Heavy Turnover at SBA Delays Management Improvements

Over-reliance on acting managers in nearly all top-level positions has prevented the Small Business Administration from promptly addressing its long-term management challenges, the Government Accountability Office found.

“Frequent turnover of political leadership in the federal government, including at SBA, has often made sustaining attention to needed changes difficult,” auditors said in a report released late last month. "Senior SBA leaders have not prioritized long-term organizational transformation in areas such as human capital and information technology.”

GAO’s color-coded chart showed extended periods since 2005 in which acting managers filled the posts of administrator, deputy, chief financial officer, chief human capital officer, chief information officer, chief operating officer and general counsel.

The agency’s challenges, as identified over the years by GAO and the SBA inspector general, include “some related to program implementation and oversight, contracting, human capital” and information technology, auditors noted, as well as problems with organizational structure, internal financial control weaknesses and enterprise risk management.

In hiring, “SBA currently does not have a workforce plan that fully addresses key principles—including conducting and acting upon a competency and skill gap assessment and developing a long-term strategy to address its skills imbalance,” GAO wrote. “As a result, it cannot provide reasonable assurance that its workforce has the skills needed to effectively administer the agency’s programs and meet the agency’s mission and strategic goals.”

GAO added eight new recommendations to its past list, among them prioritizing resources, and credited SBA with having gotten started on nearly all. 

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