FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010
KLMNO
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THE FEDERAL WORKER A move, eventually, for making government more efficient
n a display of what passes for government efficiency, the House didn’t manage to approve the Government Efficiency, Effectiveness and Performance Improvement Act of 2009 until 2010 was half over. Eager to jump on the
I
efficiency bandwagon, even a slow-moving one, House members approved the legislation with a
unanimous voice vote Wednesday. The
legislation, which must be considered by the Senate, would require agencies to increase efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of government programs, submit strategic plans for achieving goals and designate performance improvement officers within each agency. “This bill is a significant step
Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Tex.) and Dennis Moore (D-Kan.), federal agencies would establish measurable guidelines for improving programs. Each agency head, along with the director of the Office of Management and Budget, would be required to assess agency programs at least once every five years. Those assessments would be submitted to Congress. “This
Reps. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), left, and Dennis Moore (D-Kan.) are behind the efficiency bill.
clear-cut plan will rein in spending and reduce government waste by
shining a light on how federal
forward in preventing waste, fraud and abuse in federal agencies and in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of federal programs,” said Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Under the bill sponsored by
Postal Service in a bind on upkeep of vehicle fleet
by Ed O’Keefe The wheels are literally falling
off at the Postal Service, and it’s getting more expensive to fix them, according to a report by the agency’s auditors. Most of the Postal Service’s right-hand-drive delivery trucks, known as long-life vehicles (LLVs), are nearing the end of a 24-year life cycle, and the agency estimates that it would cost $4.2 billion — or $30,000 a truck — to replace them. The big price tag and plummeting revenue caused the Postal Service to delay buying new vehicles until 2018. The Postal Service owns and
operates the largest vehicle fleet in the world, with about 220,000 mail trucks and vans traveling more than 1.2 billion miles a year. It is the only organization in the world that owns and operates LLVs, which are driven by thou- sands of letter carriers six days a week. The Postal Service spent about
$524 million to fix LLVs in fiscal 2009, according to an audit pub- lished Wednesday by the agency’s
on
washingtonpost.com Tips on government work
Federal careers expert Derrick Dortch answered questions on
washingtonpost.com June 9. Following is an excerpt. Security clearance
I am a 15-year experienced public school teacher with a mas- ter’s and working toward a doc- toral degree at a major univer- sity. I would like to transition to a government job, but most re- quire a security clearance; there- fore, I cannot apply. Please ad- vise.
Derrick Dortch: First, let me thank you for your service in ed- ucating our young people. Teach- ers are one of the foundations of our society, and they need to al- ways be respected and honored. Now let me clear something up
that is false. You do not need a se- curity clearance to apply for a federal job. Federal agencies will tell you for some positions that you will be required to get a clearance, but it’s not required for you to have to get a federal position. You can apply to federal positions without a clearance
Batt-her up In charity women’s softball game, media types out-swing members of Congress. A26
Here comes the sunburn After 32 years, the public still awaits sunscreen regulations from the FDA. A26
at an intelligence agency that is rumbling about wanting to mi- grate many contractor positions back to government employee jobs. Do you think this is likely in the near future? Do you think that reducing contractor posi- tions is a goal of the current ad- ministration?
and be hired, and if a clearance is required, the government will clear you. The only positions that require
clearances are those with gov- ernment contracting firms — pri- vate companies that have won government contracts and, to do certain work, must have people who are cleared and able to work in that agency and their secure environment. Contractors can sponsor you for a clearance, but they would rather have a cleared person start working right away so they can begin billing the gov- ernment.
So do apply for federal posi- tions. Do a search on
usajobs.gov,
avuecentral.com,
indeed.com and the Web sites for the agen- cies you are interested in. There is no one place to find all govern- ment jobs, so you have to look in multiple locations.
Contractors What do you see as the long- term prospects for contractors in the government system? I work
—College Park
Dortch: There is much talk about insourcing, and the Oba- ma administration has seemed dedicated to doing so. With the intelligence community, I think this will happen to a degree, but the pace of this will very much depend on the new leader of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and how much he pushes this. I do know that this is a goal.
Right now, the use of contrac- tors has become so great that I don’t know if we can fully shut down the use of contractors in the intelligence community. I do not see that the government is going to want to grow to that size of full-time permanent workers. So I see the intelligence commu- nity as always being both federal workers and government con- tractors.
To read the entire chat, go to www.
washingtonpost.com/jobs.
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agencies perform,” Cuellar said. “Better information yields better results, and this bipartisan legislation represents the biggest leap forward in reducing the nation’s deficit by measuring results. Americans know it’s time to stop unnecessary, wasteful spending, and this
common-sense concept will save taxpayer dollars and ensure our government is more effective and accountable.”
Training better managers One measure of the desire of
federal employees to improve RICKY CARIOTI/THE WASHINGTON POST Rep. James P. Moran Jr. wants to guarantee manager training.
their efficiency, effectiveness and performance is their eagerness for more and better training. Enhancing training for government supervisors is the aim of legislation introduced this week by three Northern Virginia members of Congress. Under the Federal Supervisor
Training Act, managers would be required to have initial training within one year of taking their
supervisory positions and at least once every three years after that. It would also mandate mentoring programs for new supervisors so they can learn from their experienced colleagues. “Proper training is critical to improving delivery of government services, reducing costs associated with mitigating employee grievances, and
FEDERAL DIARY Joe Davidson
enhancing morale throughout the entire civil service,” said Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D). “Whether it be processing tax returns or providing immigration services, the men and women who comprise the federal workforce need the proper institutional support and management training to do their jobs effectively.” Joining him as sponsors are Democrat Gerald E. Connolly and Republican Frank R. Wolf. The Senate is considering a similar measure that was introduced by Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii). The Federal Managers
Association supports the legislation. “An agency’s ability to meet its mission directly correlates to the quality of workforce management. There is a clear need for training in order for managers to be fully successful,” said FMA President Patricia Niehaus. “If an agency promotes an individual to managerial status based on technical prowess but then fails to develop the individual’s supervisory and leadership skills, the agency severely jeopardizes its capability to deliver the level of service the American public expects and deserves.”
Work-family lessons The ability to balance career
WHAT YOU SAID
How does your office’s technology compare with your personal technol- ogy? Does your agency need an up- grade?
Patrick Matthews, Defense Department, Silver Spring As a government worker who
returned to the federal workforce four years ago and a long-practic- ing architect, I find the federal government has the most modern and updated equipment and soft- ware.
But the federal workforce lacks KEVIN LORENZI/BLOOMBERG The Postal Service spent about $524million to fix right-hand-drive delivery trucks in fiscal 2009.
office of inspector general. The report generally approves of the Postal Service’s mainte- nance program, which repairs broken vehicles instead of replac- ing them. But the repair program will cost $342 million more than it would cost to buy new trucks in the next eight years unless the Postal Service starts replacing those that require more than $3,500 in repairs, the report says. Auditors discovered that about 19,000 trucks required an aver- age of $5,600 in maintenance, with the cost rising to as much as $43,000. Repairs ranged from
complete reconstruction to mi- nor fixes, the report said. Postal officials told auditors
that they plan to start replacing broken trucks more often next year and that they will remind maintenance staff and district managers to keep costs under control. In February, the Postal Service recruited five firms to develop battery-powered LLVs to help re- duce gasoline and maintenance costs. Each company has been of- fered $50,000 to deliver a proto- type by August, and the vehicles will be tested on the streets of
Washington, Postal Service spokeswoman Sue Brennan said. Letter carriers also are testing
several other modes of transpor- tation to reduce fuel and mainte- nance costs. Some workers are using three-wheel electric vehi- cles on a trial basis in Arizona, California, Florida and parts of the District, Brennan said. The vehicles can reach speeds of 12 mph, carry 45 pounds of mail and travel 40 miles before recharging. Other letter carriers in Arizona and Florida use bicycles to deliv- er the mail.
ed.okeefe@washingtonpost.com
the training and abilities to use this equipment and software any- where near its potential. I have seen expensive plotter equipment worth thousands of dollars un- used because there was no real use in the first place. Most archi- tect/engineer firms outsource their print work to print houses or subcontractors in order to bill the customer for the service. The federal government buys equip- ment they neither need nor know how to operate efficiently.
William Hess Navy Department, Annapolis My laptop isn’t the issue, it’s
the software we run: WinXP, IE6, Office2003, etc. Or, perhaps more important,
it’s the software we are not al- lowed to run. That would be any-
thing that hasn’t proven itself to have even a hint of vulnerability over the past five years. New in 2006? Too new for us, yet. Wait another year or two. Then we’ll be safe, right? Web 2.0? Fuggetaboutit. Somewhere along the way, the computer security people failed to balance risk against the possible harm of a hacker giving the agen- cy a bad name. Nor does leader- ship want the opportunity to show up on the front page of The Post, hence the disinclination to take risk that might ruin their ca- reers. Can’t blame them. On top of that, we are not per-
mitted to bring a personal cell to the office if it has a camera on it. Really? Have you tried to find one of those? Why is that? Security, of course. Somewhere along the way, the
security people forget that they grant security clearances to those people it trust. And, if I do not have a clearance, I’m not sup- posed to even see classified data, yet alone take pictures of it, right? That leaves me unable to stay con- nected to friends and family like the rest of the world. Is this a for- mula for happy employees?
and family responsibilities was a major focus of a forum Thursday on “Building a Community for Women in the Federal Government,” sponsored by the Homeland Security Department at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The keynote speaker was
Kathleen Martinez, the Labor Department’s assistant secretary for disability employment policy. Often with humor, she used her experiences as a blind Hispanic woman to make points about the need for greater diversity. “Disability is a women’s issue,” she said, because most caregivers are women and they care for people who may have a disability or who are elderly. In prepared remarks, she
talked about the $3 billion that Labor estimates corporations lose annually because of child-care issues.
“Of those employers who do
offer child-care programs, many of those programs are not accessible, either physically or programmatically or both, to children with disabilities, even 20 years after the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act,” she said. “With few child-care or after-school program options for children with disabilities, many women choose to stay home to care for their children.”
federaldiary@washpost.com
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