House bill aimed at increasing diversity among senior executives advances

Citing a decline in the diversity of senior government executives, the House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee sent a bill to the full committee renewing efforts to increase the hiring of women and minorities.

The bill, sponsored by Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee Chairman Danny Davis, D-Ill., was adopted by unanimous voice vote. The bill would create the Senior Executive Service Resource Office within the Office of Personnel Management.

The Senior Executive Service is a pay grade within the federal government, encompassing executives that serve as a link between presidential appointees and the rest of the federal workforce.

Along with improving efficiency and professionalism in the SES, the new office will be charged with creating lists documenting the number of reserved positions at each agency, whether candidates are being pursued to fill vacancies, the race, ethnicity, gender and disabilities of people certified to join the SES, and conducting a recruiting program to attract women, minorities and persons with disabilities.

The bill also requires each agency to establish a SES evaluation panel, each having three members and having at least one woman and one minority.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., said it was possible for a minority or a female employee to wonder "if they're getting a fair shake" when sitting in front of the "panel that looks like the old work force - the 100 percent at the top, white male workforce," and added that there was "no harm with trying to correct the disparity here."

Davis said that the Government Accountability Office found that from fiscal 2000 to fiscal 2007, the SES experienced a decline in black men. Davis added that 90 percent of the current SES corps will retire within the next 10 years.

A Federal Workforce Subcommittee report issued Nov. 13, 2007, found that fiscal 2007 salaries for minorities in the SES was on average $6,000 less than non-minorities, and women in the SES made on average $10,000 less than SES men.

The report also found that the percentage of minorities in the legislative branch SES decreased by 1 percent from fiscal 2002 to fiscal 2007, and the percentage of women increased by 4 percent over the same five years.

A companion bill (S. 2148) has been introduced in the Senate by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee Chairman Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii.