[Senate Hearing 115-165]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-165
AGENCY APPROACHES TO REORGANIZATION
EXAMINING OMB'S MEMORANDUM ON THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE
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HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND FEDERAL MANAGEMENT
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 15, 2017
__________
Available via http://www.fdsys.gov
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin, Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
RAND PAUL, Kentucky JON TESTER, Montana
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire
STEVE DAINES, Montana KAMALA D. HARRIS, California
Christopher R. Hixon, Staff Director
Margaret E. Daum, Minority Staff Director
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
SUBCOMMITTEE ON REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND FEDERAL MANAGEMENT
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma, Chairman
JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire
STEVE DAINES, Montana KAMALA D. HARRIS, California
John Cuaderes, Staff Director
Doug Murray, Professional Staff Member
Eric Bursch, Minority Staff Director
Ashley Poling, Minority Counsel
Katie Delacenserie, Subcommittee Clerk and Committee Archivist
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statement:
Page
Senator Lankford............................................. 1
Senator Heitkamp............................................. 3
Senator Hassan............................................... 11
Senator Peters............................................... 12
Senator Harris............................................... 18
Prepared statement:
Senator Lankford............................................. 31
Senator Heitkamp............................................. 33
WITNESSES
Thursday, June 15, 2017
Hon. Ellen Herbst, Chief Financial Officer and Assistant
Secretary for Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce...... 5
Lee J. Lofthus, Assistant Attorney General for Administration,
Justice Management Division, U.S. Department of Justice........ 6
Donald K. Bice, Associate Director, Office of Budget and Program
Analysis, U.S. Department of Agriculture....................... 8
Michael Stough, Director, Program Analysis and Evaluation
Division, Office of the Chief Financial Officer, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security................................ 9
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Bice, Donald K.:
Testimony.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 45
Herbst, Hon. Ellen:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 36
Lofthus, Lee J.:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 41
Stough, Michael:
Testimony.................................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 49
APPENDIX
National Treasury Employees Union Statement...................... 54
National Treasury Employees Union Letter......................... 60
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from:
Ms. Herbst................................................... 61
Mr. Lofthus.................................................. 73
Mr. Bice..................................................... 83
Mr. Stough................................................... 91
AGENCY APPROACHES TO REORGANIZATION:
EXAMINING OMB'S MEMORANDUM ON THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE
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THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Regulatory,
Affairs and Federal Management,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:34 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. James
Lankford, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Lankford, Heitkamp, Hassan, and Harris.
Also present: Senator Peters.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD\1\
Senator Lankford. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to
today's hearing titled ``Agency Approaches to Reorganization:
Examining OMB's Memorandum on the Federal Workforce.''
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Lankford appears in the
Appendix on page 31.
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Today this Subcommittee focuses for the third time this
year on how to ensure the Federal workforce effectively and
efficiently serves the American people. I have the privilege of
serving tens of thousands of Federal employees in Oklahoma, and
I know they work very hard--honorably to be able to serve their
country.
However, a complicated Federal bureaucracy has hamstrung
agencies as they seek to achieve their core missions in service
to all Americans. Federal agencies have responded to ever-
evolving missions and changing circumstances by creating new
component agencies and offices in an attempt to better their
constituencies.
But this has led to a troubling reality. As we meet today,
no one knows exactly how many agencies actually make up the
Federal Government. There is no master list of all the programs
and all agencies. We are doing a lot, and sometimes we do not
even know what each other is doing. In 2012, the Administrative
Conference of the United States tried to determine how many
Federal agencies exist and concluded ``there is no
authoritative list of government agencies.''
In addition, according to the Office of Personnel
Management (OPM), the total number of non-seasonal full-time
permanent Federal employees grew from approximately 1.76
million in 2000 to 2.1 million in 2016. This represents a 16.2-
percent increase, with no understanding or measurement of
whether this has made government more effective or responsive
to the problems we face.
With such a sprawling bureaucracy and growing workforce,
Congress and the Executive Branch must examine together whether
taxpayer dollars could be spent more effectively and
efficiently. Until recently, the Federal Government has not
pursued a comprehensive approach to determine how best Federal
agencies should be structured to tackle the challenges facing
our Nation today.
It is past time we critically examine how government should
be organized to best serve the American people. Recognizing the
need for a new direction, on March 13, 2017, President Trump
issued Executive Order (EO) 13781 on a Comprehensive Plan for
Reorganizing the Executive Branch. Following this Executive
Order, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published a
memorandum on April 12, 2017, for agencies titled
``Comprehensive Plan for Reforming the Federal Government and
Reducing the Federal Civilian Workforce.''
Today we have the opportunity to discuss agency plans to
meet the reorganization requirements and the timeline outlined
in OMB's memorandum. Specifically, OMB directed agencies to
finalize three items by June 30, 2017: plans to maximize
employee performance; high-level drafts of Agency Reform Plans
to reorganize programs and organizational charts to eliminate
duplication and inefficiencies; and, third, progress reports on
``near-term workforce reduction actions.''
Today we will discuss the processes and methods individual
agencies are pursuing to restructure and improve their agencies
and operations. In conversations with OMB, I have learned that
this first phase in the Federal reorganization is an
opportunity for agencies to comprehensively redesign and
improve their structures and operations. This means that
agencies themselves have been empowered to improve employee
performance, realign their workforces and operations with their
missions, and streamline costly, duplicative programs.
Most importantly, OMB is providing the American people--the
customers of the Federal agencies--the opportunity to comment
on the Federal Government's reorganization efforts through a
public comment website. Ultimately, it is every public
servant's most important job to hear the American public and
serve their needs.
In an effort to give agencies better tools to accomplish
that core job, I recently partnered with this Committee's
Ranking Member, Senator McCaskill, to introduce the Federal
Agency Customer Service Experience Act of 2017. This bipartisan
legislation will remove a barrier that prevents agencies from
getting public feedback on their satisfaction with the Federal
Government's customer service. I hope to quickly send this bill
to the President's desk for signature into law.
With much more work to be done to improve the efficiency
and effectiveness of the Federal Government, I look forward to
hearing from our witnesses today regarding their agencies'
plans to meet the OMB memorandum's requirements. We look
forward to hearing testimony today from the Departments of
Commerce, Justice (DOJ), Agriculture (USDA), and Homeland
Security (DHS).
With that, I recognize Ranking Member Heitkamp for her
opening remarks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP\1\
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you, Chairman Lankford, and thank
you so much for calling this hearing.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Heitkamp appears in the
Appendix on page 33.
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As the Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Subcommittee that oversees the Federal
workforce, I really cannot think of a more appropriate topic
for today's hearing.
When the Administration implemented their hiring freeze
across the Federal Government in January of this year, I had
grave concerns about the local impacts that unfilled vacancies
would have on communities and citizens in my State of North
Dakota.
My concerns only deepened after hearing rhetoric from the
Administration about reducing the workforce through attrition.
Across-the-board cuts and a shrinking of the overall Federal
workforce are not the answer to making the Federal Government
more efficient or effective.
When I hear of proposed cuts nearly as high as 21 percent
at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, I worry about my farmers
and ranchers and how they are going to get the critical support
and critical information they need from our Farm Service Agency
(FSA) field offices.
Bill Hejl, who grows sugar beets, spring wheat, corn, and
soybeans near Casselton, North Dakota, is one of those farmers
that I worry about when I hear about these drastic cuts.
Bill drives 30 miles or more to get to an FSA office right
now--a distance that he cannot afford to see increase in the
future because of potential staffing cuts.
Bill is someone who plans to hand down his farm to his son
one day, and it is important for us to think about the impacts
that these kinds of cuts will have on the next generation of
farmers and all of those in our rural communities.
While the hiring freeze has technically been lifted, I want
you to know that I am paying very close attention to how
agencies are implementing the guidance that was given to them
by the Office of Management and Budget on April 12, and I stand
ready and willing to question any cuts that come at the expense
of talent, morale, and the mission of our Federal workforce.
It is essential that agencies are not putting the cart
before the horse when it comes to reorganization. They must
carefully think through the long-term impacts any potential
reductions and what those reductions will mean for the citizens
of States like North Dakota.
With nearly a third of the Federal workforce eligible to
retire in 2019, it is critical that the Federal Government
connect with the millennial generation in a way that speaks to
their needs and their desire to pursue mission-oriented careers
and demonstrates that a career in the Federal Government has a
lot to offer a young millennial person.
We will not be able to achieve that if we undermine the
very mission that drives the younger generation of workers who
care so much about a career in public service. I think if we
unwisely cut important agency functions, it will make it
tougher for us to recruit and maintain quality Federal
employees.
I am going to be doing all that I can to basically drive
efficiency, drive effectiveness of the Federal workforce, but
not look for a meat cleaver solution to this problem. Are there
Federal employees who may not be fulfilling a mission that we
no longer need? Sure. We ought to know that. But across-the-
board cuts and simple solutions like percentage reductions,
they do not get us where we need to be. Plus I think with a
third of the workforce willing to retire and maybe seeing an
opportunity to retire when the mission is not as clear, I think
that we are asking for not a short-term problem but what will
result in a long-term problem in terms of quality of the
Federal workforce.
So I look forward to hearing from the witnesses. I look
forward to hearing some of the examples of how we can be more
efficient and effective with our employees, but also how we
need to maintain a workforce that has high morale and, as a
result, has the ability to recruit the best and brightest
Americans to work for the people of our country.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Lankford. At this time I will proceed with the
testimony from our witnesses.
Ellen Herbst is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and
Assistant Secretary for Administration at the U.S. Department
of Commerce. Prior to her Senate confirmation in 2013, she
served as a senior adviser to the Deputy Secretary of Commerce.
She spent 25 years in the private sector in both large and
small businesses before her time in government service. Thanks
for being here.
Lee Lofthus is the Assistant Attorney General (AG) for
Administration in the Justice Management Division of the U.S.
Department of Justice. In 2006, Mr. Lofthus was appointed to
his current role and also received a Meritorious Presidential
Rank Award. He has served in the Department of Justice since
1982 in various capacities. Thank you, sir, for being here.
Don Bice is the Associate Director of the Office of Budget
and Program Analysis, U.S. Department of Agriculture. He also
serves as the Department's Performance Improvement Officer.
From 2007 to 2011, Mr. Bice served as the Deputy Director for
Budget, Legislative, and Regulatory Systems in the same office.
Michael Stough is the Director of Program Analysis and
Evaluation Division, Office of the Chief Financial Officer, at
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He also serves as the
Department's Deputy Performance Improvement Officer. Prior to
his career at DHS, Mr. Stough served in the U.S. Air Force
(USAF) for 31 years. Thanks for your service there as well.
I would like to thank each of our witnesses for appearing
today. It is the custom of this Subcommittee that we swear in
all witnesses that appear before us, so if you would please
stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear that the
testimony you will give before this Committee will be the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you,
God?
Ms. Herbst. I do.
Mr. Lofthus. I do.
Mr. Bice. I do.
Mr. Stough. I do.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. You may be seated.
Let the record reflect all the witnesses have answered in
the affirmative.
We will be using a timing system today. You will have 5
minutes for your opening statements. Obviously, we have all
gone through your written statements. They will be a part of
the permanent record as well. Anything you would like to add to
your written statements and your oral statements, you can do
that. And then we will have multiple rounds of questions after
that to just pepper you with difficult questions to be able to
walk through.
Ms. Herbst, you are the lady on the panel, but you are also
first on that one as well, and so we are going to honor that.
We will be glad to be able to receive your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE ELLEN HERBST,\1\ CHIEF FINANCIAL
OFFICER AND ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ADMINISTRATION, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Ms. Herbst. Thank you. Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member
Heitkamp, and distinguished Members of the Committee, it is
truly an honor and a privilege to be here before you today to
discuss our Department's process for drafting our Reform Plan.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Herbst appears in the Appendix on
page 36.
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The Secretary of Commerce is in strong support of this
initiative, and I am pleased to appear before you on his behalf
to tell you about the process the Department is using to drive
more effective and efficient mission delivery and to be
excellent stewards of the taxpayer dollars entrusted to us.
We are making good progress, and we are confident we will
meet the June 30th deadline for the initial draft submission
per the OMB guidance. This initial recommendation from our
Department is the result of a process that starts with initial
idea formation, and then analysis and synthesis to identify
likely best candidates for discussion.
Throughout the summer, we will have iterative discussions
with various stakeholders, including OMB, other Executive
Branch agencies, employees, and users of our mission services
and products. And based on these inputs, the Department will
prepare a final draft to submit to OMB in September.
This approach starts first with close coordination with OMB
and OPM, who are taking the lead on coordinating amongst the
various agencies--and, I might add, being very supportive. We
are also taking advantage of the existing structures and
processes within our Department to gather input.
The Secretary tasked me to lead the Reform Plan effort in
my role as CFO and Assistant Secretary for Administration, but
also in my role as Chairman of something we call the Department
Management Council (DMC). This Council consists of Senior
Executive representatives from each of our bureaus as well as
major departmental offices, such a General Counsel (GC), Chief
Information Officer (CIO), and CFO. And in most cases, those
representatives are the responsible ``Chief Operating Officer
(COO)'' for their respective organizations. We have directed
the DMC to consider input from managers, employees, reports
from the Inspector General (IG), reports from the Government
Accountability Office (GAO), and from users of services and
products in crafting their draft recommendations to us. Then,
additionally, a team at the Department level is providing input
to the overall plan with our emphasis on cross-cutting ideas at
the Department and governmentwide level. And, last, of course,
we are receiving lots of ideas from the public through the web
portal established by OMB.
Each operating unit was asked to prepare an initial draft
recommendation in the areas of burden reporting reduction,
streamlining and improving business processes, any potential
for merging or eliminating functions or programs, improvements
in efficiency and effectiveness, and alternative delivery
models for our existing mission services and products. In
addition, the Secretary is taking a fresh look across the
Department at our missions and organization to see if new
structures could further improve delivery of essential services
in the most efficient manner possible.
Commerce also has functional councils that represent areas
like human resource (HR), acquisitions, financial management,
and information technology, and each of those councils was
tasked with identifying burden reduction opportunities to the
Department as well as coordinating with their respective OMB
functional offices.
The HR Council is also tasked with leading the effort on
employee performance management and workforce planning, as
called for in the guidance. And to carry out this
responsibility, the Council has created a separate working
group which has inventoried our existing tools, processes,
training that we have in place today that are responsive to the
guidance as well as identifying the gaps and additional tools,
processes, and training that we need to have the Executive
Order carried out.
Finally, we recognize that this undertaking is requiring
considerable effort in the formation of the recommendations,
but will require an even greater effort in implementation of
any of the accepted recommendations. We are committed to
implementing proposals that will meet the goal of improving our
delivery of mission services and products at the most
effective, efficient levels possible.
I want to thank you again for the opportunity to appear
before you today and for your continued support of our
Department. I am pleased to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. Mr. Lofthus.
TESTIMONY OF LEE J. LOFTHUS,\1\ ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR
ADMINISTRATION, JUSTICE MANAGEMENT DIVISION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
JUSTICE
Mr. Lofthus. Good morning, Chairman Lankford, Ranking
Member Heitkamp, and distinguished Senators. Thank you for the
opportunity to share the efforts of the Department of Justice
to implement the President Executive Order on reorganizing the
Executive Branch.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Lofthus appears in the Appendix
on page 41.
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On April 4, Attorney General Sessions sent a memo entitled
``Department of Justice Reorganization Plans'' to the heads of
all DOJ components and United States Attorneys describing the
process for developing the Department's plan to be submitted to
OMB in September. Additional details on how to approach the
reorganization task came on April 12 in OMB Memorandum M-17-22
entitled ``Comprehensive Plan for Reforming the Federal
Government and Reducing the Civilian Workforce.'' Justice is
well underway with our work toward responding to the
administration's reorganization plans.
The process laid out by the Attorney General will obtain
input from four internal sources and one external source.
First, internally, the Attorney General directed each component
to review its activities and submit reorganization proposals to
us by June 16. Second, he asked key members of his office and
the offices of the Deputy Attorney General (DAG) and the
Associate Attorney General to develop ideas for reorganization.
Third, he asked my organization, the Justice Management
Division, to develop ideas. And, importantly, as a fourth
internal source we have asked our Department of Justice
employees for their input. I am pleased to report that we have
received over 450 employee ideas so far. Finally, we are
receiving ideas from the public via the web portal established
by OMB.
The Attorney General's goal was that, wherever possible,
DOJ components should align the resources into our key
priorities: strengthening our national security protections and
counterterrorism efforts; combating illegal immigration;
deterring violent crime; fighting human trafficking; and
reducing opioid and drug abuse. Focusing on those key
priorities is paramount to ensuring DOJ's effectiveness in
serving the American people.
So far in our process, we have met with the executive
officers--those are the senior management officers--of our
components to outline the idea collection process, provide a
standardized template for submitting ideas, and answer their
questions. Our offices are well underway in their work to
develop their ideas. My organization is preparing our own
component plan as well as developing DOJ-wide and
governmentwide ideas. We have also been collecting DOJ
workforce data that will assist our leadership group in
developing and evaluating ideas, and we have been reviewing
public suggestions provided by OMB. And we are reviewing GAO
and OIG reports for their recommendations.
All of this will come together after June 16 when we
inventory and begin to assess all the ideas we have received.
We will have preliminary discussions with OMB, and then we will
meet with the Associate Attorney General, the Deputy, and the
Attorney General to get their input and direction.
I fully expect this to be an iterative process. Some ideas
will be low-hanging fruit and within the authority of our
individual offices to implement. Other ideas will require the
approval and direction of the Attorney General. Yet others will
require OMB and Congressional action. The entire DOJ plan will
be included with our fiscal year (FY) 2019 budget submission to
OMB in September.
Thank you for the opportunity this morning to talk about
our efforts, and I look forward to your questions.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. Mr. Bice.
TESTIMONY OF DONALD K. BICE,\1\ ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
BUDGET AND PROGRAM ANALYSIS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. Bice. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Heitkamp, and distinguished Members of this Subcommittee. I
also appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss the actions that USDA has taken already and will be
taking to implement the President's direction on improving the
efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the
Department.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Bice appears in the Appendix on
page 45.
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Arguably, no other Federal agency has more direct interface
with Americans than does USDA. That is why it is so important
that we constantly think about who we serve and how we are
serving them. Luckily, USDA is accustomed to change through the
farm bill process where we reauthorize the bulk of our programs
every 5 years. And through that process, we get the wisdom of
Congress and our stakeholders, and we learn how we are
performing and whether or not we can perform what we are
performing better.
In terms of how we are going to move moving forward,
Secretary Perdue has said he will be guided by four principles:
First, he wants to maximize the ability of the men and
women of America's agriculture and agribusiness sector to
create jobs, to produce and sell the foods and fiber that feed
and clothe the world, and to reap the earned reward of their
labor.
Second, he will prioritize customer service every day for
American taxpayers and consumers.
Third, USDA will continue to serve in the critical role of
ensuring the food we put on the table to feed our families
meets strict safety standards.
And, lastly, we must preserve our land, and we must pursue
clean air and water. Stewardship is not an optional item for
farmers, producers, and ranchers.
As a downpayment on meeting these priorities and on meeting
the President's direction for reform, Secretary Perdue acted
quickly, once he was confirmed, to propose a reorganization of
the Department on May 11. The Secretary directed the creation
of a new mission area for international trade under a new Under
Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs. He also
reconstituted our domestic-facing agencies under a newly named
Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation. He also
positioned the rural development mission area so that it
reports through an Assistant to the Secretary directly to him.
These steps recognize the importance of international trade to
the ag sector, arranges USDA mission areas in a more logical
fashion, and ensures that rural America always has an
opportunity and a seat at his table.
Moving forward, the Department has taken steps to create a
Modernizing USDA Commission made up of program mission areas of
sub-Cabinet-level members within the Department and our staff
office leads. Our Modernizing USDA Commission will help drive
within agencies the need to focus on the interaction each USDA
agency customer has with the Department and to improve that
customer experience.
As part of our 2019 budget process, we will be asking
agencies to analyze how each of their programs aligns to the
Secretary's new strategic goals; rank and prioritize their
programs; analyze their organizational structures, including
their field structure to determine whether it needs to be
updated; and we are going to analyze and identify appropriate
staffing levels.
In addition, as you may know, the President recently
announced the creation of the Interagency Task Force on Ag and
Rural Prosperity that is having its first meeting actually this
morning at this point at the Department. It is a multi-agency,
a multi-departmental organization that will look at barriers to
economic prosperity and the welfare of communities in rural
America, including how innovation, technology, and
infrastructure play a critical role in fully bringing our rural
communities into the 21st Century. They are going to find ways
to improve regulatory flexibility and provide relief for
farmers and small businesses in rural America. We will examine
how the Federal Government does its business and how that
impacts food and fiber production and rural communities.
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you
today, and I look forward to answering your questions.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. Mr. Stough.
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL STOUGH,\1\ DIRECTOR, PROGRAM ANALYSIS AND
EVALUATION DIVISION, OFFICE OF THE CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Stough. Good morning, Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member
Heitkamp, distinguished Members of the Committee. Before I
begin, I would just like to very quickly on behalf of the men
and women of DHS offer our thoughts and prayers for Congressman
Scalise and the others who were injured yesterday in the
senseless attack in Virginia. We wish them well and hope that
they have a speedy recovery.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Stough appears in the Appendix on
page 49.
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I am honored to appear before you today to discuss our
Department's plan to achieve greater effectiveness,
accountability, and efficiency in both the management of our
business processes and the conduct of our mission to protect
the homeland and secure our Nation's borders. We recognize both
the imperative and the opportunity presented by the issuance of
Executive Order 13871, and we are committed to improving
Department management processes and front-line operations.
In discussions with our Department's leaders, we developed
a set of guiding principles that have helped us steer our
effort. We recognize that success relies on the proper tone
from the top, a well-defined governance structure to guide
analysis and implementation, comprehensive and coordinated
communication, transparency throughout the process, clear
scope, and a structured framework for analysis. Most
importantly, we recognize the critical requirement that we do
no harm. We will in no way compromise our ability to protect
the integrity of our Nation's borders, both physical and
virtual, or to aid communities that have been struck by natural
or manmade disasters. We have kept these principles in mind
throughout this process, and we believe we have set a solid
foundation that will help us succeed in this important
initiative.
Through a rigorous literature review that includes, of
course, GAO and IG reports and recommendations, an online
survey administered to Department personnel, and OMB's request
for public comment, we have received and evaluated well over
50,000 suggestions. Every idea has been considered. We have
identified several important issues out of that review for
further consideration, and we are now in the process of
refining those issues and will present them to senior
leadership this month.
Through our analysis, we have identified potential
improvements for single components, multiple components that
share the same mission space, and for multiple departments and
agencies as well, and we expect that some ideas will be
implemented quickly, but others will require more in-depth
study and analysis to weigh potential benefits against costs
and return on investment.
Our view spans both the near and long term as we work to
improve the Department today while also shaping it for success
in the coming years.
I can assure you that senior leadership, including the
Secretary, is committed to this effort, and we are excited for
the opportunities that lie before us. Thank you again for
inviting me to participate today, and I look forward to your
questions.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. I have not kept track of every
one of our hearings, but I do believe for Senator Heitkamp and
me, this is the first time all four witnesses finished at least
a minute before their time was expired. [Laughter.]
That could be a Congressional Record.
Senator Heitkamp. And it could be foretelling in terms of
their efficiency plans.
Senator Lankford. And effectiveness.
Senator Hassan. Yes, I was going to say, talk about
efficiency, right?
Senator Lankford. I want to ask one quick question of
everybody, and then Senator Heitkamp and I are going to defer
our questions to the end and move to some other Members. Then
we will come back to our questions. But I do want to ask one
clarifying comment of everyone.
Do all four of you expect to make the June 30th deadline to
be able to have that done? Ms. Herbst mentioned that
specifically in her testimony, but for all four of you, just
yes or no. Do you expect to make the June 30th deadline?
Ms. Herbst. Yes.
Mr. Lofthus. Yes.
Mr. Bice. Yes.
Mr. Stough. Yes.
Senator Lankford. OK, great. Let me defer to Senator Hassan
for initial questions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN
Senator Hassan. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you all for being here and for sharing your time and your
experience and your perspective.
I want to say at the outset how much I appreciate the
effort that we are all talking about today. I am a former
Governor, and it is the type of work we undertook on a regular
basis in our State as well. That being said, it is also very
important to me that the effort be focused on the mission and
how best to accomplish the mission in a flexible and
streamlined way, not necessarily with the goal, for instance,
of personnel reductions. I think it depends a lot on what you
are trying to accomplish. So I thank you for your work, and I
look forward to the ongoing conversation.
I wanted to start, Mr. Stough, with you, and I thank you
very much for your and the Department's well wishes to the
Congressman and all those who were injured yesterday. We
appreciate that very much.
Your written testimony says that Secretary Kelly continues
to emphasize that, to protect the homeland, DHS cannot do more
with less; therefore, the principal focus is on effectiveness
first, followed by accountability and efficiency.
With that said, the overall DHS budget for fiscal year 2018
cuts critical programs to keep our homeland safe. These cuts
include programs like the Visible Intermodal Prevention and
Response (VIPR) teams at the Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) and the grants that help cities and States
prepare for and respond to complex terrorist attacks. These
cuts come amid renewed aviation threats and a heightened State
of alert of the potential for homegrown terrorism attacks in
the United States.
As a result, the budget request appears to be the
embodiment of trying to do more with less. So given the
Secretary's statements that you referenced, are you suggesting
that OMB directed these cuts over DHS' objections?
Mr. Stough. Senator, thank you for your question. I think
we just have to recognize the reality of the fiscal constraints
within which we live. And so that is really, part of what I
said, this is an imperative, but this is also an opportunity
for us that we do recognize that we have to make some tough
choices because, the priorities for hardening the border,
immigration enforcement, all of the other activities which we
have to undertake, we have to balance risk across the entire
enterprise.
And so it is incumbent upon us as we look at each of the
areas as we have gone through this for the issue areas to
figure out if there are areas where we can have complementary
efforts that will allow us to use our resources more
effectively.
Senator Hassan. I thank you for the answer. I will say to
you, as I said to Secretary Kelly in the Homeland Security
hearings we have had, the cuts to our local and State efforts
to help with airport security in the soft areas in particular
are hugely concerning, and they are not something that States
or cities are in a position to replace. So I think if the
American people were to understand the impact of these cuts, we
might be having a different discussion, and I would look
forward to continuing that with you.
Mr. Lofthus, I wanted to touch base with you as well. You
are Assistant Attorney General for Administration and the CFO
for the Department, which gives you a view of the whole
Department. Is that correct?
Mr. Lofthus. Yes.
Senator Hassan. So I would like to focus on one of the
components you help oversee, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI). In the Department's current organization,
what structural safeguards are in place to ensure that the FBI
can conduct its critical investigative work free from political
interference?
Mr. Lofthus. The FBI is a component of the Department of
Justice. The Department of Justice is an organization that has
a very decentralized management structure. The Director of the
FBI exercises day-to-day management control over the FBI and
its investigations, and there is a very structured process when
they talk to the Department of Justice and talk to the Deputy
Attorney General's office, and those controls have been in
place for a long time and continue to be in place.
Senator Hassan. Well, thank you for that answer. I think
you probably know that there have been a lot of recent concerns
raised about whether those structures have been sufficient in
protecting the FBI from attempts at least to interfere. So I
know that your process is not yet complete, but what changes to
the Department's organization have been discussed or submitted
that might impact the FBI's independence?
Mr. Lofthus. Right now, our ideas are due from our
components on June 16, so we do not have those ideas yet. When
we get the ideas, our plan is to inventory, evaluate, and
prioritize all the ideas we receive. That is the way we are
going to go about it. So we will see what ideas come in. I
expect ideas to come from the FBI itself. I do not anticipate
changes that will impact the FBI's independence.
Senator Hassan. Yes.
Mr. Lofthus. We look forward to their ideas. I think they
are going to have some good ideas. It is a talented
organization, and as I say, we are going to inventory,
evaluate, and prioritize the ideas and discuss them with
management. And it will be an open process, and I look forward
to seeing what the FBI has to say.
Senator Hassan. Well, thank you. And I would just encourage
you all to think about the issue of whether we need more
structures in place to protect the FBI and its leadership from
political interference. It is critically important to justice
in our country.
Thank you.
Senator Lankford. Senator Peters.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS
Senator Peters. Thank you, Chairman Lankford and Ranking
Member Heitkamp. Thank you for allowing me to be here. I am not
a regular member of the Subcommittee, so it is a great
opportunity to come here and join you for this very important
discussion. I appreciate you holding this hearing and for
giving me an opportunity first to make a statement and then ask
a couple questions.
First, the statement that I really wanted to make regards
the hiring freeze just generally, and I was concerned when I
learned that President Trump had instituted a Federal hiring
freeze because research has shown that hiring freezes increase
rather than decrease waste in Federal Government. And after
looking at the hiring freeze that took place during both the
Carter and Reagan Administrations, the GAO found that hiring
freezes can, and I quote, ``increase the cost of government
operations by producing imbalances between clerical staff and
professionals, impeding recruiting efforts, and wasting
recruiting resources. This can result in higher costs for
accomplishing work, backlogs in both clerical and professional
duties, reduced quality of work, reduced mission and program
performance, and decreased morale.''
So I was certainly troubled to hear the President was
seeking to do yet another hiring freeze to reduce the size of
the Federal workforce, and that is why I asked the GAO to
examine the implementation of the freeze as well as the
guidance given by the OMB and OPM to Federal agencies. And I
was pleased to have Senator Heitkamp join me in that request.
So not only is the GAO going to look at whether the freeze
saved money; it is also going to look at the April 12 memo to
determine if the guidance given by the OMB is comprehensive and
consistent with leading best practices. GAO is also going to
examine the potential costs and benefits of the proposed
reforms and whether there is sufficient, reliable data
available to support a business case or a cost-benefit
analysis.
I am the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee of Federal
Spending Oversight and Emergency Management, and I am committed
to making government as efficient as possible. However, I am
also interested in accomplishing this in a cost-effective
manner that does not unduly harm agencies' functioning
abilities. And I hope that through this GAO review we can find
the best way to improve our operations and maintain a Federal
Government that is accountable to the American taxpayers. So I
appreciate you being here today and holding this hearing on
this issue.
I am also very concerned about funding for the 2020 Census.
This is, as all of you know, a constitutionally mandated survey
used by businesses and nonprofit organizations, researchers,
all levels of government. Census data is also used to
distribute more than $450 billion per year in Federal funds to
States and localities. And I know the Bureau is in the process
now of implementing a number of reforms to reduce costs and
improve results, including IT systems to support online
responses and non-response follow-up technology for their
critical field work. And while these reforms require increased
funding on the front end to support design, testing, and other
preliminary work, they are also projected to save more than $5
billion.
Ms. Herbst, I understand that certain tests slated for this
year have been canceled due to the uncertainty of the fiscal
year 2017 funding and that 2018 is absolutely critical to
conducting the end-to-end readiness test in order to accomplish
these very important goals that I have outlined.
So my question is: How has the OMB's memo affected the
planning for the 2020 Census?
Ms. Herbst. The decennial Census is the single largest
individual undertaking that the Department has, and it receives
quite a bit of oversight, as you might imagine, at the
Department level.
As Secretary Ross has come in as the new head of our
Department, he has made it very clear repeatedly, both within
the Department and publicly, that our number one priority for
the decennial Census is an accurate, complete count of people
where they live. We are committed to achieving that priority as
efficiently as possible, but the priority is an accurate,
complete count.
The Census Bureau is in the process of updating its life
cycle cost estimate to incorporate the latest information
available from the testing that has been done and program
decisions that have been made.
Independently, the Secretary has directed staff, members of
his team, including myself, to conduct a rigorous deep dive
into the Bureau's cost estimates and these programs decisions
to come up with an independent cost estimate based on the
decennial design, and we anticipate delivering that updated
life cycle cost later this summer.
In the President's budget for fiscal year 2018, it does
provide for conducting the fiscal year 2018 end-to-end test,
and that planning continues.
Senator Peters. All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate
it.
Ms. Herbst. Thank you.
Senator Lankford. Senator Peters, I would give you a little
extra time because you did have the initial statement we had
talked about before. If you need to ask an additional question,
I would give you some additional time. Do you need additional
time?
Senator Peters. No, I think we are fine. Thank you.
Senator Lankford. All right. Senator Heitkamp.
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
I am going to repeat a line from my opening statement. A
third of the Federal workforce will be eligible to retire in
2019. So the morale of the Federal workforce, the vision that
you exhibit in terms of your agencies, is going to be critical
to maintaining the historic knowledge that goes with a third of
the workforce. We cannot overstate the challenge of what would
happen tomorrow if every person eligible to retire in the
Federal service walked out the door.
And so this exercise has to be done not solely as an
exercise of efficiency; it has to be done as an exercise in
reaffirmation of the mission and the goals, because when people
feel the--or know the mission, know the goals, know how
critical they are to the public because, as we all know, we may
think they serve a President. We may think our staff serves us.
We may look at this and say it is all about who is at the top,
who is the Secretary, who is the President, who is the Senator.
At the end of the line, most really good quality Federal
employees that I know--know who the boss is, and that is the
taxpayers of this country.
I hope in your analysis what you are thinking about is how
you reaffirm how your mission will be established and how your
mission will be advanced in light of these efficiencies,
because if you demoralize, if you devalue your workforce, they
will vote with their feet, because they can go and take a part-
time job doing something else and take their Federal
retirement. And I think that is a very precarious and dangerous
situation that we are in if we really believe that these
positions are absolutely essential to serving the public.
So just with that, I put that--as you are considering your
plans and as you are putting these together, I just want to put
the overlay. I want you to get a list of all the employees in
your offices who could walk out the door tomorrow, and then
think about how you would do the work and meet the mission of
your agencies.
So I am particularly concerned, Mr. Bice, over the cuts to
agriculture, of course, discouraged, and where I have been a
strong supporter of Secretary Perdue, and his vision,
especially as it relates to trade, so I am not criticizing the
Under Secretary for Trade, but I am discouraged that we cannot
maintain our commitment at the Under Secretary level to rural
development.
You will take a look at all of the poverty ratings, all of
the challenges. When we think about poverty and we think about
blight and we think about the challenges of America, we
frequently go to that urban city; we go to the middle. We know,
those of us who represent and think about rural America every
day know that the highest rates of poverty and the biggest
challenges we have are in rural America. It is not in urban
America. And so I hope that we can have a robust analysis of
the role that USDA plays not only in assisting farmers on the
farm program, but also making sure that that rural development
role does not get left behind.
And so, Mr. Bice, I think when you--foundationally--and I
will do this very quickly so our colleague from California can
get her questions in. Secretary Perdue affirmed to all of the
employees that he now manages and serves, if you believe in
servant leadership, that he serves that there would not be cuts
to the workforce at USDA when looking at a 21-percent cut to
that agency. Tell me how you are going to do that and not cut
employees.
Mr. Bice. Well, thank you for the question. So I think what
we have talked about with the Secretary and with the people
around the Secretary is to not make the discussions we are
having on reform about cutting offices or people. It is more
about how are we serving the customer. Are we serving them in
the right way? Are we in the right locations? Are we meeting
the needs out there?
Most of our discussions have been about how can we make
sure that the customers are served in a better way, and I
include employees in that equation. The Secretary has talked
about, unfortunately, you can go into some county offices, and
FSA will be on one side of the building, or maybe in a
different building than our Natural Resources Conservation
Service (NRCS) folks, and our FSA folks, they do not talk as
well as they could. Their systems do not communicate as well as
they should. So the burden we are placing on the farmers, it is
not just about how far they are driving, but it is also once
they get in the office, we are making them go to multiple
places to fill out multiple applications for similar programs.
So the discussions we have had have been around how do we serve
them better, not necessarily how we are going to reduce our
workforce. So that is one of our focuses.
Senator Heitkamp. But it is hard for me to imagine those
kinds of efficiencies would result in a 21-percent reduction in
budget. And, I do not think that is going to happen. I think
Congress is not going to authorize a 21-percent--I would like
to see advocacy at USDA talking about the money that was saved
in the last farm bill and that we already gave in
sequestration. We have been one of the leaders in agriculture
in meeting budget reductions, and so we are--I fail to see how
we are going to get to 21 percent and still do what I know
needs to be done.
And I will tell you this: You take people out of NRCS in my
State; it just is going to delay and frustrate farmers who want
to tile, who want to do the kind of work that they need to get
permission from NRCS for. And so one thing that we learned
during the Bakken challenges and with this huge increase, when
we really saw a lot of Federal employees leaving and the
inability to recruit a new workforce, the business of North
Dakota fails--or does not fail, but it definitely suffers,
whether it is getting a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) permit
or whether it is getting information from USDA. And so we need
to tell that story more often, and you need to tell that story
more often.
Thank you, Mr. Bice. I will turn it over.
Senator Lankford. That is all right. And just a quick
follow-up on that as well. FSA, I think we talked about it
before. It is a consistent frustration just on process. I am
sure it is one of the areas you are looking at, and I will not
ask for the conclusion at this point, but it is one of the
things I have mentioned to Secretary Perdue, and that is, if
you have a disaster in an urban area, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) comes out and responds to that
typically within 30 days. If you have a disaster in a rural
area, FSA, it may take a year, year and a half before there is
disaster relief. And if it is a true disaster, 18 months later,
disaster relief is not really disaster relief. That is a check
after the fact.
So FEMA has been able to work out the process in the urban
areas, but FSA is still working out how to do that response in
the rural areas. And it is one of the many areas, as you
mentioned before, trying to be able to work the coordination,
the paperwork, and how to be able to do the timing on that.
Let me just go through several things here, and then I am
going to go to Senator Harris in just a moment.
Ms. Herbst, you made the comment ``lots of ideas from the
public.'' In fact, Mr. Lofthus, you also, I think, made the
specific comment about public comments as well. Can you give us
an idea? The OMB hoped to be able to put this out and say if
you have comments, put them here. The question we have on the
dais is: Are those comments really coming in? How many comments
are you getting from the public of what can be done better to
be able to serve?
Ms. Herbst. Thank you. Indeed, the web portal worked. I
will talk to Commerce. I can give you a sense overall that
110,000 comments were sent out to the Bureaus or to the
Agencies. That does not mean they were unique because many of
the comments had multiple Agencies in them, and OMB, if it was
a multiple-agency comment, they sent it to every Agency that
was included in the comment. For Commerce, we have gotten over
5,000, again, including ones that had multiple Agencies in it.
Because we are sometimes known as the ``data agency,'' we
are able to apply data analytical tools at our disposal, and
what we are doing is de-duplicating comments that are, repeated
and getting down to a manageable number that is then being
evaluated in my office first for whether it is a specific
bureau that needs to look at it and respond or whether it is a
more general department-wide comment.
So it has worked. OMB has made the comments available, and
they expect us to follow up on all of them. They have made that
expectation clear.
Senator Lankford. Agree or disagree with anyone else on
that as far as the comments coming in from the public have been
helpful, had enough? Mr. Lofthus.
Mr. Lofthus. We have gotten over 6,700 comments from the
public, and as my colleague from Commerce described, we are
going through them. And there are a lot of duplicates, frankly,
but we are going through them, and we are going to pick out the
ones that we see have applicability for Justice, and it is
going to go into our large inventory that we start to evaluate
after----
Senator Lankford. Do you have a system to be able to go
through and evaluate those ideas? While every idea when you are
brainstorming is a good idea, not every idea actually works. I
get that. So what is your system that you have created to be
able to go through these 6,700 ideas and say this is a great
idea, we need to implement this?
Mr. Lofthus. That is an excellent question and also ties to
something that Senator Heitkamp mentioned a moment ago. If I
can just talk to you about how we intend to evaluate all these
ideas, not only the 6,700 from the public, the several hundred
from our employees, and all the ideas we are going to get from
the Department of Justice organizations, we have a few guiding
principles.
First, does it have a benefit to DOJ program priorities, or
is it connected to our mission? That is very important to us.
It needs to be connected to what we do about violent crime,
national security, enforcing Federal laws. Does it solve a
problem? That is one of the standards. We want to look at does
this idea solve a problem for us. Does it improve service to
the public? Does it make DOJ more effective? Does it save
money?
All of those things we are going to use to evaluate the
ideas we get, and particularly the employee ideas we are
getting. I have only been able to scan a few because officially
we are not inventorying these things until Monday to start to
go through them. But I have been very impressed with the
quality of the ideas we are getting from across the Justice
Department. I think it was a great approach to go out and get
ideas from our employees.
Senator Lankford. OK. Other comments from the public or
from your employees, how is it working?
Mr. Bice. In terms of the public comments, when we
announced the reorganization on May 11, we published a notice
in the Federal Register, and about a quarter of those comments
coming in were about rural development and expressed some
concern about rural development. But the majority of the
comments were very supportive of the attempts to improve
service and to look at where the lifeblood of American
agriculture would be, which is selling our goods overseas as
well as domestically.
So, generally, it has been a very positive feedback that we
have gotten. The Secretary has also had multiple hearings and
has heard from members both in writing and also verbally about
some of the concerns. So we are going to take all that in as we
move forward, and, again, our focus is about what is best for
our customers, not necessarily in terms of reducing offices or
reducing our employees. It is about trying to make sure we are
serving our customers better.
Senator Lankford. I am pleased to be able to hear that. By
the way, if there is any comment I hear from our farmers in
Oklahoma more than weather, it is the markets in Asia and
trying to determine what happens in international trade. So if
you are going to rural America right now, you better be brushed
up on international trade policy, because they are extremely
aware of that. So I am pleased to be able to hear some of those
comments as well as coming directly to you.
Mr. Stough, do you want to mention anything on that?
Mr. Stough. Yes, sir, just very quickly. We solicited
comments from the front-line operators and the folks in DHS,
and we got approximately 2,400 comments from that through--we
put a website, a portal up for them to come in, plus they also
used email, and from that we started evaluating--this was a
while back. We have a team that is doing this on a daily basis,
and we were able to distill out of that about 45 different
issues for consideration, the ones that we think they are the
big candidates to tackle as far as, how do we align
investigations, some of the things like that that we need to
look at.
And then on top of that, we got about 50,000 comments from
the public. Now, many of those, again, were comments that went
to everybody, but we got a tremendous amount for us. And what
we wanted to do was we had the 40--we figured out roughly the
issues that we know we think we probably need to go after, and
so what we wanted to do was see how do these comments align. We
have a rigorous evaluation process that looks at feasibility,
looks at some other things. But then what we wanted to do is we
tried to take a look at each one of the individual public
comments coming in and see if they fit within one of those or
if there is an outlier someplace we probably need to explore
differently. But I think going through that right now we feel
very good about what we are seeing. We have had a lot of
thoughtful comments from both the public and from the folks at
DHS.
Senator Lankford. Great. Senator Harris.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARRIS
Senator Harris. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Stough, during his nomination hearing on January 10,
Secretary Kelly committed to doing a top-to-bottom assessment
of DHS. When he appeared before the Committee again on April 5,
however, he testified that it has not yet been done.
Is your office helping Secretary Kelly to perform this
assessment? And if so, when do you expect it to be complete?
Mr. Stough. Thank you for your question. I am not sure if
this actually falls into the top-to-bottom assessment, although
that is exactly what we are doing as we go through this
process. When we started the process, we met with the Deputy
Secretary who gave us--she has a kickoff meeting for each of
the Executive Orders that have been rolled out or have been
signed in order both to help the folks that are going to be
implementing it or going through it to understand each other
and what each other's role is, but also to set expectations.
And she told us for this, as I think I said in my written
statement, that she wanted a top-down and a bottom-up approach.
And so we have the opportunity through this to solicit,
from the employees that are out there that are doing the
mission every day, what are the things they think we should be
looking at, and then we also have what leadership came in and
said from our perspective here is what we are seeing as well.
So this really is the work that is going to be going on
from the time that we come up with the issues that we think we
need to be going after is really going to constitute a
significant amount of what you would call, the top-to-bottom
assessment.
I would argue that probably like anything else, there is a
pretty good distribution of this, so we will pick the most
critical items first that will provide the most value, and then
I think we see what is left over and where we need to go next.
Senator Harris. Approximately how many employees of the
Department would receive their questionnaires, I am assuming?
Mr. Stough. It was made available to everybody. The Deputy
Secretary put out a message that said, ``We welcome your
input.'' We had a website portal that they could go to, and it
was just a form that asked what the idea is and a couple of
other things. They had room to make their comments. But we also
offered--because you never know as far as having access to the
website, we also offered email as well, so we got them both.
Again, we got about 2,400. Everybody knew about it, or at
least they should have. It was put out to everybody. And we got
about 2,400 comments, and many positive from the folks in the
field saying, ``Thank you for doing this. It is great to be
able to have a voice in this process.''
Senator Harris. Are you prompting them in any way with any
questions so you can elicit certain information from them? Or
are you just leaving it open for them to offer information as
they----
Mr. Stough. I am sorry, but at my age, I cannot remember
what I had for breakfast, but I do not remember exactly the
number. But, yes, in fact, we did have a way to structure it in
there so that, why is this important and how will it affect
certain prompts.
Senator Harris. Great. And U.S. Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) is making plans to loosen the current
polygraph standard for new agents. Congress required the
polygraph for new hires following widespread cases of
corruption within CBP. What risk assessment has been done
within DHS to ensure changes do not undermine workforce
integrity? And will you commit to providing an assessment to
us?
Mr. Stough. I am sorry, that is within CBP itself, so I am
not sure. But I certainly will be happy to go back and ask that
question and get back to you and provide a response.
Senator Harris. And we have had testimony in our Committee
that the Department has, for an agency of its size, a
particularly high amount of--I do not know if you would say
``dissatisfaction,'' but ``dysfunction'' is a word that has
been used to describe it. What do you believe are some of the
steps that we can take and that you can take to improve that
condition and that status within the Department?
Mr. Stough. Well, we really think this is the first step. I
mean, that is why we are excited about this effort, because we
are getting--and, obviously, we are having to assess and
distill and roll through it now. But we got plenty of frank
comments from folks out in the field that said, here are areas
that we think you need to take a look at, and everything--and,
of course, that covered the range of structure and process and
policy. And so it has given us a pretty good vector on the
areas we need to go after to improve operations.
Senator Harris. The President has directed DHS to hire an
additional 10,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) agents and 5,000 Border Patrol agents. What workforce
planning and modeling was used to support that recommendation?
And can you provide that to the Committee?
Mr. Stough. Again, I will have to go back and ask because I
was not in that space, but I will take that for action. We will
go back and provide a response.
Senator Harris. OK. I appreciate that.
And then you will at some point--and then if you can tell
me when--give us an idea of what kinds of responses you are
getting from the field, from the troops, as they are, in the
Department.
Mr. Stough. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Harris. I would be very interested in hearing
those.
Mr. Stough. The first step, of course, is we will provide
our response to OMB at the end of June. And then we will
develop the follow-on, the Agency Reform Plan, and we will have
the component Reform Plans rolled into that. And then at some
point we should be able to point to here is where the ideas
came from, here is how they were originated.
Senator Harris. And will that feedback be available to the
public?
Mr. Stough. I will have to ask. I am not sure.
Senator Harris. OK. My request would be that it would be
available to the public.
Thank you. Nothing else.
Senator Lankford. Can I ask just a clarification on that?
Obviously, I go back to not every idea is a good idea. Some
ideas are just ideas on it. The transparency I am always a big
advocate for on it. But are there names or anything else that
are attached to this information? Because I want people to be
able to put in ideas and not necessarily----
Senator Harris. I agree.
Senator Lankford [continuing]. Be exposed on that.
Senator Harris. I agree.
Mr. Stough. There are no names attached.
Senator Lankford. OK, great. Well, I would say this as
well, and I was just talking to Senator Heitkamp about this.
Some of my most beneficial times in agencies are when I have
had a polite meeting with leadership of the agency and then
taken an hour to go cubicle to cubicle to be able to visit with
the folks that are working in the task, because I get very
practical ideas.
I asked earlier about ideas from the public. You all are
also all getting ideas from the team members, the folks that
are career, that have been there a very long time. When I talk
to career folks, I have had comments, for instance, people say
to me--when I would say to them, ``Well, tell me what you do,''
and they have smiled at me and said, ``I do something that
should not be done.'' It always has caught me off guard. And
they have said, ``Do not get me wrong. I love my job, but we
should not do this at all.''
How are we getting that feedback? And Senator Heitkamp was
trying to run some numbers here on it as far as the percentage
of employees that have responded back to you. What were some of
the----
Senator Heitkamp. Mr. Chairman, you have 60,000 employees
at U.S. Customs and Border Protection--correct?--and about
60,000 at TSA. But yet we are below, way below just even a
couple percent in terms of responses. And so, the numbers look
large, but they are not large in comparison.
Senator Lankford. Percentage.
Senator Heitkamp. As a percentage of the overall workforce.
And we all have an opportunity, because we fly a lot, to see
the dissatisfaction from TSA in particular. I frequently ask
them, ``How is it going?'' And they just roll their eyes. And,
I understand that it is a difficult job, and frequently you are
dealing with a very crabby traveling public. But there does not
seem to be a sense of cohesion when I go through those--and I
make it a point, as does Senator Carper, who for years, will
shake the hand of every person. I am usually too much in a
hurry to do that. But we have a chance to meet a lot of your
employees in Border Protection, and I think if you ask them, I
do not think they feel they get listened to.
And so one of the concerns that I have is this may seem
like a big number, but I think some of them have just thrown up
their hands and said, ``It will never change anyway.'' And how
do we combat that? ``Here we go again, another attempt to try
and make us happy. Nothing ever changes, so we are not going to
participate.''
Senator Lankford. So let me add one thing, because I want
to broaden this out to everybody, then have you go first on
this, Mr. Stough. What is being done proactively to make sure
we are getting input from as many people as possible and that
they know they are being heard? Back to the comment before,
bottom-up, because those folks know what is going on and know
what can be more efficient and what is working and what is not
working. Mr. Stough.
Mr. Stough. So what I do not know and, obviously, what we
cannot--because there are not names attached to it--is out of
the 50,000 public comments, how many of those came in from our
employees? We do not know. We gave them an opportunity
separately to have the portal, but we do not know if the others
came from there. But you are right. We would obviously love to
have as many ideas from the public as possible.
The Deputy Secretary has embarked on a listening tour, and
that listening tour is not just--it is, of course, to the
administrative offices and buildings, but it is also out to the
front lines. She is trying to get to as many different
locations as possible, and she is committed to soliciting ideas
there and bringing those back.
And it is interesting. We did have comments that came back
and said sort of the same thing: ``I love my job. I am just not
sure this is the right job we should be doing.'' It does not
mean that we want to eliminate that position. It means we need
to make sure that we are actually using our resources to make
sure that we are conducting the mission as effectively as
possible. So I certainly acknowledge that point.
Senator Lankford. Great. Mr. Bice.
Mr. Bice. So I would answer that partly by saying that when
we did our May 11th reorganization, the Secretary I think was
very effective in sending out an email video message to every
employee asking them to either make comments through the
Federal Register process or make comments through the OMB
website. And I think we have gotten that kind of response from
our people that they are paying attention and that they are
passionate about it.
The Secretary told a story that when he made his
announcement in Cincinnati on May 11, there was a rural
development employee who drove--who had no connection to the
announcement, but drove from her duty station all the way out
to see him and afterwards thanked him for making rural
development a priority.
So that is the kind of engagement our employees have, and I
think that we are trying to encourage that through every medium
that we can.
You had mentioned that there is a draft bill that you
dropped in terms of trying to get public comment. We actually
struggled with that when we were looking at our May 11th
announcement. Do we need to get a paperwork burden collection
package ready to just ask the public are we doing what we
should be doing the right way? And there was not a very clear
answer to that. So we ended up going through what potentially
is not the best way to reach the public or our employees, the
Federal Register process and sort of the website process.
So, I mean, that is one of the things that concerned me as
a lifer at the Department of Agriculture when we looked at how
can we reach out to our customers, and the answer was we need
to go through this paperwork process.
Senator Lankford. Yes, and that is something Senator
McCaskill and I are working on, trying to get fixed. Of the 4
million Oklahomans that I represent, I think 8 of them read the
Federal Register. So that is not going to be the most efficient
way to be able to get the input of Oklahomans. That may be
different in North Dakota. I assume everyone wakes up and reads
it there. But in Oklahoma, not as much. Mr. Lofthus.
Mr. Lofthus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do want to reach
as many people as possible, as many of our employees as
possible. I mentioned that I had sent an email communication
directly to all 115,000-plus Department of Justice employees
asking for their ideas to be sent directly to us. They do not
have to go through any of their management. They can send them
directly to us. I think that is where some of the best ideas
come from, frankly.
We are using our 40 distinct components in the Department
of Justice. When I say ``components,'' think of bureaus and
other offices, huge ones like the FBI and the Bureau of
Prisons, smaller ones, some offices that may have, frankly, 20
people in them, and everything in between. But each of those 40
components of the Department of Justice is also working with
the management and staff in those components to get ideas at
every level. We have been pretty--what is the word? We have
emphasized very distinctly at the Department that the ideas can
come from management, they can come from leadership, they can
come from every employee in a component. We are not trying to
only engage a segment of the workforce. We want everybody
involved.
One of the things I have thought of sitting here at the
table this morning is to go back out to our 115,000 employees
and thank them for the ideas we have already received, because
I owe them a thank you for the great ideas we are seeing. I
welcome more ideas. We are getting ideas through other means as
well. We have had an Attorney General SAVE Council for some
number of years, and we get ideas through a SAVE Council
suggestion box. So we are taking ideas from any source we can
get, and I think that is the way to do it.
Senator Lankford. OK. Ms. Herbst.
Ms. Herbst. So a couple of things.
First, on the approach to our employees, back to we have
this Department Management Council, and we have had experience
over the last several years with asking employees at a
Department level, sending something out broadly, versus having
the operating units themselves send things out. And we have
found, at least in our experience, we get a richer dialogue
going if the request comes from closer to the employees.
Senator Heitkamp. Yes.
Ms. Herbst. So that is why we agreed as a group that we
would solicit employee input through the actual operating
units, number one.
However, we did do something at a Department level that I
want to mention. We have our Department-level Labor-Management
Forum. This is a group of both managers and representatives,
senior representatives from the major collective bargaining
unions that are represented in our Department. And we have
quarterly meetings. This has been, I think, a very successful
effort in that we have worked together on policy ideas and
actually rolled out certain policies together, like telework,
like phased retirement.
So when this came up, we immediately said this is an area
where the Labor-Management Forum can, again, work together. We
briefed them on the guidance, on what we plan to do, and we
have agreed collectively that we will work together throughout
the summer on the ideas that come in and get input and so
forth.
I think the other area that we have not talked about yet is
IG recommendations, GAO recommendations. We track
implementations on a quarterly basis at the Department level
and work with the operating units on that. So we have asked the
bureaus to go back specifically and look at any unimplemented
recommendations to determine whether there are things there
that we need to put forward as part of this.
Senator Lankford. Great. Just a reminder, for those of us
on the dais as well, I am going to close the hearing right at
11. We have votes at 11 o'clock, so we have about 20 minutes of
conversation. We are in the second round of questioning, so any
Member can jump in at any point. Any of you on the panel can
also jump in at any point. But let me just drop one more thing
out there.
Is everyone going through GAO and IG reports as a part of
this review? Two of you have mentioned that. Are all four of
you doing that? Everyone is nodding heads. I am taking that as
a yes.
Mr. Bice. Yes.
Senator Lankford. OK. That is great.
Mr. Stough. And we actually had GAO come in and talk to us
and give us, some ideas about how we could actually approach
this. We have been closely involved with them.
Senator Lankford. Terrific.
Senator Heitkamp. I want to get back to what Ms. Herbst
said, which I think is absolutely critical and it is right. The
closer a reform or a supervisor is to the employee, where they
can see a direct response and, ``Wow, that worked, they
actually listened, we changed, this got better,'' that is gold
in personnel management. You can have all of--I mean, I think
we have a workforce sometimes that gets incredibly cynical
about top-down kind of initiatives. We are now in the second or
third phase of this. I can go through every kind of management,
kind of trend that there has been, from total quality
management--I mean, we can all talk about those, right? We have
all been through them. But if people do not see systemic or
lasting change, they get cynical and they do not engage. They
put their head down and go home saying, ``I love my job. I love
the people I work with. I believe in the mission of USDA. I
believe in the mission of Commerce. But, every day I go to
work, and I do things that do not add value to that mission.''
We have to have openness and less resistance at that mid-
level-manager level. And one of the things that we have been
doing here in a bill that I introduced, which is on supervisory
training, because a lot of times we take that guy who is the
best lawyer, take someone who is the best field agent,
biologist, and we make them a manager, and they know nothing
about management of people.
So how do you see, when you are looking at your systemic
changes, how do you see supervisory training in all of that as
a way to perpetuate and to continue the ongoing dialogue? And
that is for anyone.
Mr. Bice. Well, we have had plenty of conversations with
our Human Capital Officer about how do we target it. That is
the other issue there. I cannot agree more. I usually use the
IG example. The best auditor ends up being the manager of the
office, maybe not the best manager but the best auditor. But,
we tend to just require things of our employees. OK, we are
going to require 80 hours of training, go take it. Well, the
issue is we need to find out who needs the 80 hours of training
so that we target it to the actors that need it, whether they
need support or they need to understand what their role is,
they need, reform in their own----
Senator Heitkamp. Do you have a mentoring program where you
see really good managers who then can mentor new managers?
Mr. Bice. Yes, we have set those up. We have those kind of
upward mobility kind of programs where we have people who can
informally mentor. We have a website that employees register
themselves, and then we could have mentors register themselves,
and you can match--sort of ``The Dating Game'' approach, I
guess. So we do have that. We need to do a better job at that.
Sometimes we are the victims of our own success, though,
because at USDA we tend to get that new farm bill every 5 years
and focus on delivering that farm bill, and by the time we are
done delivering that football, we are getting ready to deliver
the next farm bill. And you do not have that flexibility to
sort of look and say, well, how are we operating? We are
constantly building the pontoon bridge over the water, not the
permanent bridge. So, what we really need to do is sometimes
take a step back and make sure that we are building the right
bridges to our employees.
Senator Lankford. Can I just mention it is overly
optimistic to say the new farm bill comes every 5 years?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Bice. I will say 5 to 6.
Senator Lankford. Yes, or 7.
Mr. Lofthus. I can chime in and just say that the OMB
Memorandum 17-22 did require agencies to develop additional
performance management training and supervisory training. At
Justice, we have issued our initial guidance to fulfill the
requirements of 17-22, because we do want to have our
supervisors able and skilled to better manage their offices. It
is better for the Department; it is better for the employees.
But to go back again to one of the things the Senator
mentioned at the outset of the hearing, there is an aging
workforce in many of the Agencies. One of the things that we
are really interested in at Justice is developing the next
generation of leaders at the Department of Justice. We have a
program called Leadership Excellence and Achievement Program
(LEAP)--where we take more junior managers earlier in their
career and put them into a very rigorous program where they can
get access--``exposure'' is a better word--to the senior
leadership of the Department. We put them in different jobs
outside of their regular offices, and they have different
assignments across the Department in a year, in a very rigorous
year of management training. It is one of the most popular
things we have ever done. So we are getting good results with
things like that.
Senator Lankford. Can I just ask a general question of all
four of you, again, just quickly? All four of you, you are
working through employee performance management training. Is
that a part of the review? Yes?
Mr. Bice. Yes.
Senator Lankford. For all of four of you? OK. So let me ask
this as well. Is a part of your review looking at regional
placements? So, for instance, that task is either in D.C. or it
is in a region. Is there a better place to put it? Should it be
closer to real people outside of D.C., or should that be in a
central office in D.C.? Are you evaluating where the task has
occurred as a part of it? Are all four of you doing that?
Mr. Lofthus. Yes.
Mr. Bice. Yes.
Mr. Stough. I will hesitantly say yes. It depends upon what
the tasks are that we are looking at. I mean, some are driven
by, again, border security, reinforcement, some of the other
things. But, yes, it will certainly be part of the----
Senator Lankford. Yes, I am just talking about--I am just
trying to look at--because there are some things that are done
here that do not necessarily need to be done in D.C.
Mr. Stough. Yes, sir.
Senator Lankford. One of the most expensive places to
office in the country.
Senator Heitkamp. Right.
Senator Lankford. Some of those same tasks could be done in
another place where the task exists, but it could be done more
efficiently outside of D.C. than here. I think that is what I
am asking.
Mr. Lofthus. Yes.
Ms. Herbst. Yes.
Mr. Bice. Yes. In fact, USDA has been--one of our agencies,
the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, they have
actually moved their HR functions to Minnesota, and several of
our food safety have their HR functions in Minnesota, and some
other folks. So they have recognized that, and we have been
working toward doing some of that with some of our
administrative functions as well.
Senator Lankford. OK. The same thing of all four of you as
well. Do you anticipate that your organization will also hand
to Congress in whatever form that is, whether it goes to OMB
and OMB is sending it, but requests for statutory changes, if
we are going to do restructuring, here is a barrier to us that
we have bumped up again? In other words, we should do this, but
we cannot do this based on statutory limitations, but we
recommend this be reevaluated. Are all four of you making
recommendations to OMB that OMB is bringing to us on that?
Mr. Stough. Yes.
Mr. Bice. I think that is part of the plan, yes.
Senator Lankford. OK. All four, yes?
Mr. Stough. Yes.
Mr. Lofthus. Yes.
Senator Lankford. Ms. Herbst.
Ms. Herbst. Yes.
Senator Lankford. OK.
Senator Heitkamp. One of the things that we want to make
sure is loud and clear, because I think when you go through
this kind of review process, immediately people go into defense
mode, that this is--behind the curtain is an implicit criticism
of the work that is being done. I think it is really important
that the message of this is: How can we be better managers of
the message? How can we encourage employee input and then
respond to that input in a meaningful way?
So I want to make sure that when we are analyzing or when
we are talking about a hearing like this, that this hearing is
to try and offer opportunities for mainline Federal employees
to have their voice amplified in terms of efficiencies. It is
not intended in any way to be a criticism of the people who
work for the Federal Government. I want to ask you, in your
dialogue, in your discussion coming back, is it possible to
make that point over and over again in the work that you are
doing?
Ms. Herbst. I will start, and I will say yes, and I am
going to sound like a cheerleader for OMB, which these guys who
know me know I am not usually. But they have been incredibly
supportive in this effort, and I think the message at least
that we have received over and over again is it is on us,
because we know our missions, to propose things that are
mission-specific and support the mission.
There has been no across-the-board edict or anything like
that, and, in addition, OMB and OPM have met with us multiple
times to help answer questions on the guidance, to ask if they
can do anything to help.
So I think that spirit you are talking about is also
flowing from OMB to the agencies.
Senator Heitkamp. That is good to know.
Senator Lankford. Can I ask about duplications? One of the
things that I noticed in this recommendation, there was a
request to look at duplication within the agencies. I have not
seen a lot of duplication within some agencies. It is agency to
agency. Excuse me. I get very emotional about duplication.
[Laughter.]
Excuse me. So my question is: How do you do that? Are you
empowered to say we are doing something somebody else is?
Ms. Herbst. So I will start, but I think other folks will
chime in. Yes, and we started with the GAO annual duplication
report, and there are programs in Commerce that have been
mentioned through the years that are part of a larger cross-
government--and, yes, we are being encouraged to point that
out, and then the expectation is throughout the summer, OMB
will help facilitate those conversations between agencies where
that has been identified.
Senator Lankford. So OMB is the one that is doing that. You
are not responsible for identifying duplication by somebody
else?
Ms. Herbst. Oh, no. We are.
Senator Lankford. You are?
Ms. Herbst. But then they are going to help facilitate the
cross-agency conversations.
Senator Lankford. So you have the responsibility to say,
``We are doing something somebody else is doing,'' then
throwing it to OMB and saying, ``We have to figure this out''?
Ms. Herbst. Yes, and I would characterize it at least for
us a little differently. We are looking at where there are
multiple programs across the government that are aimed at an
outcome where we are each doing a piece of it.
Senator Lankford. OK.
Ms. Herbst. And whether we can do better if we are better
coordinated, better managed.
Senator Lankford. OK. So it is more coordination than it is
duplication at that point.
Ms. Herbst. I think for us that is what we are looking at.
Senator Lankford. OK. All right.
Mr. Lofthus. We are looking at duplication inside Justice
for certain. There is no question that I think we have ways of
doing business that no one would do business that way if they
started the place new today. It is simple things. We have many
email systems, and why does an outfit need to run its own email
today when a larger entity can provide the same service with
greater reliability at lower cost? Those things to us are some
easy victories we can get out of this. I say ``easy.'' There
will be victories; they are not always easy to accomplish.
Senator Lankford. Yes, ask DHS how easy it is to combine
all your HR functions.
Mr. Lofthus. Right. HR, very difficult to do. Even
procurement and finance, all those things are harder than meets
the eye. But when you have things like people running their own
IT shops, when they are a very small organization, I would much
rather that they procure those services, buy those services
from an outfit that is really an expert at this.
Senator Lankford. So let me throw a couple of things at you
with that, not only IT but HR issues, Congressional liaisons,
whether each is needed in each place, whether they are needed
regionally as well as here, shared services, and finding a way
to be able to do that. All of those things I assume are on the
table. And nodding heads here, I am seeing everybody, that it
is on the table.
Mr. Lofthus. Yes.
Senator Lankford. Even when you deal with--and this gets
to--you want to talk complicated on it. You can begin to ask
the question of Justice. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms (ATF) and the FBI and the DEA have to work very hard
to make sure they stay in very tight lanes because they are so
close together in so many areas. ATF has a spot that looks a
lot like FBI responsibility or it looks a lot like DEA
responsibility, and the question is always set out there as
well. If you want to continue to dig and to be able to look,
you are going to have to raise the issues at some point and
say, ``Hey, do we really need both of these organizations when
they are so close in responsibility?'' It is a thing DHS has
had to struggle with, as so many legacy entities were put back
into them as well.
Something as dramatic as that, is that even allowed to be
discussed in this process? Or is it really just, OK, that is
the elephant in the room, we want to talk about process and
email serves and such?
Mr. Lofthus. We did not approach this with a sacred cow
concept, meaning everything is on the table. Somebody can put a
small idea on the table, a medium idea, or a grand idea. They
are all welcome, and they are all on the table.
Senator Lankford. Yes, some of those things may take 10
years to unwind. Some of them may take 10 weeks. But everything
is allowed?
Mr. Lofthus. Any idea can come in. I think that is why at
the end of this process, the big sweeping ideas probably for
all of us, I think it is safe to say, are going to have to go
through OMB and be presented by the Administration to Congress,
because it is going to take some action here.
Senator Lankford. And that is why I ask the question
specifically. We assume it is coming at us, some set of ideas,
but we want to tell you we expect those things.
Senator Heitkamp. Right.
Senator Lankford. We are not trying to keep the barrier to
say you do your stuff, we will do ours. We know we have to
cooperate together on some of this.
Senator Heitkamp. Well, and to add to that, understand that
this is not a one-off. This is not one thing. We are going to
come back to you and say, ``Where are we at with this
process?'' And as long as Senator Lankford and I are Chairman
and Ranking Member of this Committee, we are going to do
oversight on the plans that you present. And we are going to--
this is not, check a box for us. To us, this is absolutely
critical in meeting a 21st Century Federal workforce and
Federal Agencies fulfilling their missions.
And so this is just our introductory, what are you doing
right now? You will see us over and over and over again.
Senator Lankford. Yes, and we will bring up some practical
issues. I have talked about some of the things like ATF, FBI,
DEA, and the overlap, and them having to work to develop lanes
because they are so close, then you ask the question of why on
that. It is the same thing every time I talk to a Secret
Service agent. If I talk to an agent, they still feel like an
appendage in the DHS machine, that there is DHS and then over
here is Secret Service, and they are trying to figure out where
they fit. And whether it is Homeland Security Investigations
(HSI) versus Secret Service and all their roles and who has
equipment and how this works, how they are integrated in the
whole in retirement, in systems, in overtime. All those things
I know DHS is still working. They are trying to figure out
where do they fit in the organization. We have brought up
before issues with Commerce and with Census, in particular, and
it is just one of those questions that I have had to ask
multiple times. On that year that the Census is done, I do my
taxes, and then a few days later, I do my Census. Why I cannot
do that at the same time? Why I cannot, when I electronically
file my taxes, also electronically file my Census and getting
all that stuff in and allowing those two entities to be able to
cooperate together? That sure seems like we would click off
about 200 million Americans that would do their Census that
day, and then we can fill in the gaps on it. But for some
reason, I raise that issue, and it is always like that is an
interesting concept, do not know if that will work, and it goes
away.
These are all issues that I would assume others are raising
as well. They were trying to figure out where does this go from
here. And I know you are not running all the Census stuff on
it, but that is just a practical issue to be able to say why
and where. And if there is a statement, well, we have to all do
it on the same day and be able to track the same thing, is
there something we need to be able to fix? Because just that
simple idea when I turn in my taxes, I also do my Census at the
same time, it is just adding additional questions to the form
that day, it seems like around a $4 billion idea to be able to
save a lot of money back and forth with that. But somebody can
tell me where we are wrong on it.
Any additional comments?
Senator Heitkamp. No. If we are winding down, I just want
to make sure that the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU)
statement that we have provided is entered into the record.\1\
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\1\ The prepared statement of the National Treasury Employees Union
appears in the Appendix on page 54.
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Senator Lankford. Without objection.
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you.
Senator Lankford. One quick question just on Census, and
that is just on the organization. Is Census being evaluated in
the total of Commerce as far as in the organization how it
fits? I assume you are also getting input from all of those
folk straightforward, but it is one of those things that
everyone cares a lot about every 10 years. But I know it is
ongoing all the time. So is that a major part of the
consideration for Commerce?
Ms. Herbst. Yes. Every operating unit we are treating
equally, and thank you for pointing out that Census does other
things besides the decennial, and we have done a lot of work
already on economic Census and surveys and the Bureau of
Economic Analysis (BEA) and Census working more closely
together, the idea of sharing administrative records that I
know you have heard a lot about as well. But, yes, they are
very much a part of this effort.
Senator Lankford. That is great.
Any other final comments from anyone? I want to make sure
we are getting your input in here as well.
[No response.]
Any closing comments from you?
Senator Heitkamp. No.
Senator Lankford. OK. With that, we will then conclude
today's hearing. I do want to thank all of you for coming, not
only for your preparation, for the work that you are doing all
of the time. We get to talk about it publicly, but you are
privately working on these issues all of the time. We very much
appreciate the work on that.
The hearing record will remain open for 15 days until the
close of business on June 30, which is also a special day to
all of you as well, for the resubmission of any statements, any
questions for the record and such.
With that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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