The Buzz

Finance Is King

Since the passage of the 1990 Chief Financial Officers Act, federal CFOs have assumed progressively more complex roles, compelling fresh discussions about where these officials fit in agencies' management structures.

During the past 14 years, the government's CFOs have taken on management responsibilities outside of those prescribed in the 1990 law, witnesses told a House subcommittee in September. "The CFO is increasingly recognized as being positioned to provide agencywide leadership that other officials with more limited portfolios cannot offer," Office of Management and Budget Controller Linda Springer testified.

The CFO Act requires 23 major agencies to let a Senate-confirmed CFO oversee accounting systems, prepare performance and accountability reports, and help keep spending in line with budgets. Under the act, the CFO reports directly to the head of the agency.

But over the years, agencies also have designated chief information officers, chief human capital officers and chief procurement officers to work alongside CFOs. Some have proposed assigning a chief management officer to oversee these officials, testified Edward DeSeve, a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy.

"If a CFO with statutory responsibility is required to report through a management officer, [his or her] effectiveness and authority is likely to be diluted," DeSeve told lawmakers.

But the idea of appointing an undersecretary for management shouldn't be discounted, said C. Morgan Kinghorn Jr., president of the National Academy of Public Administration. Such an official "might be an answer to the consolidation of all management functions short of the secretary or agency head."

Whooose Rules?

The Federal Register may seem like an odd place to lodge a protest, but regular readers of the daily digest will notice a recurring screed from the Fish and Wildlife Service complaining about its own rules.

For example, an Aug. 31 rule, "Final Designation of Critical Habitat for the Mexican Spotted Owl," begins with an explanation that "The service's present system for designating critical habitat . . . provides little real conservation benefit, is driven by litigation and the courts rather than biology, limits our ability to fully evaluate the science involved, consumes enormous agency resources, and imposes huge social and economic costs."

The page-long diatribe was handed down by Interior Secretary Gale Norton in 2003 and inserted in all critical habitat rule-makings until Congress, as the department hopes, amends the 1973 Endangered Species Act to do away with the critical habitat designations.

In the Air, Discounts Mount

General Services Administration officials announced in September that they had wrung $100 million in additional savings out of the federal government's discount airline ticket program for fiscal 2005, adding to the billions of dollars already saved with the negotiated travel program.

The agency's Federal Supply Service contracts with 13 airlines to provide contracts for service between designated city pairs. The program gives federal fliers an advantage over commercial travelers with fully refundable tickets, last seat availability, and no charge for cancellations or schedule changes. According to GSA, federal travelers save an average of 74 percent off commercial fares.

GSA awarded a total of 4,345 city-pair contracts in fiscal 2005-3,616 domestic and 729 international-with a total value of $819 million. Fiscal 2004 city-pair contracts totaled $920 million. The contracts are awarded based on average flight time, price, type of service, flight distribution and number of flights available.

E-Purchasing Upgrade

In September, the General Services Administration introduced new features on its GSA Advantage! Web site aimed at streamlining the government's purchasing system.

The upgraded site now allows agencies to search by category. Its design has been simplified, allowing easier access to more popular features such as the search function, order status and quick ordering. A password and ZIP codes are no longer required to search the system.

According to Donna Bennett, chief of GSA's Federal Supply Service, the features are in line with the agency's emphasis on the proper use of GSA supply schedules outlined in the agency's "Get It Right" campaign.

"These enhancements, made in response to requests from federal buyers and sellers, build on GSA's focus of helping customer agencies comply with government procurement regulations," Bennett says. "The enhancements offer a more efficient and user-friendly experience, while ensuring users 'get it right' when purchasing from GSA schedules."

Food Pyramid Fight

As regulators work to overhaul the government-issued guidelines that Americans use to shape their diets, some critics say Congress is not doing enough to ensure that the guidelines are based on science rather than lobbying.

Every five years, the Agriculture and Health and Human Services departments rewrite the official "Dietary Guidelines for Americans," the set of recommendations for healthy eating, which includes the familiar food pyramid. Food lobbies representing large commodities-such as beef and sugar-swarm around the process.

Some critics charge that the Agriculture Department-whose mission in-cludes promotion of food products-is too cozy with the food industry to be objective enough to urge Americans to cut back on certain kinds of food. "Congress should move the whole process to the National Academies of Science," says Michael Jacobson, executive director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "But my sense is that food interests are so powerful in Congress, that's been opposed."

Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., has suggested that structural changes are needed to avoid conflicts. "Putting the USDA in charge of dietary advice is in some respects like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse," Fitzgerald said at a hearing last year.

Contracting For Customer Service

Despite opposition internally and on Capitol Hill, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is moving ahead with a plan to set up a contractor-operated national customer service center on a two-year trial basis.

Three of four commissioners endorsed the plan in September, with Stuart Ishimaru, the newest member, casting the lone dissent. The center would serve as a clearinghouse for public inquiries now handled at EEOC field offices. On Sept. 21, the agency awarded a $4.9 million contract to set up the center to Pearson Government Solutions of Arlington, Va.

EEOC Chairwoman Cari Dominguez sold the idea as a "quantum leap" forward. Agency officials hope to get the center off the ground by April 2005, but first must brief lawmakers on the latest plans. The idea of a contractor-operated national service center already has encountered significant resistance on Capitol Hill.

Customer service work should be considered inherently governmental, Ishimaru says. Employees will handle sensitive, personal questions, he says, and some people might not call the center unless guaranteed that a trained federal employee would answer the phone.

The commission failed to give serious consideration to the option of keeping the work in-house, Ishimaru argues. An agency working group estimated last year that setting up an in-house center without contractor assistance would cost $12 million. By contrast, a contractor could run a center for $2 million to $3 million per year after a transition phase, the group predicted.