Panel supports inspector general pay revisions

Updates to the inspector general pay system and measures to enhance the independence of overseers received broad support from a recent panel on issues affecting the IG community.

The panel, composed of current and former executive branch officials and inspectors general, the leadership of the councils for presidentially appointed and agency-appointed inspectors general, and members of academic and research groups, was convened in response to a request by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Its discussions were reflected in a Government Accountability Office review of the meeting (GAO-06-931SP) published last week.

A staff member for the Senate committee said the panel was an early step in an education process on the possible need for updates to the 1978 Inspector General Act, which was last amended in 1998. The committee is currently in a fact-finding mode, he said, to evaluate issues and options to address them.

The staffer said that given the short amount of work time remaining in the current session of Congress and the early stage of the effort, legislation would not be presented this year. The investigation was triggered by interest from the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, the group of presidentially appointed inspectors general, he said, which approached the committee more than a year ago with a variety of proposals.

One of those was legislation introduced last year by Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn. and co-sponsored by Reps. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Christopher Shays, R-Conn. That bill, H.R. 2489, was referred to the House Government Reform Committee but never debated.

Participants in the Senate-convened panel discussed recommendations in the House legislation to establish a seven-year term for inspectors general and list specific causes that could be considered grounds for removal.

Most panel participants did not support fixed terms and felt that limiting the grounds for removal could result in poorly performing IGs remaining in office too long. But a majority agreed that current regulations requiring Congress to be notified after an IG's removal should be modified to require notice before that action, providing legislators with an opportunity to challenge it.

Inspector general pay has received scattered attention for restrictions that lock some IGs at pay levels below those of their highest-paid staff members. This is the result of vagaries of the Senior Executive Service and executive pay schedules, as well as a shared understanding that IGs should not accept bonuses and performance-based pay incentives from those whose work they review. As a result, a panelist noted, many assistant IGs have "little or no interest" in promotion because of the attendant pay cut.

Most panelists agreed that the pay question should be addressed, GAO reported, though they did not establish a framework for how base pay, bonuses and performance reviews could be configured to address concerns.

Panelists supported the idea of a council on accountability issues that would be made up of members from GAO, the Office of Management and Budget, the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, the Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency and other oversight groups. It would work along the lines of the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program, for key financial management officials.

Among other issues that were discussed, panel members unanimously agreed that IGs should be empowered to subpoena electronic data, in addition to other information media.

Some said that with the increased focus on terrorism among law enforcement agencies, IGs have taken on a growing number of otherwise-abandoned fraud cases. Agency-appointed inspectors general should be empowered like their presidentially appointed colleagues with law enforcement powers such as making arrests and obtaining search warrants, some panelists said.