June 5, 2008
A summary of daily news relevant to the federal workforce produced by the
Partnership for Public Service.
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Campaigns Go On, but the Transition Is Around the Corner
The Washington
PostBy Stephen Barr
Even though the McCain-Obama battle is just getting started, it is not too early for their political teams to start thinking about the transition
to the White House. It might even be too late.
When it comes to organizing a new administration, history "tells us that any winning candidate who has not started at least six months before the
election will be woefully behind come the day after Election Day," John Kamensky wrote on his blog last year, before the Clinton-Obama sprint turned
into a marathon.
Kamensky was a "reinventing government" aide to then-vice president Al Gore. Now a senior fellow at the IBM Center for the Business of Government,
he posts transition updates and related information at least twice a week atwww.transition2008.wordpress.com. Kamensky's goal is to pull together what
different think tanks, nonprofit organizations and other groups are planning or doing on federal management issues that likely will require the
attention of the next president.
Most federal employees usually feel somewhat removed from transitions, unless they have a headquarters job that puts them in contact with
political appointees assigned by the winning candidate to scout out their agency.
But a larger number of federal employees may feel the tug of the transition this time because the 2009 transfer of power will be the first in the
post-9/11 era, prompting concerns on Capitol Hill and in the administration about possible increased risks of terrorism and other threats to national
security.
The Department of Homeland Security, which didn't exist during the last transition, has been taking steps to ensure that career civil servants are
in high-ranking positions to provide continuity between the outgoing and incoming administrations.
As the Kamensky blog shows, the Internet will make it easier for federal employees to watch the transition unfold, compared to previous efforts.
The nonprofit Council for Excellence in Government, for example, will lay out the management qualifications and skills required for the 25
toughest jobs in the next administration. The council (http://www.excelgov.org/) also plans
to organize online communities to share insights and information and provide links to Web sites that track the transition.
Another nonprofit, the Partnership for Public Service, is joining with Young Government Leaders on June 26 to host a discussion, "Surviving the
Presidential Transition." Information about the event is at http://www.ourpublicservice.org/.
The Partnership also plans to launch a campaign to get federal management issues at the top of the transition agenda and will issue a report this
summer on federal workforce management in the next administration.
And from the world of academia, University of Pennsylvania Professor Donald F. Kettl is tracking the campaigns at http://www.thenextgovernment.com/, where he describes candidates' plans to improve the
performance of federal agencies and programs.
Martha Joynt Kumar, a political science professor at Towson University, is co-director of a project on transitions that began in 2001 and relies
on presidential scholars to write essays on how various White House offices operate and have been organized by past presidents. The essays are at http://www.whitehousetransitionproject.org/. New ones will be added this
year, including a paper on the office of the national security adviser.
Inside the government, the General Services Administration will coordinate briefings for the incoming team and create a directory of information
for new presidential appointees. Congress has provided funding for transition support to the incoming administration since 1963, according to the
Congressional Research Service.
For fiscal 2009, the administration has requested $8.5 million to support presidential transition efforts.
Record Year for Charitable Donations
A round of applause, please, for federal employees, postal workers and military personnel who help the needy, the sick and others through their
donations to charity.
The tally from the 2007 Combined Federal Campaign, the government's workplace charity drive, is wrapped up, and government employees donated
$273.1 million.
That's an increase from 2006, when the campaign raised $271.6 million, and set an annual record for the charity drive. Since it began in 1961, the
charity drive has raised more than $6 billion, according to the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the annual fundraising drive.
The largest of the workplace drives was sponsored by the Combined Federal Campaign of the National Capital Area. Washington area government
employees donated $60.7 million, according to preliminary results from 2007.
Employees in other areas also made generous donations, including those overseas, in central Maryland, Hawaii-Pacific area, San Diego, San Antonio,
Atlanta, South Hampton Roads, Chicago and North Central Texas, the preliminary results showed.
The campaign's leadership award was presented to Edward Novak, who served for 10 years as chairman of the Local Federal
Coordinating Committee of the CFC of Central Maryland. It has emerged as the third-largest campaign, raising more than $6 million last year, OPM said.
Rivals Obama and McCain Work Together Behind Scenes
The
HillBy Susan Crabtree
Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) are quietly working together on a good-government bill despite their campaign-trail battle
over who is tougher against Washington's special interests.
McCain's Senate office contacted Obama's office Monday night asking to sign on to a bill opening federal government contracts to public scrutiny,
according to three knowledgeable sources.
Before the call, Obama had been working on the measure primarily with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), an ardent proponent of eliminating wasteful
government spending and an early supporter and longtime Senate ally of McCain's.
After learning that Obama and Coburn were introducing the bill without his backing, McCain's staffers immediately contacted Coburn to express
concern and a desire to be named as an original co-sponsor of the update. They then called Obama’s office.
Obama staffers were happy to comply with McCain's request to sign on, an Obama adviser said, because they knew support from the two presumptive
nominees could propel the legislation to passage in the final months of a packed legislative schedule.
McCain's Senate office and campaign did not return calls for comment on the matter. Coburn, however, acknowledged that the request had occurred
and blamed himself for not being more aggressive in contacting McCain about becoming an original co-sponsor when the bill was introduced.
Coburn said it was his fault that McCain was not involved in developing the bill. "I didn’t keep him informed," Coburn remarked. "I'm not
good at politics—I never have been."
The back and forth between the Obama and McCain offices illustrates the importance of good government issues to both presidential contenders, who
have each tried to portray themselves as crusaders against Washington lobbyists and special interests.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a co-sponsor of the bill, hailed the two White House contenders' ability to put politics aside and cooperate on a
good-government bill.
"There's probably a lot of issues that Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain disagree on, but there are important things that they agree on and this is one
of them," Carper said. "If there is a contest on who is going to be the king of transparency, that’s a good development."
Carper, who endorsed Obama Wednesday, gave Obama credit in the short term and McCain his due over the long haul. "Barack probably has an edge for
the last five years, and McCain may have a better record over the last 20 years," he said.
The new bill will increase the transparency of federal contracts by posting them online. Previously, only descriptions of the contracts have been
available.
The bill is intended to approve an earlier measure, informally known as the "Google for Government" act, backed by Obama, McCain, Coburn and
Carper in 2006. That measure created a website — USASpending.gov – that allows the public to track down details on "all entities and
organizations" receiving federal money.
Government watchdog groups across the political spectrum hailed that “sunshine law” and it sailed through Congress.
The new bill would beef up the website by requiring the actual contracts to be posted as well as new details , including whether the contract
occurred under competitive bidding or whether it was the product of an earmark.
Coburn said McCain has been one of the measure's key supporters since the initial bill was written. Other Senate staffers familiar with the
earlier bill said the real work on it was done by Coburn's and Obama's offices without McCain, but that both sides were happy to have McCain's support
for the new bill.
The strange-bedfellow alliance between Coburn and Obama has continued despite a comment Obama made in an April Democratic debate comparing
McCain's friendship with Coburn to Obama's relationship with a former member of the Weather Underground, a radical terrorist group in the 1960s.
Coburn said Obama called to apologize the evening of the debate, and said the remark had no impact on their working relationship.
Both Obama's and McCain's campaigns did not respond to a request about whether their bosses would issue an executive order making all federal
contracts available online if the bill fails to pass before the session ends.
Gerry Bass, the executive director of OMBWatch, one of the 19 watchdog groups backing the measure, said it's clear that Obama took the lead on the
transparency bill this year but McCain should get credit for signing onto it.
"It's a tribute to both of them," he said. "Obama walks the words he says on the campaign trail by doing things differently. He didn't have to
have on McCain as a co-sponsor. The same can be said about McCain. McCain deserves credit, even though he may not have been involved in the crafting
of the bill, he deserves credit for jumping on board."
House Passes Bill Encouraging Telework
Congress Daily
Just in time for $4 a gallon gasoline, the House approved legislation Tuesday that would require federal agencies to allow more employees to work
from home.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., would require all agency heads to set policies allowing qualified workers to telework at least 20
percent of the hours worked in a two-week period, or generally the equivalent of two work days.
"A happy workforce is a productive workforce," Davis said. Allowing federal workers to telecommute "can help boost productivity by cutting down on
commuting time," he said, adding that it would reduce traffic congestion and provide relief from high gas prices.
Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., said more telework could help the government hire and keep workers as its aging workforce retires.
The National Treasury Employees Union praised the passage of the bill (H.R. 4106), and called for passage of its Senate counterpart, (S. 1000),
which has won the approval of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
"There is abundant evidence that telework programs have a wide range of positive impacts on employees, their agencies and their communities," said
NTEU president Colleen M. Kelley. "Among other welcome results, they boost employee productivity and morale - in particular by making it easier to
balance their work and family responsibilities -- and they help in reducing traffic congestion and related pollution."
The Lectern: Young people and technology at the Government Leadership Summit
Federal Computer WeekBy Steve Kelman
I had the opportunity to chair the last panel at the two-day Government Leadership Summit sponsored by 1105 Government Information Group in
Williamsburg, Va. It was a wise decision to have the panel last, because the audience seemed energized by the band of youthful participants, and there
were still a lot of hands up in the audience when we ended the session a few minutes late. The participants were a 28-year-old GSA employee
working on the USA.gov portal, a 23 year-old employee at the Office of Technology in Virginia, a 23-year-old senior at William and Mary, and FCW's
28-year-old reporter Ben Bain. Although we talked a bit about collaboration tools and about blogs, most of the energy, including from the audience,
was around social-networking sites such as Facebook. We talked mostly about how the participants themselves used technology, a little about how their
agencies did so.
I give the exact ages of the participants because one of the most interesting things to come out of the panel is that there are big differences
among different micro age-groups of young people (although to older folks they may seem like an undifferentiated mass). When you think about this, it
should hardly be surprising, given how fast technologies are changing.
Both 28-year-olds agreed that they were uneasy about the Facebook world, hesitant to open up as much private information about themselves as that
world encourages. One of the two did not even put his picture on his Facebook entry; the other was not on Facebook at all. For the 23-year-olds
Facebook was an important part of life, but it was also interesting that they (particularly the college senior who hadn't started working yet) saw it
strictly as an entertainment, college kid phenomenon, and had real difficulty associating it at all with the work world -- he was very surprised to
learn that any older people, or government/industry folks, were on Facebook themselves. The student working for the Commonwealth of Virginia said she
didn't use Facebook as a way to socialize with people at work, either in her agency or other agencies. It will be interesting to see whether that
changes as the workworld starts getting inhabited by people very used to social networking. The 28-year-old GSA employee noted that people who are
friends on social-networking sites are likely to have an easier time collaborating with each other. (Based on my own psychological reactions to being
Facebook friends with people, I agree.) He also noted that social-networking sites take on increasing importance for teleworking employees.
The 23-year-olds in turn noted that their younger siblings used technology in different ways from them. They are even bigger multitaskers than
their older siblings (and than Blackberry-toting government managers). They use IM for collaborating on homework, while the 23-year-olds use it only
for socializing.
All the participants said they read some blogs, but didn't use them as a main news source. (They seemed to be online newspaper readers.) They were
aware that Wikipedia might not always be a trustworthy source of information. The two government employees said that collaborative technologies were
still only modestly used in their organization, mostly instant messaging.
The initiator of this panel was FCW Editor-in-Chief Chris Dorobek saying to me a number of times, "Kids use technology differently. They don't use
e-mail." The panel, however, reported that in their world e-mail was alive and well. The college senior, sounding like many of us, sighed, "I wish
e-mail was less a part of my life. I often get so many e-mails that it takes days to respond to them."
After breakfast this morning, one person I was sitting with friended me and another person at the same table on Facebook. After the panel, I
friended the graduating senior. As the world turns… .
