Treasury increases bailout staffing, but still faces hurdles

The Treasury Department has increased the number of detailees and new hires working on the bailout of the nation's financial system, but has yet to complete a detailed workforce plan or overcome hiring challenges created by ethics rules and noncompetitive salaries, according to a Government Accountability Office report released on Friday.

Auditors noted that the number of employees working full time on the Troubled Asset Relief Program grew from 48 as of Nov. 21, 2008, to 90 as of Jan. 26, 2009. GAO hailed the improvement, but said Treasury needed a total of 131 employees for the program.

Some of the employees who joined Treasury's Office of Financial Stability, which runs TARP, are detailees from other agencies. Treasury also has made substantial use of the direct-hire authority provided in the law that created TARP, merit promotions, term appointments for senior executives, and Schedule A appointments for people with unique skills.

Those authorities have allowed Treasury to hire quickly from the pool of applicants who submitted their résumés to an e-mail address set up to bypass official Office of Personnel Management job announcements. But GAO said Treasury has yet to refine the e-mail submissions process completely, even though officials created separate mailboxes to collect résumés based on areas of expertise.

"Treasury officials said that this approach enhanced Treasury's recruitment efforts, but that it still did not eliminate the submission of résumés by individuals that were not qualified," the report stated. "They still required time to review the résumés and identify those that reflect the needed skills and abilities for OFS."

Part of the challenge Treasury faces -- made especially acute by TARP's evolving nature -- is identifying skills requirements. The contractor hired to deliver human capital services was forced to abandon a number of earlier efforts when TARP's mission changed, so as of Jan. 26, it had written job descriptions for only 28 positions.

Even with hiring flexibilities and a flood of applications, two significant recruitment challenges remain: financial disclosure and salaries.

The report noted that the financial disclosure process designed to prevent conflicts of interest has been a hurdle for some candidates.

"Some qualified candidates were unaware when they applied for an OFS position that their financial investments could pose conflicts and subsequently made the decision not to pursue employment with OFS," the report said. "According to Treasury, ethics reviews of this information can add substantial time to the hiring process."

In addition, Treasury is having trouble competing with financial regulatory agencies, which offer more competitive salaries for some positions. Department officials told GAO that federal law and OPM regulations were restricting their efforts to design additional flexibilities to overcome salary disadvantages, but did not provide more details.