[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ACHIEVING E-GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCIES AT THE OFFICE OF PERSONNEL
MANAGEMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION
POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND
THE CENSUS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 23, 2003
__________
Serial No. 108-134
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
930359 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Columbia
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas CHRIS BELL, Texas
WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota ------
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Peter Sirh, Staff Director
Melissa Wojciak, Deputy Staff Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Philip M. Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental
Relations and the Census
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida, Chairman
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DOUG OSE, California DIANE E. WATSON, California
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Bob Dix, Staff Director
Scott Klein, Professional Staff Member
Ursula Wojciechowski, Clerk
David McMillen, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on September 23, 2003............................... 1
Statement of:
James, Kay Coles, Director, Office of Personnel Management... 5
Koontz, Linda D., Director, Information Management, U.S.
General Accounting Office; Norman Enger, E-Government
Project Director, Office of Personnel Management; plus
additional witnesses for questions segment: Rhonda K. Diaz,
Program Manager, Enterprise HR Integration; Janet M.
Dubbert, Program Manager, E-Payroll; Mike A. Fitzgerald,
Program Manager, E-Training; Claire M. Gibbons, Program
Manager, Recruitment One-Stop; and Mark White, Acting
Program Manager, E-Clearance............................... 22
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Enger, Norman, E-Government Project Director, Office of
Personnel Management, prepared statement of................ 57
James, Kay Coles, Director, Office of Personnel Management,
prepared statement of...................................... 8
Koontz, Linda D., Director, Information Management, U.S.
General Accounting Office, prepared statement of........... 24
Putnam, Hon. Adam H., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida, prepared statement of.................... 3
ACHIEVING E-GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCIES AT THE OFFICE OF PERSONNEL
MANAGEMENT
----------
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2003
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Putnam
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representative Putnam.
Staff present: Bob Dix, staff director; John Hambel, senior
counsel; Scott Klein, professional staff member; Ursula
Wojciechowski, clerk; Suzanne Lightman, fellow; David McMillen,
minority professional staff member; and Cecelia Morton,
minority office manager.
Mr. Putnam. A quorum being present this hearing of the
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census will come to order.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this important
discussion of E-gov initiatives. I hope everyone had a safe and
productive weekend, avoiding the impact of Hurricane Isabel. I
never thought that I would say that I would have to go to
Florida to flee a hurricane, but that's what I did over the
weekend, and so hopefully you and your families and your homes
were spared the damage from Isabel and from the rains last
night.
We will get right to the hearing.
This hearing is a continuation of the aggressive oversight
by the subcommittee seeking to keep Federal Government agencies
and decisionmakers focused on meeting the goals of the E-
government Act of 2002, which were: greater accessibility to
government by citizens and businesses; improving government
efficiency and productivity which enhanced customer service;
facilitating coordination cross-agency; and realizing tangible
cost savings to the taxpayers through the use of 21st century
technology and best practices throughout the Federal
Government.
Despite its distinction as the largest information
technology purchaser in the world, the Federal Government has a
tradition of buying and maintaining thousands of stovepiped
systems that operate separately from other agencies and are not
interoperable. Great strides have been made to improve
productivity and results from IT investments. But for too long
individual agencies have pursued their own individual IT
agendas that do not emanate from customer service or sound
business processes. We recognize that simply getting a handle
on what systems exist and agreeing to a unified plan to
coordinate this disparate IT environment is a monumental task.
But the task must be done and done soon.
In March, this subcommittee held its first hearing on E-
government, reviewing the 24 Quicksilver initiatives and
initial progress resulting from the E-gov Act of 2002. At that
hearing we discovered several examples of progress being made
as well as challenges that continue to be more people- and
management-based than technological or financial based.
Today, the subcommittee will focus in much greater detail
on 5 of the 24 major E-gov initiatives being implemented across
the government consistent with the E-gov Act and the
President's management agenda. Specifically, we will be
examining the progress being made by the Federal Government to
implement those key initiatives intended to improve Federal
employee recruitment, employee training, management of payroll,
management of employee data and employee security clearance
processes. For those inclined to speak the language of E-gov,
that would be the following five entitled initiatives: E-
clearance, E-training, Recruitment One-Stop, Enterprise HR
integration, and E-payroll.
The E-government Act passed by Congress last year
designates OMB as the lead organization for all Federal
Government IT purchasing and planning, including implementation
of governmentwide E-gov initiatives. OMB was invited to
participate and provide testimony at this hearing, and until
yesterday morning that participation was confirmed and
anticipated. Yesterday, however, the subcommittee was advised
by OMB that there was a conflict in the availability of Mr.
Clay Johnson and that he would be unable to participate in this
oversight hearing.
While the subcommittee and I, as chairman, are very
disappointed at this development, we are nonetheless very
pleased to be joined by the distinguished director of the
Office of Personnel Management and a number of her colleagues.
The Office of Personnel Management has been designated by the
Office of Management and Budget as the lead agency for the five
personnel-related E-gov initiatives.
We are pleased to have as witnesses today the leadership
and management associated with those initiatives to provide us
with the detailed update on the progress and the challenges
that we face in making these internal efficiency and
effectiveness initiatives a success both for the Federal
Government and for the American taxpayer.
As with all of our subcommittee hearings, we can be viewed
live via Webcast by going to Reform.House.Gov and clicking on
live committee broadcast.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. With that, as is the custom with this
committee, I would ask that Ms. James please rise for the oath.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Putnam. Note for the record that Ms. James responded in
the affirmative.
We again welcome you to the subcommittee, and let me just
give a brief biography of our distinguished panelists.
On July 11, 2001, Kay Coles James was confirmed by the U.S.
Senate to be Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel
Management. In that role, Director James is the President's
principal advisor in matters of personnel administration for
more than 1.8 million Federal employees.
Since arriving at OPM, Director James and her agency have
taken on new responsibilities including HR integration at the
Department of Homeland Defense, the human capital portion of
the President's management agenda, the creation of employee
flexible spending accounts, new Federal long-term care
insurance and, of course, the five E-government initiatives
before United States today. In some circles Director James is
most recognized and popular for making the ultimate decision
last week that resulted in a 4-day weekend for D.C. area
residents.
Director James, we appreciate your being with us this
morning, and you're recognized for your statement.
STATEMENT OF KAY COLES JAMES, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF PERSONNEL
MANAGEMENT
Ms. James. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman; and I
appreciate the opportunity to be here with you.
I'm particularly excited about the opportunity to talk
about something other than how the decision to close Federal
Government was made last Wednesday. We have a battle cry at
OPM. It's called ``beyond snow.'' It has been changed now to
say ``beyond hurricanes'' to communicate to the public that
there is some very important work going on at OPM other than
just those kinds of things. So I appreciate your oversight and
appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning to talk
about something beyond snow. So thank you for the opportunity
to talk about E-gov.
I would ask at the outset that my full testimony be entered
into the record, and I will do an abbreviated opening
statement.
It's great, as I said, to be here to report on our
agencies' E-government initiatives which will eventually yield
$2.7 billion in tax savings over the life of the initiatives
and produce unprecedented increases in efficiency and
effectiveness of the management of the government's human
capital resources. I will be discussing today five of the E-
government initiatives outlined in the President's management
agenda, President Bush's strategy for making the Federal
Government more focused on citizens and results.
The Office of Personnel Management, as you have stated, is
the managing partner for five of the Presidential E-gov
initiatives: Recruitment One-Stop, E-clearance, E-training, E-
payroll and Enterprise Human Resource Integration.
The goal of the Recruitment One-Stop initiative is to
improve the process of locating and applying for Federal jobs.
When I originally testified and before the U.S. Senate in my
confirmation hearings, applying and the recruitment process was
identified as one of the major areas that needed to be fixed;
and Recruitment One-Stop certainly is a step in that direction.
As part of this initiative, our new USAJOBS Web site
shakedown cruise, as we like to call it, was launched last
month in a real-time trial run which allowed us to ask for and
respond so customers' requests and comments. The site now has a
new look and a clean feel, bright and easy to navigate. A new
full text job search function was introduced as well as a
streamlined resume builder.
Since the launch there have been 4\1/2\ million unique
visitors to the new site. That's an increase of more than 400
percent from the month before the new site was launched.
We launched the site on August 4 and in the 7 weeks since
then there have been over 101 million page views, more than 9
million visits and close to 8,000 unique visitors. There are
approximately 15,000 new resumes created each week on the site.
The numbers are staggering. Job seekers who put their resumes
on our Web site are able to search for jobs automatically and
receive notice of these postings on a daily basis. They're able
to sign up for automatic e-mail notification when the type of
job they're looking for opens up.
Since launch we have received more than 15,000 E-mail
communications from job seekers, and the revamped Web site
features a quicker job search engine.
E-clearance. The frustrations with delays in the national
security application and update process since September 11 has
been felt by the Department of Homeland Security, the
administration and indeed the Congress. The OPM E-clearance
initiative will improve and speed the processing of
investigations for security clearances.
There are several components of our E-clearance improvement
process, but probably the most visible will be the Electronic
Questionnaire for Investigations Processing. This is an
automated on-line version of the SF-86 paper-based security
clearance application that has been welcomed by current Federal
employees as well as new employees. People are very excited
about that.
The vision for the E-training initiative is the creation of
a premiere governmentwide environment that supports the career
development of the Federal work force. I can tell you, Mr.
Chairman, that being briefed on this is one thing, but actually
seeing it in function and operating is truly exciting, and I
believe that our Federal work force is going to be very, very
excited about this as they become more aware about it.
Since the launch on July 23 the government on-line learning
center has had 1 million unique visits and has had over 50,000
courses completed by 86,000 registered users around the world.
Incidentally, about 50 percent of those users are from the
Department of Defense, so we actually have soldiers in Iraq and
Afghanistan using our E-training programs to continue their
education as they defend our freedom abroad.
On September 17, something I think this committee would be
very interested in, we launched our E-training Module 3, which
includes the IT work force development road map and allows
Federal IT personnel to complete skill gap analysis, create
individual development plans and access additional resources.
The Enterprise Human Resources Integration is a term that
you can expect to hear a lot more about in years to come. Once
developed, EHRI will be a comprehensive electronic personnel
recordkeeping and analysis system. We are very excited about it
and the cost savings that will be realized as a result of it.
And speaking of money, we are also consolidating and
streamlining the Federal payroll process through our E-payroll
initiative. The E-payroll initiative consolidates some 22
separate Federal payroll systems to two systems which will
simplify and standardize the Federal payroll. The E-payroll
will save taxpayers about $1.1 billion over the next 10 years.
Those are large numbers indeed.
Mr. Chairman, the President expects results. He expects
that of his managers and he expects that of the programs that
he oversees. E-gov is producing results, and they are producing
results today. The results are tax dollars saved, government
efficiency enhanced and the American citizen better served by
their government. For those of us who started out as students
of war in distant lands and could never have imagined a world
where war could be brought right into our very cities, this is
a time of vigilance and security. A government that embraces
the technological advancements available today is a necessity;
and with E-gov, we're doing precisely that.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I am happy to answer any questions
that you may have.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much, Director James.
[The prepared statement of Ms. James follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. We have a lot of ground to cover today. We have
five key initiatives that we discussed earlier, and I don't
want to dwell on any one of them, but I do want you to comment,
if you would, on the status of the Recruitment One-Stop
procurement and any action that you may have taken to ensure
fairness and openness and a deliberate process for the future.
Ms. James. OPM is tasked with, as I said, five E-government
initiatives. These are very huge processes. Underlying all of
them is the desire to provide efficient services to the
American people to make their government more accessible and to
also provide efficiencies for our current work force. In doing
that, it is absolutely imperative that the process that we have
in place to get us where we need to be be processes that are
trusted and are respected.
We did several things within OPM to make sure that those
processes are protected. I think the two most important are
building the internal capacity by bringing on subject matter
experts in procurement so that they can give us the best advice
possible and to handle these procurement processes with
professionalism and with expertise and with fairness.
Also, I want to make sure that our processes are, in fact,
as we hope they are, to be balanced and fair and open; and so,
as a result of that, I asked for an independent audit by our
Inspector General to look at them and make sure that those
processes are handled that way and relying heavily upon his
advice and expertise in doing that. So I think those two things
will assure that.
The other thing that I think is important is ensuring that
we are getting the best use of our procurement dollars. We want
to make sure that all of our contractors are benchmarked and
are in fact results oriented in producing what they say they
can and in a timely matter. So there's a great deal of
oversight that's involved.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much.
On the payroll issue, the savings that you project that
would be realized, are they civilian only or is that across the
entire Federal Government?
Ms. James. I think they're civilian only. I'm not sure.
They are. The experts are on this row. I will turn to them
frequently and look for the nod of the head.
Mr. Putnam. So the payroll issue and the recruitment issue
are civilian issues only, is that correct?
Ms. James. That's correct.
Mr. Putnam. OK. What types of discussions are taking place
with the DOD to try to bring them along to try to consolidate
their payroll systems as well?
Ms. James. DOD is special. We have continuing ongoing
dialog with the Department of Defense, and I know that they are
as committed as we are at OPM to implementing the President's
agenda. Some portions of DOD are a little slower to come along
than others, but I'm sure we'll get where we need to be. We
have a constant dialog. We are constantly involved in
communications. We are constantly involved in collaboration,
and I am confident that eventually we'll get to where we need
to be.
Mr. Putnam. Is the Enterprise HRI included in DOD also or
is that civilian only also?
Ms. James. That is civilian also. We don't do--are we going
to do any military on the HRI?
Civilian, yes. But military--I think that later we will
have the subject matter experts in a panel who can ask--answer
some of the specifics that you may have about some of the
programs.
Mr. Putnam. Will the payroll system be linked with OMB's
financial management system so that they have a better track of
cash-flow?
Ms. James. You know, it is--yes, it will be. There will be
a wealth of data that we are able to collect with our new
systems, EHRI as well as payroll and others; and at OMB they
will be able to access those data bases and do much better
analysis. They will be able to do much better projections as a
result of that.
Mr. Putnam. On the E-clearance side, how successful do you
project that it will be in reducing the backlog in time and in
dollars in moving those processes along but maintaining their
integrity?
Ms. James. You know, I think prior to September 11 we at
OPM did not fully comprehend sufficiently our mission; and as a
result of September 11 we really have changed our mission
statement to respond to the new realities. We didn't view
ourselves as a national security agency, but in many senses we
are with the responsibility that we have for E-clearances
when--in fact, you know, when you look at the DOD piece and the
OPM piece and the fact that they're now in communication about
doing a joint effort that looks at about 98 percent of the E-
clearances or the clearances that are done in government. When
I talk to individuals outside of government, they find it
absolutely incredible.
One of the reasons we can't generate the excitement about
the E-government initiatives that we have is because most
people assume that we do them already. This is certainly one
area in E-clearance where moving and taking advantage of the
technology that exists in our world today will move us quantum
leaps in terms of speed, in terms of efficiencies, in terms of
eliminating redundancies so that I expect that as we go more
on-line and as we, you know, we improve our process that you
will see quantum leaps ahead in terms of our speed, accuracy
and efficiency.
Mr. Putnam. Do you still believe that the savings targets
that you gave in your testimony are on target?
Ms. James. I do. I do. And you know some people find the
numbers absolutely staggering and don't believe they pass the
straight face test. But all it takes is an understanding of how
our government operates to understand how we could be in this
situation.
You have agencies that each have their own systems, their
own legacy systems. You have redundancies that are out there;
and, as a result of that, most of the efficiencies will be
achieved by economies of scale and as we eliminate
redundancies. It requires a great deal of commitment and
leadership to get us where we need to be because everybody has
their own, and everybody wants to keep it. And, quite frankly,
that does not serve the citizen well and it does not serve the
employee well, when we could be moving toward combining these
systems, realizing the efficiencies and providing better
services at the same time.
But I have to tell you that's a tough one. People are very,
very territorial. But I think we'll get there, and I think
we'll get there because leadership comes from the top. The
President has given his direction. The President's Management
Council is committed to this, and we are working in a
collaborative way, so I think you will see those kinds of
savings.
Mr. Putnam. It would be nice if OMB were here to hear your
discussions about the cultural challenges and the turf battle,
because, hopefully, they can carry a stick big enough to alter
some of those attitudes. But do you have an estimate on what it
will cost us to save that much money?
Ms. James. I don't have a combined total for all of the E-
gov initiatives. Maybe our technical matters experts do, and
they can give that to you a little later.
Mr. Putnam. OK. On the issue of turf and the cooperation,
you said it better than anyone about the need for the
cooperation and coordination amongst the agencies and the need
to give up some. Do you sense that there's a climate out there
of buying in to the management agenda or what level of
resistance do you still face?
Ms. James. I'll tell you, there was a great deal of
resistance initially, and then I think they realized in several
communities--and maybe I'll talk a little bit about each of
those--that the President was quite serious and that this is
what he expected from his team. When we're looking at
fundamentally changing how we do government and getting results
for the American people, we must move in this direction. It
does not pass the straight face test that our government is
still operating in outdated, antiquated, outmoded, redundant
systems.
But change does not come easily or quickly. As I said,
there are those territorial issues where people feel
comfortable. A lot of times people feel more comfortable with
something that's broken and doesn't work, just because it's
theirs, and so change is very difficult.
In talking about this sometimes I use the analogy that if
you can think about a family getting a new computer at
Christmas, there are those who gravitate toward the new
technology easily and quickly. There's always a couple of
family members that think the old one works better and I want
to keep it even though it's antiquated, outdated and outmoded.
But with leadership and training and communication you can
eventually change that culture.
You also have an entire vendor community out there that, in
fact, you know, is wed to the old system because they see that
as more opportunity for them. I am trying to encourage them to
look at the new vision for E-gov. There are many opportunities
out there for them, but in the changing environment they must
change their business plans. There are lots of opportunities,
and we invite them to be our partners.
Mr. Putnam. Very good. Do you see the human capital effort
and the E-gov efforts on the personnel side as being
complementary initiatives?
Ms. James. You know, I do. That's a very good and very
perceptive question for the reason that, you know, when you
look at the President's management agenda, all of those
initiatives sort of are like a glove and they fit together very
well.
One of the ways I like to talk about our E-gov initiatives
is to look at it from the time someone is hired into the
Federal Government until someone retires. When you look at the
whole range of challenges that are before us on human capital
right now, the E-gov initiatives fit very nicely with helping
us to achieve our human capital goals.
There's got to be a better way to hire people into the
Federal Government. Our systems are broken, and Recruitment
One-Stop will help us fix that.
There's got to be a better way to get people cleared and
into our government more quickly, when people are waiting
months and in some cases years for a clearance; and you will
see that our initiatives there will help that.
When people are moving in between jobs in the Federal
Government, it is--it does not pass the straight face test that
there were still paper folders that had to follow our employees
around; and so, of course, our HRM project will help that.
When we are trying to do forecasting and succession
planning, when we are looking ahead to see where the skill gaps
are, you can see that having efficient E-gov projects that work
to help us achieve those goals are absolutely essential. So our
E-gov projects and E-gov initiatives actually fit quite well,
like a hand in glove, with helping us to achieve our human
capital strategies. As I said, sometimes it's a little
difficult to get excited about what we're doing, because a lot
of people assumed that we were there already and we are in fact
not.
Mr. Putnam. Can you use this E-gov initiative to identify
and locate the types of skill sets that the government is
lacking just by virtue of the medium that you're using to
attract them?
Ms. James. Absolutely. I think that's going to be very
helpful to agencies as they are going about trying to fill very
particular job openings and job categories. And with the--and,
you know, I think that later today you will have the
opportunity to hear from Norman, from some of the other folks
who are working on this specifically. But when you see some of
the tools that are on that Web site now, that helps both the
applicant and helps the agency to identify talent.
One of the things that's most exciting for us is that a job
applicant coming to the Federal Government used to have to fill
out not one resume but they would have to do multiple resumes
and applications in order to apply for Federal jobs. Now they
can do one and that will suffice for many different
opportunities. So we'll see many efficiencies as a result of
that.
Mr. Putnam. Very good. What have we not discussed that you
would really like to elaborate on for the subcommittee?
Ms. James. Well, I think, Mr. Chairman, that you--there's a
lot to be talked about, but, quite frankly, that is at the--you
know, the more technical level in terms of what each of these
initiatives do, so I think you have a very exciting panel in
front of you for this afternoon. I would just say yet again
that you cannot overemphasize the importance of this particular
initiative for bringing value to the taxpayer as well as
bringing efficiency to those individuals that want to come to
work for the Federal Government and for those employees that
are already there.
You will hear from GAO in a few minutes; and, quite
frankly, you know, we owe a debt of thanks to David Walker and
to GAO for raising human capital as a high-risk factor. People
who understand the current status of the Federal work force
understand that for us to recruit and retain the work force
that this country desires we must move our systems into, you
know, the--where technology is today into the 21st century.
Quite frankly, it does not pass the straight face test that
this has not been done already.
So there are a lot of exciting things that are going on,
and I would encourage any members of your staff or other
committee members if they would like to see hands-on
demonstrations of these particular initiatives it would really
enrich, I think, the dialog that's going on right now.
I would also like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding
this hearing, because, quite frankly, it's difficult for us to
get the word out about the initiatives and about the new tools
that are available. We try in every way we know how in terms of
press conferences and releases and going to conferences, but
one of the best ways to get a message out is when you call us
up here and have us testify.
Mr. Putnam. Well, thank you very much, Director James. We
certainly appreciate your enthusiasm and your leadership on
this issue, and we look forward to hearing the testimony of the
second panel.
So, with that, the committee will stand in recess and
dismiss the first panel and arrange the second.
Ms. James. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Recess.]
Mr. Putnam. The subcommittee will reconvene. I would like
to welcome all of our witnesses on the second panel.
We will be handling our second panel a little bit
differently than normal. Following comments, the formal
testimony from GAO and additional remarks from the Office of
Personnel Management, we have asked the program managers from
each of the five initiatives that we're discussing today to
join us for the question and answer period. So we have seated
all seven of those participating in our second panel at the
table to eliminate the disruption when we go to questions of
the second panel.
We want to welcome all of you here. As is always the case,
we will place your entire statements in the record; and we ask
that for those of you who are testifying to limit your remarks
to 5 minutes.
We may have to share some of the microphones. We'll be very
flexible about that. Take your time.
With that, I would ask all of you, even those who are only
answering questions and not giving formal testimony, to please
rise and accept the customary oath. Please rise and raise your
right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Putnam. Note for the record that half the room
responded in the affirmative.
I'd like to introduce our first witness for the second
panel, Linda Koontz. Linda Koontz is Director for Information
Management Issues at the U.S. General Accounting Office. Ms.
Koontz is responsible for issues concerning the collection, use
and dissemination of government information in an era of
rapidly changing technology. Recently, she has been heavily
involved in directing studies concerning E-government, privacy,
electronic records management and government-wide information
dissemination issues.
Welcome to the subcommittee. You're a frequent flyer here
at the subcommittee. We're always delighted to have you, and
you're recognized for your opening statement.
STATEMENTS OF LINDA D. KOONTZ, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION
MANAGEMENT, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; NORMAN ENGER, E-
GOVERNMENT PROJECT DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT;
PLUS ADDITIONAL WITNESSES FOR QUESTIONS SEGMENT: RHONDA K.
DIAZ, PROGRAM MANAGER, ENTERPRISE HR INTEGRATION; JANET M.
DUBBERT, PROGRAM MANAGER, E-PAYROLL; MIKE A. FITZGERALD,
PROGRAM MANAGER, E-TRAINING; CLAIRE M. GIBBONS, PROGRAM
MANAGER, RECRUITMENT ONE-STOP; AND MARK WHITE, ACTING PROGRAM
MANAGER, E-CLEARANCE
Ms. Koontz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to participate in the subcommittee hearing on OPM's
E-government initiatives.
As you know, these initiatives are intended to serve as a
complete set of electronic support tools for the Federal
Government's human capital functions including recruitment,
security clearances, personnel records, training and payroll.
OPM's vision is for these initiatives to streamline and
improve the process for moving employees through the entire
life cycle of their employment with the Federal Government. OPM
has made progress in making this vision a reality. For example,
it has implemented enhancements to its USAJOBS Web site under
Recruitment One-Stop, automated the form supporting the
clearance process under E-clearance and established the Gov On-
line Learning Center under E-training. However, OPM faces a
number of challenges as it continues to implement these
initiatives.
First, program managers for many of the OMB-sponsored
initiatives have been under pressure both from OMB and within
agencies to achieve results quickly. In order to meet the
demand for quick results, significant alterations have been
made to the acquisition plans for several initiatives. For
example, in OPM's recent decision to continue with its awarded
contract for Recruitment One-Stop despite a successful bid
protest by Simplicity Corp., agency officials perceived the
need to implement an E-government initiative as quickly as
possible to be one factor outweighing the concerns raised by
GAO. While it is clearly important to adhere to agreed-upon
schedules and milestones, it is also important to follow
established contracting procedures which are intended to ensure
fair competition and result in the best technical solutions.
Second, each of OPM's five initiatives aims to ultimately
create a single system or Web-based service to support a
specific human capital function. In each case, agency-unique
systems and processes must either be replaced or integrated
into the planned single system. Consequently, managing the
migration from agency-specific systems to consolidated systems
will be a challenge. It will be crucial for agencies to
implement effective change management and communication
strategies and reach agreement on key standards.
Third, OPM will be challenged in estimating and measuring
the $2.6 billion in cost savings that OPM believes will be
derived from these initiatives. For example, for the
Recruitment One-Stop, project officials estimate that
implementation will reduce the average cost of hiring a new
Federal employee in fiscal year 2005 by $112, or about 4
percent. With about 150,000 new hires each year, the total
savings to 2012 would amount to about $168 million,
significantly less than the total cost savings of $365 million
that OPM estimates.
According to OPM officials, the additional savings would be
gained through other factors contributing to future
efficiencies. However, these other factors have not yet been
fully defined, and performance measures to capture these
savings have not been established.
Mr. Chairman, OPM has made progress in moving forward in
implementing its five E-government initiatives which, if fully
implemented, could have significant benefits by providing more
streamlined and seamless Federal personnel processes and by
saving taxpayers millions through eliminating redundant payroll
and other systems. However, OPM continues to face challenges in
implementing these initiatives. Unless these challenges are
successfully addressed, OPM risks not fully realizing the
potential of its comprehensive effort to improve human capital
functions across government.
That concludes my statement. I'd be happy to answer
questions at the appropriate time.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Koontz follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Our next witness is Norman Enger. Norm Enger is
E-government Program Director for the Office of Personnel
Management.
Mr. Enger has extensive experience in the information
systems industry. Most recently, Mr. Enger was vice president
of Computer Associates, the world's fourth largest software
firm, where he was responsible for business strategy and
managing delivery of professional services to commercial and
Federal E-business clients. Prior to this, he was president of
Applied Management Systems, a professional services and systems
integration firm.
Mr. Enger, we welcome you to the subcommittee and look
forward to your testimony.
Mr. Enger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to request
that my full testimony be entered into the record.
It has been a privilege and a pleasure to work with OPM
Director Kay Coles James. Her leadership has let the Office of
Personnel Management become a leader in E-government. I would
like to add more detail on what she discussed relative to the
five OPM E-gov initiatives.
The vision of OPM is for these initiatives, when combined
with OPM's retirement systems modernization effort, to provide
an interlocking, trusted enterprise system based on the
employee life cycle. These interrelated initiatives streamline
and improve processes for moving Federal employees through the
employment life cycle. Collectively, these initiatives help
make government more citizen centered and results oriented in
line with the President's management agenda.
The goal of the Recruitment One-Stop initiative is to
improve the process of locating and applying for Federal jobs.
Based upon current site use, 54 million Americans will visit
this site each year. Over 700,000 new resumes will be created
on this site each year.
With the new USAJOBS Web site, job seekers enjoy a new
user-friendly site with a look and feel that is clean, bright
and easy to navigate. A new full-text job search is available
as well as a new streamlined resume builder. Human resources
specialists benefit from the addition of new tools for managing
job postings, candidate communications and candidate sourcing.
Newly formatted job announcements will be attractively
displayed, easy to read and communicate to applicants the
benefits and rewards offered by a career in public service. Job
applicants are offered more intuitive and flexible job
searching capabilities that allow them to more easily identify
jobs that best match their interests and skills. They will also
be able to check the status of their job applications.
Recruitment One-Stop improves service delivery to job
seekers and enhances the government's position as a competitor
for talented personnel.
Our new E-clearance initiative will not only save time and
taxpayer money, it is a vital new necessity for a post-
September 11 government committed to vigilance and security.
Today backgrounds can be checked faster because the forms can
be completed and submitted faster. There will be a reduced wait
time for clearances and more reciprocity and sharing of
clearance information among agencies. All authorized personnel
will have quicker access to clearance information, and there
will be a reduction in duplicative investigations. The
initiative benefits all applicants, employees and contractors
to the Federal Government.
When a person completes a standard form 86, part one, data
after the first time--addresses, employment, education and so
forth--will all be automatically populated, thereby eliminating
the need to enter the information, with a time savings of 1
hour per person. Investigations will be less expensive and can
be scheduled faster because the SF-56 data will be transmitted
and processed as an electronic record.
The second component of the E-clearance initiative is the
clearance verification system which provides access for all
agency authorized users to the personal security investigation
and clearance records of the Federal Government.
The third component of the E-clearance is to image
investigative records held by myriad investigative agencies and
make them available electronically to all authorized Federal
users.
Our E-training initiative with its GoLearn.Gov Web site
offers Web-based training to executives, managers and human
resources personnel with the information and tools needed to
more easily identify career paths and competencies, track
performance in key areas and identify and assess learning
needs. Over 1 million civilian and military personal use this
site each year to receive on-line training. There are currently
100,000 registered users, and 50,000 courses have been
completed.
The E-training initiative and its on-line training will
provide talented, instructional programs based on the needs of
both the individual and the organization. There are cost
savings from tuition, cost avoidance compressed learning time
and travel cost avoidance. The Competency Management Center on
the site allows human resource specialists and employees to
more easily plan professional and individual development and
map into courses and services. Current research in government
and commercial sectors suggest that employees are more likely
to stay with organizations that provide training opportunities
that are aligned with career development.
Our next initiative, Enterprise Human Resource Integration,
is the beginning of the end of those tons of paper personnel
folders. Conducting work force planning analysis on a large
scale is difficult today because personnel data is stored on
paper in personnel folders and the subset of that data is
stored in a jumble of legacy systems of varying levels of
functionality and integration.
The goals of EHRI are clear: provide comprehensive
knowledge, management and work force analysis to enhance
strategic management of human capital across the executive
branch. This includes a data repository for knowledge
management and work force planning. This repository is becoming
operational on September 30, 2003.
Next is an able, enhanced and expanded electronic exchange
of standardized human resources data within and across agencies
producing tangible benefits and cost savings.
The E-payroll initiative advances the E-government agenda
by creating rare efficiencies in Federal payroll processing. We
are reducing 22 Federal payroll systems to two partnerships
that provide payroll processing services. The current 22
systems that pay 1.8 million civilian employees employ a
variety of paper and electronic processing. Records are not
easily shared between agencies. We want E-payroll to be a
simple, easy-to-use, cost-effective, standardized, integrated
human resource and payroll service to support the mission and
employees of the Federal Government. The managing part of OPM
established and led a working group to analyze Federal and
civilian payroll service delivery from a governmentwide
perspective in order to identify options for the modernization
and improvement of payroll systems processes.
Payroll consolidation will provide Federal employees more
efficient and effective service. They will have better
information, consistent net pay, on-line enrollment and
electronic access to information. Service delivery will be
improved through standardized systems.
Mr. Chairman, OPM E-government is using digital
technologies to transform government operations in order to
improve effectiveness, efficiency and service delivery. The
program management office for E-gov at OPM has the vision that
seeks an order of magnitude improvement in the Federal
Government's responsiveness and value to the citizen.
Thank you. I will be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much Mr. Enger. We appreciate
you being here. We appreciate your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Enger follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. We would also like to recognize our five other
panelists on the second panel. Rhonda Diaz, Program Manager for
Enterprise HR Integration. Janet Dubbert, Program Manager for
E-payroll. Mike Fitzgerald, Program Manager for E-training.
Claire Gibbons, Program Manager for Recruitment One-Stop. And
Mark White, Acting Program Manager for E-clearance.
We will now move into the questions; and, again, I want to
thank all our panelists for being with us.
The Director of OPM testified that the savings would be in
the neighborhood of $2.7 billion. GAO refers to the fact that
those savings may be overstated. Ms. Koontz, would you
elaborate on that some?
Ms. Koontz. Based on work that we've done to date, what we
have seen raises a lot of questions about how the cost savings
were calculated, and some of the assumptions that were made in
coming up with those calculations. While I think we understand
the sort of broad estimates that went into these cost savings,
we haven't yet seen the details that really allow you to
replicate the numbers that OPM is coming up with right now, so
I don't think we have a conclusion yet. But we have a lot of
questions about whether these are the right cost savings or
not. We also have further questions about the extent to which
OPM has measures in place in order to capture these savings as
the projects are implemented.
Mr. Putnam. What number do you estimate as being the bottom
line savings from?
Ms. Koontz. We haven't done the kind of work in order to be
able to come up with an independent estimate. I think what we
are more looking at, like the example I gave in my oral
statement, OPM tells us that there is a certain dollar savings
associated with E-recruitment. When we do the math we can't
come up with the total dollar savings. And they tell us that
there's other factors in there, but we don't know the details
surrounding those other factors. So at this point we just
question how definite those cost savings are and how reliable
they are.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Enger.
Mr. Enger. We certainly will make an effort to clarify how
we made the calculation of the cost savings.
But let me add, if I may, the largest cost savings is in E-
payroll. That's $1.1 billion of the $2.7 billion that we have
forecast. That $1.1 billion was based upon a much smaller
number than 22 agencies processing payroll. I believe it was
14. So in effect, in that case, the $1.1 billion, the cost
calculation was based upon closing down or consolidating 14
agencies processing civilian payroll. In reality, we found more
and more stovepipe payroll system, so the real number is 22. So
I have every expectation that the E-payroll number which is our
biggest number, 1.1 billion, will go up and not go down.
Much of that is simply--as you said earlier, Mr. Chairman,
it's the stovepiped, separate operations, all the
infrastructure, the technology, the hardware, the software, the
licensing and such to process 22 different payroll systems for
1.8 million civilian employees.
So, to answer your question, my one example there is I
think that E-payroll is a low number; and, at the same time, we
would be more than willing to sit down with GAO and provide
more detail as to how we have made our cost calculations.
Mr. Putnam. Any of the other panelists wish to add anything
to that?
Are the savings predominantly in the outyears, or can we
expect to see some in the near term?
Mr. Enger. Well, the savings, actually--and I'll let Janet
talk in a moment here. We're already migrating agencies. We're
consolidating agencies. For example, the Department of Energy,
just this month, migrated into DFAS, Defense, the DOD
operation. Right there, you'll see a reduction in DOE's energy
costs to process payroll.
Our target is to have the consolidation between now and
September 30, 2004. So, in that sense, we're talking about
seeing significant short-term dollar savings. And beyond that
we have longer-term savings, you know, in terms of as we look
at a more standardized payroll system for the additional
savings there.
Janet, do you want to elaborate upon this?
Ms. Dubbert. Norm's absolutely right. The latest business
case estimates 22 agencies in the executive branch doing
payroll, in fact, that number has even increased. We started
with identification of 12, went to 14, and then the original
business case identified 16. We then raced to 22. My count
today, including the four selected providers, we have 25
independent executive branch agencies that were performing
payroll. The immediate savings by the migration activity that
is to conclude September 30, 2004, which was the OMB target
date, we were estimating approximately $1.6 billion for O&M,
operations and maintenance, of the 14 agencies that gave us
cost estimates. We don't fund costs associated with operations.
So Norm is absolutely right in the fact that we don't have
cost information from all the agencies. We are collecting that
information at the point of migration planning which is well
under way, and we will be able in a few short months to have
information operation and maintenance expenses from the total
of the agencies currently performing payroll.
But our cost estimates for savings in fact included not
just O&M, but the elimination of the redundant systems and
savings for purchase of new technology, and is identified in
our costing model. In addition to the $1.67 billion for
operation and maintenance, the migration expenses are estimated
at $46 million and $350 million for system replacement, and all
of that has to be taken into consideration with the
elimination--these are numbers from just 14 agencies, not the
total of 25 or 21 agencies that ultimately will be affected. We
believe that our cost savings could, in fact, be greater than
$1.1 billion.
So we have a number of agencies migrating by September 30,
which is the bulk of the dollars associated with our cost
savings model. So we should recognize the savings starting in
fiscal year 2005 as a result of those migrations. Long-winded
for your answer.
Mr. Putnam. How many agencies are there governmentwide?
Ms. Dubbert. Executive branch, approximately 116 branch
agencies, and we are focused on the executive branch. So in the
executive branch, there were approximately 25 agencies
performing payroll independently; 4 have been selected to
continue, we have 3 that have been deferred. Those are within
the intelligence community.
We have a task force that we have developed with them and
have been collaborating with them on a study as to how they're
going to do their business. We have one agency that has been
considered exempt, that's the Federal Reserve Board; and we
have one agency that's currently under consideration and we are
reviewing their law, and that is the Tennessee Valley
Authority.
All others within the executive branch have been slated for
migration. We only have four left that have not had their
migration scheduled. They are the Department of Labor, the
Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Veterans'
Affairs and the Railroad Retirement Board. So we have 11 that
are scheduled and well on their way for migration.
Mr. Putnam. So the Department of Labor, for example, they
only have one payroll system?
Ms. Dubbert. Yes. For themselves.
Mr. Putnam. For themselves?
Ms. Dubbert. Yes.
Mr. Putnam. Is that common, that the departments would have
all of their agencies on the same payroll system?
Ms. Dubbert. No.
Mr. Putnam. We have had testimony that the Navy has dozens.
Ms. Dubbert. Navy typically sources their military under
the DIMHRS program. Within DOD, DOD has the the Defense Finance
and Accounting Service. The DFAS entity is the entity that
services the civilian population for DOD. The exception to that
would be for NSA.
The Department of Treasury until just a few years ago had
multiple systems; they have since consolidated. And there's one
left that we are currently migrating and that's part of our
numbers, and that is the Office of Thrift Supervision.
Department of Justice, there had been multiple entities
within their department. The only one left not currently
serviced by one of the selected four is the FBI, and they are
well on their way to migration. We just have a snafu in their
classification of the system.
Mr. Putnam. What is the deadline by which time all civilian
agencies will be on the same payroll system?
Ms. Dubbert. The targeted deadline was September 30, 2004.
Until we get signed agreements with all the agencies and set
their schedules in place, we won't have a full answer, but I
can tell you the 11 that are in fact scheduled and well on
their way, we do anticipate being able to meet the September
30, 2004, date for them. The three agencies within the intel
community that have been deferred, were deferred from the
September 30 date as well.
So the four agencies we're still working with, as I said,
are DOL, EPA, VA and Railroad Retirement Board. If you're
counting in the numbers, there's one more; and that is, believe
it or not, the Panama Canal Commission. And we're still
communicating with them, but they have negotiated with Panama
for their payroll, so we're not quite sure how that might fit
into the scheme.
Mr. Putnam. If the Panama Canal Commission and the TVA are
your biggest problems, you are doing a yeoman's task. You're
doing quite good work if that's your biggest problem.
Who is your biggest problem?
Ms. Dubbert. I would say there are barriers because some
agencies, in fact, have different pay title authorities
independent of the Office of Personnel Management's
authorities. Also, there are agencies who have in the last
several years implemented or purchased, and have either
implemented or are implementing, integrated human resource
payroll systems. And having to turn off the back half of that
integrated solution for the better of the whole is what is a
challenge for two of the four that I previously mentioned.
One of the other four that I mentioned not yet scheduled,
certainly has some complexities because they have pay authority
for medical field under Title 38, and we are still in
discussions with them. And I want to say for the record that
the Office of Management and Budget has been with us, working
with each of these agencies, to get through any of the barriers
that exist.
So it's possible we may have four agencies, those that are
currently not scheduled that we will miss the September 30,
2004, date on.
Mr. Putnam. Ms. Koontz, the testimony we seem to always
have is, it always come back to cultural challenges, management
challenges. You've heard the status of the e-Payroll across
these initiatives is adequate oversight and management taking
place from OMB and OPM to ensure that the proper cooperation is
taking place between all the agencies to implement these five
initiatives.
Ms. Koontz. At this point, we've identified that management
challenge, particularly of moving from disparate agency-unique
systems to consolidated systems as being a very big challenge
for the agencies, OPM, and OMB. It's really important that OPM
have a good change management strategy in place, and that they
communicate very well. There is also a place for OMB to make
sure that duplicate systems, if need be, are not funded as they
try to move toward consolidation.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Enger, what's OPM's strategy for managing
these initiatives as an integrated set?
Mr. Enger. Let me say, No. 1, that we have to date every
milestone that was established in conjunction with OMB. And I
would say the reason we have been able to make such progress is
because we have had very, very strong backing from the Director
of OPM, Kay Coles James. I report to her directly, and we have
had very strong backing from OMB; and I think with that
seamless backing across the board we have been able to make
progress.
There is something called the Federal Enterprise
Architecture, which is being developed by OMB, looking at the
Federal Government as a business and what are the lines of
business of the Federal Government and where are there
stovepipe or redundant systems and where can you have a more
efficient system and better service to the citizen with proper
economy and metrics that measure your performance.
We've worked very, very closely with OMB and we have
actually placed all five of our initiatives, actually including
the Retirement Systems Modernization effort, within this
enterprise architecture. And this shows the civilian human
capital operations, what is done in civilian and human capital
operations. Where does e-Training fit in there? So within this
architecture, we're getting the integration that you're asking
about. It's showing us the data flows, the process flows
between our initiatives and also beyond our five into the other
lines of business in the Federal Government.
So from our point of view, the Federal Enterprise
Architecture being promoted by OMB has been a very, very
beneficial tool in architecture for us to integrate our
initiatives within the human capital structure, but also within
the larger Federal Government.
Mr. Putnam. Ms. Diaz, could you discuss the differences
between the HR initiative and the lines of business
consolidation announced by Mark Foreman that Mr. Enger referred
to with respect to each agency's HR system?
Ms. Diaz. Let me just clarify the question you're asking.
You're asking to clarify the difference between the new EHRIS
initiative, which was one of the line-of-business initiatives
and the EHRI initiative, correct?
Mr. Putnam. I think.
Ms. Diaz. And there is a difference. A lot of people get
confused, one, because of the names; one is EHRIS and one is
EHRI.
EHRI is the initiative that I am the project manager for,
and EHRI is the key service data component for all the OPM e-
Government initiatives. We are going to eliminate the need for
the paper personnel folder and enable the electronic transfer
of data across the government from the time the employee comes
on board until the time they retire. Currently, today--I don't
know if you've ever seen a personnel folder, but they follow
people all over and some of them are about that thick. And if
one gets lost, you have to manually recreate it. And the
storage costs on those are just astronomical, and we're going
to eliminate that need.
What the EHRIS initiative is about is kind of going down
and looking at the transactional HR systems whereas the EHRI
system is a data repository. It isn't a transactional system
that processes the various business rules when you need to hire
someone. For example, if you are a GS-13, Step 5, your salary
can only be in this range. Those transactional systems enable
you to do those types of actions and then feed the data to the
payroll system.
What the EHRIS will do is look at the possibility of
consolidation and elimination of redundant systems, similar to
what the e-Payroll initiative will do, as well as look at
standardization across the board of those systems, because as
we know, we all are in the same business in the Federal
Government, so there shouldn't be that many differences in
systems. And that's kind of the difference between the two
initiatives.
Mr. Putnam. Comment a bit, though, on the standards issue.
Have we completed the establishment of a set of data standards
across all agencies?
Ms. Diaz. For EHRIS we have developed a data model that
will be the foundation for the electronic official employee
record. With that, we've identified the data items that would
need to be contained in a data--in an official employee record
as well as associated standards with that.
As we begin implementation of EHRI, we will also
continuously update those data standards. Currently today, we
already have about the first 89 data items that are standard
across the government. The official employee record will have
up to about 500 data items that will be standard across the
government, which will enable us to transfer that electronic
data from agency to agency as well as onto the retirement
system.
Mr. Putnam. So a graduate of one of our Nation's
universities, with a general business degree, who wants to work
for the Federal Government, there might be seven different
agencies that they are qualified for an entry-level type
position. To apply for each of those seven agencies, how many
applications would they fill out?
Ms. Diaz. That would be Claire's question.
Ms. Gibbons. How many applications an individual might
file, if they are aware of seven potential vacancies which they
would meet the basic requirements, likely would be seven
separate applications. Some of the applications may be filed
on-line directly with the Federal agency posting the job. Some
of the applications might be filed manually if the agency in
question was using manual application processing procedures.
Mr. Putnam. There are agencies who don't recognize on-line
applications?
Ms. Gibbons. That is correct.
Mr. Putnam. Would they be limited to the intelligence
community, or is there some other reason why they wouldn't
recognize that type of an entree into the government?
Ms. Gibbons. Generally it's a matter of the individual
business processes within the agency and the decisions that
they have made regarding how they will do their Federal
staffing and evaluate candidates. So there are some agencies
that are using totally manual processes and paper-based
applications. There are many agencies that have moved to
automated application procedures.
But when automation is used for Federal application, the
current scenario requires that a job seeker would complete a
basic job application or submit the same kind of standard
applicant data over and over and over again on multiple
systems, so a job seeker who was applying to the Department of
Commerce would supply his or her name, address, work history,
education, skills, etc., and then also respond potentially to a
set of questions specific to the vacancy being filled. That job
seeker applying for a position with the U.S. Geological Survey
would go through a very similar process of supplying the same
biographic data to the USGS system, and they might do it each
and every time they file an application.
Some systems store basic information, others do not.
Through the enhancements that we'll be making to USAJOBS and
creating a single basic job application or basic initial
resume, job seekers will be able to create their initial
application once, store it to USAJOBS, and then have that
information integrated with on-line application processing
systems operating across government.
At the same time, while we will allow agencies to continue
to use manual evaluation procedures if that's what they choose
to do and that's consistent with their business processes, we
will establish on-line application for 100 percent of the
vacancies posted through USAJOBS so agencies, when receiving an
application transferred to them electronically, may choose to
print it off and do a manual evaluation as opposed to
integrating that application with an automated system.
But we will achieve on-line application for all vacancies
as well as allowing for alternate procedures if a job applicant
shouldn't have access to the technology.
Mr. Putnam. I could understand an alternate procedure for
an applicant who may not have access to the technology. I'm
having a hard time understanding why the government agency
would opt not to accept electronically filed resumes.
Ms. Gibbons. I believe currently the issue is simply that
agencies have not made the decision or the investment in the
automation for the application processing; for the systems that
would provide for the sophisticated algorithms for determining
employee qualifications, determining rankings of candidates,
handling the application management and work flow within the
organization. Many, many agencies are, I believe, and more will
be moving toward automation in that process. They're just not
all there yet. And when they have no automated system in place,
the kind of fall-back position is to take an application that's
received through the mail, or possibly fax as the extent of the
electronics involved.
Mr. Putnam. How many agencies are we talking about here who
would not acknowledge or receive an on-line application?
Ms. Gibbons. We don't have a hard number for the current
number of agencies that are not using automation in their
application processing. Most agencies, and most of the large
agencies and departments, are certainly employing automation in
their application processing. Yet many of the smaller agencies
have not gone to automated systems, the volume of their work
isn't necessarily supportive of the investment.
Mr. Putnam. So the Panama Canal Commissions are the types
of agencies we're talking about here? Or are we talking about
the Farm Service Agency that's in every county in America? We
spend all this money to build these Web sites, and then are
begging people to use that because it's going to save us all
this money; but then we have agencies who say, we won't accept
it unless it's on blue paper in triplicate with a paper clip in
the upper left-hand corner.
Ms. Gibbons. Certainly, as we move forward with the
recruitment one-stop initiative, we are going to establish
procedures that will provide for on-line application for all
job seekers. The job seeker will have the opportunity to create
that initial application on USAJOBS and have that application
filed electronically with an agency whether, ultimately, they
integrate that data into an automated system or choose to do a
manual review of the application received. So we will achieve
the on-line application process or on-line application
submission for the job seeker.
Agencies in terms of the decision of how they then process
the full application and manage the work flow within their
department or agency, that's still mixed. More and more are
moving toward automation, and that's certainly what we are
encouraging.
In terms of the agencies that we're talking about,
oftentimes it is the very small agencies. It is the National
Battle Monuments Commission or Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.
that haven't gone on to a fully automated solution. In the
larger departments and agencies, certainly most are using
automated application processing. Those that haven't adopted it
yet are in the process of making system evaluations and
decisions.
Mr. Putnam. The E-Clearance issue, Mr. White, there've been
a number of congressional hearings and an awful lot of work
done on the backup of clearances. Where are we now in the
number of clearances that are pending and what types of
improvements have been made in that?
Mr. White. I don't have the number in terms of how many
clearances are presently backlogged. I can tell you a little
bit about how e-Clearance, as an initiative, expedites the
processing in terms of shortening the latency of providing the
information on the front end from the applicant via the e-QIP
process and providing that information to the investigation
teams that begin an investigation, as well as--another aspect
of our initiative expedites the verification process of who's
cleared and who isn't.
In terms of how many applications or how many
investigations are presently backlogged, I don't have that
information.
Mr. Putnam. Go into some detail of how your initiative is
going to save us time and money.
Mr. White. Well, specifically, the clearance verification
system is a module of e-Clearance that allows for a guard at a
gate to let someone into a building or to quickly arrange a
meeting that before had to be stalled a number of hours to
verify that the right people were in the room and everyone
could partake in the information rather than having someone
stand outside the door. That, of course, involves more people
and provides a latent period for which individuals can be
briefed at a later date and time, which slows up government
processes. That, of course, is an intangible.
In terms of the e-QIP process, the collection of
information for all employees that undergo an investigation,
this brings to life a whole functional process of gathering
information from the applicant rapidly, immediately making that
information available to those investigation teams, providing a
portable medium where they can then forward that information to
the individuals that might be responsible for the adjudication
process. The portability of this information via this Web
portal, if you will, negates couriers, courier charges and a
number of tangible and intangible aspects involved in
investigations, processing and adjudication.
Mr. Putnam. As well as the repetitive application process
when you change jobs.
Mr. White. Clearly, individuals who have a clearance
periodically are rereviewed and that information is collected
again and again the old way. With the new system, that
information can automatically be propagated in front of them
and they can handle the changes to the information as they see
fit.
Mr. Putnam. Ms. Diaz, is that the type of information that
would be integrated with your program, as well, so that it is
portable, it is interoperable, it is compatible?
Ms. Diaz. Yes. We will receive a limited subset of data
from the e-Clearance system to allow an employee to be placed
in a variety of positions. We do not anticipate getting all of
the data that would be in the e-Clearance system because our
intent is not to make our system a classified system.
Generally, when someone transfers from one position to
another you want to reassign them, you just need a limited set
of data. So we are going to be receiving that data from the e-
Clearance system, as well as when someone transfers or retires
from other positions, we will send them a note or send them
something in the system so that they know they can go back and
check and make sure the security clearances are either
terminated or they're transferred, as appropriate.
Mr. Putnam. You'll send them an e-mail, not a note?
Ms. Diaz. It's going to be an interface.
Mr. Enger.
Mr. Enger. Can I add something here?
What we have done essentially with e-Clearance is taken a
paper-based system and made it electronic. For example, one of
our great achievements I think was the clearance verification
system where, for the first time, we established at OPM the
information about all civilian sector clearances in one place,
and we linked that in January to the DOD system, Joint
Personnel Adjudication System. So now an investigator can put a
name in and for the first time ever in American history, it
will go across the entire civil sector data base and DOD and
give the background as to, was this person cleared before, who
granted the clearance, where is the investigation information
and so on.
So for the first time we've established a system that gives
the investigator or the proper official access to all of the
active clearances in the Federal sector. That's one big step.
The e-QIP that Mark White mentioned, we moved that
cumbersome form that people hate from paper to electronics.
When that form is filled out, it will go electronically to the
agency and then it will go electronically to the investigative
agency that does the background information. Right there you
have saved at least 7 days per clearance process. You are
speeding up the whole effort to do a background investigation
and a clearance.
Where there is still a difficulty, because you mentioned
the backlog issue, we can be as electronic as we want, which is
a great step forward, but one of the barriers to the clearance
process right now is the agency adjudication. When the
investigator does the investigation and returns that report to
the agency, somebody in the agency has to adjudicate, has to
decide whether or not to grant that person a clearance.
At that point there is a place of bottleneck, because it
requires an individual, a person, to sit down and look at that
report and decide yes or no, this person will or will not get a
clearance. And there's a shortage of adjudicators, and that
becomes a choke point and that becomes a point whereby you
buildup a backlog in terms of clearance processing. And I think
that's something of note, that they are trying to improve the
process. You have a manual step in there that really is beyond
our control at this point in time.
Mr. Putnam. Fair point.
Ms. Gibbons, one of the criticisms we hear from people who
apply for jobs in the Federal Government is a general lack of
feedback. They're not told if the resume was considered,
rejected, or even if the position was filled.
Does the new initiative deal with that criticism?
Ms. Gibbons. It certainly does. The new initiative does
address that issue very, very specifically.
The enhancements we're making to USAJOBS will provide for
job seekers to receive real-time status feedback regarding
where they stand in the employment consideration process.
Again, through integration with automated application
processing systems that are running in Federal agencies or key
entry into the USAJOBS system, agencies will feed to a
consolidated applicant profile segment on USAJOBS status
tracking information that will provide job seekers with
information on key milestones in the employment consideration
process, such as initial receipt of their application, initial
determination of qualifications, whether or not a candidate has
been referred to a hiring official for interview and further
consideration; and then the subsequent disposition of the
hiring action, i.e., someone has been selected or the position
has not been filled for whatever reason.
Mr. Putnam. There has also been a criticism that the site
is biased toward recent graduates, which is the example I used
earlier, or outside hires, with not enough consideration given
to current employees looking for internal promotional
opportunities.
Would you like to address that concern as well?
Ms. Gibbons. The USA Jobs data base and the information
disseminated by OPM governmentwide on vacancies very clearly
covers external opportunities or those jobs that are open to
new job seekers, persons not in the Federal Government. But
also we have an equal responsibility for disseminating the
internal vacancy information for transfer or promotional
opportunities for Federal employees, and we've certainly tried
to balance the needs of both the non-Federal job seeker as well
as those within the work force.
We have heard some of the feedback from those in the
Federal work force on our redesign effort within USAJOBS, that
they think that the system is not as user friendly to their
interests. Specifically, we have feedback from current Federal
employees who would like to be able to search more readily on
grade or salary parameters of jobs, as well as groupings of
jobs vice individual job series or keyword searching.
We do have an enhancement plan that we have developed and
will be implementing over the next several weeks that I think
will address some of those concerns by providing more readily
obvious salary searching to current Federal employees, as well
as consolidation of jobs, some streamlining and geographic
searching, etc.
We have received a great deal of feedback since we launched
on the new platform. We are always striving to make sure that
the system equally meets the needs of the non-Federal job
seeker, as well as those within the current work force, and
seeking to implement changes based on the feedback received.
Mr. Putnam. A number of these interfaces that almost all of
you have referred to, I would assume, rely upon the
interoperability of each agency's current system. And so my
question would be, do they have the interoperable capacity
right now in each of these agencies to do all of the things
that OPM wants them to be able to do in each of these
initiative areas, or are they going to have to upgrade their
own legacy systems or stovepipes to be able to have this
seamless interface?
Ms. Gibbons. Within my particular initiative, within the
USAJOBS system and the interfaces that we are establishing with
Federal agencies, we are building on XML data exchange
standards that will provide for the interoperability; and we
are not aware of any significant barriers to agencies within
the systems that they either run on their own or the vendor-
supplied systems that they utilize, that they will not be able
to successfully create the interchange.
Ms. Diaz. We're also using XML, and for those agencies that
may not be able to at this point handle the XML, we are working
with them to accept basically a flat file exchange of data as
an interim step.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Enger, when we created the Department of
Homeland Security, there was a great deal of concern about the
merging of different salary structures, different schedules,
different payroll systems, different training systems, a lot of
the same things we're here to talk about today.
How far along are we in that effort, as it reflects a bit
of a microcosm for what you're trying to do governmentwide?
Mr. Enger. Well, there is a DHS, Homeland Security, HR
committee which is approximately 7 or 8 months old, which is
comprised of the major entities in DHS--INS, Customs, Coast
Guard, etc.--and that committee meets on a weekly basis,
typically. I also am on that committee to represent the OPM e-
Gov initiatives.
DHS is heavily engaged, for example, in e-Payroll. DHS has
worked very closely with my project manager here and, in
effect, they will be processing payroll for DHS in accordance
with the goal and vision of e-Payroll.
Separately--separately, I mentioned earlier in my testimony
that we're going to be bringing up on September 30, this month,
the EHRI repository. They have been heavily involved with us on
that; and they're looking forward to having access to
information about DHS personnel that will be available come
October 1 of this year to help them do work force analysis,
planning, looking at the skills they have and other types of
demographic information.
They're also dealing with the e-Training initiative. Mike
Fitzgerald has been dealing with DHS on e-Training. To the best
of my knowledge--and also going beyond that, I mentioned
earlier the Federal Enterprise Architecture, they're heavily
involved with OPM, dealing with and looking at what is the
architecture that's being built and how it should be built
relative to human capital.
From my point of view, we have had an extremely close and
very beneficial relationship with DHS that's ongoing. Of all
the agencies, I would say that DHS has shown really strong
commitment to e-Government and they want to use all the
benefits that are possible relative to what is being done by e-
Government.
Mr. Putnam. In panel one's testimony, Director James
referred to some outstanding numbers on Web site traffic and
interest generated by these new sites, particularly on USAJOBS.
Does that mean we're filling positions more quickly and finding
qualified applicants in a shorter time than we have in the
past?
Ms. Gibbons. We certainly are providing improved tools that
will help us to speed up the time to hire through increased
awareness of Federal job opportunities and more diverse
candidates coming to USAJOBS, including candidates with
different skill sets, and then eventually improved application
procedures. Certainly we do believe that we will decrease the
time to hire. It's not something that we are achieving today
through USAJOBS.
Another new functionality that we have within USAJOBS that
will also be a contributor to decreases in time to hire is the
tool available on the system that will provide for candidate
data mining for those job seekers that consent to make their
application, their resume, available for Federal recruiters and
managers to see. Agencies can take advantage of the resume data
base as a sourcing tool to identify candidates that can then be
invited to participate in the employment consideration process,
potentially saving agencies weeks that they might have spent in
placing advertisements or attending other kind of recruitment
or outreach events.
So, yes, we believe that time to hire will be decreased as
a result of the services we are offering.
Mr. Putnam. So someone who enters the site with the intent
of applying for a job with the Department of Homeland Security,
if they consent to have their information shared, they might
receive notification at some period in the future later saying,
your skill set makes uniquely qualified for a job with a
totally different department, who had mined that person's
information for a particular vacancy; is that what you're
saying?
Ms. Gibbons. That's correct. When job seekers come into
USAJOBS, they have the opportunity to conduct job searches
solely. They can come into the system and use the job search
functionality to identify vacancies and choose to create a
profile so they can be notified by e-mail of jobs that match
their skills and interests.
Job seekers can create and store a resume within a data
base and in fact, they can store up to five versions of a
resume so they can have resumes customized to particular job
types that might match a particular skill set that the
individual has.
When a job seeker creates a resume and stores it within
USAJOBS, the job seeker can have that resume remain in the
system available only for his or her use to actively apply
against a vacancy that they've located within the data base, or
job seekers may also choose to make their resume searchable.
When a resume is made searchable, a Federal agency can use
mining tools and search on degrees, locations, particular skill
sets via keyword searching, etc.; and then upon identifying
candidates that appear to be solid matches for jobs to be
filled, the agency would then invite the candidate to apply for
an active vacancy.
So a job seeker may very well receive an e-mail or a
telephone call saying, We've got a particular job open; you
appear to possess the requisite qualifications, and we would
like you to consider going through the application process.
Mr. Putnam. Will you be able to document whether you're
improving the diversity of applicants through the Web site and
whether you're reaching certain target groups, either by skill
set or by education or other factors that previously had not
been reached or had not been reached at the same levels that
this new portal offers you that opportunity for?
Ms. Gibbons. Within USAJOBS and the applications that we
collect, we do not collect race and national origin data on
candidates. Federal agencies are responsible for reporting out
individually on their hires and on the diversity of the hires
within the organization. So we would not be able to draw a
direct correlation between a change in diversity of the Federal
work force and necessarily what we're doing within the USAJOBS
system.
It is certainly something that, as a government, we have
considered and we've looked at. Do we have opportunities to be
able to potentially make the data collection for this kind of
information easier so that we can, in fact, have then the
reporting tools that will allow us to measure our success?
Mr. Putnam. So you have considered that, but that is not
part of the data collected from USAJOBS site?
Ms. Gibbons. Currently it is not.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Fitzgerald, could you elaborate, please, on
how the E-Training system effectively brings a common training
approach to agencies that almost certainly need individual
customized training needs. Explain, if you would, how it allows
individual agencies to set their own training priorities versus
the areas of training that your initiative offers.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Agencies still--it really comes down to
truly where they post the content they create. Agencies have
all the discretion to create, using vendors of their choice,
custom content that meets their mission-critical types of
competency and skill development needs. All we're doing is
simply hosting it. We do have a contract vehicle arrangement
within OPM, our Training Management Assistance office. So if
agencies come to us and say, you know, Mike, we want to use
OPM's contractors to do custom courseware development, we
simply direct them to TMA.
Our initiative, the GoLearn initiative, is simply to host
it. Really for agencies other than their commercially off-the-
shelf courseware that's out there already. They have all the
discretion to create custom content. Many of our back-end
capabilities provide them, authoring tools so they can create
on-the-fly custom content to meet their needs.
So that's something that's been, I think--in the
communication across agencies, it's been miscommunicated or
just misunderstood that, yeah, they can really in the
proverbial, ``have their cake and eat it too.'' It just comes
down to hosting it.
Mr. Putnam. What level of participation do you have in this
program? How many agencies have utilized e-Training?
Mr. Fitzgerald. We have 31 agencies that are hosted on a
common platform. We also have 10 more entities of agencies,
which may be subgroups of an entire agency, that are on the
GoLearn platform. We have approximately 27 agencies scheduled
for migration in fiscal year 2004, which is aggressive because
many of them are enterprise, for example, the Department of
Veterans' Affairs. So you're talking about many components
migrating to a common solution.
And then in fiscal year 2005 there are 13 additional
agencies. If you use Ms. Dubbert's numbers, then we are
approximately--over two-thirds of agencies beyond will be on a
common e-Learning platform at that point.
Mr. Putnam. In the past, a lot of this has been handled by
the Department of Transportation; is that correct?
Mr. Fitzgerald. We use their contracting vehicle, STATUS
contracting vehicle. But they did have--one of the things that
kind of goes under the radar screen in e-Government is, the
economy is a know-how. They have staff that were technical
folks that had a great deal of experience in the learning
industry, understanding the technical side. We at OPM
understood many of these strategic human capital development
needs, and it was a relationship that really worked well
because we took their technical expertise in e-Learning and--
using an existing contract vehicle that was created through a
full and open competition, and we leveraged that to really move
quickly to implement this initiative.
Mr. Putnam. What are your anticipated savings from E-
Training?
Mr. Fitzgerald. $784 million over the 10-year life cycle.
Mr. Putnam. It's real money, even in Washington.
Ms. Gibbons, I've been thinking about your Web site, and
when I go to Gov Benefits, I type in a range of information
about myself and I get back everything in the country that I
might conceivably qualify for.
Is that how USAJOBS would work?
Ms. Gibbons. USAJOBS allows job seekers to go in and to
enter information regarding the job search parameters that he
or she is interested in. So job seekers can go in and enter
keywords. If a person is in the environmental area, they might
enter ``groundwater conservation.'' A person can enter a
geographic area where they're seeking employment or, a salary
parameter that would match the kind of job they want, and then
the individual would receive a listing of the active vacancies
in the data base that match the search parameters.
Mr. Putnam. How much of this is on-line now?
I apologize, I probably should have gone on-line before we
had this hearing. But how much of this is on-line now if I were
to go fire it up after this hearing?
Ms. Gibbons. What I just described to you, it is fully
functional right now. The Web site is usajobs.opm.gov.
We have an active jobs data base that ranges from a high of
15,800, -900 to slightly over 16,000 jobs on any given day. The
jobs are updated throughout the day, so our data base numbers
change continuously.
Job seekers can go in, run job searching, create resumes,
utilize the e-mail search agent notification process. Federal
agencies can utilize the system for the posting of their
vacancies and for the resume mining.
Our future enhancements include the ``Create Once-Use
Many'' initial application process that will be integrated with
Federal agency applicant processing systems, as well as the
complete movement of the status tracking information. And we
will be phasing in agencies to utilize those sophisticated
functionalities beginning this fall and going into mid-summer
of next year.
Mr. Putnam. Let me ask GAO, Ms. Koontz, did you analyze how
effectively--on all of our e-Gov initiatives, how effectively
is the Federal Government getting the word out about their
existence?
Ms. Koontz. That isn't something specifically we have
looked at yet. You're talking about the existence of these
particular e-Government initiatives?
Mr. Putnam. Sure.
Ms. Koontz. That's not something we've looked at yet.
Mr. Putnam. Is there any marketing done, Mr. Enger?
Mr. Enger. No. 1, whenever we have a milestone--for
example, this month we have the repository--we have a media
event. We invite the press; we send out letters to the agency
heads to let them know about this. That's happened from the
very beginning. We try to spread the word that something's
happening with e-Government.
Second, we make presentations to the Quad Council and other
parts of the Federal Government to tell them what we are doing
and how it is benefiting them. Each of the managers here has a
working group of partner agencies that meets on a periodic
basis, and they spread the word about what they're doing, what
the plans are. They get feedback. I personally have gone out
and met with the HR directors, explaining what we're doing,
asking them to discuss this with me and asking for their
feedback.
So we at OPM have had very much of an outreach process
whereby we have reached out and tried very hard to spread the
word as to what e-Gov is all about and why it benefits all the
agencies.
The word that Mark Foreman used is ``transformational.''
What he perceived is, we are not doing a Band-Aid change to e-
Government. We want to transform the way government operates in
a positive, beneficial way. And that has been the motive and
the driving force as far as I'm concerned. All of these
initiatives have transformed the recruitment process, e-
Training, the clearance process. They really are changing how
the government operates to make it a better and more efficient
and more responsive government.
Mr. Putnam. Very exciting, and that's a perfect segue, and
I would like to ask each of our five program managers to
comment on whatever issue relative to your initiative that we
have not asked you about that you think is important to go into
the record.
What have we not asked you that you think is important to
share with the subcommittee? This is your last shot.
Ms. Diaz. I just think it's important to know that the
Enterprise HR integration project is the key data service
component for all the e-Gov initiatives at OPM, as well as the
interlocking enabler to be able to transfer data from
agencies--from the HR systems to the payroll systems, from e-
Training to retirement to e-Clearance. And it's really an
integral part of all the initiatives.
And I just think that--in the long term that it's going to
enable human capital management. It's going to enable us to do
things that we haven't been able to do in the past, even--for
example, our oversight agencies are going to have data
available to them for work force analysis, planning for their
studies and reports that they currently don't have today. And
it's going to be available on a more frequent basis than what
they can get data available now today.
We get data quarterly from agencies. Tomorrow with EHRI,
we'll get data on a biweekly basis. So the data will be good
data so we can make good business decisions. That's it.
Mr. Putnam. Ms. Dubbert.
Ms. Dubbert. Thank you for the opportunity. I think first
and foremost, I just want to make a statement that this is not
a department or an agency initiative. It is a governmentwide
initiative, and the barriers that we have talked about, whether
it be, I want to keep it myself, cultural or just because--it
is all just resistance to change.
We need to educate everyone within the Federal Government
that it is a Federal Government activity, and the Federal
Government is one. And that's what the taxpayers and the
citizens look at us as, as one. They don't look at us as the
Department of Transportation or the Department of Treasury;
they simply say, the Federal Government.
So what we're doing, in fact, is trying to not just change
the way we do our business, but set data standards in an
architecture that will be common for the Federal Government as
a whole. That is a significant challenge in and of itself.
So each of the initiatives, although it may sound as if we
are stovepiped ourselves, we are not. We internally are working
through the enterprise architecture activity that OMB has
established for the government at large and looking at it
internally how, in fact, the human resource or human capital
enterprise architecture needs to be established, because we're
connected from the applicant to the training to the repository
to paying individuals.
So our challenge, going forward, is reminding individuals
within agencies, we are doing this on behalf of the Federal
Government and we need to set the data standards so we have
more common information and it's retained, stored and managed
the same way. After September 11, I think it's evident that we
need to readily access information, and that is the gist of
what we're attempting to do: set the standards, set the
architecture and the systems so we can readily access and
provide information.
Ms. Gibbons. Thank you very much for the opportunity to
speak.
The Federal Government has enormous human capital
challenges before us, and one of the areas where we face a
significant challenge is certainly recruitment. I think we're
all aware that the Federal Government could face unprecedented
numbers of retirements over the next 5 to 10 years, with some
estimates saying that nearly 50 percent of the work force will
be retirement eligible during that period.
Director James's commitments to meeting those human capital
challenges and to fixing the Federal hiring process are clear,
and we think Recruitment One-Stop and the enhancements we are
making to USAJOBS are certainly key toward achieving those
goals and truly making the Federal Government an employer of
choice.
I think that's really the key driving factor behind what
we're doing, to be sure that the Federal Government can compete
effectively for top talent in the marketplace. And by making
significant improvements, by transforming USAJOBS, by
transforming the way the Federal Government conducts its on-
line recruitment and making those changes in a job seeker-
focused manner, as a Federal Government we are also serving
ourselves and providing ourselves with the services--laying the
foundation for the government--to be able to meet those
significant recruitment challenges going forward.
Mr. Fitzgerald. I appreciate the opportunity to say a few
words, if you give me the liberty to say two points.
One of the things that I think is important about the e-
Training initiative is that the old paradigm--there were
actually a couple of paradigms, one relating to training in
general and one relating to e-Learning; the old paradigm was,
you're either working or learning in government. You weren't
doing both. And what we are doing by expediting these tools to
the desktop is providing an opportunity to have on-demand
solutions to common problems, desktop problems, EXCEL
spreadsheets, that people would leapfrog from cubicle to
cubicle, asking people to get answers.
What we're doing is actually blending your working and
learning, which is really--I believe is--we are going to see
much more of a magnitude of improvement and efficiency in
training dollars being used that way.
Second, the old paradigm of e-Learning is, if I just paid
enough money and got enough content, everybody would flock to
it. And the current state of affairs is typically, the industry
reports about a 20 percent or less utilization rate. So the
dollars aren't being used very effectively if your return on
investment goes down significantly--if you only have 20 percent
usage.
One of the things that I think is really changing the face
of what we're doing with the initiative and changing the face
of the industry is the implementation of the IT Workforce
Development Roadmap, which was a partnership with the Federal
CIO Council, where we have actually taken the career paths of
the 2210 series and the 10 parenthetical titles, mapped those
out and aligned competencies and efficiency levels at each
level. That's a good start.
It's a marriage that we've done, where you actually do a
skill assessment, and if you have skill gaps, you have online
content available right at your fingerprints to address those
skill gaps. That paradigm shift is going to change the way e-
Learning is implemented in agencies and that you just hope
people go to a more strategic look at where are your core
critical competencies, where are your skill gaps, and how do
you address those and resource those. I think it's going to
provide a stronger tool for leadership to feel better about
their investment in these activities, because they can start to
see over a continuum a development of their human capital.
The second thing I wanted to say, there has been a lot of
industry buzz around the e-Training initiative and the use of
the STATUS contract. We have recognized that contract was
awarded several years ago, and we are in the throes, the
process, of announcing a GoLearn-specific IDIQ here soon, which
will give an opportunity for e-Learning vendors, whether it be
courseware providers or learning management system providers,
to compete again to get on the e-Training initiative contract
vehicle.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. White, you have been on the job a week and
you have already been called to Congress to testify under oath.
Been a tough week.
Mr. White. It has, in addition to Isabel.
The e-Clearance initiative has brought together a new
dialog across the investigating agencies. And as a result of
this dialog, the standards and specifications are occurring
across these various agencies. And what is happening here is,
they look and they recognize that they need to share
information.
Our new imaging module provides a vehicle for which all of
these agencies have to develop a common taxonomy, a common
standard of how the investigation process needs to be
referenced, how documents are cataloged; and it has brought
together a focus on tackling some of the tough issues that
stand in the way of slower processing of clearances, for
example.
E-clearance has gained quite a bit of momentum in tackling
the e-QIP form and establishing the repository of information
to quickly verify clearance information. Bringing together and
satisfying the Government Paperwork Elimination Act with the
imaging module has brought about quite a bit of improvement and
gained quite a bit of recognition. We only look for further
enhancements in terms of establishing perhaps a communication
network where these various agencies can collaborate even more
effectively to reduce the backlog of investigations.
Mr. Putnam. Well, thank you all very much. I appreciate
your enthusiasm for what you do, and I can only say it's a poor
frog that won't croak in his own pond, so I wanted to give you
the opportunity to tell the world about what you're doing. It
is transformation. It is a tremendous challenge. You are going
to face a lot of resistance, but it's going to be worth the
effort. And you need to have Mr. Enger here buy you lunch.
So, with that, I want to thank all of our witnesses for
your participation.
In the event that we were unable to get to questions--I
can't imagine that there's any questions that we didn't get to
after this hearing--but in the event that there are questions
that we were unable to get to, the record will remain open for
2 weeks, and we would ask that you submit those in writing.
With that, the subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing record
follows:]
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