In Praise of Federal Executive Boards

Federal Executive Boards across the country are getting the job done, the Office of Personnel Management says. Among the accomplishments highlighted in the FEB 2007 annual report:

• Efforts by the Minnesota FEB to coordinate federal agencies' response to the 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis.
• Settlement of more than 565 cases through low-cost or no-cost mediation programs.
• A program to provide free or reduced cost training to more than 23,000 federal employees saved agencies more than $6 million.

At their best, Brian Friel wrote in a recent Management Matters column, FEBs "create lateral connections through which information can flow across organizational boundaries, rather than forcing information up chains of command and then back down other chains." That means they can play an integral role in helping agencies collaborate -- both during normal operations and in times of crisis.

So if FEBs are so effective, why don't they get more support? Alyssa Rosenberg noted in a November piece in Government Executive, "though the Office of Personnel Management oversees FEBs, their staffs consist of employees detailed from offices in the area. That lack of consistent staffing, and the fact that there is no standard for determining the jurisdiction of FEBs based on the number of federal workers in a given area, can leave directors dangerously short-handed in a crisis." Kathrene L. Hansen, executive director of the Greater Los Angeles FEB, which covers 125,000 federal employees at 230 agencies, told Rosenberg she was serving as a one-person office at the time of last fall's wildfires in southern California, because the only other employee -- her secretary -- had recently resigned.

If FEBs can really help government be more effective, maybe it's time to give them a stable source of funding and adequate staff.