[Senate Hearing 111-532]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-532
ONE DHS, ONE MISSION: EFFORTS TO IMPROVE MANAGEMENT INTEGRATION AT THE
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 15, 2009
__________
Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
56-153 PDF WASHINGTON : 2010
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC
area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC
20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
JON TESTER, Montana ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah
ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois
PAUL G. KIRK, JR., Massachusetts
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah
PAUL G. KIRK, JR., Massachusetts
Lisa M. Powell, Staff Director
Joel C. Spangenberg, Professional Staff Member
Jessica K. Nagasako, Professional Staff Member
Jennifer A. Hemingway, Minority Staff Director
Thomas A. Bishop, Minority Professional Staff Member
Benjamin B. Rhodeside, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statements:
Page
Senator Akaka................................................ 1
Senator Voinovich............................................ 2
Senator McCaskill............................................ 15
WITNESSES
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Hon. Elaine C. Duke, Under Secretary for Management, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security................................ 4
Anne L. Richards, Assistant Inspector General for Audits, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security................................ 6
Bernice Steinhardt, Director for Strategic Issues, U.S.
Government Accountability Office............................... 8
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Duke, Hon. Elaine C.:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 23
Richards, Anne L.:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 31
Steinhardt, Bernice:
Testimony.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 55
APPENDIX
Background....................................................... 70
Responses to questions submitted for the Record:
Ms. Duke..................................................... 77
Ms. Richards................................................. 87
Ms. Steinhardt............................................... 93
ONE DHS, ONE MISSION: EFFORTS TO
IMPROVE MANAGEMENT INTEGRATION
AT THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
----------
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2009
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government
Management, the Federal Workforce,
and the District of Columbia,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K.
Akaka, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Akaka, McCaskill, and Voinovich.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
Senator Akaka. I call this hearing of the Subcommittee on
Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and
the District of Columbia to order.
Aloha and good morning to our witnesses and attendees.
Today's hearing is focused on the ongoing need to improve
management integration in the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on
that issue released today.
The Federal Government embarked on one of the most sweeping
reorganizations in its history by establishing the Department
of Homeland Security. While I believe that DHS has improved the
coordination of security efforts between the 22 agencies and
offices that now form the Department, it has not yet developed
as an integrated and well-managed Department. This hinders its
ability to achieve its mission.
The GAO placed the transformation of DHS on its High-Risk
List in 2003 when it was created. It was clear early on that
such a large reorganization of government warranted close
oversight. Unfortunately, the Management Directorate and
component management chiefs remain unable to effectively
support the Department's day-to-day operations. The Inspector
General's most recent yearly assessment shows continuing
problems in the functional management areas of acquisitions,
information technology, grants, and financial management.
As highlighted by the GAO report released here today, one
cause of these management problems is the lagging integration
of departmental management. GAO has noted that the successful
transformation of an organization, even one less complex than
DHS, could take from 5 to 7 years. We are quickly approaching
that 7-year mark, which will be this March.
To be successful, the Department will need to set clear
department-wide goals and create performance measures to
analyze its progress. DHS, like other agencies, needs a
comprehensive strategic plan for management integration. It is
also important that DHS require clear accountability from its
leaders.
In 2007, the Department implemented dual accountability,
which means that component management chiefs are required to
report both to headquarters and component leadership. At a
previous hearing, this Subcommittee examined dual
accountability in the area of acquisition management. I am
still concerned that this model does not create clear
accountability for management and integration. I do, however,
want to commend the leadership of the Under Secretary for
Management (USM), Elaine Duke, who joins us today, for her work
in making management a priority at the Department and for
staying on until a successor is confirmed.
As GAO found, the USM and her chiefs have taken steps to
ensure better coordination, for example, making coordination a
component of performance reviews. I believe that the USM, who
is the Department's chief management officer, is critical in
implementing management integration across the Department. That
is why I am working with Senator Voinovich on the Effective
Homeland Security Management Act, which would elevate this
position to the level of Deputy Secretary with a fixed term.
This will help ensure that DHS places sustained eye-level
attention on effective management.
Able and integrated management will have an enormous and
overarching impact on the future success of the Department.
Additional progress in these areas will increase the
effectiveness and confidence in DHS's ability to achieve its
mission.
Again, I want to thank all of our witnesses for appearing
today and I look forward to your testimony.
Now, I would like to recognize Senator Voinovich for his
statement. Senator Voinovich?
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Senator Akaka, for holding
this hearing. I really want to publicly express my appreciation
to you for the work that we are doing together to try and get
DHS off the High-Risk List, understanding that it was a major
reorganization that probably shouldn't have been undertaken in
the first place, but it happened.
In addition, I would like to publicly state that I have a
hold on Rafael Borras, who is supposed to take Ms. Duke's job,
and the reason I do, Senator Akaka, and I expressed it to the
Secretary and also to the Administration, is that I do not
believe that he is qualified to take this very important
position that is now being held by Ms. Duke. What is your
title, you are Acting----
Ms. Duke. No, I am still the Under Secretary.
Senator Voinovich. She is doing it, and as far as I am
concerned, she can keep doing it. [Laughter.]
I regularly remind my colleagues that when we established
the Department, we initiated the Federal Government's largest
restructuring since the Department of Defense (DOD), and we are
all familiar with it--22 agencies, 170,000 people. We knew that
it would take time, and as you mentioned, Senator Akaka, 5 to 7
years. And I feel the same way, we are in the 6th year and next
year is the end of it. I am not going to be around after that.
I would like to be able to, when I tip my hat, know that you
are off the High-Risk List.
Ms. Steinhardt, I thought that meeting that we had in my
office was great, GAO and the Department and talking about what
you have been doing to try and work together in terms of
meeting the metrics so that when we have a hearing later on,
GAO and the Department will at least agree on the metrics. They
may not agree on the report, but they will at least agree on
how they are going to be judged in terms of whether they are
getting the job done.
In addition to the challenges GAO and the Inspector General
will tell us about today, the DHS Chief Financial Officer and
Homeland Security Advisory Council's Cultural Task Force have
both articulated concerns about management.
While all these entities acknowledge the progress, let us
make sure we understand, there has been substantial progress. I
don't want anybody to think there hasn't been, we still need to
get the job done. Today, we have an agency with a $50 billion
budget--the third-largest now in the Federal Government,
220,000 employees--so it is really important that the
Department put the utmost priority on addressing GAO's
recommendations.
I want to thank all of you for being here today. I think
that in order, as I mentioned, for us to achieve what we would
like to achieve, it has got to be the highest priority.
Ms. Duke, I want to say you have done a really good job. We
really appreciate it.
Senator Akaka, sometimes when I give my statement, it is
just redundant, so I am leaving out a whole lot of it because
you have already handled it. But we are just glad to have you
here, and by working together, I think that we can really get
some of these things out of the way, and maybe by the end of
the next year, I probably won't be around for the GAO report,
but make substantial progress on it.
Thank you for being here.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Senator.
It is my pleasure again to welcome back to this panel, the
Hon. Elaine Duke, who we thank for continuing her service as
Under Secretary for Management at the Department of Homeland
Security; Anne Richards, Assistant Inspector General for Audits
at the Department of Homeland Security; and Bernice Steinhardt,
Director of Strategic Issues at the Government Accountability
Office.
It is the custom, as you know, of this Subcommittee to
swear in all witnesses. Will you please stand and raise your
right hand.
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to
give the Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Ms. Duke. I do.
Ms. Richards. I do.
Ms. Steinhardt. I do.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Let the record show that
affirmative answers were given by our panelists.
Although statements are limited to 5 minutes, I want all of
our witnesses to know that their entire statement will be
included in the record.
Under Secretary Duke, again, welcome back and please
proceed with your statement.
TESTIMONY OF HON. ELAINE C. DUKE,\1\ UNDER SECRETARY FOR
MANAGEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Ms. Duke. Good morning, Chairman Akaka, and Ranking Member
Voinovich. First of all, I would like to say that the
redundancy of your opening statement is encouraging. The way
this Subcommittee has attacked management and integration at
DHS in a unified approach has really helped us push forward on
our objectives and I really do appreciate the unified approach
this Committee has taken to the Department.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Duke appears in the Appendix on
page 23.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We have made significant improvements and accomplished a
lot of initiatives in the first 6 years of the Department. What
the Inspector General and especially the GAO in the High-Risk
List is looking for now is an integrated sustained approach, a
unified approach to looking at our integration.
I just wanted to take a moment to talk about some of the
accomplishments we have made in every area of management. We
recently implemented the efficiency review under Secretary
Napolitano to look at reducing our overhead and our spending.
This is going to be especially important as we get into tighter
and tighter budget years for the Federal Government and the
Department as a whole.
We are completing our first Quadrennial Homeland Security
Review, QHSR, and that will be delivered to Congress on time,
by the end of this calendar year.
We have made significant improvements in our acquisition
workforce, both in terms of numbers--we have been able to
double the number of contracting officers. That is a net gain,
even with the attrition. And we have really attacked the root
cause of some of our acquisition problems by expanding from
procurement to acquisition and building our program management
and our test and evaluation systems engineers and cost
estimating workforces.
We have completed acquisition reviews of over 90 percent of
our programs, and on all of our 79 major information technology
acquisition programs. And we have developed and implemented an
online reporting system called Next Generation Reporting System
that provides valuable information to our senior leadership on
cost schedule and performance for all our major acquisition
programs, and that was done in May of this year.
We have our intern program, our acquisition career program,
in which we are up to 100 now, and received funding to double
that workforce this year.
We have finished our Human Capital Strategic Plan. Some of
the key elements of interest to this Subcommittee, improving
our diversity numbers throughout the Department, but especially
at senior leadership levels, and better balancing our
workforce, our ratio between Federal employees and contractors.
And we are actually meeting with your staff on Thursday to give
you an update on that effort to better balance our workforce.
We have a lot of initiatives going on in financial report
and are continuingly decreasing our number of material
weaknesses, down from 30 in 2005 to 12 this year, and we have
to do more work in that area.
We have done a lot of initiatives in information technology
(IT), specifically with data center consolidation and cyber
operations, really working on improving how we handle attacks
to our IT systems. We have our enterprise architecture in place
that guides our IT investments that is consistent with the
Federal architecture. And we have over 96 percent of our IT
systems certified properly under the Federal Information
Security Management Act (FISMA) standards.
We are on schedule and below budget for our DHS
headquarters consolidation at St. Elizabeths, thanks in part to
some Recovery Act funding and the cooperation of General
Services Administration (GSA).
And we are in the process, as I reported to you, Senator
Voinovich, in my recent response to your letter, for upgrading
and improving our DHS integrated strategy for high risk,
addressing GAO's criticisms of it, including making sure we
have more detailed and measurable actions with milestones and
sustained leadership attention towards accomplishing what we
put in our plan.
The GAO and Inspector General (IG) are correct in their
assessment. We have made moderate progress and there is still a
lot more to do. I think it is important to remember that DHS
didn't start with a clean slate or a whole cloth, if you will.
It started in many management areas with really the tattered
remains of legacy functions. In most simplistic terms, we have
really spent some time digging ourselves out of a hole in the
management area. So I think even making moderate progress in
terms of outcomes is something that, while I am not content
that we are finished, we are proud of how far we have come.
It is also important to note that we do this while still
delivering services. The chiefs are service providers to over
3,500 headquarters personnel, a function that was never
envisioned in the start-up of DHS. So in addition to having the
traditional roles of policy and oversight, the concerns of this
Subcommittee, we also have the extreme burden of providing
service to a huge constituency.
I appreciate the way the colleagues at GAO and the IG have
approached this with us. I also thank you, Mr. Chairman and
Ranking Voinovich, for your continued support and I look
forward to answering your questions this morning.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Ms. Duke.
And now, Ms. Richards, will you please proceed with your
statement.
TESTIMONY OF ANNE L. RICHARDS,\1\ ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL
FOR AUDITS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Ms. Richards. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the
Subcommittee. I am Anne Richards, Assistant Inspector General
for Audits at the Department of Homeland Security. I appreciate
this opportunity to discuss the management challenges facing
the Department.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Richards appears in the Appendix
on page 31.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since its creation in 2003, DHS has been working towards
accomplishing the largest reorganization of the Federal
Government in more than half a century. While DHS has made
progress, it still has much to do to establish a cohesive,
efficient, and effective organization.
Our latest major management challenges report identified a
broad range of issues. Today, I will highlight four key areas
where significant challenges still exist: Acquisition
management, information technology management, grants
management, and financial management. These areas are the
backbone of the Department and provide the structure and
information to support the accomplishment of DHS's missions.
Since these challenge areas have tended to remain the same
from year to year, we developed a scorecard approach to measure
the Department's progress in these areas. We based our
scorecard ratings on a four-tiered scale: Limited, modest,
moderate, or substantial progress. Our most recent assessment
shows that the Department has made moderate progress in
acquisition management and information technology management
and modest progress in the grants management and financial
management areas.
We rated the overall score of the acquisition management
area as achieving moderate progress this year because of the
Department's improvements in recruiting and retaining an
acquisition workforce and progress in developing and
strengthening acquisition management policies and procedures.
Two subcomponents of this area, organizational alignment and
leadership, and knowledge management and information systems,
have shown only modest progress to date.
Regarding organizational alignment and leadership, DHS has
not yet effectively implemented or adhered to its investment
review processes. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
program offices have not adequately integrated the acquisition
function into their decision making activities. In the area of
knowledge management and information systems, DHS has not fully
deployed a department-wide contract management system that is
interfaced with the financial system.
The next challenge area I would like to discuss is
information technology management. Based on our analysis of six
IT management capability areas, DHS has made moderate progress
in IT management overall, with IT strategic planning,
enterprise architecture, capital planning and investment
control, and IT security receiving scores of moderate progress.
However, two areas received scores of modest progress, IT
budget oversight and IT portfolio management. We scored IT
budget oversight as modest because of the difficulty still in
gaining a department-wide view of IT spending due to component
Chief Information Officers (CIOs) not having sufficient budget
control and oversight within their components.
In the category of grants management, DHS has made modest
progress. For example, in the disaster grants area, we issued
over 40 reports this year on sub-grantees with more than $80
million in questioned costs. FEMA needs to make certain that
States as grantees understand the rules and regulations that
govern disaster grants and take steps to ensure that sub-
grantees adhere to these rules and regulations.
The last challenge I would like to discuss is financial
management. As in previous years, we were unable to render an
opinion on the Department's financial statements. Material
weaknesses were also so pervasive that we could not verify the
sufficiency of internal controls over financial reporting. Some
of the specific problems include: The Department lacks a
sufficient number of accounting and financial management
personnel with core technical competencies; DHS's accounting
and financial reporting policies, procedures, processes, and
internal controls have not received investments in proportion
to the Department's rapid growth in other programs and
operations; field and operational personnel do not always share
responsibilities for, or are not held accountable for, matters
that affect financial management; and the Department's
financial information technology system infrastructure is aging
and has limited functionality.
Having identified some of the specific problems in
financial management, I also want to take the time to
acknowledge the progress being achieved by the Department. For
example, DHS issued its Financial Management Policy Manual to
help ensure efficient and transparent operations. At the
component levels, both the Coast Guard and FEMA are continuing
to make control environment progress and to implement
corrective actions.
In summary, it must be acknowledged that some aspects of
these challenges were inherited by the Department from its
legacy agencies, and it should also be acknowledged that
creating a unified organizational culture from many separate
and proud legacy agencies is simply a daunting task. The
Department's senior officials are well aware of these
challenges and have reiterated their commitment to resolve
them. The Office of Inspector General is also committed to
helping the Department improve their core business processes
and procedures in order to improve the Department's ability to
carry out its missions.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I will be
pleased to answer any questions you or the Members of the
Subcommittee may have.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Ms. Richards.
And now we will receive the statement of Ms. Steinhardt.
TESTIMONY OF BERNICE STEINHARDT,\1\ DIRECTOR FOR STRATEGIC
ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. Steinhardt. Thank you very much, Senator Akaka and
Senator Voinovich. Of course, we appreciate the opportunity
once again to be here to share the results of our latest report
with you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Steinhardt appears in the
Appendix on page 55.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
You have talked about the enormity of the undertaking in
the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. I was
recalling some remarks made by Janet Hale, the first Under
Secretary for Management at DHS, who pointed out that the
creation of the Department was at one time a large-scale
divestiture, acquisition, merger, and start-up all at once. It
has, in fact, been quite an amazing change.
And, of course, at the heart of this transformation effort
is the creation of a well-integrated management infrastructure,
essentially the underpinning that allows the Department to
fulfill its various missions. In 2005, we reported that the
Department lacked a strategy for management integration, and at
your request, we recently followed up to see what has occurred
since that earlier report.
Generally speaking, we found that the Department has moved
ahead in integrating its management functions. The Management
Directorate of the Office of the Under Secretary for
Management, has developed common policies and systems within
individual management functions like human capital and IT that
have helped to vertically integrate its component agencies. And
one example of this which Ms. Richards just pointed out is the
Financial Management Policy Manual which serves as the single
authoritative guide on financial management for DHS. The
Department has also set up a system of Management Councils for
each of the functional areas headed by the Department chief in
that area, and these councils provide forums for coordinating
between component management offices.
But while there has been progress in vertical integration
within each management function, there has been much less done
with horizontal integration, bringing together multiple
management functions across the Department. So here, for
example, one might expect to see the integration of human
capital activities with financial management in areas related
to payroll. The Transformation and Systems Consolidation (TASC)
initiative, is a step in this direction. It is an effort to
consolidate the Department's financial management, acquisition,
and asset management systems. But there aren't very many like
this.
The Under Secretary chairs a Management Council made up of
the DHS management chiefs and a representative from each of the
component agencies, and this council has the potential to help
bring a greater horizontal perspective to the Department's
management, but it hasn't really played this role.
When we first reported on this subject back in 2005, we
pointed out that the Department would benefit from a
comprehensive strategy for management integration. Subsequent
to our report, as I am sure you are aware, the 9/11 Commission
Act also required DHS to develop such a strategy. But that
hasn't happened yet, and given the effort needed to make
further progress on management integration, we believe it would
still be valuable for the Department to develop such a
strategy.
The Department indicated a number of different planning
documents that they believe collectively make up the strategy,
but our review found that a number of critical elements of an
integration strategy, which we outlined in 2005, are still
missing. None of the planning documents conveys a sense of the
critical links, both within and across management functions, as
well as the priorities, trade-offs, and efficiencies to be
achieved. And there are no goals and time lines for monitoring
the progress of the initiatives to ensure that critical links
occur when they are needed.
As the Department develops its strategy and clearly
articulates what it hopes to achieve in management integration,
it will also need to develop performance measures that will
help it track its progress against the strategy.
Finally, I want to turn to the issue of accountability for
management integration in the Department. I know one of your
concerns over the years has been with the dual accountability
structure in which, among other things, the management chiefs
within the component agencies are accountable both to the heads
of their agencies as well as to the Department management
chiefs. So, for example, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at
FEMA reports directly to the Administrator of FEMA but has a
so-called dotted line reporting relationship to the
Department's CFO.
In operational terms, the Department chiefs are supposed to
provide input into the performance plans and the performance
evaluations of the agency chiefs, but this has not happened
consistently across the management functional areas. Some of
the Department chiefs have been providing written expectations
for the component chiefs. Some haven't. Some have been
providing input into end-of-year performance appraisals and
others have not. The Under Secretary assured us that changing
this situation would be one of her priorities, and this will
become particularly important once the Department has a
management integration strategy that will involve decisions and
trade-offs that the components will have to support and carry
out.
So with that, Mr. Chairman, I will conclude my remarks and
look forward to your questions. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Ms. Steinhardt.
Ms. Duke, as GAO reports, the Department has yet to issue a
comprehensive strategy for management integration, as mentioned
here. In response to the GAO report, you stated that you are
leading the process for developing this strategy. Which DHS
officials are supporting you in this effort and when will this
plan be finalized?
Ms. Duke. The DHS principal that is principally supporting
right now is the Deputy Secretary, Jane Holl Lute. We just had
a meeting with GAO at the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB), and Jeff Zients, the management side, and Xavier de
Souza Briggs, our lead budget person, were both there. And so
the Deputy Secretary committed that we are going back in mid-
February with GAO for an update on our integrated strategy.
I think there are two pieces. One is the overall strategy,
which, as you know, has the DHS issues, one of which is
management integration, and then it also has the other high-
risk items like flood map insurance, human capital strategy,
and real property. So our plan for having the integrated
strategy on the entire High-Risk List, we will have the outline
by the meeting with Office of Management and Budget in mid-
February.
In terms of the management integration strategy, we have
identified six items in management that are going to drive the
horizontal integration that Ms. Steinhardt just talked about,
and that piece of the plan, I have committed to Senator
Voinovich and this Subcommittee to have by the end of this
month in terms of identifying the six areas and the plan
supporting it. That will be an iterative process. We are going
to continue to have to develop good metrics, but we will have
those identified by the end of this calendar year.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Steinhardt and Ms. Duke, as you know,
GAO estimated that comprehensive reorganization takes between 5
to 7 years to implement. It has been nearly 7 years now since
DHS was created and it is only now undertaking a comprehensive
management integration plan, as you were pointing out. Given
the amount of progress DHS has made to date, how long do you
each expect it will take to complete the transformation? Ms.
Steinhardt.
Ms. Steinhardt. Well, it depends on the Department's plans,
I think, to address some of the challenges that we have pointed
out that have put them on the High-Risk List. Obviously,
management integration, being able to successfully integrate
both vertically and horizontally, is a key element of that and
we look forward to seeing Ms. Duke's plan and how far that
takes us.
And then, of course, the other dimensions of the
Department's transformation challenges and how they plan to
respond to that, we will see in February when they have their
plan, and we have committed to working with them and supporting
them in addressing some of those challenges.
But I would just say that estimate of 5 to 7 years is based
on organizations that have historically gone through a major
transformation. I don't know that any of them have been quite
on the scale of DHS, though. And so they have taken a number--
they have had a number of missteps, but they have had just an
enormous challenge. So far, we are encouraged by the progress
they have made, but there is still quite a lot ahead.
Senator Akaka. Further comments, Ms. Duke?
Ms. Duke. I would just say, in addition to Ms. Steinhardt's
comments, what GAO is looking for us is not only to have the
plan, but to come off the High-Risk List to show sustained
progress against the plan. So if we have an acceptable plan
within the next couple of months, they are going to be looking
at our progress over a period of time before they would be
considering taking us off the High-Risk List.
The other thing I would like to say is a lot of our
progress is going to be contingent on the budget in the coming
years. It is going to be challenging as we go to a flat, in
real terms, declining budget of how much we are going to be
willing to fund some of these efforts. A lot of them take money
up front for savings and efficiencies in the future, and
whether these efforts are funded in the management budget,
whether they are funded in the component budgets and we have to
find a way to tax and gather that money, or whether they are
not funded and DHS is told to find the money is really going to
directly affect the speed of implementation.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Duke, I have some concerns about
accountability with dotted line or dual reporting authority. In
what management functions is DHS using dual reporting
authority? And what steps have been taken to hold component
management chiefs accountable for following departmental
standards?
Ms. Duke. All the chiefs use dotted line functional
authority, so all six of them. Additionally, we are appointing
component acquisition executives in each of the components to
have an accountability there. About half the components have
someone there.
The main areas we have are inputting to performance
appraisals, which, as Ms. Steinhardt said last year,
principally due to transition and all the turnover, we only did
in a couple of the chiefs' lines but are doing it this year.
And it is really just the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary
along with my commitment.
One of the challenges is we don't have one-for-one
correspondence. For instance, there is not an equivalent Under
Secretary for Management in each of the components. So it isn't
holding individual components. It really rises to the level the
component had. I have seen with Secretary Napolitano and Deputy
Secretary Lute a real commitment to good management built in,
and I have a lot of confidence we are going to continue
forward.
The other things that have helped the functional
integration model are strengthening of the chiefs' delegations
and their authorities through the functional integration
management directives. For instance, now the Chief Information
Officer reviews all purchases over $2.5 million to make sure
they are consistent.
But I do think one of our next steps, as Ms. Steinhardt
said, was getting better visibility. For instance, even though
the CIO has authority over the CIOs in the components, those
CIOs really don't have all the IT dollars in there. So it is
getting those direct-line within our current model, I think, is
our next steps in integration.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Steinhardt, I would like to hear from
you on this issue, as well. GAO's report released today
discusses dual accountability and dotted line authority.
However, the report does not address whether this framework is
effective. In your view, is this approach sufficient to ensure
accountability or would you recommend changes to this
structure?
Ms. Steinhardt. Well, I think the key is having the right
people at the table when decisions are made. That is a big
piece of it. As Ms. Duke just mentioned, this isn't the case
necessarily across all of the management functions. I think,
certainly from the work that we did, it is clear that in some
cases, the management chiefs are using their authority to
provide input into performance plans and to set performance
expectations and to provide input on actual performance. But
this is not consistent. So as a start, it would be helpful to
make sure that, even as envisioned, that it is implemented
consistently across the Department.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Duke, in that light, let me ask, are the
positions in DHS filled, or are there open positions so as a
result you don't have the people to deal with whatever the
issue is?
Ms. Duke. Out of the six business line chiefs, four are
filled. Two of those are career and two are political
appointees. One is an acting. That is the Chief Procurement
Officer. Rick Gunderson is acting. And the final one is the
Chief Financial Officer, which, as you know, is Senate
confirmed, and we do not have a nominee for the CFO position at
this time. So one is vacant with Peggy Sherry acting. One is
acting, and four are filled.
Ms. Steinhardt. Senator Akaka, if I may just return to an
issue that Ms. Duke brought up about having a counterpart to
the Under Secretary for Management at the component levels. You
might think of this as having a chief management officer in
each of the component agencies, somebody at that higher level
who can oversee all of the management functions. Two of the
components now have such positions, but it might be worthwhile,
and certainly work we have done for you, Senator Akaka and
Senator Voinovich, in the past on the Chief Management Officer
(CMO) concept more broadly, I think, suggests that this might
be useful and helpful within the Department as a whole at the
component level.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Let me call on Senator Voinovich
for his questions.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you. You indicated that you were
concerned about having the budget to do the things that you
need to do. Did you know I am Ranking Member on the Homeland
Security Appropriations Subcommittee and am very interested in
making sure that you have the money that you need to get the
job done?
One of the things that has been a little disturbing to me
is that you have various responsibilities. I wonder sometimes,
does anybody sit down and look at the big picture of how much
we are spending on this and how much we are spending on that,
and think about the fact that if we didn't spend money on some
items, what we could really do with those dollars to help in
terms of management functions that you would like to put in
place. This should result in DHS working harder and smarter,
doing more with less and becoming more efficient.
I imagine that you are already putting your budget together
or have for the next time around. I would be very interested in
helping with that so that you have the dollars that you need to
get the job done.
Second, Ms. Steinhardt, do you folks ever as part of your
evaluation look at the vacancies and at the dollars that it
would take in order to get the job done? In other words, when
you are reviewing an agency, is one of the questions you ask
whether they have the right people there to get the job done?
And then what is the budget that they need? Do you ever do that
kind of work in terms of your oversight and review?
Ms. Steinhardt. I would imagine that--I am just at a loss
now for a specific example, but yes, we would take that kind of
overview into account in looking at the management of an
agency.
But in this case, I would say that is why--I think this
kind of underscores the need for management integration and
thinking about a strategy for how to integrate across the
Department, because when you are putting together a budget,
say, for major acquisitions, has the human capital component of
that--I think probably here, this might be an example where
that has occurred more laterally--but thinking about at the
right time whether you have the people in place who are going
to support these major acquisitions, whether you have the right
workforce----
Senator Voinovich. Well, the point is that you have got to
have the budget to do that. Now, Ms. Duke talked about
acquisitions and bringing on a lot more people in acquisitions
than DHS had before. That is an area, by the way, where we need
more people throughout the Federal Government. Congratulations
for what you are doing, Ms. Duke. But the issue now is, does
DHS have the money to do it?
If I came to GAO, and we sat down and looked at the budget
of the Department, particularly that portion of it that we are
talking about today, would you be able to recommend to me some
of your observations as to where something could maybe be done
a little differently and might help them out?
Ms. Steinhardt. We would certainly take a look at it,
absolutely.
Senator Voinovich. Because what happens is--I know about
this because I was a governor--they come in and you tell them,
this is what you have got to give me. So they go ahead and do
the best they can, and then the question is, do you give them--
I always say, if you don't give them the money and the budget
and the tools to get the job done, then you are basically
telling them that you don't think very much of the job that you
are asking them to do.
Ms. Steinhardt. But what are the priorities, also. That is
another thing that we would want to look at, how the Department
has identified its priorities. If they are asking for money
here and their budget allows them only this, then what is going
to go? And it is looking at the big picture, not just in the
components.
Senator Voinovich. Well, part of the problem is that
Congress comes in and sets your priorities and juggles the
money around.
Ms. Steinhardt. Complicated.
Senator Voinovich. I am really going to dig into it
because, as I say, I have got one more shot.
Ms. Steinhardt. Well, we would absolutely want to support
you there, Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. Yes. In terms of this management
integration, Ms. Duke, I wrote to you and you sent me back a
letter and said that you were going to have a plan to get it
done before the end of the year. I am a little confused about
the six things that you are going to need to drive it down, and
then you also mentioned, I think, that you are going to have
metrics to measure performance. Tell me more about that. What
is it that you are going to be able to give us in the next
several months that is going to get us down the road on this
integration?
Ms. Duke. Well, we are on the High-Risk List for several
reasons, including management integration. So some of the other
reasons we are on the High-Risk List are flood map
modernization program, information sharing, many other very
big, kind of DHS-wide reasons, if you will. So what we are
working with OMB on is addressing each one of the reasons we
are on the High-Risk List. And I have overall coordination of
that with the Deputy Secretary, for making sure that we are
addressing all the reasons we are on the High-Risk List, the
four DHS ones plus the two Federal-wide ones.
On the management integration one, that one squarely falls
on my lap completely and that is where we have a strategy, but
when GAO reviewed it, there were some concerns with the
strategy, that it wasn't specific enough. It didn't have
milestones so that they could measure our progress against. And
it didn't have outcome goals. And it didn't have a sustained
regular look at the progress. It was kind of putting out fires.
And it also didn't have the horizontal integration that Ms.
Steinhardt talked about.
So what we have done is we have said, OK, we can't do
everything at once. We are picking out six key areas that are
horizontally integrated that will be significant in moving the
Department forward. For instance, one of them is St.
Elizabeths. Having a DHS headquarters is important. So that is
going to be one where we will have an actual measurable action
plan with dates and outcomes. And so we are going to propose
that these six things are near-term efforts that can be
measured, that we are committed to, that will substantially
drive the horizontal and the vertical integration that we need
to do as a Department at this point in time.
Senator Voinovich. OK. I will get back to that. Senator
Akaka has two more questions and he has somewhere to go, so why
don't you ask your two and then I will finish up with mine.
Senator Akaka. Thank you so much, Senator Voinovich.
In the most recent Partnership for Public Service Employee
Satisfaction and Commitment Survey, DHS ranked 28th out of 30,
which is a slight improvement from the last survey. Why do you
think morale continues to be so low?
Ms. Duke. When you look at the data from the employee
survey, it was very eclectic, if you will. There was wide
variances in the different components over what was causing
dissatisfaction of the employees. But there were a couple that
were systemic and that was having to do with performance and
specifically rewarding the good performers and dealing with the
performers that aren't meeting objectives. And so that is what
we are principally looking at through our new Chief Human
Capital Officer (CHCO), Jeff Neal, is how do we make sure our
supervisors have the skills and actually have the
responsibility for dealing with that. But that is the one area
throughout the Department that was low for our employees.
Senator Akaka. Finally, Ms. Duke, this may be your final
time appearing before this Subcommittee. Again, I want to thank
you for agreeing to stay on at DHS through the transition.
Since your arrival at DHS, what are your biggest
accomplishments and what key challenges remain for you?
Ms. Duke. I think the biggest accomplishments are in
building the acquisition program, building up the workforce,
building up the accountability of the major acquisition
programs, the over 100 in DHS, because that isn't just a CPO,
Chief Procurement Officer, issue. That is an IT issue, it is a
finance issue. And that is probably the biggest area.
I think in terms of challenges, that information
technology, and the systems issue. If you read best practices
when you have a merger, you first consolidate and then you
delegate. DHS was handed a position where we were kind of
delegated and are seeking to consolidate, taking eight grand
systems and making one, and we have got to get that IT systems
issue right to really mature, and that is going to be hard
because it is change and it is dollars initially to save money.
That is one of the areas we have to spend money to save money.
The other area, I think, is our budget. We are working on a
huge effort to get standardization and visibility in our
budget. After 6 years, it is very difficult to look at our
budget across components and have the clarity of data and the
parity to make the tradeoffs on what is important. And so we
are really focusing on getting our budget right so that
leadership can make the tradeoff decisions and mission.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Ms. Duke.
Senator Voinovich, as you mentioned, I will be leaving, so
I will be turning the gavel over to you.
Senator Voinovich [presiding]. Back to the question. So I
would like to know in writing just what exactly it is that you
are going to be doing, and is it possible that you could get a
hold of Ms. Steinhardt and talk to her a little bit about it?
Because I am really interested in trying to make sure that
there is a meeting of the minds about what it is that needs to
be done. I promise you that if we get that and the need is
dollars and cents, I would like to work with you and the
Secretary to see if we can't make sure that you have the
resources that you need to get the job done.
Ms. Duke. OK. And I will give it to you in writing. But the
deliverables will be the six major initiatives with action
plans, with milestones for each of the major initiatives. The
other deliverable will be the letters to each of the components
consistent across the chiefs to set forth the performance
standards in management for the fiscal year. Those are the two
major deliverables.
Senator Voinovich. OK. And what I would like to know is
what are the resources necessary for you to produce those
deliverables.
Ms. Steinhardt. And we would be very happy, of course, to
work with Ms. Duke and her staff on that.
Senator Voinovich. Great. Senator McCaskill.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL
Senator McCaskill. Thank you. I did get a spreadsheet and I
have been trying to figure out how many contractors there are
in DHS. It was always one of those, ``you have got to be
kidding me,'' moments. Previously, no one knew and there wasn't
a number available, which is always a bad sign. That means you
are hiring so many contractors at once that nobody is bothering
to keep track of how many contractors there were.
I am pleased that we got a spreadsheet from you recently
where clearly there has been an attempt to try to do the best
job possible counting the number of contractors. The
spreadsheet that we got from your office, Ms. Duke, indicates
that there are 10,520 contractors in the Washington, DC area
working for the Department of Homeland Security. Of that 961
work for you. Do you believe these are accurate figures? Can we
rely on these figures?
Ms. Duke. The figures are based on algorithms, taking the
cost of the contract and using some very valid formulas. So
they are as accurate as we can get under the current
conditions.
Senator McCaskill. OK. So this was a statistical analysis
as opposed to asking the contractors to tell you how many
people they have working for them?
Ms. Duke. Yes.
Senator McCaskill. Why can't we do the latter?
Ms. Duke. There actually is a long history, and that is
something we are working with Office of Federal Procurement
Policy (OFPP) on right now. There was an attempt about 6 years
ago to start counting contractors and asking contractors and
actually it was put out in the Federal Register as a public
notice. The comment from industry was so strong that the
Federal notice was withdrawn and the Federal Government did not
go forward with that policy.
Under this Administration, we are looking at that again
across the Federal Government in terms of how should we be
counting contractors, how should we be accountable, and what
these levels of professional services are, and also relooking
at the definition of inherently governmental and what
contractors should be doing and what contractors should be
doing.
Senator McCaskill. Well, I know that the Secretary's
efficiency review, you are looking at inherent governmental
functions, but let me go back and make sure I understand. There
was an attempt 6 years ago to ask the people that we have hired
in the Federal Government to tell us how many people they have
working for them and they said it is too hard for us to do
that, so we said, never mind?
Ms. Duke. The promise was that we are asking for a service.
We are asking them to provide a service, and that it was their
privileged information in terms of how many people they have
working on it. So we should ensure we are paying a fair and
reasonable price for the service we are asking for and how many
people they use in managing their workforce was really a matter
that wasn't--that didn't count----
Senator McCaskill. Concern you?
Ms. Duke. The attitude of the industry was, it is none of
your business. The attitude was, you are not buying people, you
are buying a service, and so buying the number of people is
irrelevant to the----
Senator McCaskill. But isn't it true that we are, in fact,
buying people? Isn't that why we had turned to contractors,
because we couldn't hire enough people quickly enough because
of the inherent problems at the Office of PersonnelManagement
(OPM), that we turned to contractors to hire people? We didn't
hire--I mean, these are people sitting side by side--would we
ever dream of having--aren't most of these contractors sitting
in your offices working alongside Federal employees?
Ms. Duke. Yes. Quite a few of them are.
Senator McCaskill. What percentage, would you say?
Ms. Duke. We just did--I can submit that for the record,
but we actually did do a data call on that, of how many
contractors we have, what I will call the attributes of Federal
service. They sit in government space. They have been there for
a long period of time using government computers, those type of
things, and I can submit that to you, Senator McCaskill.
Senator McCaskill. Well, the more I can understand how--I
mean, having done government auditing for a long time and
having done government budgeting for a long time, in order to
compare efficiency and effectiveness, you look at the number of
full-time employees that are providing various services and
then you can compare them and determine whether or not you are
getting the efficiencies you should get. I am trying to get my
arms around this concept that we give a contractor a set amount
of money, and then if they want to hire two people to do what
it is taking us to have five people do, it is OK, or if they
are hiring 10 people--I mean, I think that is something we need
to know if we are contracting for essentially--and I don't
think anybody would argue, would they, that we hired a lot of
people at the Department of Homeland Security that were doing
inherently governmental functions. Is that an unfair statement?
Ms. Duke. I think that, at a minimum, they were doing core
services, items that, really, Federal employees should have the
inherent knowledge to do our core functions, and we have
identified about 3,500 positions in our first go-around that we
are in the process of making Federal because they fit that
category.
Senator McCaskill. Yes. It just worries me that as we--and
I am not--and people may have misinterpreted my interest in
this area as being against contractors or privatization. I am
not. But what I am against is doing it in a way that we can
never, ever, ever know whether we are getting a bang for our
buck, and that is the way we have been contracting,
particularly in DHS. I don't think we were ever in a position
to know if we were getting value as it relates to a government
employee versus a contract employee.
So I am glad that we have at least an attempt to begin
counting noses and I would be disappointed if this
Administration didn't go further down this path of
effectiveness. I have a lot of confidence in the Secretary. She
gets this, and you guys have probably noticed that she is
pretty strong about making things happen and changing things
when she sees that they are not being done right.
Let me talk a minute about TASC. After the failure of
Emerge, we are now, according to the DHS IG, a project that is
close to $1 billion. If we have another meltdown like we had
with Emerge, who should be sitting at that table to answer
questions about it?
Ms. Duke. Well, I think that starting from the top, TASC is
part of the future of DHS. So I think it is me, I think it is
the Deputy Secretary, I think it is the Secretary. The CFO
currently runs the Program Office and our CIO is heavily
involved. I mean, we all understand the importance of TASC and
the success in doing it right.
Senator McCaskill. Would you consider the CFO the
functional top of that organizational chart as it relates to
TASC? Who is the functional----
Ms. Duke. Yes.
Senator McCaskill [continuing]. Responsible person, the
CFO?
Ms. Duke. The CFO, yes.
Senator McCaskill. Let me ask, Ms. Richards, in your
testimony, you said that your professional service contracts
over $1 million are going to go through a review before award
or renewal, which is terrific. How many of those contract
awards under this review have been found, in the review that
you mention, that they include inherent governmental functions
and what has happened as a result of those reviews?
Ms. Richards. Ma'am, I am going to have to get back to you
for the record with the exact numbers on the contracts that
have gone through that review. I will say that we do have
reports that came out this year that did find some contractors
doing inherently governmental functions, in our opinion, in the
SBINet area. We also are currently looking at contractors that
are providing core support to the Transportation Security
Administion (TSA) in their logistics area, and that report
should be out shortly. But I will have to get back to you with
the exact figures.
Senator McCaskill. Yes. I see it with TSA--it is really
interesting to me that--I go through a lot of airports, and I
especially spend a lot of time in the Kansas City and St. Louis
airports. In Kansas City, all the screeners are contract. Of
course, they are TSA in St. Louis. I can't figure out the rhyme
or reason on that. I mean, why would you have contractors in
some locations--I don't know how many there are. Kansas City
are the only ones I have noticed.
And the reason I notice it is because they do things much
differently. I have a bad knee, so I get wanded every time I go
through, so I know the drill. I could actually--if you needed
me, I could step in and be a TSA screener. And so I know about
where the shoes go on the belt or they don't or if they go in a
bin. I know all that stuff. They are very different in Kansas
City--not that they aren't doing a good job, it is just
different, so I notice it. Is there some reason why we are
doing contractors in some places and government employees in
others?
Ms. Duke. Senator McCaskill, under the original Act that
stood up TSA, ATSA, it was required to have, I believe it was
four or five airports that stayed contractor, and they were
directed to convert all the others to Federal by the end of
2002, and the reason for that in the statute was to allow
comparison to see, was the federalization really more
effective, and TSA was directed within a period of time to do a
comparison of the four that remained Federal--excuse me,
remained contractor.
Later, the statute was modified and airports are now
allowed to opt out. And so if an airport believes it can
perform more effectively with contractors, they can submit an
application to TSA to go back to contractor. I believe there
has only been a couple airports that have actually asked to
convert. So that is why you see so very few. A couple of the
other ones that stayed contractor was a small airport in
Wyoming. There was one in each category of airport.
Senator McCaskill. I am curious. Before we changed that
statute, did we look at the value--I mean, if the reason was
because we wanted to compare, right, did we compare?
Ms. Duke. There was a comparison done----
Senator McCaskill. And the result was?
Ms. Duke. I honestly don't know the exact results, but that
study does exist and it looked at both levels of security and
cost.
Senator McCaskill. OK. I will follow up on that and get
that, because that is interesting to me. It is just typical
that we do a study to see which is better, and then without
really clearly knowing what the study said, we decide everybody
can opt out if they want. I mean, it is interesting that no one
has. And I don't want the word to get out that I am trying to
move people out of their jobs screening in Kansas City. I am
really going to slow down on my wanding if that gets out in the
Kansas City airport, I am sure. [Laughter.]
Ms. Richards. And ma'am, if I could add, when we do our
penetration testing and other testing on the effectiveness of
TSA, we design our tests to specifically test for the
differences between the contracted screeners and the TSA
screeners, and our results have not shown an appreciable
difference between the two.
Senator McCaskill. I think they are both doing a fine job.
I just think there is just a little--there is some quirkiness
and differences in the way they do it. You can tell that there
is a certain culture, maybe, which is fine. It is the
difference between an apple and an orange. They are different.
They are both good.
Senator Voinovich. Senator, could you----
Senator McCaskill. Yes.
Senator Voinovich [continuing]. Give me a shot, and then I
will get back----
Senator McCaskill. I thought you were done.
Senator Voinovich. No, I am not.
Senator McCaskill. I thought you were handing out the
gavel.
Senator Voinovich. No. [Laughter.]
First of all, I understand what you go through, because I
have a pacemaker.
Senator McCaskill. They do the same thing.
Senator Voinovich. Yes, I see the whole deal. I continually
try to find out whether the Professional Aviation Security
Specialists (PASS) program is working like we hoped it would
work.
First of all, I am pleased that you are getting back to
looking at the inherently core governmental functions. I assume
that you are looking at first of all, can we find these folks
and bring them in, and then whether or not you have got the
budget issue--is it an even-steven or maybe can you save money
bringing them in rather than continuing to have them farmed
out.
I think you need to continue to do that, because the
previous Administration really was into farming stuff out. The
interesting thing is that when they had these, what is it, 76,
it is a procedure----
Ms. Duke. A-76.
Senator Voinovich [continuing]. A-76--and Senator, you
would be interested in this--when they have an A-76, they get
the people who work for the government to compete with the
private sector to see whether or not you should stay with your
people----
Senator McCaskill. Right.
Senator Voinovich [continuing]. And about 80 percent or 85
percent of the time, the people that are working for the
Federal Government win those. But the thing that bothers me is
why do you have to have the A-76 procedure before you give
employees that work for the Federal Government the opportunity
to come back and let you know how they can become more
efficient?
In other words, one of the things I wanted to do when I
came to Washington was based on my work as governor. I
instituted Total Quality Management for 56,000 workers in the
State of Ohio. It was one of the best things I ever did, as I
look back on it. It just seems that we don't have enough of
that going on today in the Federal Government.
In your particular case, since you merged all these people,
different cultures and all the rest of it, I suspect that you
couldn't do that in the beginning, but I would suggest that you
look at that situation to see if we couldn't be getting more
out of the people that we now have by empowering them to come
back and say, what, Elaine? We could do this a whole lot better
if you would just let us do it.
The other thing, the issue of the competency of the people
that you hire, and again, following up on Senator McCaskill, do
you have people there that make sure that you are not being
ripped off and that they are doing the job that they should be
doing? And it is the same thing, and the question is that you
award $4 billion in grants each year and the IG finds that FEMA
does not consistently and comprehensively execute its oversight
to make sure that what is happening in terms of those grants.
What can you do to improve that program in terms of monitoring
the grants that are going out there and that we are getting
what we are supposed to be getting from them.
Ms. Duke. Several things. One is we are--on the idea of
employee involvement, TSA had started an idea factory. That is
opening up DHS-wide in January. We are working with the labor
units, with DHS on some fine-tuning, but that is going to allow
that employee engagement DHS-wide, and that is a big effort for
us. And hopefully we will get those improvements from the
grassroots efforts.
In terms of service employees, one thing that would
probably be of interest to you, Senator, and this Subcommittee,
is the OFPP is working on revisions to the circular, but more
specifically the definition of inherently governmental, and if
you look at the current definition, it says, for instance,
signing the budget or approving the budget is inherently
governmental, but supporting the budget is commercial. So it
argues, or could be interpreted, you need one budget person and
all the rest could be contractors, or at some point does the
ratio skew to that budget person, is really tantamount to an
autopen. And so that is where I think the Administration, in
introducing the concept of core functions, is how many real
Federal budget people do you need so they are really making the
decisions, not just approving contractors' work, if you will,
and really have that core knowledge.
So that is being done at the Federal level. The OFPP
Administrator, Dan Gordon, just got confirmed. He is actually
from GAO and really understands the importance of this.
On grants, you are absolutely right. That is probably one
of our biggest workforce shortages in DHS. So what happens in
the workforce shortage on the business side is we focus all our
efforts on getting the grants awarded, and then the grants
administration, making sure the State and local governments and
other recipients execute the grants properly. We received
funding last year for the first time to have a DHS Grants
Oversight Office in the Office of the CFO, and FEMA, who is our
principal granting agency within the Department, is working on
building up their staffing on the business side. But I agree
with you on all your points.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you. Senator McCaskill.
Senator McCaskill. The only other question I had that I
didn't get a chance to ask, when I ran so far over my time
before I got carried away, was about award fees. We had a
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, we had a meeting
on wasteful contractor bonuses and your Acquisition Management
Scorecard showed that there hadn't been a lot of change and not
a lot of consistency. Would anyone want to give me good news
about contractor bonuses that are wasteful and not deserved?
Ms. Duke. Yes, Senator. We have issued new policy on award
fee. The problem with award fee is they are qualitative. They
reward kind of just general satisfaction, and so under the
Chief Procurement Officer, we issued guidance that is
consistent with the Federal guidance that will severely limit
the use. Additionally, we are giving training and incentives so
that if we are going to pay fees for performances tied to a
specific quantitative objective, which is the difference
between incentive and award fee. So, yes, we do have the new
policy and are enforcing it in DHS.
Senator McCaskill. That is great. That is all I had.
Senator Voinovich. I will just ask one more question, and
that is on performance management and setting objectives. I
understand that is not being done in all cases. Are you going
to be able to get that done this year, the coming year?
Ms. Duke. We are working on our performance management
system and improving it. I believe all employees are under a
performance plan. But in terms of having a centralized approach
to performance management in DHS, that is what we are working
on in the coming year.
Senator Voinovich. Because I understand that for fiscal
year 2009, only two of your six management chiefs complied with
this directive. Why didn't all of your chiefs provide these
written objectives?
Ms. Duke. It was a matter of transition and turnover and
the chiefs. It was just our mistake. There was no excuse.
Senator Voinovich. And then it is the same thing about them
giving you the feedback regarding their accomplishments. You
know what it is. Sit down and say, here is what we want to do.
Periodically meet with them and come back and----
Ms. Duke. Right.
Senator Voinovich [continuing]. So they know whether they
are doing good or bad.
Ms. Duke. And we did it within management. What we failed
to do was do it to the components. So we failed to issue the
objectives, say, to the CIOs in the components, and that is
what we refocused on. And I agree with you, Senator, that is
important.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you. This has been a great
hearing. I am pleased with it. This is a nice team, and if you
are all working together, we are going to continue to make some
real progress.
Ms. Duke, again, thank you so much for the good work that
you are doing. I hope this isn't the last time that you come
before us. Thank you.
The Subcommittee hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:13 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
