FIGURE 20: Injuries and Illnesses Rate, See Full Report, Page 39

comprehensive, SharePoint-based asbestos Inventory Management and Permit Control System.

One of the ways to achieve a safe and healthy environment is to ensure AOC employees are fit for duty. Increased fitness for duty will lead to decreased workplace injuries and lower workers’ compensation costs. Currently, to assist employees, AOC conducts a number of in-house wellness workshops (e.g., on topics such as back safety) and provides free seasonal flu vaccinations in health units on campus. AOC also seeks to establish a Fitness for Duty Program.

In addition, most AOC jurisdictions have dedicated jurisdictional safety specialists to ensure a safe work environment. Meeting the diverse technical and programmatic safety needs of the agency and its employees continues to be a significant challenge. Meeting these requirements is even more challenging under a fiscally constrained environment. AOC remains dedicated to meeting this challenge and ensuring it places people first and practices safety always.

Management of Concurrent Projects 

Key Challenge: Over the past 220 years, AOC’s facilities inventory has expanded to include over 17.4 million square feet of facility space—including many landmark historic buildings. Due to the age of its facilities, Capitol Hill has developed many critical, long-term infrastructure needs. To address the construction and preservation requirements across the Capitol campus, many of AOC’s major restoration projects are being performed concurrently. These projects include the ongoing U.S. Capitol Dome Restoration, Cannon House Office Building Renewal, West Refrigeration Plant Revitalization, Cogeneration Plant and a number of building exterior stone repair projects. From a managerial perspective, a significant challenge of these projects, in addition to their size and complexity, is that they are being worked on at the same time. Coordination and collaboration among the project teams is key. AOC’s executive leadership recognizes that, to be successful, the agency must focus on ensuring that all of the projects remain on schedule and on budget. At the same time, the overall impact of numerous ongoing projects must not impact the functionality of Capitol Hill as a whole. AOC understands it needs to balance this additional workload with needs of its employees and its customers—Members of Congress and the visiting public.

AOC Initiatives: With Congress’ support, and that of the American people, AOC has been provided with the resources necessary to make critical investments needed to preserve and maintain our national treasures. The FY 2014 Legislative Branch appropriations bill allocated $602 million to the AOC, giving the agency approximately $67 million above FY 2013 enacted levels, and included investments of $15.9 million for the next phase of the Capitol Dome Restoration Project and $70 million for the House Historic Buildings Revitalization Trust Fund. AOC understands that, with the resources in hand to begin several major projects, there comes increased scrutiny and the expectation of transparency. AOC has several efforts underway to address this stewardship challenge.

To ensure that funds are used efficiently and effectively, AOC uses formal risk management and mitigation practices to identify the risks the organization faces and the best approach to managing them. Efforts are underway to study the benefits of pairing its Internal Control Program and Risk Management Program to analyze internal and external risks and develop a management strategy to effectively manage those risks while fulfilling AOC’s mission, goals and objectives.

In addition, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) conducted a March 2014 study (GAO-14-333) to ensure that AOC follows leading project management practices and uses reliable project cost estimates. While AOC management has a systematic, thorough and independent cost estimating process that produces reliable estimates, the agency has begun incorporating recommended best practices that are cost-beneficial and may make its cost estimates stronger as well as provide additional precision when setting contingency amounts.

Additionally, AOC has been working on a long-term, integrated draft Capitol Complex Master Plan to aid in planning, developing and prioritizing future capital projects within a comprehensive framework. This draft document embodies a vision of Capitol Hill’s needs and how those needs might be met within a 20-year planning horizon. It will be AOC’s master blueprint for prioritizing projects in contention for future investments.