Government Executive - Authors - Raya Widenoja

FBI still not reaching out to local law enforcement, police expert says

Raya Widenoja — Thu, 19 Sep 2002 00:00:00 -0400

Local law enforcement agencies still aren't getting enough information from the FBI to respond effectively to security threats, according to the head of the country's largest organization of police executives.

Despite a new color-coded terrorism alert system and FBI Director Robert Mueller's expressed commitment to better coordinate with local law enforcement agencies, police still aren't getting information specific enough to help them identify terrorist risks in their communities, said Bill Berger, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and police chief of North Miami Beach, Fla. On Sept. 10, when the Justice Department raised the threat level of possible terrorist attacks from "elevated" to "high," many local police didn't learn of the change until it was announced to the public, Berger said.

"It didn't work again," Berger said, adding that the level of information from the FBI varied by region. Most local police in New England were informed by the FBI office in that area of the elevated threat level about an hour before the public, but police in other regions didn't know about the change until Attorney General John Ashcroft and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge announced it at a press conference, Berger said.

"Baltimore had a 45-minute notice, Florida was [officially] notified an hour and a half afterwards, and California was notified several hours afterwards…the system still has flaws; it's something we have to work on," Berger said.

Ridge introduced the color-coded national alert system in March to help government and law enforcement officials gauge security threats and allocate their resources appropriately. The security level was introduced at the yellow, "elevated" risk level, and remained unchanged until Sept. 10, when it was raised to the orange, "high" risk level. The government had issued four warnings about terrorist attacks prior to the system's introduction, but police complained that those warnings were too general and drained their resources because they didn't know where to focus their efforts.

An orange alert directs the federal government to "coordinate necessary security efforts with armed forces or law enforcement agencies," according to the White House Web site. But Berger said that coordination never took place on Sept. 10, despite the creation last December of an Office of Law Enforcement Coordination in FBI headquarters which serves as the main point of contact for many organizations, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Berger acknowledged that the FBI's warnings have become more specific since the new alert system took effect, but coordination among federal and local law enforcement agencies still needs improvement, he said. Better coordination and information sharing rests primarily with the FBI's regional offices, he added, and some-such as the New England office-have been more responsive than others.

"What I hear from New England [police chiefs] is they have so much information they are ready to throw much of it out. The problem is the rest of the country," Berger said. FBI regional offices in the rest of the country haven't improved their information-sharing practices that much since the terrorist attacks, according to Berger.

The FBI and the Office of Homeland Security did not return phone calls for this story.

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Interior secretary held in contempt for trust fund mess

Raya Widenoja — Tue, 17 Sep 2002 00:00:00 -0400

A federal judge on Tuesday held Interior Secretary Gale Norton in contempt of court for failing to reform the agency's Indian trust fund system.

U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth held Norton and Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb in contempt, ordering them to pay legal fees for the plaintiffs and the cost of appointing a court monitor to oversee future reforms of the accounting system. Lamberth accused the two officials of delaying reforms and misleading the court about progress on a plan to fix accounting errors and security problems with online trust information. Lamberth's decision about whether to hold Norton and McCaleb in contempt has been pending since February.

"The recalcitrance exhibited by the Department of Interior in complying with the orders of this court is only surpassed by the incompetence that the agency has show in administering the IIM [Individual Indian Money] trust," Lamberth wrote in his 267-page ruling.

Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs is responsible for sending checks to Indian trust beneficiaries who rely on trust funds for basic living necessities. Currently, the BIA manages about 1,400 tribal accounts and 300,000 individual trust accounts, which were set up more than a century ago to compensate Indians for the use of their land. Allegations of mismanagement of the BIA trust accounting system culminated in a 1996 lawsuit filed against Interior by Elouise Cobell, founder and current chair of the Blackfeet National Bank.

In February 1999, Lamberth held then-Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt; his assistant secretary for Indian affairs, Kevin Gover; and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in contempt of court for failing to produce records relating to the Cobell case.

In his Sept. 17 decision, Lamberth also declined Cobell's request for a court-appointed receiver to manage reform efforts, which would take responsibility for the needed reforms away from the agency. Lamberth ordered Norton and McCaleb to present plans to bring the department into compliance with court orders by Jan. 6, and set the date for the next phase of the trial for May 2003.

The Interior and Justice departments issued a joint statement criticizing the ruling. "We disagree with the court's decision and are evaluating it to consider all of the options for appeal," said Robert McCallum Jr., assistant attorney general in Justice's Civil Division.

"This administration has done more to fix a very broken trust management system than any previous administration in history," the statement said. The statement also argued that portions of Lamberth's ruling are based on actions taken by officials in the previous administration.

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Eight agencies honored for accountability reports

Raya Widenoja — Mon, 16 Sep 2002 00:00:00 -0400

The Association of Government Accountants will honor eight federal agencies Tuesday for excellence in accountability reporting.

The agencies, which include the General Accounting Office, the National Science Foundation and the State Department, submitted clear, comprehensive and timely fiscal 2001 accountability reports, according to AGA. The Sept. 17 award ceremony will also honor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Social Security Administration and the Energy, Interior and Labor departments.

AGA established the Certificates of Excellence in Accountability Reports program in 1997 with OMB and the Chief Financial Officers Council to help agencies streamline their reports. Ten agencies participated in this year's program.

Federal agencies are required to submit annual financial reports and performance reports to the Office of Management and Budget and Congress. The 1990 Chief Financial Officers Act requires agencies to submit audited financial statements annually, while the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act requires agencies to submit annual performance plans and reports outlining how well they are meeting their missions. To improve efficiency, the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000 allows agencies to combine financial data and performance data into one report and submit it Congress and OMB within 150 days of the end of the fiscal year.

OMB has urged agencies to submit the consolidated accountability reports since 1997, and agencies will be required to do so beginning with their fiscal 2002 reports. This year, over half the agencies voluntarily incorporated their 2001 performance reports into the accountability reports they submitted to AGA.

According to AGA, agencies have made progress in accountability reporting over the last four years.

"In general, the agencies participating in the program are producing more comprehensive, more informative, and more readable documents. Most of the award recipients have been participating in the program over a number of years and have been making gradual improvements to their reports," said Lisa Thatcher, director of the Certificates of Excellence in Accountability Reports program at AGA.

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Agencies take low-key approach to Sept. 11 anniversary

Raya Widenoja — Mon, 09 Sep 2002 00:00:00 -0400

Most federal agencies will take only a brief respite from their work on Wednesday to honor the victims of last year's terrorist attacks.

Government Executive asked more than a dozen agencies how they planned to mark the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Many agencies will hold short ceremonies and participate in a moment of silence to honor victims, but for most employees, it will be a regular work day. All federal offices in the Washington area will be open for business on Sept. 11.

"We have to go on with our work, of course, to make sure nothing like this happens again," said an FBI spokesman of the agency's plans for the day.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employees union, also plans to plow ahead with its work on that day. "We don't have anything planned [for Sept. 11] at the moment," said Diane Witiak, a spokeswoman for AFGE. "We have our hands full with the homeland security bill, and that's where our efforts have been [in the last weeks]."

The Census Bureau, which lost two of its employees on Sept. 11, will have a short service honoring its fallen co-workers, but does not want to dwell on the tragedy. Marion Britton and Waleska Martinez of the agency's New York office were aboard United Airlines Flight 93 when terrorists crashed it into a Pennsylvania field.

"One thing we are trying to do is not have another memorial service," said LaVerne Collins, assistant director for communications at the bureau, emphasizing that the purpose of the ceremony is not to dredge up painful memories. "We are trying to have an encouraging service that will give people reason to go on."

The agency created a "Tree of Honor" in memory of Britton and Martinez with 300 leaves, two of which are inscribed with the women's names. The other leaves are designated for the names of future employees who make outstanding contributions to the Census Bureau's mission.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, will attend a ceremony in New York to honor IRS employee David Bernard, who died from injuries sustained at the World Trade Center last Sept. 11. The union, which represents 97,000 IRS employees, could not confirm whether it would be holding any ceremonies of its own, according to NTEU spokespeople.

Federal employees in the New York area are planning a ceremony Wednesday morning that will feature buglers, a joint color guard, bagpipe players, inspirational readings and a Native American healer, according to Cynthia Gable, executive director of the New York City Federal Executive Board.

"This is by federal employees for federal employees," Gable said. "We sent out ribbons to every agency that requested them, so employees could write their names on them, and then collected them, put them into bows and made them into wreaths to be carried by employees from agencies who lost employees." Flags from the 70 countries that lost people at the World Trade Center will also be displayed at the ceremony.

"We wanted to do a ceremony that was based on reflecting on what happened, and also one of moving on and picking up our lives," said Tony Farthing, New York Region director for the Census Bureau.

The Pentagon, which lost 125 employees when terrorists crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the building, will hold a ceremony on Sept. 11 with President Bush to honor victims. The event is open only to Pentagon employees and their families.

Tanya N. Ballard contributed to this report.

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FEMA launches Web site on Sept. 11 response

Raya Widenoja — Fri, 06 Sep 2002 00:00:00 -0400

Federal front-line responders to the Sept. 11 attacks now have their own Web site, telling the stories of their efforts.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency launched the new Web site Thursday to commemorate the tragedy and "share with America how FEMA and the federal government on behalf of all America responded" to help the victims and assist in the recovery effort after the attacks, said Cindy Ramsay, a public affairs specialist at FEMA.

"The work that began on Sept. 11 and continues today could not have been done without your support," FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh wrote in a message to online readers posted at the site. "Others, like those profiled in this report, may have literally picked up the pieces. But it was your prayers that picked them up and kept all of us going during the dark days after the horror."

The site features 14 stories from federal workers and volunteers involved in the response and recovery efforts and 55 photographs-all but two taken by FEMA photographers-at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon and the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.

"The stories are told from an individual perspective," said Ramsay, and range from a disaster assistance employee who counseled families of Pentagon victims, to a Salvation Army volunteer at the World Trade Center to a New York Police Department emergency responder.

"FEMA tends to do...status reports on response efforts following different disasters," Ramsay said. But agency officials decided that using personal stories and pictures was the best way to portray the Sept. 11 response. "I think it's a very compelling publication," Ramsay said.

The stories show how a wide variety of agencies worked together to provide aid in the aftermath of the attacks. For example, at the World Trade Center site, organizations that FEMA worked with included local emergency response agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation units, command teams from the Forest Service and New York public school officials.

Ten workers chosen to represent FEMA's urban search and rescue teams are scheduled to travel back to the site of the World Trade Center before Sept. 11. Most team members haven't been back since rescue efforts ended weeks after the attack.

"It will be a solemn tour of the site and [should] give them time to reflect…. They will share their thoughts while they are there, but it is primarily for them to get closure," Ramsay said. FEMA is also exploring the idea of arranging a tour of the Pentagon for search and rescue team members.

Allbaugh and other top FEMA officials will attend the Sept. 11 commemorative ceremonies in New York next week, at which the names of the nearly 2,500 victims of the attack on the World Trade Center will be read.

A printed publication of the online exhibit, A Nation Remembers, A Nation Recovers: Responding to September 11 One Year Later, is also available from FEMA, but since only a limited number are being printed, the agency is encouraging interested individuals to download the publication instead.

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Special trustee for Indian money accounts resigns

Raya Widenoja — Wed, 31 Jul 2002 00:00:00 -0400

A high-ranking Interior Department official who spoke candidly about the difficulties the agency faces in reforming its accounting system for Indian trust funds resigned Tuesday. Tom Slonaker, Interior's special trustee for Indian Affairs for the last two years, was given the choice to resign or be fired, according to a report from the Associated Press. The Associated Press said Slonaker's departure was due in part to his candor about the Interior Department's troubled Indian trust fund reform efforts. Neither Slonaker nor Interior officials were available for comment on Wednesday, but Interior Secretary Gale Norton wished Slonaker well and, in a statement, thanked him for his service to the department. Donna Erwin, now deputy special trustee for projects and operations at Interior, will take Slonaker's place. Slonaker testified July 25 before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs that Interior's plan to account for individual Indian trust funds could not result in a full and proper historical accounting and did not satisfy the department's responsibilities to American Indians. Interior released a report earlier this month that estimated it will take 10 years and $2.4 billion to properly account for the funds. Trust fund accounts were set up more than a century ago to pay Indians for the use of their land. Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs is responsible for sending checks to Indian trust beneficiaries, who rely on trust funds for basic living necessities. Allegations of mismanagement of the BIA trust accounting system have plagued the agency for years, culminating in a 1996 lawsuit filed against Interior by Elouise Cobell, founder and current chair of the Blackfeet National Bank. Slonaker resigned on the same day tribal leaders urged members of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee to sponsor legislation to create an independent commission before the end of the year to oversee the agency's troubled accounting system for individual Indian trust accounts.

"We are concerned with the tendency of [Interior] to await the outcome of litigation before doing anything. Time and time again we have bumped up against this wall, but there will always be litigation-it is part of the American system," said Tex Hall, chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes in North Dakota and a co-chair of a tribal task force on Indian trust reform, referring to Cobell's ongoing lawsuit, and two other lawsuits pending in the Supreme Court that were filed by the White Mountain Apache and the Navajo Nation. The Task Force on Indian Trust Reform was created last December after tribal leaders criticized Norton's plan to create a Bureau of Indian Trust Assets Management within the Interior Department. Susan Masten, chairwoman of the Yurok tribe of California and co-chair of the task force, said during Tuesday's hearing that an independent commission with regulatory power is essential if the accounting system is to be improved. Masten said the 1994 American Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act failed primarily because the special trustee's office was not given enough independent oversight authority to carry out reform. The special trustee reports directly to the Interior secretary. Interior officials at the Senate hearing said they agreed with tribal leaders on the creation of an oversight commission, but did not want to give the commission regulatory powers. Steven Griles, deputy secretary of Interior, said that although private industries are subject to regulatory bodies, applying the same regulatory standards to public entities would be unfair. According to Masten and Hall, Interior would prefer that the commission merely act in an advisory capacity so that it doesn't have any power to sanction the department.

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OPM expects more agencies to vie for president’s management award

Raya Widenoja — Thu, 25 Jul 2002 00:00:00 -0400

The deadline to apply for the president's top prize for quality management is fast approaching, and officials at the Office of Personnel Management hope the program's shorter application form and new design will encourage more agencies to participate this year.

"We are seeing a broader level of participation; agencies that haven't participated in the past are applying," said Glenda Haendschke, program manager for the President's Quality Award program at OPM. "I think the change is good."

Although most agencies submit their applications for the award to OPM the day before the due date, OPM expects more agencies to participate this year because of an unusually large number of inquiries. The deadline for submitting applications is Aug. 5, and OPM will honor the winners at an awards ceremony in October.

The President's Quality Award program has honored federal organizations with exemplary records in quality management and customer service since 1988. The program was modeled on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which is presented annually to high-performing businesses in the private sector.

OPM recently redesigned the award criteria to reflect the president's management agenda. According to the President's Quality Award Web site, the awards are intended to promote a citizen-centered, market-based and results-oriented government. The president's agenda, unveiled last summer, directs agencies to achieve results in five areas: human capital management, competitive sourcing, financial management, e-government and performance-based budgeting. Agencies can compete in all or just one of those areas, and will be judged on criteria that emphasize results, best practices for other organizations, and long-term solutions.

Before OPM redesigned the program, applicants were expected to address 19 criteria in fewer than 50 pages, or 60 pages for organizations with more than 20,000 employees. The 2001 packet of instructions alone was 102 pages long, and there was a lengthy review process. Under the old process, agencies were required to submit their applications in October, and it took OPM nearly four months to review the submissions. This year, the application forms are only 10 pages long, and OPM expects to complete all of the reviews in about a month.

Last March, the Bush administration considered cancelling the 2001 awards and eliminating the program altogether. But officials at OPM made a last-minute decision to continue the awards after finding out how much time agencies had already devoted to their 2001 applications. OPM said at the time that it would review the criteria for the 2002 awards and consider "new approaches to recognize quality achievements, particularly those that focus on new uses of technology, consistent with the Bush administration's management priorities." In February, OPM released a memo explaining the program's new criteria.

Some previous applicants initially questioned the changes, but most seem satisfied with the program now, Haendschke said.

"A lot of people who had participated in the program in the past were strong Baldridge believers, but…essentially the presidential management agenda is very much in line with the Baldridge program, so we worked with them to understand how they could use their experience to apply this year," Haendschke said.

OPM has also scrapped a restriction on the number of awards given out this year and eliminated runner-up honors for quality improvement and merit.

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Billions of dollars needed to fix Indian trust fund mess, report says

Raya Widenoja — Tue, 16 Jul 2002 00:00:00 -0400

The Interior Department estimates that it will take 10 years and approximately $2.4 billion to properly account for individual Indian trust funds dating back more than a century, according to a report released earlier this month.

In a July 3 report to Congress on the historical accounting of Indian trust funds, Interior estimated that it would cost $907 million just to reconcile current accounts from 1985 to 2000. "The magnitude of the historical accounting is enormous," the report said.

Trust fund accounts were set up nearly a century ago to compensate Indians for the use of their land. Currently, the Bureau of Indian Affairs manages about 1,400 tribal accounts and 300,000 individual trust accounts. The agency is responsible for sending checks to Indian trust beneficiaries, many of whom rely on trust funds for basic living necessities.

But only paper records of accounts dating from 1906 to 1985 exist, and those are stored in 120 different locations. Errors in electronic data and missing paper records and land ownership information would also make a complete historical accounting time-consuming and costly, if not impossible, the report concluded.

Compounding those problems is the reluctance of Congress to give the Interior Department the money for an undertaking that might ultimately fail anyway, the report said. "Congress will not appropriate hundreds of millions of dollars for an historical accounting that provides funds for a protracted reconciliation process whose outcome is unlikely to be successful."

And recent actions by the House Appropriations Committee seem to support that argument. On July 9, the committee approved a provision limiting funds for the entire historical accounting project to $500 million and recommending that the Interior Department only reconcile accounts from 1985 to 2000, according to a committee spokesman.

"Some people are concerned that this [report] is just an effort to tell Congress that, 'Hey, this accounting will be real expensive and take a long time, so we don't want to do it,'" said John Dossett, general counsel for the National Council of American Indians, the oldest and largest tribal government organization in the United States. "I also think it speaks to some degree to the need to settle historical accounts…it may not be realistic to ever completely account for [all the individual trust funds]."

Allegations of mismanagement of the BIA trust accounting system culminated in a 1996 lawsuit against Interior filed by Elouise Cobell, founder and current chairwoman of the Blackfeet National Bank.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who now faces contempt charges in the lawsuit, created the Office of Historical Trust Accounting in July 2001 to oversee reform of the individual Indian trust accounts and provide a detailed plan for reconciling the accounts.

A court-appointed monitor of trust reform also criticized Interior's report. "The historical accounting proposal in the report is just one more example of the continuing historical unwillingness and inability of the Department of the Interior, as an institution, to honor its trust obligations to the American Indian," said Joseph Kieffer in a report released last week.

A task force created in January and made up of tribal leaders and Interior officials will release its proposal for trust fund reform at the end of July.

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IT workforce panel to focus on training

Raya Widenoja — Wed, 03 Jul 2002 00:00:00 -0400

The Chief Information Officers Council, which has focused on pay and hiring issues for IT workers in the past year, is planning to make training for project managers and career development programs for employees high priorities, said Ira Hobbs, acting CIO at the Agriculture Department and co-chair of the council's workforce and human capital for IT committee.

Hobbs told reporters during a Tuesday conference call that he is working with an interagency team to develop an online roadmap to guide employees who want to improve their IT skills.

"We are looking for an automated tool that will help people.… They will be able to access it at their desktop no matter where they are in government," Hobbs said.

Hobbs comments came during a discussion about feedback on an August 2001 study from the National Academy of Public Administration which concluded that the government needs to use more pay and hiring flexibilities to compete with the private sector for IT workers.

The NAPA report recommended that the federal government "establish a market-based, pay-for-performance compensation system" with broad pay ranges and raises based on increases in competency to attract and retain IT workers.

The NAPA report has received 31 comments so far, which have been summarized and are available through the CIO Council Web site. "The comments were very supportive--often personal horror stories of what is going on it their own organizations," Hobbs said. "By and large, they were very positive and very supportive of the report itself."

Hobbs said the committee would continue working with key organizations, such as the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget, to promote NAPA's recommendations.

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Defense slow to address effects of ‘encroachment’ on bases

Raya Widenoja — Thu, 27 Jun 2002 00:00:00 -0400

Defense's Senior Readiness Oversight Council began discussing the issues of encroachment and environmental regulations two years ago. But since then, the department has been slow to develop plans for addressing the issues, GAO concluded in its report, "DOD Lacks a Comprehensive Plan to Manage Encroachment on Training Ranges" (GAO-02-614). In April of this year a Defense working group was still formulating a plan, which lacks implementation detail, GAO found.

GAO investigators visited four military installations and two major commands in California, Washington state, Florida, Nevada and Virginia, and said they found evidence of training impediments from encroachment. They recommended that Defense move swiftly to finish a clear and detailed plan to manage such issues. Further, GAO recommended that Defense develop inventories of its facilities and capacities; create a database of available training ranges to help reschedule training if one range becomes unavailable because of environmental or civilian safety issues; and develop a clear reporting system for changes implemented due to encroachment.

The effects of encroachment have been accumulating slowly over several years and are becoming too difficult to address on an ad hoc basis, GAO reported. The population of areas near training ranges is growing faster than the national average, resulting in higher costs to carry out exercises, increased safety concerns and a loss of flexibility in conducting training maneuvers.

Urban areas are encroaching on military basis in both physical and technological ways. Defense officials told GAO that the department has lost 27 percent of its total frequency spectrum for aircraft telemetry since 1992 to the commercial telecommunications industry, at a time when Defense demand for those frequencies has increased. At Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. officials are concerned that frequency interference from commercial users will affect the target control systems of weapons used in training exercises. Eglin officials also must negotiate with the surrounding community about the timing of bomb detonation exercises.

Environmental regulations also have raised concerns. More than 300 plants and animals classified as endangered species under federal laws live on military bases, and that number is expected to grow.

At the home of the Navy's Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk, Va., sailors must search the waters for two hours before performing live-fire exercises and cease immediately if a marine mammal enters the training area. At the Marine Corps' Camp Pendleton, Calif., base, the use of off-road vehicles is limited to protect endangered species.

Military leaders say the Environmental Protection Agency could effectively shut down training on active ranges by applying environmental statutes to live munitions. Defense has sought a change in the definition of solid wastes in federal law to exclude munitions waste and modifications in the 1977 Clean Air Act to allow the military services three years to comply with its provisions.

Defense officials also told GAO they were concerned about airspace congestion, air visibility requirements (which limit training operations that generate smoke), pollution emission requirements, and noise and safety problems associated with urban and suburban growth near military installations.

While Defense officials have testified in Congress about the adverse affects of encroachment and environmental regulations, GAO found that military commanders did not frequently cite these issues as problems in readiness reports. High-level Defense officials have cited the rising costs of "workarounds" to accommodate environmental regulations, but have yet to fully quantify those costs, GAO found.

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Job satisfaction down among federal employees

Raya Widenoja — Wed, 26 Jun 2002 00:00:00 -0400

The number of federal employees who said they were "very satisfied" with their jobs fell 6 percent over the past year, from 49 percent in 2001 to 43 percent in 2002, according to the report, "The Troubled State of the Federal Public Service." Federal employees also reported a general decline in morale among their peers: 58 percent of employees rated morale among their co-workers as "very or somewhat high" in 2001, compared with 53 percent in 2002.

The report is based on two surveys completed before and after Sept. 11-one conducted between February and June 2001 and the other between March and May 2002.

"One can easily argue that frustration is up because federal employees have become more aware of the bureaucratic barriers and poor performance among fellow employees in this post-Sept. 11 world," the report said. "One can also argue that perceived morale is down because federal employees wanted to do more to help the nation, but felt unable to do so."

Employees believed that their agencies did not provide them with challenging work or the proper tools to do their jobs well, according to the study. They also reported growing doubts over the link between their jobs and the mission of their agency and less trust in their agencies to "do the right thing." And 41 percent of employees said they came to work primarily for the paycheck, up from 31 percent last year.

Job satisfaction levels were higher at the Defense Department than in other areas of government. Defense employees reported feeling a greater sense of purpose about their jobs since Sept. 11, saying that while their jobs had become more stressful, their work had also become more rewarding. Defense employees also reported improved performance among their peers over the past year.

The different levels of job satisfaction among Defense and non-Defense employees could be the result of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's leadership, according to the report.

"Donald Rumsfeld is not only one of the most popular appointees with the American public, but also has focused his workforce on the war on terrorism, and is working to remove bureaucratic barriers that frustrate results…. Rumsfeld rightly views human capital as a linchpin on the war against terrorism," the report said.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said a lack of resources coupled with a lack of recognition for the work of federal employees contributed to the frustration many civil servants felt with their jobs.

"I wasn't surprised," Kelley said of the report's findings. "I think the resource issue, especially for agencies like the Customs Service, has really been highlighted [in the report]," she said. Customs employees "really felt this post-Sept. 11, and they saw very little recognition for the need for additional staff and resources," Kelley said. Paul Light, vice president and director of governmental studies at the Brookings Institution and the author of the report, said many employees felt the sting from a perceived lack of recognition on the part of President Bush. "I think more damaging … is the fact that the president hasn't had much to say to federal workers at all," Light said. "I think federal employees are listening to what he's not saying."

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Defense Department gets earful on prison contracting rule

Raya Widenoja — Tue, 25 Jun 2002 00:00:00 -0400

Federal Register in April that would increase competition between Federal Prison Industries and the private sector for the Pentagon's business. The public comment period on the controversial rule ended Tuesday.

The interim rule, which implements Section 811 of the 2002 Defense Authorization Act, requires the Defense Department to do market research on commercial products before buying anything from Federal Prison Industries.

Susan Schneider of the Defense Acquisitions Regulations Council said the large number of comments on the rule made it impossible to say when a final ruling would be made.

"We were amazed at the number of comments coming in," Schneider said. "Usually we get between five and 10 responses from the public." Schneider said the review process would take longer than normal, and that they were trying to give every comment as much attention as possible.

FPI, whose trade name is Unicor, is part of the Justice Department's Bureau of Prisons. The agency employs about 20,000 federal inmates to produce $500 million in furniture, clothing, electronics, and other products for agencies.

Congress passed legislation in December 2001 that stripped FPI of its mandatory source status with the Pentagon, allowing Defense to buy furniture, textiles and other equipment from private sector firms. FPI is still the default provider of certain products to all federal agencies besides Defense.

Some, including Gary Engebretson, president of the Contract Services Association of America, have said federal rules requiring agencies to make purchases from FPI for are unfair to private firms.

"The mandatory source requirement is completely contrary to normally required competitive procurement practices for government contracting, as well as overall government policy, which states that 'in the process of governing, the government should not compete with its citizens,' " wrote Engebretson in a June 24 response to the proposed regulations.

Engebretson praised the implementation of Section 811 for giving small businesses the chance to compete for lucrative Defense contracts, which, he wrote, FPI "had a virtual lock on."

Engebretsen also argued that competition would enhance the training of FPI inmates. "If FPI is to become a vehicle for reducing idleness and preparing inmates for the private sector, it also should prepare those inmates for the reality of the competitive pressures faced by real-life employers and employees."

In its response to the interim rules, FPI said it was confident that it would "continue to provide high-quality, comparable products," but expressed concern that the current wording of Section 811 would lead to misinterpretations by Defense contracting officers, who might unfairly exclude FPI.

"FPI is already finding that Defense contracting officers are not complying with the requirement to obtain an offer from FPI during the competitive process, but rather are inappropriately bypassing FPI altogether after the initial comparability stage," wrote Marianne Cantwell, FPI's general counsel, on June 20. Cantwell also expressed concern that a substantial loss of business to FPI could lead to more violence and discontent in prisons, and a loss of business to small industries that supply FPI.

Engebretsen also questioned FPI's expansion into the commercial market for services. The original legislation creating FPI says that the goods it produces should not be sold to the public or compete with private enterprises, but it does not mention services.

Based on several legal opinions from the Justice Department, FPI has concluded that the mandatory source clause does not apply to services and has begun providing a variety of services such as data entry, laundry, and retrofitting vehicles to the public.

"[Providing services] is something that we have been doing for a while," said Ruth Bracken, executive assistant to Steve Schwalb, chief operating officer of FPI. "It is not a reaction to Section 811…we don't have mandatory source on our services so we are able to do that."

But others do not view the matter as so cut and dried. "What we are saying is that FPI has expanded beyond the original intent of its [legislation]. Particularly in the case of small businesses, when you have a mom-and-pop industry trying to compete with FPI, it just isn't fair," said George Sigalos, spokesman for the Contract Services Association.

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Lawmakers urged to make Web sites more accessible

Raya Widenoja — Fri, 21 Jun 2002 00:00:00 -0400

But Rep. Connie Morella, R-Md., said at the event that she wouldn't introduce legislation to force Congress to comply with a law that requires executive branch agencies to make their technology systems accessible to people with disabilities.

Section 508 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act requires all executive branch agencies to make sure that blind people can navigate federal Web sites, deaf people can read captions on federal videos and federal employees in wheelchairs can use copiers and other equipment not designed with them in mind. The law, which was amended in 1998, did not require congressional offices to comply.

But speakers at the Thursday event said that legislative offices have made their Web sites more accessible to the disabled over the past year despite the exemption. Thursday's event marked the first anniversary of the start of enforcement of the Section 508 rules.

Morella, a co-chair of the Bipartisan Disabilities Caucus, said she plans to send a letter to her fellow lawmakers that she hopes will act "as a catalyst" by drawing attention and interest to the issue, encouraging all offices to eventually become compliant.

Rep. James Langevin, D-R.I., the other co-chair of the caucus, challenged members of Congress to make their Web sites accessible. "This is an example of where the legislative branch needs to follow the lead it has set for others," Langevin said. But Langevin stopped short of endorsing legislation that would require congressional offices to comply with Section 508. In January, the Office of Compliance, an arm of Congress that oversees workplace practices in the legislative branch, recommended that Congress bring itself under the Section 508 requirements. "The Office of Compliance applauds those legislative offices that have voluntarily become Section 508-compliant and urges others to take the necessary steps to make their electronic and information technology fully accessible to all," an office bulletin said. For now, lawmakers said they hope that increased knowledge and awareness of Section 508 rules will suffice.

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Ramshackle military barracks adversely affect recruits, says report

Raya Widenoja — Thu, 20 Jun 2002 00:00:00 -0400

02-786). During GAO's inspection of 10 military installations that house recruits undergoing basic training, interior temperatures in some barracks rose above 90 degrees with no air circulation, while several facilities on Parris Island, S.C., had deficient air conditioners. Trainers stationed at Parris Island suspected that the faulty air conditioners allowed mold spores to circulate, causing the high incidence of respiratory problems among recruits. Leaky pipes and broken toilets and showerheads have also worsened overcrowding problems and cut into training time, according to service officials at many of the buildings GAO visited. "Officials told us that because of the inadequate bath facilities for the high number of recruits, they often had to perform 'workarounds'-such as establishing time limits for recruits taking showers-in order to minimize, but not eliminate, adverse effects on training time," the report said. Most barracks have less than the required 72 square feet of living space per recruit, especially during the summer months. Service officials blamed a lack of funds for maintenance on the poor condition of many of the buildings. Army officials told GAO that funds earmarked for maintenance were used for other priorities, including training. Although the disrepair in many facilities is having "an adverse impact on the quality of life for recruits" and are a "burden on trainers," base officials were able to accomplish their overall training mission, according to the report. GAO said the Defense Department has made improvements in some facilities and has plans for sustaining or upgrading other buildings. The Army, for example, has long-term plans for updating its facilities over the next 20 years. Currently, the creation of bachelor living quarters is taking precedence over updating recruit barracks, according to Army officials. The other military services have more short-term plans for improvement. The Marine Corps and Air Force are concentrating on renovating existing facilities, while the Navy is planning to build new barracks for fresh recruits. The Marine Corps is also planning limited short-term renovations to its barracks for recruits, since it is also under pressure to renovate and create more bachelor living quarters. The conditions of Defense Department facilities were not regularly reviewed until 2000, when Congress deemed that installation readiness was integral to overall defense readiness. Now, each service develops its own system for rating the condition of its facilities. GAO agreed with most of Defense's ratings of its barracks, but there were some exceptions. For example, the department gave the Marine Corp facilities at Parris Island, S.C., the best rating overall in its defense readiness reporting system, but GAO criticized that rating, saying the barracks were in "the worst physical condition [they] had seen." Marine officials explained that their rating was based on old data because the newest inspection information had not been entered in their database. GAO's report is part of a larger, ongoing project assessing the condition of all Defense facilities. ]]>