An independent auditor has concluded that financial managers at the National Weather Service are in a fog, prompting Commerce Secretary William Daley to order a number of management reforms to clear up the service's bookkeeping.
In a news conference last Thursday, Daley said he will appoint a chief financial officer for the service, in addition to ordering dozens of other reforms at NWS headquarters. Daley's orders followed recommendations in a report issued by retired Air Force Gen. John Kelly, who conducted a study of NWS operations at Daley's request.
"The weather service staff in the field are hardworking professionals, who dedicate themselves every day to public health and safety and to supporting American industry," Daley said. "The problems that this report has uncovered are in the headquarters, and that is where we will address them."
In preparing his report, Kelly said he was unable to get senior managers at NWS to explain how resources were used or to provide him with reliable budget predictions.
"Significant cultural and philosophical changes will be required to achieve essential reforms in management and budget policies and procedures," Kelly concluded.
Kelly said some of the agency's management problems result from a lack of funds. He recommended a larger budget for the next two years than the president's budget called for. Daley endorsed Kelly's recommendation, pledging to ask Congress for more money for NWS.
Kelly also placed some of the blame on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the weather service's parent organization, for poor management of NWS' computer systems modernization. Kelly said the division of program management responsibilities for the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System is "costly, inefficient and blurs responsibility." The weather service and NOAA waste time trying to coordinate with each other on project management because they don't know the boundaries of each other's responsibilities, Kelly said.
Daley also announced he would cancel plans to close the weather service's southern regional headquarters in Texas, one of four regional offices in the continental United States. Instead, all four NWS offices will be directed to reduce staffing. NWS headquarters had supported the closing, but all four regional directors were against it, Kelly found.
Daley said the Commerce Department is "in the final stages" of finding a new director. Longtime director Elbert "Joe" Friday Jr. was removed this summer and transferred to a research office at NOAA.
Asked if NOAA should take more responsibility for the problems at the weather service rather than placing it on Friday, Daley responded, "I think we all in the Department of Commerce bear some of the responsibility. It does not all fall on one person's lap. On the other hand, the director is the head of the weather service."
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