April 22, 2008

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

1. DHS employees: Mission is Important, but Management is Not so Good 
2. Administration Hopes to Leave Performance Management Legacy
3. Federal Diary:  Thrift Savings Plan's Stock Funds Take a Hit
4. Panel OKs 4 Weeks Parental Leave for Feds

DHS employees: Mission is Important, but Management is Not so Good

Government Executive
By Katherine McIntire Peters

There are a lot of unhappy campers at the Homeland Security Department. That's the takeaway from the 2007 Annual Employee Survey, conducted from Oct. 26 through Dec. 21. While 91 percent of respondents said the work they did was important and 80 percent enjoyed their jobs, only 18 percent of employees thought pay raises were based on job performance and only 25 percent believed promotions were based on merit. What's more, only slightly more than one-quarter of employees said managers took steps to deal with poor performers who could not or did not improve.

The survey results showed that fewer than half of employees held leadership in high regard; believed the department's culture promoted improvements in service or other outcomes; or thought Homeland Security had the talent required to accomplish its mission. The results were posted online late Thursday.

Of the 141,425 employees sampled across 13 organizational components, 65,753 responded to the electronic survey, for a response rate of 47 percent. The survey was designed to capture data across Homeland Security's various agencies, as well as draw from all levels of the workforce.

Employees at the Transportation Security Administration, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed the most dissatisfaction with leadership, while those in the Science and Technology Directorate, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and the Coast Guard were most satisfied with leadership.

Elaine Duke, deputy undersecretary for management at Homeland Security, wrote in the department's leadership blog that it was "gratifying" that 54 percent of survey respondents said they would recommend DHS as a place to work. While not exactly a resounding endorsement, it was an improvement over the 51 percent who said they would do so in a similar survey in 2006.

Duke said that numerous reorganizations since the department's creation in 2003 and the lack of a centralized headquarters contributed to employee dissatisfaction. "While these are not excuses for low morale, as a DHS employee I can honestly say I see the challenges first-hand," she wrote.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, took a less charitable view. Acknowledging that the majority of employees enjoyed their work and believed it was important, the survey also showed that, "DHS and its component agencies engage in a culture of favoritism, filled with arbitrary treatment of its employees, and a refusal to empower, listen to, engage or motivate them, as well as provide them with the resources they need," Kelley said.

Kelley said the survey illustrated Homeland Security's "failure to manage effectively on a grand scale."

Administration Hopes to Leave Performance Management Legacy

National Journal
By Robert Brodsky
 
Last November, President Bush issued an executive order that, compared with more-contentious policy decrees from the White House, seemed utterly benign. Littered with such bureaucratic buzz phrases as "promote greater accountability" and "objectively measurable outcomes," the order directed all federal departments and agencies to name a staff person to take on responsibility for program performance.

But as officials move to implement the order by its September deadline, critics are raising questions about the administration's motives and the edict's long-term implications for federal program management.

Each department and agency must appoint a "performance improvement officer" charged with overseeing its strategic plan and determining the realistic likelihood of achieving its goals with available funding and other resources. This information will be shared among agencies at monthly meetings of a new Performance Improvement Council and made public on the Web.

The administration says that the order will improve program performance and ensure a higher level of accountability from top agency officials. But others suggest that it will open the door to greater White House interference in executive branch operations, possibly for years to come.

Much of the concern can be traced back to the Office of Management and Budget's controversial management initiative, the Program Assessment Rating Tool. Known by its acronym, PART, the system rates every federal program by using a simple questionnaire focused on the initiative's management, purpose, design, planning, and results. Thus, most, if not all, of the data that the new performance improvement officers will assess has already been collected.

OMB says that PART is a dispassionate arbiter of performance. But government watchdog groups characterize it as a politically biased tool that arrogates power to the White House and promotes the administration's ideological policies over agencies' statutory missions. Many of these critics fear that the administration will use the program improvement officers to entrench PART in the management of federal agencies before Bush leaves office.

"The administration has worked extremely hard to get Congress to accept PART as an unbiased evaluator, and it has failed. And the reason is because it's not unbiased," said Adam Hughes, director of federal fiscal policy at the advocacy group OMB Watch. "But it's the end of the administration and they want to make it work. So what's the best way to do that? Appoint people at each agency responsible to make sure that agencies continue to do PART."

OMB officials contend that the new positions are vital for a smooth transition to the next White House. "There should be no mystery that we are doing this toward the end of the administration," said Robert Shea, OMB's associate director for administration and government performance. "This is an effort to sustain what we think is valuable beyond this administration."

The executive order, Shea said, does not obligate the next administration to continue PART or the performance improvement officer initiative, although that is clearly Bush officials' preference. "PART is a useful tool and I would recommend that the next administration retain it as a way to ensure that programs are doing everything they can to improve," he said. "Having said that, the [executive order] does not, nor could it, lock the next administration [into using] this particular tool."

With its executive order, OMB hopes to shift the burden of ensuring program performance back to the departments and agencies.

To read the entire article, click here.

Thrift Savings Plan's Stock Funds Take a Hit

The Washington Post
By Stephen Barr

The stock markets were roiled, and federal employees headed for cover.

That's what happened in the first three months of the year, when participants in the Thrift Savings Plan transferred about $9 billion of their retirement savings into bonds and government securities and out of more risky domestic and international stocks.

The TSP's stock funds, reflecting the uncertainty swirling around the mortgage and credit sectors, fell 9 to 10 percent in the first quarter of the year, according to data presented yesterday to members of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board.

The TSP bond fund, in contrast, recorded a gain of 2.26 percent, and the government securities fund was up by 0.9 percent at the end of March.

Despite the Wall Street turmoil, government employees continue to make contributions to the TSP, a 401(k)-type program. The TSP grew to about $223.7 billion in assets at the end of March, and the number of people holding accounts increased slightly, to 3.88 million.

According to TSP data, 85.8 percent of workers covered by the Federal Employees Retirement System participate in the TSP. Nearly 36 percent of the active-duty military has joined the TSP, which Congress opened to the armed forces in 2002.

A key part of yesterday's board meeting involved a presentation by executives from Barclays Global Investors, which has managed the TSP's investment funds for the past two decades. Those funds are part of a securities lending program that Barclays operates and that produces income for the TSP.

The Barclays executives assured the thrift board that TSP assets are protected if Barclays encounters problems with borrowers who cannot live up to their contractual obligations or default on loaned securities.

Blake R. Grossman, chief executive of Barclays Global Investors, and H. Michael Williams, a managing director at the firm, told the board that borrowers put up cash as collateral when obtaining a loan or securities from the TSP. Williams said Barclays also relies on independent financial reviews, credit ratings and on-site visits when establishing credit limits for borrowers.

There have been only two defaults in the history of Barclays's lending program, but Barclays and its clients did not suffer any losses, Williams said.

In the unlikely event that Barclays ever fell into bankruptcy, Grossman said that trust and regulatory laws shield TSP assets from creditors. Asked by Alejandro M. Sanchez, a board member from Florida, if TSP assets were "locked in a room" and kept separate from other assets managed by Barclays, Grossman said yes.

Grossman rarely appears at board meetings, but Thomas A. Fink, a thrift board member from Alaska, had expressed concern about the risks involved in security lending, given the turmoil on Wall Street in recent weeks.

Andrew M. Saul, the thrift board's chairman, emphasized that Grossman's appearance was part of a "normal review" and noted that the board has "tremendous confidence" in Barclays's management of the TSP's funds.

Barclays Global Investors is part of Barclays, the 11th-largest bank in the world in terms of assets. Grossman said his division of the British Bank manages about $2 trillion worth of assets, with most of that money linked to index funds that try to mirror the broad performance of stock and bond markets.

The TSP's bond fund, for example, invests in fixed-income securities that track Lehman Brothers' U.S. Aggregate Index, which consists of securities that mature after more than one year. Over the past 12 months, the TSP's bond fund has gained 7.87 percent, outperforming the TSP's stock index funds during that time.

At yesterday's meeting, the thrift board also received an audit report from Deloitte & Touche, which gave the TSP an unqualified opinion, or "clean opinion." That means the TSP's financial statements for 2007 were in accord with generally accepted accounting principles.

Deloitte offered some recommendations for improvements in the technical controls of computer networks and system software, including how participants gain access to their accounts.

In a response, the TSP said it has hired a program manager to develop an updated password policy and standards for implementing new password requirements.

Panel OKs 4 Weeks Parental Leave for Feds

Federal Times
By Stephen Losey

Lawmakers took a giant first step toward giving federal employees paid time off when they become new parents.

In the space of last week, a bill was introduced and passed by a full House committee that would pay new moms and dads — including those who are new adoptive parents — for four of their 12 weeks of eligible leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

The remaining eight weeks of available leave would remain as unpaid under the bill, called the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act.

Currently, federal employees receive 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, and are allowed to use stored-up sick leave or vacation time to keep getting paid during that period.

The bill’s advancement has encouraged supporters that this may be the year Congress approves a paid parental leave benefit for federal employees. For the last eight years, paid parental leave bills have languished in Congress without so much as a subcommittee vote.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., author of the bill, HR 5781, said she is hopeful the full House will approve the measure as early as this spring.

The House’s action appears likely to spark greater interest in the Senate. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on oversight of government management, the federal work force and the District of Columbia, said he aims to hold hearings this year on the matter and mark up a bill sponsored by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.

“It’s hard to say if it will get passed, but we’re definitely interested,” Akaka spokesman Jesse Broder Van Dyke said. “Success in the House always builds momentum on the Senate side, so there’s some hope there.”

The Stevens bill in the Senate differs significantly from the House measure. Stevens’ Executive Branch Family Leave Act, S 80, would give new mothers eight weeks of leave, and new fathers and adoptive parents one week of paid leave.

Advocates of a paid parental leave bill, such as the National Treasury Employees Union and American Federation of Government Employees, say some federal employees without enough stored sick leave or vacation time are forced to return to work before they have time to bond with their new children.

To read the entire article, click here.