April 17, 2008

A summary of daily news relevant to the federal workforce produced by the Partnership for Public Service.

1. Worried About Future, VA Sends Nurses to Universities — To Teach
2. Federal Diary:  OMB Chief Orders Tighter Controls Over Credit Cards
3. House Bill Aimed at Increasing Diversity Among Senior Executives Advances

Worried About Future, VA Sends Nurses to Universities — To Teach

Federal Times
By Stephen Losey

The Veterans Affairs Department is worried about the nation’s nursing population — not to mention its future hiring prospects.

So far, despite a nursing shortage that has hurt many of the nation’s hospitals, VA says it has filled all of the 43,500 nursing positions it needs today, and is replacing the roughly 4,300 nurses who retire or leave each year.

But the shortage has spread to the universities needed to train new nurses, jeopardizing VA's future work force.

Because of a lack of qualified faculty to teach them, more than 38,400 qualified applicants were turned away from nursing schools in 2006, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Eventually, VA said, that will only exacerbate the already-tough competition to hire good nurses.

So VA is stepping in to help. Last fall, VA began loaning some of its best nurses to the University of Florida, San Diego State University, the University of Utah and Connecticut's Fairfield University to teach nursing classes for at least one-quarter of their workweek.

With VA's help, those four universities were able to accept about 1,000 students last fall who otherwise would have been turned away, said Michael Hager, VA's assistant secretary for human resources and administration.

And that's just the beginning. VA plans to expand its Nursing Academy program to four other schools this fall and four more in fall 2009.

Other agencies facing a shortage of qualified people to fill mission-critical jobs, such as engineers and accountants, should follow VA's example, experts said.

"They're not doing this just because it's nice to do," said John Palguta, vice president of the Partnership for Public Service, which promotes employment in the public sector. "Not only are VA nurses in a position to influence a student's thinking about places to work, they can identify the best talent among the student body" and recruit them.

Hager said there's no way to guarantee that someone taking a class from a VA nurse will take a job with the department, but he expects the effort will improve VA's chances of recruitment. Nursing students often visit their mentors' hospitals for real-world experience, and Hager said students will be more inclined to join VA after becoming familiar with department facilities.

But even if students don't take jobs with VA, the department isn't considering its nurses' time wasted. Hager said VA has a vested interest in helping restore the health of the nursing population and the schools on which it relies.

"We want to develop a pipeline of talent [and] ensure a viable, educated work force," Hager said.

While some federal employees already teach university classes on their own time, Palguta and Hager were unaware of agencies besides VA that have officially partnered with universities and loaned employees out to serve as faculty.

Palguta said that since most new federal employees learn about their jobs through word of mouth, putting experienced feds behind a lectern would be a good way to recruit college students about to enter the work force.

The pilot program will last five years and cost $40 million. VA is still receiving proposals from nursing schools that wish to participate in the program’s second round, and will choose four schools by June 4. 

To read the entire article, click here.

OMB Chief Orders Tighter Controls Over Credit Cards

The Washington Post
By Stephen Barr

The memo is out.

As promised in the aftermath of a congressional audit showing misuse of government credit cards, the Office of Management and Budget has directed federal agencies to tighten their controls.

"OMB is extremely concerned with the incidences of charge card abuse by federal employees highlighted in GAO's report," Jim Nussle, the OMB director, wrote in a memo to agency heads on Tuesday.

The report by the Government Accountability Office, released last week, showed that government employees used their "purchase cards" in 2005 and 2006 to buy cameras, laptop computers, iPods, expensive suits, lingerie, and steak-and-booze dinners.

The GAO estimated that 41 percent of the credit card transactions were not properly authorized, and that agencies could not account for about $1.8 million worth of goods that employees may have diverted to personal use.

Nussle reminded federal agencies that they should have written policies and procedures for the appropriate use of charge cards and must report misuse to the OMB.

Because of the GAO findings, the OMB is revising its government-wide directive on the management of credit card programs, he said.

In the interim, Nussle told the agency heads to remind their employees that the use of "convenience checks" should be kept to a minimum. Convenience checks are issued as part of the government's credit card program. They are similar in appearance to personal checks and are written against a cardholder's account. The checks are supposed to be used to pay merchants who do not accept government credit cards.

The GAO found instances of misuse of the checks, such as an Agriculture Department cardholder who used the checks to embezzle about $642,000 over six years. The money was spent on gambling, car and mortgage payments, and retail purchases. A whistle-blower turned in the cardholder, who was sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to return the money.

Nussle also directed agency heads to develop specific disciplinary procedures, including dismissal, that can be imposed for fraud and other egregious abuse of credit cards by employees.

Despite the breakdown in internal financial controls, Nussle said the credit card program saved about $1.8 billion in fiscal 2007, in part by reducing paperwork and other acquisition costs.

"Overall, OMB believes misuse of the federal charge card is the exception rather than the rule and most federal employees are using government charge cards responsibly," Nussle wrote.

To read the entire article, click here.

House Bill Aimed at Increasing Diversity Among Senior Executives Advances

Congress Daily
By Andy Leonatti

Citing a decline in the diversity of senior government executives, the House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee sent a bill to the full committee renewing efforts to increase the hiring of women and minorities.

The bill, sponsored by Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee Chairman Danny Davis, D-Ill., was adopted by unanimous voice vote. The bill would create the Senior Executive Service Resource Office within the Office of Personnel Management.

The Senior Executive Service is a pay grade within the federal government, encompassing executives that serve as a link between presidential appointees and the rest of the federal workforce.

Along with improving efficiency and professionalism in the SES, the new office will be charged with creating lists documenting the number of reserved positions at each agency, whether candidates are being pursued to fill vacancies, the race, ethnicity, gender and disabilities of people certified to join the SES, and conducting a recruiting program to attract women, minorities and persons with disabilities.

The bill also requires each agency to establish a SES evaluation panel, each having three members and having at least one woman and one minority.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., said it was possible for a minority or a female employee to wonder "if they're getting a fair shake" when sitting in front of the "panel that looks like the old work force - the 100 percent at the top, white male workforce," and added that there was "no harm with trying to correct the disparity here."

Davis said that the Government Accountability Office found that from fiscal 2000 to fiscal 2007, the SES experienced a decline in black men. Davis added that 90 percent of the current SES corps will retire within the next 10 years.

A Federal Workforce Subcommittee report issued Nov. 13, 2007, found that fiscal 2007 salaries for minorities in the SES was on average $6,000 less than non-minorities, and women in the SES made on average $10,000 less than SES men.

The report also found that the percentage of minorities in the legislative branch SES decreased by 1 percent from fiscal 2002 to fiscal 2007, and the percentage of women increased by 4 percent over the same five years.

A companion bill (S. 2148) has been introduced in the Senate by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee Chairman Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii.