Bush’s management agenda lacks congressional support, executives say
Panelists praise president’s government reform efforts, but say they wish more lawmakers would understand and support his plan.
If President Bush is re-elected, his management team should keep the same government reform goals but should do a better job selling them to Capitol Hill, three agency executives said during a panel discussion Tuesday.
The president's five-part management agenda, known as the PMA, has focused unprecedented attention on a set of concrete reform goals that, for the most part, are realistic and attainable, the executives said at the Excellence in Government conference in Washington, which is sponsored by Government Executive and the Council for Excellence in Government. But a number of lawmakers, particularly on appropriations committees, remain either uninformed or opposed to Bush's management goals, making life more difficult at agencies, the panelists said.
Appropriators, for instance, continue to underfund e-government projects prompted by the PMA, said Kimberly Nelson, chief information officer at the Environmental Protection Agency. While lawmakers on oversight committees generally understand that most e-government initiatives require extensive collaboration among agencies, appropriators have yet to recognize the urgency of setting aside interagency pools of money for such projects, she said.
In the preliminary House version of the fiscal 2005 Interior Department spending bill, for example, appropriators banned Interior agencies from contributing money to four e-government efforts, including e-rulemaking. Though EPA manages the e-rulemaking Web site, designed to allow the public greater influence over the process of writing federal regulations, the project is really a collaborative effort, Nelson said. "Without that partnership, we will not succeed," she added.
The funding of e-government projects on an agency-specific basis is a "tactical" mistake, said David Chu, the Defense Department's undersecretary for personnel and readiness. If Congress and administration officials could agree to place all e-government money in a central account, financial problems likely could be avoided in the future, he said. The 2002 E-Government Act does set up an interagency fund for initiatives, but Congress consistently falls far short of meeting President Bush's annual requests for the pool, and agencies spend separate money on the projects they administer.
The Veterans Affairs Department has experienced a fair share of difficulties with appropriators as well, said William Campbell, the department's assistant secretary for management and chief financial officer. Congress declined to provide the Veterans Health Administration with funding to engage in competitive sourcing -- a PMA initiative that allows contractors to bid on federal jobs. Federal law prohibits VHA from considering the outsourcing of jobs unless the agency receives funding.
Veterans Affairs officials also devoted considerable effort to restructuring the department's budget to reflect performance, at the "behest of OMB," Campbell said, only to later have the budget in that format rejected by appropriators.
"Right now, [the Veterans Affairs Department is] 0 for 2," Campbell said, adding that he does not know how to change appropriators' minds.
In the absence of winning over Congress, the Bush administration should at least consider changing some of the standards for scoring success on implementing the management agenda, Campbell said. The standards for grading accomplishments in each of the five management areas -- personnel reform, competitive sourcing, financial management, e-government, and budget and performance integration -- generally provide incentives, he said.
But if officials realize that there is no possible way to earn higher grades in a given area, they likely will get frustrated and give up, Campbell said. For instance, under the current legal restrictions, there is no way Veterans Affairs could move up a notch on competitive sourcing, he said, adding that he is pleased this is one of the few management initiatives in which he hasn't had a hand.
"I knew that this was not something that was going to bathe my career in its final days in glory," Campbell said. "So I tried to avoid it at all costs."
But Chu observed that, particularly in the area of competitive sourcing, Congress' involvement is almost a backhanded compliment to Bush's management agenda. Attempts to introduce legislative language curtailing job contests demonstrate that lawmakers are at least aware of the management reform effort and take the initiative seriously, he said.
The Defense Department is displeased with competitive sourcing language that lawmakers tacked onto preliminary versions of fiscal 2005 appropriations bills, Chu said. At the same time, Congress doesn't always work at odds with agency management officials, he noted. Lawmakers have been helpful in granting the Pentagon enhanced personnel flexibilities.