The Buzz

Not Blasé About Benefits

Federal employees are overwhelmingly satisfied with their health benefits and retirement plans, according to a survey released in May by the Office of Personnel Management.

The survey, taken in November 2004, was designed to measure worker opinions of the "importance, adequacy, value and competitiveness of federal benefits programs," according to an OPM release. Doris Hausser, senior policy adviser to OPM's acting director, Dan G. Blair, said the study was conducted in large part because "perception is reality." She told reporters that OPM is proud of federal benefits programs, but that matters little if "all your employees say it sucks."

According to the survey, the majority of federal employees are happy with their retirement and health options but less certain about some other benefits programs. Employees were asked whether programs met their needs to a "great or moderate extent," a "slight extent," whether the programs were "inadequate," or whether the respondents did not know. The survey also allowed workers to indicate whether a benefit was unavailable at their agency.

OPM reported that 84 percent of respondents said the federal government's health benefits met their needs to a great or moderate extent. More than 80 percent also said the Thrift Savings Plan satisfied their needs at the same level. The survey revealed that 64 percent of workers rated their life insurance benefits at the top level, and 54 percent said retirement health benefits met their needs to a great or moderate extent.

The sample was sent to 2,400 employees across government, and OPM received 850 responses.

Port Clearances

The ability to prevent or respond to a potential terrorist attack at a U.S. seaport might be hampered because federal officials cannot communicate necessary information to local, state and private sector officials who do not have security clearances, government auditors reported this spring.

The major barrier hindering information- sharing at seaports nationwide is the lack of federal security clearances for nonfederal members of committees or centers, the Government Accountability Office concluded in a May report (GAO-05-394).

"Given that ports are sprawling enterprises that often cross jurisdictional boundaries, the need to share information among federal, state and local agencies is central to effective prevention and re- sponse," GAO said. "The lack of security clearances may limit the ability of state, local and industry officials-such as those who are involved in area maritime security committees or interagency operational centers-to deter, prevent and respond to a potential terrorist attack."

Nonfederal officials include state authorities, local port operators and representatives of private companies.

The Coast Guard has developed a list of 359 nonfederal maritime security committee participants who need clearances. By last February, however, only 28 had submitted the necessary paperwork.

Cold Pizza

House Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee Chairman Jon Porter, R-Nev., has blasted the heads of four federal agencies that oversee food inspection for not doing enough to streamline the program, which Porter said has numerous-and seemingly nonsensical-duplications.

"If Congress were to set up the organizational structure today, I hardly believe that we would have the USDA inspect manufacturers of . . . pepperoni pizza . . . and require the FDA to inspect manufacturers of cheese pizza," Porter said. He noted that a recent Government Accountability Office report found that the Food and Drug

Administration, the Agriculture Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Commerce Department's Seafood Inspection Program had 71 different agreements on coordinating operations, but the agencies were aware of only seven.

But Robert Brackett, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety, said many of those arrangements affected only small parts of the agencies or had expired. He disagreed with GAO's characterization of overlap, since no food is inspected by both USDA and FDA. Brackett added that while the GAO report was critical of the fact that some facilities are examined by more than one agency, only 2 percent of all inspected plants fall into that category.

Porter's pizza anecdote never seems to get old on Capitol Hill. It has been floating around ever since GAO originally highlighted it in a 1988 study.

ON THE RECORD: In May, Michael Wynne...

...undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, took to the podium at the Pentagon to explain the rationale behind the Pentagon's recommendations for base realignments and closures.

On how the recommendations were put together: It was a complex and orderly process, but it resulted in a well-developed set of recommendations. Thousands of people were involved, both civilian and military, from every level; from combatant commanders, from our National Guard participants, all the way up to the secretary of Defense. One of the remarkable features of this round was that the joint cross-service groups, which were made up by and large of service personnel, were able to serve us their recommendations; and they were then considered very heavily by the services in knitting together the integrated recommendations. And that's one reason that we would say to you we don't see it in a way of individual services anymore. We now see it in terms of, "How does jointness work?" and "How can we make it work better?"

On joint operations: One of the major commitments that the services have all made is for a Joint Strike Fighter initial pilot training base. And they're going to have that all at one location, which is a remarkable change from history, where we may have had the same model airplane, but they were all taught at different places. Early on in the secretary's tenure here, he asked about truck drivers, and he asked about where they were trained. And so finally we are going to have a joint integrated transportation school.

On what constitutes a "major" closure: We have taken a more structured look at the definition of major and minor. . . . What we have done is we have taken an arbitrary value of $100 million in what we call plant replacement value to be a major base. Of those, we've identified approximately 318 that are over $100 million and could be considered to be a major base. In the past, the BRAC was not quite as precise or structured in its engagement.

On the influence of community-hired consultants: We were actually not statutorily allowed to consider offerings from the states or from communities in our assessment, because we really do not have the authority to give mandates to people to spend money or do anything. So by and large, I would have to say that the consultants may have done a great job, but it is in the eye of the beholder. And I think you have to turn to their customer base and find out if they felt like they did a good job for them.

No Private Parks

A memo on National Park Service job competitions set off a brief firestorm this spring after a watchdog group interpreted the document as meaning that entire parks could be outsourced to private contractors.

In an April 15 memo, NPS director Fran Mainella wrote that jobs at the Boston National Historical Park, the San Juan Island (Puerto Rico) National Historical Park and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore were being considered for job competitions. "We will be reviewing whole parks to achieve the most efficient operations possible," she said.

The Washington-based advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility got a copy of

the memo and sent out a statement saying, "We have now reached the point where Disney or Bally's Resorts can bid on entire national park operations with almost no public debate on whether that is appropriate."

NPS was quick to knock down that notion. "We are definitely not, nor are we going to be, doing any kind of competitive sourcing for an entire park-that's just not going to happen," said Elaine Sevy, NPS spokeswoman.

She acknowledged, however, that the memo was "very vague and confusing when it talks about these three parks."