Watchdog agency calls for 3.5 percent increase in staff

Government Accountability Office officials are seeking a staff boost to avoid a repeat of 2008, when a personnel shortage hobbled about 20 percent of its investigations.

GAO's fiscal 2010 performance plan asks lawmakers to grant it 109 additional full-time permanent employees, increasing its workforce by 3.5 percent, from 3,141 to 3,250 employees. "Given the difficult federal budget decisions that lie ahead, the Congress is likely to place increasing emphasis on fiscal constraint, which could impact our ability to increase our staff capacity to provide more timely responses to congressional requests," GAO officials wrote in the performance plan.

Despite those constraints, the boost is necessary, given the watchdog agency's ballooning workload, the 2010 plan stated. GAO received 13 percent more requests for studies in fiscal 2007 than in fiscal 2006. Requests held relatively steady between fiscal 2007 and fiscal 2008, but during that time, the number of congressional mandates on the agency rose from 75 to 160, and it is on track to increase again in fiscal 2009. GAO delayed starting work on 21 percent of the investigations Congress requested in 2008 because it didn't have enough employees available.

Growing demands, including oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and President Obama's economic stimulus package, require the agency to find employees with expertise in a wider range of subjects, the plan noted. Rehiring annuitants and offering limited term appointments could help, but such authorities do not allow the GAO to make permanent hires in anticipation of emerging needs, the document stated.

Meanwhile, the rising workload is taking a toll on GAO employees, who are struggling to meet reporting deadlines for major programs during their children's school vacations and major religious holidays, according to Ron La Due Lake, president of International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees Local 1921.

"Sometimes, as it plays out, there is not the flexibility that there should be," he said. "We don't have the depth in the workforce to keep all that moving with these kinds of congressional demands. We're just very thin right now."

La Due Lake praised GAO managers for taking a step in the right direction, and for staying aware of work-life balance issues even in the face of pressing deadlines. He said the requested staff boost would help lighten the load.

Marcus Williams, a spokesman for Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee that oversees the federal workforce, said Lynch had not yet taken a position on GAO's budget request. President Obama's February budget outline did not include a proposed budget for GAO. A detailed budget request is expected later this month.