields virtually unanimous praise for the team's ability to meet deadlines, even when they seem unrealistic. Commendations for professionalism and friendliness run a close second. In an August visit, David Nau, a BISM manager who supervises the copy center workers, presented Hinson and his co-workers with a plaque on which a letter from the USDA's inspector general was posted. Unlike most correspondence from an IG's office, the contents were singularly complimentary.

JWOD products and services are deemed "mandatory sources" under federal procurement regulations. This status dictates that only after determining JWOD providers cannot meet their needs may a federal purchaser legally turn to another supplier for goods and services. But the revolutionary changes in government and business over the last five years, and an inability to police those who do not adhere to the mandatory sourcing regulations, have buffeted the 62-year-old JWOD program.

When Franklin Roosevelt, the only disabled President in the nation's history, signed the Wagner-O'Day Act in 1938, the blind people then covered by the law were thought incapable of producing anything more complicated than mops and brooms. People with severe disabilities were included in the program under a 1971 amendment sponsored by Sen. Jacob Javits, R-N.Y. Today, products manufactured by blind or severely disabled employees travel to battle in the form of Army canteens and camouflage, and adorn the desks of bureaucrats and businesspeople alike under the SKILCRAFT brand of office supplies. Employees with disabilities work on JWOD contracts everywhere from the Library of Congress to the Pentagon to the Statue of Liberty. Last year, the General Services Administration needed a reliable contractor to restore the historic Mellon Building complex in Washington in time for the 50th reunion of the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's charter. GSA turned to The Chimes, a JWOD nonprofit agency in Baltimore that helps individuals with disabilities become self-sufficient. The delicate job, done flawlessly and on time, was so appreciated by NATO that each worker involved in the project got a personal letter of thanks.

Despite this progress, the JWOD program, born as America was recovering from the 20th century's greatest economic crisis, faces an uncertain future at the height of the most enduring prosperity the nation has ever known. Reforms intended to decentralize government procurement, the explosion of Internet purchasing by agencies, and competition from private companies have all threatened to invade the limited niche filled by nonprofit JWOD associate organizations.

The crisis has generated uncharacteristic unity among JWOD's sometimes factious constituencies. Rather than rally for more rigid enforcement of mandatory source provisions, or appeal to public sympathies, the National Industries for the Blind (NIB) and their counterparts at NISH (formerly known as the National Industries for the Severely Handicapped, but now solely by its acronym), in conjunction with the Committee for Purchase From People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled, the JWOD program's federal overseer, have rallied to meet the complexities of the Internet age. Each is in the midst of an aggressive campaign to retain and expand the pie to which their clients are legally entitled.

Fred Puente, the gregarious president of BISM, typifies the 21st century executive of a JWOD associate. Equal parts corporate cheerleader ("The first requirement of working here is having fun"), marketing pitchman ("I firmly believe that the only thing people who are blind can't do is drive a car"), and social worker who, during a tour of his site, speaks by name to dozens of employees and elicits more workplace hugs than the average business leader might expect in an entire career, Puente never loses focus on the bottom line. BISM's responsibilities, like those of most other JWOD nonprofits, include providing rehabilitation services to a portion of the 150,000 people annually served by partners of NIB and NISH. Every dollar of income represents an opportunity to invest in these services. "I'm not asking [agencies] for special treatment. Just give us a chance to fail," says the former Army lieutenant, in a voice stern enough to let you know that he has no intention of allowing his organization to do so. The business mantra could serve as a motto for the entire JWOD community.

The JWOD Squad A discussion with JWOD's national leaders is prefaced, peppered throughout and closed with one singularly disturbing statistic: The unemployment rate among people who are blind or disabled is 70 percent, and has actually increased slightly in this era of virtual full employment. Despite the inroads made by the JWOD program, its affiliates still employ only 34,000 people, leaving 23 million Americans with disabilities unemployed or underemployed. The weight of these numbers explains the "our work is never done" mentality that pervades the community. Another factor, cited repeatedly, is the dedication of the associates' front-line staff. "Not a day goes by when I don't meet someone I would nominate for sainthood," says Dan McKinnon, who was president of NISH until late this summer. "The disability community is like the military in that the people who work there have chosen careers in service to others over service to themselves," says the retired Navy admiral.

Indeed, there is a distinct military flavor throughout JWOD. Lee Wilson, the executive director of the Committee for Purchase from People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled, is a retired Air Force general. Moreover, the armed services are, by far, the largest customer for JWOD programs. Many of the innovative opportunities that NIB and NISH have found for their employees are on military bases. JWOD organizations employ thousands of disabled people in food service organizations on bases, and the number of Base Supply Centers operated by program associates has ballooned from four in 1996 to more than 80 in 1999, representing nearly $28 million in sales. "There is certainly some connectivity between our programs and the military," he says. "Personally, as a retired officer, I wanted to give back some of my experience to those who didn't have the advantage that I had."

The military experience of Wilson and McKinnon may come in handy as they, along with NIB President Jim Gibbons, take on the task of revamping a JWOD structure ill-suited for the revolution in federal purchasing.

Reinvention Tension When skeptics ask for tangible results of Vice President Al Gore's eight-year reinventing government effort, defenders invariably put federal procurement reform at or near the top of the list. Embodied in the 1994 Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act, Executive Order 12931 issued by President Clinton in October 1994, and the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act, the abiding goal of the movement, has been a reduction in the paperwork and regulations involved in the procurement process. The federal purchase card quickly became a major tool for implementing the new approach. In 1989, fewer than 10,000 federal employees held such cards, which have been used primarily for micropurchases, those under $2,500. A decade later, 500,000 cardholders ran up a tab of more than $10 billion.

Doubtless Gore and his reinventors had no intention of wounding the JWOD program as part of their purchase card strategy. In fact, while procurement reformers scrapped provisions that had favored small businesses and American-made products for micropurchases, JWOD retained its universal mandatory source status. Nevertheless, the move toward a decentralized procurement strategy based on widespread use of purchase cards has had a dramatic effect on JWOD.

Traditionally, agencies made many of their purchases through the General Services Administration, which stockpiled goods in warehouses-and made sure that the appropriate percentage of those goods came from JWOD associates. In July 1999, however, GSA moved to close its network of eight warehouses. GSA, which said it was racking up six-figure losses annually running the depots, sought to have vendors supply agencies directly. The move, brought on in part by the successful effort of private sector suppliers to sell to purchase card users over the Internet, rocked the JWOD community. NIB, whose product-oriented enterprises (as opposed to the service-based nature of most NISH agencies) distributed more than 60 percent of its goods through GSA warehouses, was particularly hard hit. At the time, Gibbons warned, "The domino effect [of the closings] could jeopardize the entire program." Within weeks, orders slowed to a dribble for some JWOD products, and for the first time in recent memory, layoffs took place among NIB associates. Wilson notes that the psychological effect of such turmoil is even greater when considering the past experience of JWOD participants. "Some of our clients have never worked anywhere else in their lives," he says. "There's nothing more destructive than to lose one's job. To give them a taste, then take it away, is cruel." GSA eventually decided to leave two of the warehouses open, in large part due to protests by unions representing depot workers, but the leaders of JWOD enterprises recognize that in the age of e-commerce, the handwriting is on the wall for the warehouse system. JWOD sales through GSA have declined from $238 million in fiscal 1998 to less than $150 million so far this year. Overall, federal government sales by NIB are stagnant, with 1999's $235.4 million equaling the amount generated in 1995.

"It was just a matter of time until we had to change our business practices. We had to get in touch with the people who are buying our products," says Wilson. "If we never got in touch with the customers, our product line would die."

Indeed, some JWOD associates have fared well in the procurement reform era. Last year, the total sales of NISH enterprises rose by more than $100 million, to $706.2 million. But even the potentially lucrative service contracting arena is threatened by the constant evolution of procurement procedure. The increase in "bundled" contracts threatens to crowd the small community rehabilitation programs that NISH oversees out of the marketplace.

JWOD 2K In the face of such changes, JWOD leaders are undertaking their own reinvention. That means taking some unprecedented steps. For example, even though both NIB and NISH are headquartered in Northern Virginia, they had never formally come together until earlier this year to discuss their common interests in nearly 30 years of coexistence.

The meeting was the beginning of what will likely be a long process. "You don't try to eat the elephant in one sitting," Wilson says. "This was an important first step to get everyone to jointly talk about issues."

Wilson hopes increased collaboration will eventually produce an integrated marketing strategy for the two groups focused on growing the services side of the business for both agencies and involving closer relations with end customers. The scheme is part of his ambitious plan to increase the number of jobs available through the JWOD program to 50,000 by creating 16,000 new jobs over the next three years.

NIB's Gibbons, a graduate of Harvard Business School who in 1998 became the first blind person to lead the organization, is introducing the marketing savvy he developed as CEO of an AT&T subsidiary to the group's product line. Gibbons says he discovered that, "until three years ago, our packaging was essentially brown boxes." He has addressed this element of the business as a part of an overall branding strategy that he began pushing last year. The centerpiece is what Gibbons considers NIB's most valuable asset beyond its workforce: the SKILCRAFT name.

Gibbons believes that people buy SKILCRAFT now because of its reputation for quality and functionality, as well as to meet procurement mandates. By tying these factors to an image of SKILCRAFT's employees as inspirational and dedicated, and pitching more aggressively to the private sector, he hopes to realize growth of 10 percent to 15 percent annually. The spirit of the campaign is manifested in the slogan Gibbons envisions for the products: "Got a tough job to do? Let us help. SKILCRAFT . . . . Bring it on!"

On the technology front, the Committee for Purchase From People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled took to the Internet with an informational Web site (www.jwod.gov) in 1995. In October 1999, shortly after GSA announced plans to shutter its depots, Online Office Supplies, a private firm that works with NIB, signed on to upgrade the technology behind JWOD's net presence.

Under an NIB-managed effort, jwod.com began taking retail orders in January. The site flags products that federal buyers must buy through JWOD, part of an overall effort to reinforce the regulatory underpinnings of the program. Gibbons says the move to electronic purchasing is a blessing for the JWOD community. "Technology is the great equalizer," he says. "This is another example of using technology to sustain employment opportunities for our affiliates."

Appealing to one of the banks that has underwritten much of the purchase card explosion, NIB has forged a "Partnership for Smart Buying" with U.S. Bancorp, through which federal employees holding U.S. Bank purchase cards will be regularly prompted to abide by procurement regulations and purchase JWOD products and services. The partnership has led to discussions for similar deals with other banks that participate in the purchase card program, including Bank One, Citibank and Bank of America. GSA already is including reminders to agencies about JWOD regulations in its catalogs and on its e-commerce Web site, GSA Advantage!

(www.gsaadvantage.gov). In March, at the urging of advocates for the blind and disabled, President Clinton issued a governmentwide memorandum with similar instructions to federal employees. Seeking to broaden its customer base, the Committee for Purchase From People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled negotiated a memorandum of understanding with the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency that puts JWOD at the center of a campaign to encourage environmentally friendly purchasing. And in what would be a boost to NISH as well as NIB's efforts to expand their presence in the services arena, the Federal Acquisition Regulation councils have proposed an amendment that would confirm JWOD's priority status at the subcontract level under certain circumstances.

In their various efforts to ensure a bright future for the communities they serve, the heads of the JWOD program are attacking their task with the same tenacity that blind and disabled employees like Donald Hinson exhibit just getting to work each day. More than six decades of experience overcoming challenges says that, given the chance to fail, they won't.

Beyond the Monopoly Mentality

As the youngest of eight children, Jim Gibbons, president and chief executive officer of National Industries for the Blind (NIB), knows what it's like to claw for limited resources and assert oneself in a crowded field. The experience, coupled with stints as an executive at an AT&T subsidiary and a degree from Harvard Business School, would seem ideal preparation for his position atop one of the three agencies established to implement the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Program, particularly as federal agencies adopt private-sector procurement practices.

When he joined NIB in 1998, Gibbons became the first blind leader of the then 60-year-old agency. The father of three, who gradually lost his sight while in college in the early 1980s, has proven both a cutting-edge innovator with a keen sense for shaping the agency's future and an inspirational role model for the thousands of individuals served by and employed through NIB and its associated agencies across the country.

The decision to dedicate himself full time to advocacy for the blind was a complicated one for Gibbons. "I always thought I could do more for people who were blind by being accomplished in the sighted world," he says. But, having learned about the invaluable work that NIB did while interacting with members of its board, Gibbons leapt at the chance to reinvigorate the organization. He arrived as the first effects of procurement reform were beginning to be felt by the organization. The impact was immediate.

"For several reasons, NIB struggled to break out of a monopoly mentality prior to 1998," according to Gibbons. "In the last two years, we have developed a marketing plan and evolved to be customer-driven."

Gibbons' goals go beyond strengthening the JWOD program. "One mission of mine is to drive talent that happens to be blind into business leadership," he says. His own remarkable career makes this once unlikely prospect seems eminently possible.

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Future of Results Act uncertain on Capitol Hill

Frank Micciche — Mon, 28 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

Despite seven years on the books, the 1993 Government Performance and Results (GPRA) Act is not used widely among Capitol Hill decision makers, and its future importance could depend heavily on the November elections, according to several congressional observers and staff.

The law, which requires agencies to set performance goals each year and then report on whether they met those goals, is not without its vigorous supporters in both the legislative and executive branches. The fate of such supporters in this fall's elections could go a long way in determining GPRA's future impact.

In the area where GPRA might be expected to have its most prominent role-appropriations-progress has been decidedly slow. While performance reports are now a mandatory part of agency budget requests, the erratic quality of these reports and the political nature of the budget process have so far conspired to minimize GPRA's effect.

"If you're writing about the use of GPRA in budgeting, you can write a very short article," said Dr. Jerry Ellig, senior research fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center.

When Ellig and his colleagues set about rating performance reports for fiscal year 1999, fifty percent of the twenty-four agencies failed to earn even a thirty on the sixty-point scale. The grades were based on the presence of transparency, documentation of public benefits and forward looking leadership in the documents. The U.S. Agency for International Development's report was judged to be the most outstanding of those examined.

One of the hurdles to integrating performance measures into budgeting, Ellig noted, is that many agencies would likely find it difficult to fully quantify what they were accomplishing and, therefore, might see their budget slashed. A focus on results, rather than activities, in their performance measures would help agencies overcome this difficulty, he added.

An agency not included in the Mercatus Center study, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), has moved almost exclusively to GPRA-based budgeting. Because it is funded entirely by user fees, the office has the ability to accurately determine how much they can do, based on the amount of fee-generating services they expect to provide.

However, Congress routinely threatens to withhold a portion of the revenue earned by the office. This year, as a result of their use of GPRA provisions, the office was able to restore a good deal of the funding that had been proposed for withholding.

"The results-driven focus of our program and budget planning is key for me in evaluating operations and setting strategic direction," said Q. Todd Dickinson, director of PTO. "By digging into the data I have a feel for whether what sounds good in the board room is effective in practice. This also gives me the information I need to change course with confidence and with the buy-in of everyone."

PTO begins each year by identifying its priorities and then linking them to a strategic agenda. When an agency (within PTO) asks for a certain amount of money, they have to quantify how that sum will contribute to reaching the performance measures that are linked to the agenda.

Senator Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., Chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, is spearheading the effort on Capitol Hill to familiarize members and staff with the GPRA process. He has met with every committee chair on the issue and garnered the support of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska for stepping up the legislative role of GPRA. Thompson's office is emphasizing that performance reports have a role beyond the appropriations process.

"This is a key tool," said Robert Shay, counsel to Thompson's committee and a key player in the push to expand the use of GPRA in Congress. "Every committee should be using it in their day-to-day operations, particularly for oversight."

Although Senator Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., the ranking minority member on Governmental Affairs and now Al Gore's vice presidential running mate, has worked closely with Thompson on the issue, Democrats in general have been more reluctant to embrace GPRA than their Republican colleagues. If the election produces a Democrat majority in the House, Senate, or both, the life now in the GPRA movement could be somewhat drained.

"I don't see the Democrats rallying to the cause," commented Virginia Thomas, a government studies expert from the conservative Heritage Foundation. "The real hope for GPRA is to institutionalize it regardless of what party is in control."

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Scholars rank federal leaders among the best

Frank Micciche — Fri, 25 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

The government functions remarkably well, enjoys strong popular support, and is led by some of the best trained executives in the nation, according to a new book that chronicles thirty turbulent years in the life of the federal bureaucracy.

The book "In the Web of Politics," by political scientists Joel Aberbach and Bert Rockman of the Brookings Institution Press, follows changes in the senior ranks of the civil service from the Nixon Presidency through the first year of President Bill Clinton's tenure.

Although the authors' research is seven years old, they claim there is no reason to believe that their findings have substantially changed in recent years.

Aberbach and Rockman, who interviewed senior executives in 1970, 1986-87 and 1991-92, found no evidence of a decline in the caliber of federal management, which is measured by the number of graduates from prominent universities among the upper-levels of the civil service. They also did not find a large difference between the academic qualifications of senior federal executives and their counterparts in the private sector.

"This (the Senior Executive Service) may be the most elite group of individuals you'll find anywhere," said Rockman in an interview this week from his University of Pittsburgh office.

The author noted that the SES is even more impressive given that the Ivy League schools used as a principal measure of academic excellence often lack the technical, highly-specific training required of certain civil service positions. "Harvard doesn't have a school of agriculture," he noted.

Still, political appointees and elected officials are to blame for most of the government's problems, the book said. Appointees and elected officials tend to politicize decisions, which contributes to the public's lack of faith in government.

The politicizing of the executive branch is a trend that can be traced to the Nixon Administration. The 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, which increased presidents' ability to stock the newly established SES with political appointees, also contributed to polarization within the bureaucracy, the book said.

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Tech community rallies against anti-privatization bill

Frank Micciche — Thu, 24 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

Legislation introduced this spring by Rep. Albert Wynn, D-M.D., would, if passed, "likely bring the entire government to a halt," according to a recent report by a Virgina market research company.

In a newsletter sent this week to hundreds of clients, author Albert Nekimken of Chantilly-based INPUT sounded the alarm about H.R. 3766, the Truthfulness, Responsibility and Accountability (TRAC) Act. INPUT's clients include federal information technology vendors.

The bill, for which Wynn and allies in the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) have recruited 193 co-sponsors, would temporarily prohibit outsourcing of federal jobs unless a waiver was granted by the Office of Management and Budget. Once the temporary ban was lifted, all future contracting would first require a public-private award competition.

The bill also includes a mandatory cost-savings analysis of current contracts, along with tacit instruction to cancel any pacts that do not show a ten percent savings over the cost of performing the service in-house. The INPUT brief contends the reviews alone would be enough to grind government to a halt.

The INPUT alert warned that the labor involved in reviewing all federal outsourcing pacts would be enough to bring the entire government to a halt. Moreover, the anti-privatization bill would leave the federal government woefully short of the personnel it needs to operate, leaving the government susceptible to terrorist intrusions, among other threats, Nekimken said.

"Not only is the government stuck with islands of computing that can't communicate, but the pool of people who understand how to make them talk is steadily shrinking," says the bulletin. "Accordingly, the threat of a successful cyberattack rises in parallel."

Nekimken acknowledged that, despite widespread support for the bill, it stands virtually no chance of passing a GOP-controlled Congress. However, he said that a swing to the Democrats in the fall elections could be enough to pass next year's version of H.R. 3766. If that's the case, then federal information technology vendors should be concerned, he said.

"Both the ITAA (the Information Technology Association of America) and its members feel themselves on the edge of an abyss and believe strongly that the proposed legislation is deeply flawed and overly broad," Nekimken said.

AFGE National President Bobby L. Harnage signaled his group's support for the proposal at a rally to announce its filing this spring.

"Vital public services should not be turned over to big corporations whose first priority is their bottom line, not the public interest," Harnage said. During the rally, he also stressed the need for agencies to track costs and purported savings resulting from contracting out. "This is about accountability."

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GSA battles effort to boost the Federal Protective Service

Frank Micciche — Wed, 23 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

The General Services Administration is battling efforts to strengthen an agency that it oversees.

GSA is opposing a bill sponsored by Rep. James Traficant, D-Ohio, that would remove the Federal Protective Service from beneath the jurisdiction of the General Service Administration's Public Building Service (PBS). Traficant is pushing to see his proposal for strengthening FPS attached to the omnibus budget bill expected to emerge from Congress this fall.

The bill, H.R. 809, would install a commissioner who would report directly to GSA's Administrator. It would also increase the pay, duties and size of the force. Traficant's goal is to transform FPS into, "an elite federal law enforcement agency."

Traficant, whose law enforcement interest stems from a four-year stint as sheriff of Ohio's Mahoning County, first filed the bill in 1998, citing the bombing of Oklahoma's Murrah Federal Building as evidence that a stronger federal protective presence is needed. Critics contend that preventing terrorism is beyond the scope of GSA's powers and is better left to agencies like the CIA.

Agency officials dispute the benefits of the bill, saying that unexpected complications could arise if it passes. The agency has prepared a position paper outlining its opposition to the bill. Among the arguments is that the current arrangement, in which FPS works directly with building managers, allows the agency to meet the specific needs of each individual federal building. Separating FPS out could prove troublesome to intraagency law enforcement efforts as well, GSA said.

"Separating the Service from PBS would critically undermine the Service's ability to meet its core mission," the position paper said. "While the Administration supports efforts to strengthen security in public buildings, it believes that the proposed changes...would significantly reduce the effectiveness of ongoing Federal security initiatives."

Traficant shepherded the proposal to passage in the lower branch earlier this year. Now he'd like to see the bill included as a rider to the appropriations bill to be negotiated when Congress returns from its August recess, despite the fact that it has yet to receive a Senate committee hearing.

Traficant has lined up at least one powerful ally to his cause.

"Senator [Ted] Stevens (R-Ark., Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and chief Senate negotiator for the budget talks) strongly supports the bill," said Paul Marcone, Traficant's chief of staff.

Marcone dismisses GSA's reservations about intraagency coordination, pointing to the longstanding partnership between the federal court system and the United States Marshals Service that provides its security as evidence that such partnerships can work.

"By ranting and raving that the bill would harm security, PBS is tacitly admitting that they aren't as capable as the courts (of managing such a partnership)," noted the chief of staff.

Traficant's prospects for successfully navigating the end-of-session rush are murky. A spokesman for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said that no action has been scheduled for H.R. 809 so far and reaffirmed the preference of Chairman Robert Smith, R-N.H., to see bills acted on through the committee process rather than in the form of budget riders.

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EPA program helps agencies reduce waste

Frank Micciche — Wed, 23 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched an aggressive campaign to encourage recycling and waste reduction among federal agencies, building off the success it has enjoyed in promoting such green practices to the private sector.

EPA is hoping that the expertise it developed working with more than 1,000 private, and a few public, partners in the WasteWise program will be useful to agencies striving to meet the requirements of 1998's Executive Order 13101, "Greening the Government Through Waste Prevention, Recycling and Federal Acquisition".

The order requires that all federal facilities develop a five-year plan for waste prevention, improved recycling and the purchase of recycled materials. These goals have been at the core of WasteWise since its inception in 1994.

"It only makes sense; there is a natural link between WasteWise and E.O. 13101," said Fran McPoland, who oversees the White House Task Force on Waste Prevention and Recycling. "This will benefit federal agencies by helping them increase their operational efficiencies and reduce waste."

The program is chiefly focused on providing the information necessary to identify waste reduction opportunities and to set and meet goals in reduction and green purchasing, as well as publicly recognizing the gains made by participants. The free, voluntary initiative functions on a mere $1 million annual budget.

Agencies who join up will be among a "who's who" of corporate America, including Anheuser Busch, Verizon and McDonald's, along with state and tribal governments, universities, small businesses and the U.S. Postal Service. The program boasts of helping participants save $830 million in disposal costs, prevent 2.4 million tons of potential waste and recycle 24 million tons of excess material in its first six years.

EPA has undertaken a multi-pronged approach to advertising WasteWise to federal agencies. They have canvassed environmental Web sites and list servers with information, and mailed brochures to thousands of federal managers. A presentation on the benefits of WasteWise is now also a staple of conferences and exhibitions attended by EPA staffers. As a further attraction, the agency is offering to designate any facilities that come on board before September 30 as Charter Federal Partners. Nearly fifty federal partners already take part.

Since July, the Maryland office of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Education's Philadelphia Civil Rights branch and the Sacramento regional postal service have become WasteWise partners.

Agencies interested in signing up should go to the WasteWise Federal Welcome Center or call the program's toll-free helpline at 800 EPA-WISE (372-9473).

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Agencies join forces to promote green government

Frank Micciche — Tue, 22 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

Two federal agencies have joined forces with the Javits-Wagner-O'Day (JWOD) program to promote purchasing that's beneficial to the environment and to the blind and disabled communities, JWOD officials announced Monday.

A memorandum of agreement (MOA) among participants in the JWOD program, the Department of Interior (DOI) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will link JWOD's full-force efforts to go green with a renewed commitment on the part of the agencies to purchasing from suppliers employing the blind and disabled.

The JWOD program coordinates the efforts of non-profit agencies associated with the National Association for the Blind (NIB) and NISH (which represents individuals with a range of severe handicaps) in selling products and services to the government. Federal purchasers must attempt to procure these items from non-profits affiliated with JWOD before going elsewhere to do so. The program is administered by the Committee for Purchase From People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled.

DOI's part in the agreement is to serve as a role model for other government agencies. The department will attempt to boost JWOD sales by highlighting its products as an efficient means of meeting the strict recycling standards the agency imposes on its employees. Moreover, Interior will remind those doing procurement that, because of the life-cycle and environmental benefits of its "green" products, JWOD suppliers may still meet the "best value" criterion even where their prices are slightly higher.

EPA, on the other hand, will serve as a technical advisor to the program, offering insight on how participants might increase their stock of green products and providing training on environmental issues. They will also prominently advertise JWOD products that meet the agency's Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines, which require that federal, state or local agencies that receive federal funds and purchase more than $10,000 worth of one item purchase only items made from recovered material.

For their part, NIB, NISH and the Committee promise to step up efforts to identify and market their green products and to work with affiliated agencies on increasing the scope of such products currently offered. NISH, which focuses on services over product manufacturing, will transform their janitorial and groundskeeping programs by promoting the exclusive use of EPA-approved cleaning and gardening products among JWOD participants.

The voluntary three-year pact, signed on August 10, builds off three previous federal environmental initiatives; the 1990 Pollution Prevention Act, 1998's Executive Order 13101, "Greening the Government Through Waste Prevention, Recycling and Federal Acquisition" and Executive Order 13134, "Developing and Promoting Biobased Products and Bioenergy", which was issued by President Clinton in August of last year.

The MOA follows closely on Interior's opening of a JWOD-run Office Eagle supply store in its Washington, DC headquarters. The first-of-its-kind store, operated by three employees with disabilities, two of whom are visually impaired, stocks almost entirely environmentally-friendly products and was constructed using recycled paint and energy efficient lighting. The effort to capitalize on the green government movement is part of a larger strategy by NIB and NISH to remain competitive in the decentralized government procurement market of the new century.

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Auditors find Air Force depot group in deep

Frank Micciche — Mon, 21 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

DMAG lost approximately $600 million between fiscal years 1994 and 1998, on sales of $21.8 billion, the report, "Air Force Depot Maintenance: Budget Difficulties and Operational Inefficiencies (AIMD/NSIAD-00-185)," said. DMAG is charged with repair and overhaul of American airborne assets and also does work for foreign governments.

These losses are particularly troublesome in light of the group's status as an Air Force Working Capital Fund partner, GAO said. Members of the fund are required to price their services at the start of each fiscal year, with the goal of breaking even over time. GAO identifies the group's repeated failure to accurately project material costs, customer demand and worker productivity as a root cause of the losses.

GAO acknowledged that workforce reductions at DMAG resulted in a loss of experienced hands, a point DoD officials also made in their response to the report. But changes underway, such as the establishment of a new Depot Maintenance Accounting and Productivity System, will help in the effort to bring the group's expenditures in line with its goal of self-sufficience, GAO said.

Still, the flaws in DMAG's recent performance are glaring. In fiscal years 1998 and 1999, the group exceeded their cost estimates for materials by more than $300 million annually, although the report places a portion of the blame on wildly fluctuating prices charged by the Air Force Supply management Group.

Overly optimistic productivity estimates resulted in a cumulative $838 million in labor cost overruns from 1992 through 1999 and a general inadequacy in meeting the needs of its customers in a timely fashion. The group also failed to realize 61 percent of the management reformative cost savings they had projected. Since DMAG prices were adjusted down in anticipation of these savings, their absence further exacerbated the operation's fiscal woes.

GAO's recommendations for putting DMAG back on track focus on increasing the accuracy of measurements in three key areas: materials, productivity and costs.

The report recommends that DMAG rely on historical productivity data, rather than nebulous projected gains in the area, to set future targets. DMAG is also advised to enhance its ability to revise cost estimates periodically and use this more accurate data in drafting future budgets.

DoD's point by point responses to the recommendations signaled general agreement with GAO's findings. In several cases, such as the issue of accuracy in costing, the department identified steps that are already underway to address the deficiencies highlighted by the report.

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OPM draws boundaries for use of office technology

Frank Micciche — Fri, 18 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

Agencies can now look to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Web site for guidance in drawing boundaries for one of the more common dilemmas of the information age workplace.

With personal computers adorning nearly every desk in the federal realm, the question of how and when employees may use the machines for private purposes, and to what degree this use may be monitored, looms large.

Modeled on guidelines approved by the governmentwide Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council in May of 1999, OPM's Policy on Personal Use of Government Office Equipment clearly stakes out the rights and responsibilities of federal workers availing themselves of everything from copying machines to e-mail.

Two major principles make up the policies put forth by both the CIO Council and OPM. The first is that personal use can only cause a minimal additional expense to the government. That means employees can use a limited amount of supplies, such as electricity, ink, toner or paper, already provided by an agency in the course of normal operations.

The other principle confines use unrelated to agency business to non-work time." This allows an employee to use government equipment for personal use at lunch, before and after the workday, and on weekends or holidays, provided the equipment would normally be available to the employee at those times.

"This has become the defacto standard for limited personal use, both in the government and in the private sector," said John Ray of the General Service Administration's Office of Information Technology.

In the area of electronic mail, and Internet use in general, the guidelines are partciularly unambiguous.

"You do not have the right to privacy while using any Government office equipment, including Internet or email services," reads the policy. "Furthermore, your use of Government office equipment, for whatever purpose, is not secure, private or anonymous."

While reserving the right to monitor business phone calls in attempting to improve service and training, OPM makes clear that personal calls will not be monitored unless the employee union has been notified in advance.

OPM has posted their policy, adopted earlier this summer, to allow agencies crafting a similar policy to borrow as much, or as little, as they wish. The site explicitly states that no uniform standards for such a policy exist. Officials were unable to say how many federal agencies currently have IT personal use policies in place.

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Bush wants to bring Texas sunsets to Washington

Frank Micciche — Thu, 17 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

Those wondering how Governor George W. Bush might manage the federal bureaucracy as president could learn a great deal from his references to Texas' Sunset Advisory Commission (SAC) as a model for government reform.

The 1977 law establishing the sunset procedure dictates that all state agencies be dismantled twelve years after their most recent review, unless affirmatively renewed by a vote of the legislature. That vote is influenced considerably by the commission's lengthy investigation into the agency's efficiency, effectiveness, bureaucratic burden and other conditions.

The Texas SAC falls within the legislative branch, so it only deals with Bush's office when the governor must decide whether to sign off on a sunset proposal already approved by the House and Senate. Still, he has warmly received the reform generated by the commission.

"The positions his office has taken on the sunset bills we've sent them has been to try to reorganize and streamline government," said Joey Longley, Director of the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission. "His public statements support the process, unlike his predecessor (Democrat Ann Richards, who was defeated by Bush in 1994)."

In seventeen years of existence, the body has overseen the abolition of forty-three state agencies, roughly fifteen percent of all those it reviewed. According to fiscal notes issued by the state's bipartisan Legislative Budget Board, these recommendations have yielded a savings of $663 million.

In campaign speeches Bush has promised to trim the federal workforce by not filling the positions of 40,000 managers expected to retire in the next eight years. He has also proposed establishing a federal sunsetting mechanism based on the Texas model.

The idea of introducing Texas reforms to Washington, DC is not a new one. In fact, when Bush's opponent, Vice President Al Gore, launched his National Performance Review, now known as the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, his staff brought in SAC veterans working for the state comptroller's office to advise. At the time, the state was governed by Richards.

At least one longtime observer of the federal scene feels that, if Bush is bent on following through on his workforce reduction pledge, he would be well served to figure out what programs deserve the ax, rather than imposing an across-the-board cut.

"I would hope that, if there's a Bush presidency, he would first learn more about what downsizing has already been done," said Carol Bonosaro, President of the Senior Executive Association. "Hopefully, what he would bring (if he decides to go forward with proposal) is a philosophy to cut the programs that everyone agrees should be cut and then talk about the numbers."

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OPM guide addresses alcoholism in the workplace

Frank Micciche — Wed, 16 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is taking steps to identify and treat alcoholism in the federal workforce with the release of new guidelines for managers concerned that an employee may have an alcohol problem.

Alcoholism In The Workplace: A Handbook for Supervisors, assembled in partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services and made available this week on the agency's Web site, discusses the difficulty of balancing employee privacy with the interests of productivity, co-workers' morale, safety and taxpayer expectations. Its authors take pains to emphasize that only professionals are qualified to determine if a clinical problem exists.

"Your role (as a supervisor) is not to diagnose the alcohol problem but to exercise responsibility in dealing with the performance or conduct problem, hold the employee accountable, refer the employee to (the Employee Assistance Program) and take the appropriate disciplinary action," reads the handbook.

Among the indications of an alcohol problem to which supervisors should be attuned are:

Unexplained or unauthorized absences from work.
Patterns of absences such as the day after payday or frequent Monday or Friday absences.
Frequent unplanned absences due to "emergencies".
Mood and behavior changes such as excessive laughter and inappropriate loud talk.

Once an alcohol-related deterioration in performance or conduct has been identified, supervisors are instructed to confront an employee and present a choice of treatment through the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) or disciplinary action, including the possibility of termination.

EAP professionals are available to help in developing a strategy for the confrontation. In some cases an intervention involving family, friends and co-workers may be warranted, OPM said. The guidelines insist that any such action be overseen by a trained professional.

Supervisors can also find links to internal and external resources for addressing alcoholism in the publication, as well as a brief discussion of the stages of alcoholism and tips for welcoming back an employee returning from an alcohol rehabilitation program.

The directive is the latest in a series of publications aimed at addressing the health and well-being of federal workers, including a June bulletin promoting smoking cessation programs and 1999's guide to preventing domestic violence.

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GSA goals fall short, report says

Frank Micciche — Mon, 14 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

The General Services Administration has met many of the goals it has set under the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act, the General Accounting Office concludes in a new report, but isn't doing enough to improve safety, access and energy efficiency in federal buildings.

GAO's report, GGD-00-148R, summarized GSA's success in meeting the targets set out in their fiscal year 1999 performance report as well as how those targets have been modified in the agency's 2000 and 2001 plans. GAO conducted a similar analysis of each of the 24 Chief Financial Officer Act departments at the request of Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., and ranking minority member Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.

GSA's goals focus on three performance outcomes:

Providing quality products and services to federal employees.
Making federal buildings safe, accessible and energy efficient.
Adequately maintaining those buildings.

GAO said GSA measures were deficient in the areas of safety, access and energy efficiency. The measure for security, primarily based on cost, is an improper gauge of progress towards the goal, the report said. In pointing out this flaw, GAO highlighted its recent finding that GSA-controlled buildings were highly susceptible to unauthorized access. GAO said GSA's 1999 performance report had no measures at all for building access or energy efficiency.

GSA amended its 2001 goals by replacing security cost with a customer-satisfaction measure and adding an energy efficiency target. But GAO noted the agency failed to set an outcome-oriented measure for its security program.

Another persistent criticism GAO noted was GSA's unwillingness to address the validity of the data it uses to measure performance. Without such validity, GPRA loses a great deal of its value as a policy making instrument.

"GSA's fiscal year 2001 plan does not provide reasonable assurance that its performance information is credible," the report said. "The plan ... focuses more on where data is coming from rather than what was done to verify and validate the data used to measure performance in the systems."

Similarly, both the performance report for 1999 and the plan for 2001 omit any direct measurement of the management challenges identified by GSA's inspector general, such as controls on fraud, waste and mismanagement, inexperience among Multiple Award Schedule personnel and the aging of federal buildings, GAO said.

The document did give GSA high marks for progress made in linking its performance measures to budgetary concerns. Links like those made in the GSA plan are expected to be an important part of transforming GPRA into an effective tool for congressional appropriators.

In its response to a draft version of the report, GSA agreed to address concerns about security and data validity in their fiscal year 2002 performance plan.

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Clinton signs military pay raise measure

Frank Micciche — Fri, 11 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

President Clinton signed into law Wednesday the fiscal year 2001 Defense appropriations bill, which includes a 3.7 percent pay raise for service members and funding for new military health benefits.

The $288 billion conference committee report, which breezed through the House (367-58) and Senate (91-9) prior to the legislative recess in July, provides an increase of $18.2 billion over the current fiscal year defense appropriation and nearly $3.3 billion more than was budgeted for defense by the President.

Sens. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, and John McCain, R-Ariz., had attempted to block consideration of the report over concerns about the use of supplemental funds to meet the terms of budget resolutions passed earlier this year. The two, who were among the nine Senate dissenters, also said the bill contained excessive pork-barrel spending.

The budget includes a new pharmacy benefit for retired military personnel eligible for Medicare, even as Democrats and Republicans remain far apart on how to extend a similar benefit to all seniors. Active-duty soldiers will also see their care improve, as part of an overall $12.1 billion increase in military health spending.

Appropriators also addressed the pressing issue of compensation, in the wake of widespread reports that thousands of enlisted men and women with families were eligible for food stamps. A 3.7 percent increase in military salaries and a new debit card plan recently proposed by Defense Secretary William Cohen are expected to address the matter.

In signing the bill, Clinton expressed support for these measures but stopped short of a full endorsement.

"Unfortunately, H.R. 4576 goes beyond what is necessary, providing funding for a host of unrequested programs at the expense of other core government activities," said Clinton. He said he was "disappointed that the Congress has funded fiscal year 2001 activities through fiscal year 2000 emergency funds-an approach that should not be repeated."

The Defense measure is only the second of the 13 annual bills that fund government operations to become law.

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Federal travelers forced to deal with flight delays

Frank Micciche — Thu, 10 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

Federal employees that fall victim to the unprecedented wave of airline flight cancellations this summer should turn to their agency's travel management center before booking on another airline, according to the travel gurus at the General Services Administration (GSA).

The friendly skies have turned downright hostile for passengers nationwide this summer. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, flight delays were up 16.5 percent in June compared to the same period last year. Numbers for July, due out shortly, are expected to match or exceed this level.

This week, United Airlines, facing a slowdown by its pilots' union, announced it would cancel 3 percent of its scheduled flights through October. The two sides have been at odds since contract negotiations in April failed to yield a new labor agreement.

So what should federal travelers do if their flights are cancelled?

"We can't stress enough that federal employees in this situation should work closely with their travel management center," said Jeff Koses, deputy director of GSA's Service Acquisition Center. "But there is clearly an exception to the city-pair requirement if they cannot get to their destination in time to accomplish the purpose of their travel."

Each year, GSA issues 4,800 contracts with airlines for federal travel between pairs of cities. Once GSA has selected an airline to provide service between a pair of cities, employees must use that carrier when traveling between the cities, unless one of a few strict criteria is met.

The arrangement pays major dividends for the government. Beyond the $2 billion a year saved off advertised rates, the contract's "last seat" provision guarantees federal travelers any available coach seat, up to takeoff. Tickets are also fully refundable and there are no blackout periods.

United, the world's largest airline, accounts for approximately 600 of the 4800 routes listed through GSA's services acquisition center, including 29 of the 88 destinations from metropolitan Washington's three airports.

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Got a beef with an agency? Take it to the Web

Frank Micciche — Wed, 09 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

A new report from the General Accounting Office finds lodging an online complaint against a federal agency is relatively easy for the average Web-surfing citizen.

While this may be good news for e-government enthusiasts, the disparities in procedures used for filing complaints online underscore the general lack of governmentwide Internet standards. That issue could prove troublesome as more federal services go online.

The report focused solely on the ability to register comments with agencies and not on the quality, accessibility or content of the sites studied.

Among the 32 agencies that handle 90 percent of public-government interaction, only the Immigration and Naturalization Service has no mechanism for public comment available on its Web page. Seven others provide only a link to the webmaster, an individual typically responsible for technical issues, not agency programs or processes.

The study showed that three agency sites-the Food and Nutrition Service, the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service and the INS-contain neither a mailing address nor phone number for program contacts.

GAO conducted the analysis at the request of Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., the ranking minority member of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon.

GAO said the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which regulates more than 15,000 products, has created an intricate network to receive, confirm and follow up on product complaints. In the first half of this year, CPSC received virtually equal amounts of Internet and telephone reports, a sign that the commission has made a successful foray onto the Web.

GAO also addressed Consumer.gov, the electronic gateway to various agency sites operated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and FirstGov, the proposed central Web portal for the entire federal government, as they relate to users' ability to record complaints.

The FTC organized the content of Consumer.gov by subject, thereby allowing users not versed in the jurisdictions of various federal agencies to more easily register their concerns and find the information they are looking for. The site received a Hammer Award from the National Partnership for Reinventing Government in 1999 for its accessibility.

General Services Administration programmers working on FirstGov, due to debut this fall, assured GAO that the final version of the site will include direct links to complaint forms for each agency.

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Gore picks a running mate who knows government

Frank Micciche — Tue, 08 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

Vice President Al Gore's selection of Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., as his running mate Monday creates a presidential ticket whose members are well versed in the inner workings of the federal bureaucracy.

While Gore's Vice Presidential tenure has been marked by his reinventing government effort, Lieberman got his sea legs as ranking minority member on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

This year, Lieberman, along with Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., and Republican Senators George Voinovich of Ohio, Sam Brownback of Kansas and William Roth of Delaware, sponsored the Government for the 21st Century Act (S. 2306), which would charge a nine-member commission with recommending ways to streamline government operations. The commission's goal would be to restructure agencies and programs to prevent duplication, improve management and demand accountability for results.

Lieberman has worked closely with Thompson to jump-start the government's entry into cyberspace, most recently with the joint announcement of their experimental "eGovernment Project." The project's Web site solicits electronic responses from citizens on a host of government reform issues before the committee, from Lieberman's proposal to create a new federal chief information officer to a debate on the merits of public-private partnerships.

The duo also collaborated on S. 1993, the Government Information Security Act. The bill's provisions, which were included in the Senate's fiscal year 2001 Defense Appropriations Act, strengthen oversight and planning requirements for the protection of agency data and communication.

Recently, Lieberman joined Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in supporting federal employee unions in their attempt to block Office of Management and Budget regulations that would eliminate restrictions on per diem and relocation expenses for private contractors to the federal government.

"At a time when we are looking for ways to make employment with the federal government more attractive to enable agencies to recruit and retain the best employees in a competitive job market, adopting this proposal seems a step in the wrong direction," Lieberman and Durbin wrote to Dr. Kenneth Oscar, acting head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

Though a booster of government service, as most readily demonstrated by his well-received book, In Praise of Public Life (Simon and Schuster, 2000), Lieberman has also supported strict federal accountability.

Gore's choice was received warmly by the National Treasury Employees Union, which noted Lieberman's accomplishments in advancing the Hatch Act, which governs federal employees' political involvement, and his opposition to the contracting out of federal jobs.

"The record of Joe Lieberman on issues important to federal employees is a strong one. Moreover, he has demonstrated a thorough understanding of our issues. He genuinely appreciates the work done by federal workers. And most of all, he respects public service and respects the men and women who work on behalf of our nation," said NTEU president Colleen M. Kelley.

Lieberman on Federal Issues

Issue	Comments from Lieberman
Clinger-Cohen Act on IT management	"I look forward to learning for the first time how the Clinger-Cohen Act is really working. Since Congress passed legislation four years ago to address some serious shortcomings, we need to follow-up to ensure those reforms are being implemented."
Cybercrime	"If government is going to be plugged into the networked world as an active, permanent presence, we will first have to protect the confidentiality, the integrity and, of course, the availability of the information contained on government computers. In today's Wild West electronic environment, every precaution must be taken." Click here for full story.
E-Government	"E-government means e-quality. In the wired world, universal access to information and services levels the playing field. I hope our web site and any future legislation will encourage more citizens to take an interest in their government, indeed, to collaborate with us, from the convenience of their homes, offices and libraries." Click here for full story.
Federal CIO	The federal government needs a CIO because efforts to put government services online are hamstrung by "a loose mix of ideas, projects and alliances without coordination." Click here for full story.
Performance Reports	"Unfortunately, some agencies are not meeting the expectations of the law. A major concern is the validity of the data some agencies are relying upon in their initial reports, and we will need to ensure that improvements are made." Click here for full story
Procurement	"What we are doing with this amendment is continuing to bring our procurement process into the 21st century by applying tried and true private sector practices to the government's purchase of goods and services. The ultimate goal is to stretch precious taxpayer dollars by demanding high performance and innovative solutions from the procurement process." Click here for more information.
Results Act	"We must also continue to implement reforms previously passed by Congress, such as those required by the Government Performance and Results Act, that will help convert agencies into high-performing organizations with clearly defined missions and results-oriented management. These efforts will help agencies make better use of their resources and respond more capably to the issues they face."

Source: GovExec.com archives, and Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Web site. ]]>

Blind, disabled group opens Interior supply store

Frank Micciche — Fri, 04 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

The Interior Department's Washington headquarters this week became the first Cabinet-level facility in the nation to house an office supply store. That the store will be operated by people who are blind and disabled makes the milestone all the more notable.

The 2,400-square foot store is carved out of cafeteria space donated by Interior to the Blind Industries and Services of Maryland (BISM), which is affiliated with the National Industries for the Blind. BISM will operate the store in partnership with OfficeEagle.com, the latest cyber-store to spring up in the disabled community's campaign to gain a share of the federal electronic procurement market.

Those involved in getting the store up and running describe its origins as a happy confluence of events.

Opportunity knocked when a BISM official mentioned to Assistant Secretary of the Interior John Berry that the organization was looking to expand its operations from the four nearby military bases on which it maintained stores. Interior employees had expressed frustration with their difficulty purchasing office supplies nearby. Within eighteen months, a veritable heartbeat in federal time, the newest Office Eagle took flight.

The fledgling store, which offers a selection of more than 2,000 different products, will be operated by three employees with disabilities, two of whom are visually impaired. Large-screen computers and voice-activated technology will be deployed wherever possible.

"I cannot describe how exciting this is," said BISM President Fred Puente. The Interior location will also be the first of the nearly 100 outlets in the National Industries for the Blind system to accept private credit cards. Proprietors are hoping this will encourage federal employees to take advantage of the convenience and low prices Office Eagle provides.

BISM will bolster Office Eagle's existing stock of recycled products to help the department meet its goal of becoming "the greenest agency in government." BISM used recycled paint and energy efficient lighting in building the store.

Puente said he hopes the Interior Office Eagle store will attract walk-in customers from nearby agencies, such as the Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration.

BISM is also exploring opportunities to open similar stores in other departments. The National Institutes of Health have been among the most receptive of the agencies thus far.

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Ex-White House official calls for smoother transitions

Frank Micciche — Thu, 03 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

Ken Duberstein, former chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan, appealed for the restoration of working relationships between members of both political parties Wednesday at a panel discussion in Philadelphia on the transition from campaigning to governing.

Duberstein was the centerpiece of a panel assembled at WHYY-TV, a short jaunt from the Republican National Convention, by the Council for Excellence in Government (CEG). The veteran political hand twice took part in the transfer of presidential power, first when Reagan ousted Jimmy Carter in 1980 and then as coordinator of the Reagan-Bush exchange.

Duberstein was joined on the panel by Terry Smith, media correspondent for "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer," White House reporter Alexis Simendinger of National Journal and CEG President Patricia McGinness.

While acknowledging that the climate in Washington these days is inhospitable to bipartisanship, Duberstein stressed that communication, if not outright cooperation, between the new President and congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle is key to an effective transition. He highlighted the effort made by his office in early 1981 as an example.

"We made it a point to visit the offices of all 535 senators and representatives," said Duberstein, adding that many of the Democrats who defected to support Reagan's signature tax cut proposal first informally indicated a willingness to find common ground during these meetings.

Duberstein observed that, since he left government, the comity that once prevailed among even those of very different political views has virtually dried up.

The current political tensions threaten to shrink the pool of candidates that the next President will be able to tap, he said.

"The combat zone of Washington turns a lot of people away. The atmosphere is absolutely poisonous. When I was there, a typical FBI confirmation screening took six weeks. I hear it now takes six months," he said. "I think you desperately need that breath of fresh air that hopefully the next President will provide."

While concerned that the best and brightest might think twice before subjecting themselves to the scrutiny appointees must now endure, Duberstein used his own experience to conclude that able individuals will continue to embrace public service.

"When President Reagan asked me to come back to the White House in early 1988, in the depths of Iran-Contra, my wife was four months pregnant, I had just built a house with a 15-year mortgage and had started to make a little bit of money for the first time in my life. But when the President of the United States asks you to come home, you say yes."

Transcripts of this and other events in the CEG series are available at www.excelgov.org.

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Military services meet recruiting goals

Frank Micciche — Wed, 02 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

All four branches of the military are expected to meet their recruitment targets this year, according to an Associated Press report. The Army, Navy and Air Force have struggled to do so in recent years, while the Marine Corps has consistently reached its goals.

The development comes at a time of record unemployment for the nation. Such prosperity is often a source of trouble for military recruiters, as they must compete with private sector employers for a limited pool of candidates. An upsurge in the number of students attending college has also shrunk the military's recruitment base.

Still, the Internet, multimedia advertising and a substantial increase in enlistment bonuses have all contributed to more successfull recruiting this year.

Last year, the Air Force broke a 20-year string of meeting or exceeding its recruitment targets. The Navy managed to hit its target last year, but fell a full 7,000 sailors short of its goal in 1998.

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INS citizenship drive not political, but poorly run

Frank Micciche — Wed, 02 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

A new report from the Justice Department's internal watchdog clears the Immigration and Naturalization Service of politically-motivated wrongdoing involving its 1996 Citizenship USA initiative, instead painting the picture of a poorly managed program hurled into chaotic overdrive by a desire to eliminate backlogs in immigration cases.

DOJ's inspector general conducted an investigation of the program following media speculation, and subsequent accusations by congressional Republicans, that the Clinton administration had pressured INS to hastily clear 1 million naturalization applicants in time for the 1996 election, assuming that these new Americans would vote predominantly for Democrats.

Thickening the plot was the involvement of Vice President Al Gore's National Performance Review in the "reinvention" of INS processes to meet the lofty goal.

The 684-page report, the result of a three-year probe that included a search of more than 80,000 pages of documents and 1,829 interviews, describes an overburdened bureaucracy unequipped to handle a boom in naturalization filings. Ironically, the surge was due, in part, to INS Commissioner Doris M. Meissner's active efforts to encourage permanent residents to apply for naturalization.

What began as a policy objective soon turned into a crisis for INS, where the backload of naturalization requests swelled from 135,565 in 1992 to 481,580 in mid-1995. Without immediate action, the agency determined, the average period of time from application to completion would balloon to three years.

The IG report concluded that the Citizenship USA effort to bring the waiting period down to six months and naturalize 1 million new citizens created serious problems in an already flawed citizenship process.

"The principle of increased productivity was pursued at the expense of accuracy in the determination of applicant eligibility," according to the investigators, "and a process previously regraded as lacking safeguards became even more vulnerable."

Temporary workers brought in to speed up application processing were chronically undertrained, interviews of perspective citizens were rushed and evaluated under spotty standards and, in the most egregious cases, naturalization was approved for at least 369 individuals who were patently ineligible, usually because of past criminal histories.

"The assumption was this: ... We have been doing it this way for years and years and years and things need to improve," Meissner told IG investigators. "But ... we are not going to create an entirely new system in a flash, and so we will do the best we can with what we have."

In a statement released Tuesday, INS officials said the agency had "successfully ensured the integrity of the naturalization system" in the wake of the crisis and were on track to restore the historically recommended six-month processing time for applications.

While investigators dismissed the notion that the political goal of nauralizing 1 million potential Democratic voters drove Citizenship USA, they strongly criticized INS officials' evasiveness in responding to congressional inquiries on the matter. The report urged the agency to "continue to enhance the integrity not only of its naturalization processing but also of its relationship with Congress."

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Military traffic command to reorganize, cut jobs

Frank Micciche — Tue, 01 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

The Military Traffic Management Command (MTMC) has announced a plan to consolidate and reorganize its operations by Oct. 1. Nearly 10 percent of the command's 2,355 employees will lose their jobs in the process. MTMC, which is responsible for managing all military deployments, runs operations at 24 ports worldwide. The agency also handled $2.2 billion worth of relocations of military personnel and their property in fiscal 1999.

The plan will consolidate positions dealing with supply, finance and personnel at MTMC headquarters in Virginia and return as many as 28 enlisted lower-ranking officers to "warfighter" units from their current traffic management posts.

MTMC's commander, Maj. Gen. Kenneth L. Privratsky, indicated that exposure to the dynamic private transport market has caused the command's military customers to demand more from their government partners.

"We need to do this to keep pace with changes in the transportation industry and to leverage efficiencies provided by automation," said Privratsky. "This is reengineering that provides productivity and speed to our operations."

MTMC officials estimate the restructuring will displace four officers, 37 soldiers, 94 civilians and 64 foreign nationals from their jobs. Hardest hit will be the 834th Transpotation Batallion of Concord, Calif., where 37 civilian slots and one officer position are on the chopping block.

MTMC spokesman John Randt stressed the command's overhaul was not a cost-cutting effort dictated by the Pentagon, but a self-imposed effort at regimenting a force that had developed in haphazard fashion. He noted that where the volume of traffic dictates, MTMC will actually be beefing up certain posts.

The 839th Batallion in Livorno, Italy, which supports American armed forces in Bosnia, will see a net increase of nine employees. A unit in Bahrain, the 831st Batallion, will be the single largest beneficiary of the reorganization, with 12 new employees. With a current staff of just 19, compared to the 84 employees at the largest batallion, the unit had been the smallest in number but one of the MTMC's most active ports.

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Poll shows anti-government sentiment still strong

Frank Micciche — Tue, 01 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

According to a new poll, anti-government sentiment is still fairly strong in the United States, with more than half of respondents saying they would steer their children away from a career in government. And fully a third of those polled who said they thought the country was heading in the wrong direction cite government as the primary contributor to this trend.

These and other, sentiments about federal, state and local government emerged in a survey of 1,557 people conducted in May and June by Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, National Public Radio and the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The poll did include some positive news about the public perception of government. In the past five years, the percentage of respondents who believe that federal government will usually solve the problems it sets out to address has risen 12 points, to 51 percent. And 39 percent of those polled said government does a better job than it is given credit for overall.

Still, the poll showed that trust in government is far from fully restored:

Fifty-five percent of respondents said government corruption was a very important problem, with 59 percent of those who feared corruption indicating that the federal government was more corrupt than state or local governments.
Seventy percent said they trusted the federal government to do what is right only some or none of the time.

Election-gazers looking for clues to the tight presidential race in the poll results would likely give the nod to Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Sixty-two percent embraced the concept that religious, charitable or community organizations are better suited to provide services to the needy than is government. Bush has been a persistent champion of such "faith-based" involvement. Similarly, the Bush message of smaller, closer government is embodied in the confidence those surveyed repeatedly display in their state and local officials, particularly when compared to their federal counterparts.

Full poll results are available at the National Public Radio Web site .

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SBA, House panel seek to limit use of bundled contracts

Frank Micciche — Fri, 28 Jul 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

The Small Business Administration issued final regulations this week increasing its oversight of large bundled federal contracts, and Thursday a House committee approved a bill that would curtail the use of such contracts.

SBA's regulations, finalized Wednesday after almost a year of comment, solicitation and fine-tuning, clarify the conditions under which the agency may intercede to prevent other agencies from bundling their contracts. The authority to do so was included in the 1997 Small Business Reauthorization Act and recodified on Wednesday.

Additionally, agencies will now be required to remove barriers faced by small businesses pursuing prime contracts and to avoid "unnecessary and unjustified bundling of contracts." The regulations define bundling as "the consolidation of two or more...smaller contracts into a single contract...that is likely to be unsuitable for award to a small business concern."

SBA could block a proposed contract if agencies failed to document savings of at least ten percent in costs for contracts valued at less than $75 million. For contracts exceeding $75 million, documented savings must be either $7.5 million or five percent, whichever number is bigger.

According to a study released earlier this month by Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez, D-N.Y., the ranking minority member of the House Small Business Committee and a leading critic of contract consolidation, some of the federal government's most conspicuous consumers have failed in reaching their small business procurement targets. This has occurred despite the fact that the government as a whole has consistently, if barely, fulfilled its pledge to purchase 23 percent of goods and services from small businesses.

Velázquez has filed a bill (H.R. 4890) that would tie agencies' ability to bundle contracts to compliance with the SBA-mandated targets. Although the bill goes beyond the steps taken thus far by SBA, it stops short of removing small business contract oversight from the agency, a step suggested in the Velázquez report.

Instead, the bill would tighten the bundling approval process and prohibit bundling by any agency that failed to meet its small business procurement goal for the remainder of the fiscal year in which a report documenting such a failure is issued. The bill also amends the appeal process for SBA bundling rejections, allowing the rejected agency to seek redress from the Office of Management and Budget. At a Small Business Committee markup on the bill Thursday, Velázquez decried the current process.

"The SBA must appeal the decision [on a proposed bundling] to the same agency that made the initial decision," she said. "Does this make sense to anyone?"

The bill won approval on a voice vote at the hearing's conclusion, as did a proposal by Chairman James Talent, R-Mo., to study the effect of bundling on small businesses and the federal bottom line. A committee source indicated full House action on the bills was expected this session.

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Clinton orders agencies to hire disabled employees

Frank Micciche — Thu, 27 Jul 2000 00:00:00 -0400

fmicciche@govexec.com

Ten years to the day after the signing of the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act, President Clinton Wednesday issued an executive order saying agencies should try to hire a total of 100,000 disabled workers by September 2005.

Achieving that goal would nearly double the 122,000-person disabled federal workforce, although retirement is expected to winnow the group considerably over the next decade. Under current law, individuals with "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities" are considered disabled.

The proclamation came just a day after Vice President Al Gore broke from his presidential campaign schedule to announce a range of programs, tax incentives and nearly $100 million in direct spending aimed at improving home ownership and residential living options for the disabled. Also included in the Gore package was a proposed executive memorandum that would require agencies to strive to develop and share assistive technologies and universal design facilities for disabled employees.

The Office of Personnel Management will assume responsibility for implementing Clinton's executive order, beginning with a requirement that all agencies provide OPM with a formal blueprint for recruiting and hiring people with disabilities. The plans, due Sept. 25, must detail both how and at what pay grades the agencies plan to employ disabled workers and what steps they will take to create an accessible environment for the new employees.

OPM Director Janice R. Lachance, whose agency earlier this month launched a Web site for disabled federal job seekers, cited the contributions currently being made by such employees as proof that the programs in place are worth bolstering.

"The quality of work performed by people with disabilities-and the full range of occupations they hold-only serve to reinforce the Clinton-Gore administration's commitment to do more for those who only need a chance to show what they can do for America," said Lachance.

President Clinton has aggressively pushed efforts to reduce the stubborn 75 percent unemployment rate among the disabled, a percentage that has barely budged despite the record-low unemployment achieved under Clinton's watch. The administration claims that 72 percent of this population would work if given the opportunity.

The 1998 Presidential Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities yielded two federal publications promoting the recruitment of people with disabilities, Accessing Opportunity: The Plan for Employment of People With Disabilities in the Federal Government and People with Disabilities in the Federal Government: An Employment Guide. These were the first of their kind among executive branch agencies.

More recently, OPM has finalized regulations designed to allow employees with psychiatric disabilities to gain competitive federal service status after they've completed a probationary, non-competitive stint.

Yesterday's announcement does not lock agencies into meeting specific hiring targets. Clinton's order only calls on agencies to try to meet the overall goal of hiring 100,000 people with disabilities.

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