April 10, 2008

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

1. VA Pay Hurts Recruiting of Medical Personnel, Panel Says
2. Federal Diary:  OMB Gets Tough on Misuse of Government Credit Cards
3. Hiring Managers Look to Outsiders
4. Airline Cancels More Flights as Inspections Progress Slowly
   

VA Pay Hurts Recruiting of Medical Personnel, Panel Says

Government Executive
By Alyssa Rosenberg

Pay systems pose significant challenges to the Veterans Affairs Department's efforts to hire enough doctors and nurses to meet the growing health care needs of veterans, said lawmakers and witnesses at a Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday.

"A simple truth of VA health care is that its providers are the real backbone of the system," said committee Chairman Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii. "If the providers are not present, or are there but unhappy in their jobs, it is unlikely that veterans will receive the quality care they need and deserve."

A number of witnesses pointed to the growing vacancy rate of certified registered nurse anesthetists as an indication of the challenge's magnitude.

The Government Accountability Office reported in December 2007 that in fiscal 2005, the vacancy rate for CRNAs in VA was 13 percent, and 74 percent of chief anesthesiologists said they had trouble recruiting CRNAs in 2005 and 2006. Of those chief anesthesiologists surveyed, 79 percent said salaries for department CRNAs were lower than salaries at other hospitals.

Half of CRNAs were older than 51, and the average certified registered nurse anesthetist working at VA was seven years closer to retirement eligibility than those working outside the system, the agency found. Of the 43 medical facilities GAO examined, 15 reported CRNA vacancy rates of 40 percent or higher.

GAO found that those vacancies were affecting the department's ability to deliver health care services. Of the anesthesiologists surveyed, 54 percent said they temporarily closed operating rooms due to CRNA shortages, and 72 percent said those vacancies caused them to delay elective surgeries.

Sheila Cullen, medical director of the San Francisco VA Medical Center, said the problem wasn't simply that salaries in the VA system were lower, but that the pay system itself limited the center's ability to provide nurses with opportunities to advance up the salary ladder.

"Current law only allows the General Schedule salary chart to be extended out an additional 18 steps," Cullen said. "Since most of these employees are hired in difficult-to-recruit clinical specialties, their salary is often set at the higher end of the pay range. This limits their opportunity for future step increases."

To read the entire article, click here.

OMB Gets Tough on Misuse of Government Credit Cards

The Washington Post
By Stephen Barr

A crackdown on the misuse of government credit cards is underway.

The Office of Management and Budget said yesterday that it would welcome Congress's help in disciplining federal employees who misuse their cards, pointing to a Senate bill that would authorize agencies to fire employees for egregious abuse of government credit cards. Employees suspected of fraud would have their cases referred to federal prosecutors.

"The vast majority of civilian employees, government employees, use the cards responsibly. At the same time, I would say there is abuse, and the goal is zero, and we need to make it zero," said Clay Johnson III, deputy director for federal management issues at the OMB.

An investigative report released by senators Tuesday showed that government employees used their credit cards in 2005 and 2006 to buy cameras, laptop computers, iPods, high-end suits, lingerie, and steak and booze dinners.

The inquiry by the Government Accountability Office was not the first to discover abuse in federal credit card and travel programs. Previous reports by the GAO and inspectors general have documented federal employees using their government cards to buy baseball tickets, jewelry, cellphones, escort services and, in one instance, breast enhancement surgery for a girlfriend.

"Here We Go Again," was the headline yesterday on a news release from the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group that investigates corruption in government. It noted that the group uncovered similar problems in 2002.

The GAO findings, reported by Washington Post staff writer Dan Eggen yesterday, sparked a flurry of comments on Federal Diary Live at washingtonpost.com. "As a current fed I just wanted to say that this misuse of government credit cards is exactly the sort of thing that gives working for the federal government a bad reputation," one person wrote.

Johnson and Danny Werfel, the OMB's deputy controller, said yesterday that the president's budget director, Jim Nussle, will issue a memo reminding agencies of rules prohibiting the abuse and fraudulent use of government credit cards by federal employees.

The OMB issued a memo in 2005 directing agencies to tighten internal accounting controls to monitor credit-card use by their employees. Werfel said the OMB is working with Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) on legislation that would put "the force of law" behind the 2005 requirements. Congress can also institute penalties that are tougher than what the OMB can impose on employees, Werfel said.

In general, the "purchase card" programs were set up to permit employees to buy as much as $2,500 worth of goods and services that are necessary and reasonable for the operation of their agencies. The government contracts with five banks for credit cards in exchange for favorable interest rates and rebates. In fiscal 2007, the banks provided the government with more than $170 million in refunds, the GAO said.

There are several types of government credit cards, but the GAO report focused on "purchase cards." Bills for charges on these cards are sent to the agencies for payment, although the cards are assigned to employees and carry their names, the OMB said.

In theory, having an employee's name on a card permits an agency to track the account and spot improper purchases. Although the agencies pay the credit-card bills, the employees are required to reimburse the agencies for any improper purchase.

But the GAO report suggested that government-wide policies on how agencies should monitor credit-card use need to be improved. It cited numerous instances in which employees and their bosses were not held accountable for questionable purchases.

The GAO estimated that 41 percent of purchase-card transactions were not properly authorized, for example. Agencies also could not account for about $1.8 million worth of goods identified in the audit, such as cameras and computers, that employees may have diverted to personal use.

As an example of the weak controls at some agencies, the GAO cited a Navy employee who purchased more than $900 of general office supplies on a government credit card. As part of the purchase, the employee bought a digital camera for $400 and an iPod for $200.

The employee, the official who ordered the office supplies and the official who approved the purchase "had no recollection of requesting or receiving" the iPod, the GAO said.

Asked to determine whether the camera and the iPod had been converted to personal use or stolen, the Navy told the GAO that the items "were not reported on a property tracking system and therefore could not be located."

Hiring Managers Look to Outsiders

Federal Computer Week
By Richard W. Walker
 
A new study reports that agencies are hiring more new, upper-level employees from outside government. It’s a trend that will likely continue as more workers in General Schedule grades 12 through 15 retire and must be replaced, according to a report by the Merit Systems Protection Board.

In fiscal 2005, the government hired more than 12,000 new upper-level workers — 39 percent more than the 8,600 employees of the same rank hired in fiscal 1990. That year preceded a decrease in the size of the federal workforce during the next decade, MSPB researchers said.

John Crum, acting director of policy and evaluation at MSPB, estimated that about 15 percent to 18 percent of the government’s recent upper-level hires come from outside government.

The study also found that a substantial number of the new hires brought some government-related experience to the job, mostly gained as federal contractors or as military service members. In 2005, for example, 32 percent of new hires had worked for a federal contractor, while 16 percent had served in the military. Nearly a quarter came from other private-sector firms. The average age of all outside hires was just older than 43 years old.

Concerning that trend, federal labor union leaders say agencies must take a careful and conscientious approach to hiring outsiders and pay greater attention to promotional opportunities for their own employees.

“Along with fair and adequate pay, the potential for career advancement is one of the most important aspects of a workplace people want to be part of,” said Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union.

The trend is not leaving qualified federal workers behind, Crum said. “Remember, we’re talking 15 to 18 percent of new hires from outside. That means over 80 percent of jobs are filled internally, which certainly suggests that agencies are giving a lot of consideration to internal candidates,” he said.

The study found that many employees hired from outside government were brought on board because they had special skills that agency employees didn’t have.

“Managers have told us that they want the best quality person for the job,” Crum said. “All things being equal, they will give preference to the internal candidates, but if the internal candidates don’t match up to what they really think they need, they would rather take somebody from the outside.”

To read the entire article, click here.

Airline Cancels More Flights as Inspections Progress Slowly

The New York Times
By Jeff Bailey

American Airlines canceled another 900 flights on Thursday, or about 40 percent of its daily total of 2,300, after making only slight progress in getting its 300 MD-80 jetliners flying again.

The MD-80s, used mainly on domestic routes, account for nearly half of American’s total fleet of full-size passenger jets. They were grounded Tuesday afternoon for re-inspection of the wiring bundles in their wheel wells, after the Federal Aviation Administration said that some bundles were not secured properly.

The airline, the nation’s largest, canceled 460 flights on Tuesday and 1,094 flights on Wednesday, stranding thousands of travelers and affecting the plans of more than 100,000 people.

As of late Wednesday, American said it had inspected 179 of the 300 planes but that just 60 of those had been returned to service. The other 119 that were inspected were still being worked on, and the remaining 121 MD-80s in its fleet had yet to be inspected. The airline dispatched teams of mechanics to eight airports around the country to check out the planes.

American’s statement suggested that cancellations and disruptions would probably continue into the weekend.

In addition, Thursday morning, Midwest Airlines said that it had grounded 13 of its airplanes to re-inspect a wiring harness. The airline said at least 10 flights had been canceled. thanks

Travelers are having difficulty finding seats on other flights, either on American or on rival carriers, because the airline industry is running more than 80 percent full these days. Phone lines into the American reservation system were overburdened for much of Wednesday and the ticket counters at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport and at O’Hare International in Chicago, the carrier’s two main hubs, were swarmed. The airline posted information about how to obtain compensation for canceled flights on its web site, www.aa.com.

American is the latest in a series of airlines whose operations have been disrupted by inspection and maintenance issues in recent weeks, and air travelers may face continued chaos in the months to come.

The groundings at airlines like American, Alaska, Delta and Southwest have resulted from a broader round of inspections, ordered by the F.A.A., to determine whether the airlines have complied with past directives to check airplane structures, wires, electronics and other components.

A second wave of audits began on March 30, and will continue through June 30. Laura J. Brown, a spokeswoman for the agency, said it could not rule out further groundings. “We don’t know,” she said. “We find what we find.”

The problems with American’s MD-80s surfaced on Monday, when the agency found that in nine of the jets, the wiring in the wheel wells had not been secured in compliance with a previous order from the agency. American decided the following afternoon that all its MD-80s had to be rechecked.

To read the entire article, click here.