[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                       OVERSIGHT OF OUR NATION'S
                           LARGEST EMPLOYER:
                       REVIEWING THE U.S. OFFICE
                        OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             MARCH 9, 2023

                               __________

                            Serial No. 118-8

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
  
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]  


                       Available on: govinfo.gov,
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                                __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
51-475                       WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------     
                            
               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking 
Mike Turner, Ohio                        Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Ro Khanna, California
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Katie Porter, California
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Cori Bush, Missouri
Byron Donalds, Florida               Shontel Brown, Ohio
Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota        Jimmy Gomez, California
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
William Timmons, South Carolina      Robert Garcia, California
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Maxwell Frost, Florida
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Becca Balint, Vermont
Lisa McClain, Michigan               Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Greg Casar, Texas
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Dan Goldman, New York
Chuck Edwards, North Carolina        Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nick Langworthy, New York
Eric Burlison, Missouri

                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
       Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
                        Ryan Giachetti, Counsel
                Kim Waskowsky, Professional Staff Member
                        Ryan Giachetti, Counsel
      Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                  Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051
                                 ------                                
                        
                        
                        C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              

                                                                   Page

Hearing held on March 8, 2023....................................     1

                               Witnesses

                              ----------                              

The Honorable Kiran Ahuja, Director, U.S. Office of Personnel 
  Management
Oral Statement...................................................     4

Written opening statements of the Members and the statement for 
  the witness are available on the U.S. House of Representatives 
  Document Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

  * Commerce OIG, Evaluation of NOAA's Sept. 6, 2019 Statement re 
    Hurricane Dorian Forecasts; submitted by Rep. Balint.

  * Memo, Jan. 13, 2021, Department of Health & Human Services 
    (HHS), re VPN; submitted by Rep. Boebert.

  * Article, Bloomberg, ``Washington Suffers as Federal Employees 
    Work from Home ''; submitted by Chairman Comer.

  * Statement for the Record, Senior Executives Association 
    (SEA); submitted by Chairman Comer.

  * Statement for the Record, American Federation of Government 
    Employees (AFGE); submitted by Rep. Connolly.

  * Statement for the Record, International Federation of 
    Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE); submitted by 
    Rep. Connolly.

  * Statement for the Record, Kate Lister, President of Global 
    Workplace Analytics; submitted by Rep. Connolly.

  * Statement for the Record, Mika J. Cross; submitted by Rep. 
    Connolly.

  * Visual Statement for the Record, Mika J. Cross; submitted by 
    Rep. Connolly.

  * Report, National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA); 
    submitted by Rep. Connolly.

  * Statement for the Record, National Active and Retired Federal 
    Employees Association (NARFE); submitted by Rep. Connolly.

  * Backlog Plan, National Archives and Records Administration 
    (NARA); submitted by Rep. Connolly.
                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

  * Statement for the Record, Partnership for Public Service; 
    submitted by Rep. Connolly.

  * Article, Federal Practitioner, The SHOW UP Act Threatens VA 
    Teleheath; submitted by Rep. Frost.

  * Statement for the Record, Military Spouses; submitted by Rep. 
    Frost.

  * Article, The Daily Signal, Conservatives Need Not Apply Under 
    Biden Administration's Proposed Hiring Rules; submitted by 
    Rep. Gosar.

  * Article, The Washington Post, ``Despite Prior Sexual 
    Harassment Probe, Executive Hired to Senior Federal Job''; 
    submitted by Rep. Luna.

  * Federal Personnel Vetting Engagement Guidelines, DNI/OPM; 
    submitted by Rep. Luna.

  * Letter, Sept. 12, 2022, National Active and Retired Federal 
    Employees Association (NARFE); submitted by Rep. Mfume.

  * Letter, Sept. 12, 2022, National Association of Assistant 
    United States Attorneys (NAAUSA); submitted by Rep. Mfume.

  * Letter to Rep. Connolly, Sept. 8, 2022, Partnership for 
    Public Service; submitted by Rep. Mfume.

  * Letter, Sept. 12, 2022, Senior Executives Association (SEA); 
    submitted by Rep. Mfume.

  * Letter to OPM Director, March 8, 2023; submitted by Rep. 
    Sessions.

  * Memo, March 7, 2023, OPM, re Remote/Telework; submitted by 
    Rep. Sessions.

  * Questions for the Record: to Ms. Ahuja; submitted by Chairman 
    Comer.

  * Questions for the Record: to Ms. Ahuja; submitted by Rep. 
    Gosar.

  * Questions for the Record: to Ms. Ahuja; submitted by Rep. 
    Raskin.

  * Questions for the Record: to Ms. Ahuja; submitted by Rep. 
    Connolly.

Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.

 
                       OVERSIGHT OF OUR NATION'S
                           LARGEST EMPLOYER:
                       REVIEWING THE U.S. OFFICE
                        OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, March 9, 2023

                       House of Representatives,

               Committee on Oversight and Accountability,

                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:38 a.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James Comer 
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Comer, Gosar, Foxx, Grothman, 
Palmer, Higgins, Sessions, Biggs, Mace, LaTurner, Fallon, 
Donalds, Perry, Timmons, Burchett, Greene, Boebert, Fry, Luna, 
Edwards, Langworthy, Burlison, Connolly, Norton, Lynch, 
Krishnamoorthi, Khanna, Mfume, Ocasio-Cortez, Porter, Brown, 
Gomez, Garcia, Frost, Balint, Lee, Casar, Crockett, Goldman, 
and Moskowitz.
    Chairman Comer. The Committee on Oversight and 
Accountability will come to order. I want to welcome everyone 
here this morning.
    Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any 
time.
    I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening 
statement.
    Today's hearing is an opportunity to conduct oversight of 
our Nation's largest employer, the Federal Government. The U.S. 
Office of Personnel Management oversees human resource and 
personnel management policies for a work force of over 2.1 
million employees across this country, many of whom are in or 
near the Washington, DC. area. Three years after the start of 
the COVID-19 pandemic, most of America has returned to in-
person work. However, while the Capitol and congressional 
office buildings have reopened to the public and are back to 
in-person work, the same cannot be said for a large portion of 
the Federal Government.
    The President himself said during his 2022 State of the 
Union address--yes, last year--``It is time for America to get 
back to work.'' People working from home can feel safe again 
and begin to return to their offices. That was what President 
Biden said. Clearly, the President has at least stated that 
this is a priority for the Administration, and it is a priority 
for this Committee as well. And yet reports have shown that 
only 1 in 3 Federal employees have returned to the workplace 
since the start of the pandemic. Returning to in-person work 
means returning to the core mission of each Federal agency, 
which is to serve the needs of the American people. 
Unfortunately, casework backlogs and slow response times have 
become routine complaints since the pandemic.
    In the private sector, negative feedback is damaging to a 
company's brand and often leads to sweeping reforms to ensure 
that issues like these do not persist. When customer service 
plummets in the Federal agencies, where can American people go 
for redress? That is why we are holding this hearing today. 
Accountability, whether it is in the form of dismissing poor 
performers or modernizing merit-based hiring systems, must be a 
core feature of this discussion as we work to improve the 
functionality of government. Without the public's trust in 
knowing that the Federal bureaucracy can and will be held 
accountable for the delivery of service, we will continue to 
see poor performers erode public confidence in the entire 
Federal work force at the expense of those Federal employees 
who are putting forth their best efforts to serve.
    Additionally, recent reports have highlighted how lack of 
oversight in programs, such as the Federal Employee Health 
Benefits Program, have led to ineligible payments of between $1 
billion and $3 billion annually. Could you imagine if this 
error were to occur in the private sector? It is important that 
we continue to ask tough questions and reflect on how we can do 
better because that is when we start to see real reform. In 
fact, last year, Congress passed the largest postal reform 
package in over 20 years with wide bipartisan support. I am 
proud of what we were able to accomplish with my friends on the 
other side of the aisle, and I look forward to discussing the 
implementation of that bill later today as well.
    We have a moral responsibility to be good stewards of 
Federal resources and to provide the best standard of service 
possible for the American people. We must work to ensure that 
the Federal work force can attract talented, service-minded 
Americans, who work diligently and efficiently to deliver 
results for the American people. I look forward to hearing from 
Director Ahuja today on how we can work together to improve the 
Federal Personnel Management System and hopefully create a work 
force that Americans are proud and excited to be a part of. 
Director, thank you so much for being here to testify today.
    I now yield to Ranking Member Connolly for his opening 
statement.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today's hearing is 
about the Federal Government's most important resource: 2.1 
million employees. The Federal work force's expertise and 
experience are the lifeblood of our government. Each day, the 
Office of Personnel Management led by today's witness, Director 
Kiran Ahuja, makes our government an efficient instrument of 
the public interest by performing critical services, setting 
governmentwide policies to protect the merit system, 
administering the largest employer-sponsored health insurance 
program in the world, serving 8 million Federal employees, 
retirees, and family members, processing retirement services 
for 2.5 million Federal retirees and survivors, training 
Federal leaders who hold our Nation's most important civil 
servants positions.
    This independent agency serves the people who serve the 
people. Federal civil servants live in every state. They work 
in every congressional district. In fact, 80 percent of the 
Federal work force works outside of the Washington Metropolitan 
Area. If you look behind me, you will see OPM has a heatmap of 
Federal employees showing a head count of where Federal 
employees work in each state as of September 30. And just a few 
examples that might be particularly pertinent to our Committee: 
24,572 work in your home state Mr. Comer, Kentucky, 84,142 work 
in Georgia, 107,143 work in Florida, 158,121 work in Texas. So, 
you can see the dispersal of Federal employees throughout our 
districts and throughout the country. They build rockets, 
inspect food supplies, provide medical care for veterans, they 
help small businesses thrive, they support our military, and as 
you can see in this photo, they help rebuild communities all 
over America in the aftermath of natural disasters.
    For too long OPM and the Federal work force it serves have 
been the target of baseless political attacks. Upon taking 
office for example, Mr. Trump attempted to abolish OPM 
entirely. As Chairman of the Government Operations Subcommittee 
at that time, I made sure that we built bipartisan opposition 
to that plan, including my friend, Mr. Meadows, who 
subsequently became the Chief of Staff to President Trump and 
helped us make sure we put a period on that bad idea. Once that 
plan failed, many continued to denigrate Federal employees, 
disparaging them as the deep-state, and fueling violent threats 
against Federal workers. They sought to eliminate collective 
bargaining rights, and attack our Federal union partners, and 
made a mockery of good-faith negotiations. These attacks left 
OPM scrambling to fill critical leadership positions after 
scores of experienced officials left the Agency. These reports 
are indeed profoundly troubling at a time when we need to 
restore the bonds of trust after efforts to shut down the 
government and demonize our own workers have failed. OPM must 
be the model employer of the Federal Government and never be 
hiring individuals with well-documented histories of workplace 
misconduct.
    I agree with my friend, the Chairman, and my Republican 
colleagues that these reports raise important questions that 
must be answered by OPM. My request for Ms. Ahuja is that to 
the extent you are unable to discuss personnel decisions in 
this public forum because of the Agency's ongoing internal 
probes, that we immediately set up a time to meet with Members 
of this Committee to find solutions, to appropriately address 
those two particular hires, and, more importantly, to establish 
procedures and protocols to ensure we can avoid that happening 
in the future.
    While I would hope that two problematic hires would not be 
used to smear the remarkable and indispensable work of 2.1 
million civil servants, I hope my colleagues will resist that 
temptation. At the start of this Congress, many sought to roll 
back Federal telework to pre-pandemic levels regardless of 
evidence and data showing that telework was in place for many 
years before the pandemic, and it has been, by and large, a 
significant success. Telework policies save the Federal 
Government money, approximately $1 billion, and reduced real 
estate costs from Federal building and space.
    So, I look forward to this hearing today. I look forward to 
examining how we can make the workplace safer so that Federal 
workers can return to work. And I, of course, introduced 
legislation to do just that, a bill named after a constituent 
of mine who worked at Quantico who died from COVID because 
there were no protocols in place. I also look forward to 
working, I hope, with the Chairman on my internship bill that I 
think will help streamline and further professionalize the 
opportunity for people to serve the Federal Government. I thank 
the Chair, and I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. I am pleased to 
introduce today's witness, Director Kiran Ahuja.
    Ms. Ahuja. Ahuja.
    Chairman Comer. Yes, who has testified before the Committee 
in the past. We are grateful that she joins us here today. 
Director Ahuja serves as the Director of the U.S. Office of 
Personnel Management and has served in this capacity since her 
confirmation in June 2021. She previously served as OPM Chief 
of Staff from 2015 to 2017 and has over two decades of 
experience in public service and executive nonprofit work. I 
look forward to our discussion this morning.
    Now, pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witness will 
please stand and raise her right hand.
    Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you 
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth, so help you God?
    Ms. Ahuja. I do.
    Chairman Comer. Let the record show that the witness 
answered in the affirmative.
    Again, we appreciate you being here today and look forward 
to your testimony. Let me remind the witness that we have read 
your written statement, and it will appear in full in the 
hearing record. Please limit your oral statement to five 
minutes. As a reminder, please press the button on the 
microphone in front of you so that it is on and the Members can 
hear you. When you begin to speak, the light in front of you 
will turn green. After four minutes, the light will turn 
yellow. You are a pro at this.
    I recognize the Director to begin her opening statement.

                   STATEMENT OF KIRAN AHUJA, DIRECTOR

                  U.S. OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

    Ms. Ahuja. Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Connolly, and 
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to 
update you on the work of the Office of Personnel Management. I 
am proud to lead this Agency as we work to support Federal 
employees, Federal agencies, and Federal retirees and their 
families.
    The non-partisan career civil service is the backbone of 
the Federal Government and has been for over a century. It was 
established with the principle that even as Presidential 
administrations change, a work force with expertise and 
institutional knowledge would ensure the Federal Government 
continually delivers for the American people. Of the more than 
2 million Federal employees serving our Nation, over 85 percent 
work outside the National Capital Region. They work in your 
communities as firefighters, police officers, researchers, 
medical professionals, and many other professions. Their 
expertise must remain safe from improper partisan influence.
    I recognize and appreciate the entire Federal work force 
for their dedication and commitment to mission and service to 
the American people. OPM's mission is to champion this diverse 
and talented work force, and in doing so, position the Federal 
Government as a model employer. This means using the tools 
available to us to recruit and retain a talented work force to 
meet Agency's mission. Workplace flexibilities are one of those 
tools. While COVID-19 is no longer driving our work force 
decisions, employers have updated tools and knowledge about 
managing employees in a hybrid work environment and the 
benefits to their customers. They have also seen the positive 
impact workplace flexibilities have on areas such as 
productivity engagement and diversifying the talent pool. To 
that end, OPM is focusing on how we can better assist agencies 
to meet their work force needs.
    We are prioritizing data collection regarding workplace 
flexibilities, governmentwide training for supervisors to 
better manage performance in a hybrid work environment, and 
further supporting agencies in making data informed human 
capital decisions. And like the private sector, we are placing 
a strong emphasis on attracting a diverse work force to the 
Federal Government, diversity of thought and experience, 
geography and background. The American public benefits when the 
Federal Government fully embraces the principles of diversity, 
equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
    We must also deliver high-quality Federal employee 
benefits, including the Federal Retirement Program. OPM has 
been working diligently to improve customer service and 
modernize this program, but there is also a longstanding 
critical need to invest in moving from paper to a digital 
system. This is an important long-term effort to improve 
efficiency and better serve customers' needs. We can only 
accomplish this with the help of Congress. I know there is 
interest in discussing the other benefit programs that OPM 
oversees and the work we are doing as a result of the Postal 
Service Reform Act of 2022. I have addressed these topics in 
more detail in my written testimony and look forward to further 
conversation today.
    Before closing my remarks, I would like to briefly address 
news reports regarding two career officials hired by OPM. I 
understand and appreciate the concerns expressed here. These 
are highly sensitive personnel matters, and I am not in the 
position to discuss the details of them today, but we are 
certainly happy to work with you on the closed briefing that 
you have requested. But I also want to be clear. These reports 
are alarming, and I and my senior leaders are taking them very 
seriously. We are conducting a thorough review of these 
matters, and we will take any steps needed to strengthen our 
hiring processes and to afford our public servants a safe, 
respectful workplace that is free from harassment. I consider 
that to be among my most fundamental obligations as a leader.
    With that, I thank you for this opportunity. I look forward 
to working with the Members of this Committee to advance OPM's 
efforts.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you. We will now begin our questions, 
and the Chair recognizes for first questions, Chairman of the 
Government Operations Subcommittee, Mr. Sessions.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Director, 
thank you, and welcome today.
    Mr. Chairman, before we get started, I would like to enter 
into the record two letters, a letter that I sent the Director 
on March 8 and what might be a memorandum that was sent out to 
her agencies on March 7. I would like to enter those into the 
record.
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Director, 
thank you for joining us today. I hearken back to the things 
that Mr. Connolly said. This is not an attack against a group 
of people who worked for the government. It is direct 
conversation with people who make a determination about who is 
going to come to work. The circumstances of making sure the 
American people receive the things that their taxes have paid 
for, and that is a timely relationship with their Federal 
Government and agencies.
    And this Committee, among others, in this Congress, 
including Members, are distraught with what we have seen as the 
corresponding work that would be produced by what I will say 
this Administration or the Federal work force over the last few 
years. The Federal Government is not at work. The Federal 
Government is not producing the results that we think would be 
necessary. Forget going to passport office and finding out what 
a disaster that is. Try doing business with the State 
Department overseas. Try doing business with the IRS. Try doing 
business with day-to-day people who may be at SBA, OPM, and all 
these other organizations are taking advantage of, in my 
opinion, and I think our observations are, the American people. 
We respect this work force, but there was a discussion that Mr. 
Connolly had with us about working in good faith. That good 
faith is a job with benefits that you have chosen to speak 
about--we believe that--a regular, safe work environment, but 
coming to work is a critical part of providing that good faith 
back.
    So, Madam Director, I provided you a list of questions that 
I would be asking for you to discuss today, but I want to on 
the high side say that we believe this has been driven from an 
agenda that is high, not low. We believe that the behavior that 
is taking place in agencies, embodied by employees, is one 
where they say we are entitled to telework and we are doing 
that, and we as Republicans, a Member of this Committee, get 
that. We understand that. However, when we look at their 
performance, more people are on telework than are actually 
allowed by the guidelines, and we do not believe that this 
Administration is up to this opportunity to effectively have 
the Federal Government work.
    So, I have got two minutes left here. Please take on 
question No. 1 because that is an important question that we 
have in the letter that I sent you. And if you need for me to 
refresh that question, please let me know.
    Ms. Ahuja. Sir, thank you very much, Congressman. Let me 
first say that, you know, COVID-19 no longer dictates workplace 
arrangements. We have, throughout the pandemic, more than 50 
percent of the work force showed up every day and continues to 
do so. I would like to also say that in the 2022 FEVS, almost 
60 percent of the respondents indicated significant in-person 
time. Now just as a pointer here, more than 85 percent of the 
work force works outside of the National Capital Region. But 
with that, since really before reentry and planning reentry, we 
were very clear with agencies and a memo from OMB, OPM, and GSA 
that agencies needed to consider their organizational health 
and performance when it comes to workplace arrangements, and to 
ensure that those workplace arrangements supported the 
performance within their organization.
    Mr. Sessions. So, Director, what is going to happen in my 
remaining time is, we want to make sure that you have the 
visibility, I assume through, among others, your payroll 
system, to have the visibility to know actually what is going 
on. So, the bottom line of today is, we see government 
inefficiency. We think it is time for the needs of the 
business, and I was involved for the private sector for almost 
20 years, the needs of the business should dictate the ability 
of this Administration to get people back to work just like 
free enterprise system. I look forward to engaging you from my 
Subcommittee Chairmanship role, and our Subcommittee on a 
bipartisan basis looks forward to being with you. Mr. Chairman, 
I yield back my time.
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair 
recognizes Mr. Connolly for five minutes.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Ahuja, picking 
up on Mr. Sessions' questions, I guess I am confused. Is it 
accurate that nobody's going to work? No one is in the offices? 
IRS is not staff? Social Security is not staff? Passport office 
is not staff? How in the world are we functioning as a 
government?
    Ms. Ahuja. Ranking Member Connolly, people have been going 
to work they have been working throughout the pandemic. I mean, 
they have been able to utilize the workplace flexibilities to 
continue to do so.
    Mr. Connolly. So, has guidance changed as the pandemic has 
improved?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, certainly COVID-19 no longer dictates the 
workplace arrangements. We have been very clear with agencies 
since before.
    Mr. Connolly. All right. So, if that is the case, what is 
the current guidance about our expectations of you showing up 
for work?
    Ms. Ahuja. Our guidance is, is that agencies need to ensure 
that their workplace arrangements support the organizational 
performance and ensuring they can deliver on mission for the 
American people. And they need to determine if that is not the 
case, whether it is looking at telework or other things, what 
changes they need to make. That is the current guidance that 
has been in place since June 2021, and it is the conversations 
that we are also having at the leadership level that we 
continue to emphasize.
    Mr. Connolly. So, for example, the President has said I am 
going to end the National Emergency with respect to the 
pandemic in May. Does that change your policies? Are you 
drafting new guidelines for employees in light of that?
    Ms. Ahuja. No, we are not. We are simply emphasizing what 
we have been emphasizing since the beginning is that to utilize 
these workplace flexibilities so they can serve agencies. We 
have seen in a number of cases where telework has actually 
improved productivity, improved performance, and employee 
engagement scores are actually tied to and actually have much 
higher scores for teleworkers. So again, really, this is about 
analyzing every agency in its unique space, I mean, the work 
that they do to determine how best they can deliver on mission.
    Mr. Connolly. I understand that, but I will tell you, if 
the President states the same, the emergency is over, I assure 
you my friends on the other side of the aisle, probably joined 
by a fair number of people on this side of the aisle, are going 
to expect that the workplace requirements change with that 
change without dictating what those are. But the same guidance 
can't be true in June of this year as was true in, say, the 
depths of the pandemic in early 2020. I also think you can 
corroborate this, but there is a distinction, is there not, 
between an organized, overseen, managed telework program versus 
near universal remote working because of a pandemic. Those are 
two different things. Is that not correct?
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely, and I think, you know, what you do 
see across, and you can look at the FEVS 2022, is a mix of 
situational telework, remote work, and in-person work. I would 
like to remind this Committee again that throughout the 
pandemic and still now, more than 50 percent of the work force 
shows up in-person every day. In my opinion, FaceTime is not a 
proxy for performance. We actually need to utilize these 
workplace flexibilities in order to take advantage of what we 
have learned throughout the pandemic, that we have actually 
seen greater engagement by employees. We have seen increased 
productivity and performance. And I will tell you also, because 
I know the Congressman mentioned what other data are we 
collecting, and we have actually just released or announced a 
new data variables that we are going to collect that will give 
us more granular data on telework and remote work for agencies 
to be able to use to discern productivity, performance, 
recruitment, and retention.
    Mr. Connolly. So, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to 
enter into the record at this point the report of the National 
Academy of Public Administration on elevating human capital, 
and the report by Micah Kraus called Transforming the Federal 
Workplace.
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Mr. Connolly. I thank the Chair. In the brief time left, I 
have introduced legislation to try to codify the 
recommendations here, and have you looked at that, and what are 
you doing to try to implement those recommendations? And I will 
yield back after Ms. Ahuja's response. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman Connolly, are you talking about the 
OPM Reform Act or the NAPA report?
    Mr. Connolly. Yes, the report we just entered in the record 
from the National Academy.
    Ms. Ahuja. OK. Yes. So, specifically about the NAPA report, 
we have been using that as really a barometer for the work that 
we have been doing inside the Agency. We have tied really every 
recommendation. We have pretty much concurred with every 
recommendation and incorporated into our entire strategic plan. 
So, it is about positioning OPM as the strategic human capital 
leader in government, and we are very much doing that and the 
work that we are doing with agencies, as well as the work and 
our relationships with the Chico Council, which I know that you 
consider very important, Congressman.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Arizona, Mr. Biggs, for five minutes.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, 
Director, for being here. And I also thank your office for 
recently responding to a letter I wrote concerning delays in 
the processing of retirement paperwork for Customs and Border 
Protection employees. When 13 of my colleagues and I wrote to 
you in November, we outlined issues facing our constituents, 
some of whom were experiencing delays as long as 13 months for 
the processing of the retirement paperwork and individuals who 
are receiving partial monthly payments as low as 13 percent of 
their full annuities while they waited for their paperwork to 
be completed. That is outrageous.
    When these retirees contacted Members of Congress for 
assistance, our staff are directed to submit casework to a 
congressional portal, which may as well be a black box. I 
appreciate that OPM took some time to provide briefings to 
staff earlier this week. However, my team reports that OPM 
staff provided conflicting information on current processing 
times, refused to provide an update on the existing backlog, 
and referenced the hope that OPM will onboard two additional 
staff by the end of the fiscal year. In short, we came away 
very dissatisfied. Requests for updates on actual cases by 
email and phone go unreturned, and our constituents feel like 
no one can help them.
    I am going to read to you now some recent communications to 
my office. I have redacted the identification so they won't 
have faced retaliation, which is one of their big fears. From 
just a couple of months ago, ``Here is a data point to consider 
if you are considering retiring any time soon. My last day was 
a year ago. I am still waiting for my back pay and my full 
monthly retirement payments. Calling OPM doesn't help. 
Contacting your Congressman doesn't seem to help either.'' 
Another: ``OPM's response is this: `OPM has recently received a 
significant amount of retirement applications. These 
applications are processed in the order in which they are 
received by OPM. We are diligently working to process these 
claims in a timely manner'.''
    Another also from a couple of months ago: ``I guess I will 
have to try to sell my house and extremely downsize my family's 
lifestyle. It is going to be hard because the housing market is 
starting to crash and mortgage rates are sky high. Going to be 
rough the next two years. I have so many bills, urgent needs 
that need attention right now.'' Next one, ``Our sector's 
retirement SMSs recently told me if you have ever had a 
divorce, it has to go to a special OPM legal review, regardless 
of whether or not FERS/TSP is part of the divorce decree.''
    Another: ``This whole retirement backlog is a special kind 
of FU to the people who have given decades backs and knees to 
the country. Retirement calculations are just picking math. 
There is no reason to not at least get a partial out to someone 
within 30 days.'' Another: ``OPM has now advised me that they 
have finished my paperwork as of December. They have advised me 
that my first full monthly payment will be February this year. 
That will be 13 months from retirement to first full payment.''
    Another from last month: ``It is official. I received my 
first full payment today, 13 months after I retired. I have a 
friend who retired before I did, by a month or so, and another 
retired the same day I did, and the last I spoke to them, they 
were still waiting for their first full payment as well. So, I 
am guessing it is taking 14 to 15 months for some to receive 
full payment.'' Another: ``Retired six months ago. First 
partial annuity, September. Still waiting on full annuity, but 
with divorce, I am not hopeful of seeing any full annuity till 
2024.''
    Another, ``I was hoping to get an update on the issue with 
the Office of Personnel Management and see if anything was ever 
corrected in writing. We discussed the extremely long wait 
times that Border Patrol agents specifically were waiting for 
their retirement checks. After several discussions with 
recently retired agents, it appears this problem is just as 
bad, if not worse. Morale is horrible. Suicides are way up.'' 
Another: ``This is one of the greatest stressors in my agency, 
especially the ones like me. We are very close to retiring. We 
have given our lives at the expense of our families over the 
years to our country and agency, and we feel we are being 
screwed over badly.''
    Now Director Ahuja, something needs to be done here. And I 
want to know what your plans are to solve this problem?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congressman Biggs. I first want to 
say that I take these issues very seriously and very much feel 
for the responses that you have received from your 
constituents. We have had challenges and we absolutely can do 
better, and we are working through those processes. I do want 
to say that during my confirmation a year-and-a-half ago, I 
made a commitment to focus on retirement services. This Agency 
is, as Congressman Connolly mentioned, has gone through a 
period of some serious challenges, most recently facing a 
dissolution before the beginning of this Administration, so we 
have not had the resources. And I want to thank Congress for 
providing us a budget in Fiscal Year 2023 that is giving us 
those resources in order to hire staff. I will tell you we have 
improved processing times, and we are making a considerable 
dent in the inventory, and I have those data points. And we are 
making progress on digitization of our records because it is a 
paper-based process, but it is going to take time to work 
through these challenges.
    Mr. Biggs. I appreciate that, and I am going to have to 
yield back because as my time has expired, but I would just say 
that I did not hear specific responses on how you are going to 
solve this. And these individuals who retire given their life's 
service to this country, they deserve immediate response. And, 
quite frankly, I know people have retired at state level, and 
they don't wait. As soon as their paperwork is processed--it is 
usually pretty quickly--they start receiving it. So, we are 
going to have to get more direct answers, Director, and with 
that, I have to yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair 
recognizes the gentlelady from Washington, DC, Ms. Norton, for 
five minutes.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I ask my 
questions, I want to speak about a couple of my constituents. 
First, Daniel Kim, a lifelong resident of the area whose 
parents emigrated from Korea. Two weeks after he graduated high 
school, Daniel enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served faithfully 
for eight years. Today, Mr. Kim works in Washington, DC. as a 
supervisory business management specialist within the often 
overlooked General Services Administration. Mr. Kim helps 
agencies find ways to purchase the IT they need to perform 
their missions and loves thinking about ways the Federal 
Government can better serve its customers every day.
    Another constituent is Greg Robinson, who oversaw the 
successful launch of the revolutionary James Webb Telescope, 
which helped us reimagine the possible and discover more about 
the origins of our universe. Mr. Robinson started working at 
NASA in 1989, helping to plan and organize missions into outer 
space after helping supervise the James Webb Space Telescope 
mission that involved more than 10,000 scientists, engineers, 
and private sector partners. Mr. Robinson retired after more 
than 30 years of public service.
    I highlight my constituents because I want to remind 
everyone that Federal employees do amazing work every day, and 
while many Federal employees live and work here in the Nation's 
capital, more than 80 percent do not. Federal employees live 
work and improve their communities in every congressional 
district, in every town across the United States. What makes 
the Federal workforce the crown jewel of government is its non-
partisan expertise. Mr. Kim doesn't only help agencies that 
serve Democrats, he helps agencies that serve everyone who 
qualify for help. Mr. Robinson didn't build a telescope that 
only fueled the imagination of school children living in 
conservative leaning districts. Ms. Ahuja, what makes a non-
partisan civil service so important?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congresswoman, for that question. I 
think it is important to emphasize that we have had long 
standing policies across 26 Presidential administrations set in 
stone 140 years ago that we should have a nonpartisan civil 
service and that it provides real benefits to the Federal 
Government. It allows the continuity of operations. It ensures 
that we have the expertise and institutional knowledge that is 
required in order to ensure that we are serving the American 
people as fully as possible. It is critical that we have 
individuals in our workforce who feel that they can provide 
frank feedback and tell us what is the best course of action to 
ensure that we are serving the American public well.
    Ms. Norton. Well, what concerns would you have if Congress 
decided to replace nonpartisan civil servants with those who 
were political or even felt like they could be removed if they 
provided a nonpartisan advice or expertise?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congresswoman, thank you for that 
question. My first concern would be that it is inserting undue 
political influence within the civil service. The civil service 
was set up to support Federal agencies to provide their 
expertise, to ensure, again, that we are focused on delivering 
the services, that their main mission which they are very 
focused on is the service at hand and the work they are doing 
in those agencies. Second, I would say that there could be real 
challenges around recruitment and retention of those 
individuals if there was fear that if they were in these 
particular policy-influencing positions and they needed to 
provide frank feedback on their assessment of whatever sort of 
course of action, that they could do that without the fear that 
there would be some sort of retribution or disagreement. I will 
tell you, I as a leader, I am looking all the time for my team 
to tell me how it is and to ensure that I am getting all 
viewpoints so that I know that I can make the best decision.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Gosar of Arizona 
for five minutes.
    Mr. Gosar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now Director, Ahuja. 
Did I say it right?
    Ms. Ahuja. You did.
    Mr. Gosar. OK.
    Ms. Ahuja. OK.
    Mr. Gosar. Now, the Office of Personnel Management has a 
two-pronged approach to reshape the bureaucracy into a ``woke 
force'' totally bereft of conservative viewpoints. Now, let me 
go over the first problem. On February 15, 2023, OPM released 
``a diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility annual 
report'' for the first time. This means OPM is committed to 
hiring people not based exclusively on merit, but on 
uncontrolled physical characteristics like skin color and 
gender or if you mistakenly believe you were born in the wrong 
gender.
    Now for the second problem. Mr. Chairman, I would like to 
enter into the record the following by Hans von Spakovsky, 
titled, ``Conservatives Need Not Apply Under Biden's 
Administration's Proposed Hiring Rules.''
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Mr. Gosar. Now, the language in OPM's recent proposed 
regulations defines ``treason'' so broadly so as to disqualify 
the hiring of any applicant with a dissenting viewpoint. 
Instead of participating in race baiting, and sexual 
discrimination, and the persecution of conservatives, OPM 
should hire exclusively on merit and qualifications. Better 
yet, they should implement former President Trump's reforms 
that would reclassify a large amount of employees into a new 
category called Schedule F, which allows employees to be fired 
for poor performances.
    I am also the sponsor of the MERIT Act, which prohibits 
agencies from hiring based on anything other than merit. Now, 
why would I say that? You just made several comments. FaceTime 
is not a proxy for performance, so obviously, we need to have 
that performance as a key to that process. No. 2, you said it 
should be nonpartisan. So, how are we taking out conservatives? 
And then we don't want undue political pressures. Well, if you 
are not having everybody's viewpoint, how can you come with a 
perfectly good solution? That is problematic for me, no matter 
for my questions. Does the Federal Employee Health Benefits 
Program pay for the sex change of minors?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, thank you for that question. We 
have----
    Mr. Gosar. It is either a ``yes'' or ``no?''
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, it is a difficult question to provide a 
``yes'' or ``no'' because we provide guidance to carriers to 
set up programs based on leading medical advice, scientific 
evidence, and those carriers determine the services that they 
provide. Now, I don't know the specifics of those services and 
certainly wouldn't because that is a conversation that would 
take place between a physician and his or her patient.
    Mr. Gosar. So, let me ask you a question then. Do you 
believe that paying for sex change surgeries of minors is a 
good use of taxpayer dollars?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, again, our focus is on providing 
advice to these healthcare carriers, and it is really dependent 
on the physician's medical advice to his or her patient.
    Mr. Gosar. No, but it also applies to you as the employer 
and the dictation of what the healthcare plan pays for, so, I 
mean, there is a tie here. So, I only ask the next question. 
How old is the youngest person who has had a sex change 
surgery, and has it been reimbursed by the Federal Employees 
Health Benefits Program?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I wouldn't know the answer to that 
question.
    Mr. Gosar. Would you get back to me?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I am happy to talk with my team, 
but those aren't the type of details that we gather as a part 
of----
    Mr. Gosar. So, it is part of a benefit package. I mean, I 
was an employer once, and so, you know, part of the payroll is 
your benefits package, and what is included in that benefit 
package means an awful lot. So, did you know that puberty 
suppressors and cross-sex hormones, like estrogen and 
testosterone, cause infertility? Are you aware of that?
    Ms. Ahuja. Could you repeat the question again?
    Mr. Gosar. Did you know that puberty suppressors and cross-
sex hormones, like estrogen and testosterone, cause 
infertility?
    Ms. Ahuja. I was not aware, Congressman.
    Mr. Gosar. So, does this research give you pause in your 
decision to allow these drugs to be covered by the Federal 
Employee Health Benefits Program?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I do appreciate this line of 
questioning, and I do want to emphasize here I am not in the 
medical profession. We provide guidance through our Healthcare 
Insurance Department and the individuals who work there.
    Mr. Gosar. But once again, you made the magic word. You 
``provide guidance,'' so there are a relationships here, so I 
would love to have those questions answered for us. I yield 
back, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Mfume of Maryland for five minutes.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My thanks to you and 
Ranking Member Connolly for calling us together for this 
hearing, and I want to try to cover a few things in the short 
time that I have. Madam Director, thank you very much for being 
here as well.
    The gentlewoman from the District of Columbia made a point 
that all Federal workers, despite what people think, are not 
here in Washington, D.C. In fact, I have got quite a few in my 
own district, whether it is the Veterans Administration, Health 
and Human Services with a large operation in Baltimore, the 
FBI. The Social Security headquarters are right in the center 
of my district. And what I have found in working with Federal 
employees is that their positions can sometimes be misconstrued 
to suggest that they are not doing all they can when, in fact, 
they are doing what they can, while they can, in every way they 
can, to do their job. Federal employees, more than anything 
else, have no tolerance for other Federal employees that are 
not doing their work. That gives them a bad name, a bad title, 
a bad assumption. And fortunately, the American Federation of 
Government Employees has been working over and over again, year 
after year, to deal with those things that people don't 
understand about the Federal workforce in order to make sure 
they do.
    Now I just want to say to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. 
Sessions, who Chairs the Subcommittee of which I am Ranking 
Member on, that I really look forward to having some dialog 
with the Director on the subject matter that came up earlier 
that I won't revisit, but I look forward to that. In fact, the 
gentleman from Texas and I are going to be holding hearings 
later on waste, fraud, and abuse. And I also want to commend 
the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly, for working over and 
over again to put in place a bipartisan OPM Reform Act, which I 
am honored to co-sponsor, and the gentleman has made a point to 
make sure that he does in that bill all that we should do to 
help Federal employees, but also to make sure that there is 
real efficiency.
    I don't know, Madam Director, if you are familiar with a 
bill that sort of came and died last year. It was the 
bipartisan Preventing a Patronage System Act to make sure that 
we didn't have a situation where patronage was growing in the 
executive ranks by people who were holdovers from one 
administration or another. And I don't know whether OPM took a 
position on that, but I wanted to raise it. And Mr. Chair, I 
have in front of me letters of support for the new version of 
that from the National Federation of Federal Employees, the 
National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys, the 
Senior Executives Association, and the Partnership for New 
Americans. I would ask unanimous consent that they all be 
entered into the record.
    Mr. Mfume. Now, Madam Director, I don't have a lot of time 
left, but I want to get back to the early comments that were 
made here, which two are very, very troubling, and they are 
troubling to Democrats and troubling to Republicans. And I know 
that you are somewhat prohibited from what you can say on the 
record in this open forum, but I would hope that you would take 
this next moment or two to let me know and to put on the record 
for those who may not know just what OPM's policy is for 
individuals who are engaged in racially insensitive or racially 
offensive conduct, as well as those who have allegations 
against them for being sexually insensitive, and those who have 
been found to have made anti-Semitic remarks and jokes and 
other remarks aimed at Latinos and Asian and Pacific Islanders. 
How are they treated, and how are those allegations treated?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congressman, for that question, and 
let me say at the outset, like I mentioned in my statement, 
that I take these issues very seriously, and I am committed to 
a workplace free from harassment. The reports are alarming to 
me as well as they are to everyone else, and they do not 
represent OPM values, nor do they represent, Congressman, the 
work that I have done in the past, historically, before coming 
in to government. We are conducting a very careful and thorough 
review at this point, which is why I am not in a position to be 
able to share details, but we would be happy to share more in 
an enclosed briefing.
    But as a part of that, we continue to find ways to make 
improvements to our hiring processes, to our vetting 
guidelines, and so that is related to these two particular 
matters. I will say more broadly, we are a leader in supporting 
the efforts within this Administration to promote diversity, 
equity, and inclusion, and accessibility. Our FEVS scores, a 
new DEIA Index within the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, 
has the governmentwide score at 69 percent. We are above that 
at OPM. We have promoted employee resource groups, other 
opportunities for individuals to be able to express themselves, 
to support and promote differences, to create an environment 
that is fair and inclusive to everyone, and that is the goal of 
what we are doing inside what we call small OPM and what we 
seek to promote and the work that is captured in our recent 
DEIA Report across government.
    Mr. Mfume. OK. I would just ask, and I assume that that 
also includes sexual insensitivity and sexual allegations.
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely.
    Mr. Mfume. OK.
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Grothman for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Grothman. Sure. Maybe I missed these numbers in the 
beginning. Percentage wise, how many of the employees under 
your purview are working remotely now, and how many of you 
expect to be working remotely, say, two years from now on this, 
by any standard, COVID has passed us?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congressman. Just for clarification, 
are you asking for numbers within OPM or broadly?
    Mr. Grothman. Broadly.
    Ms. Ahuja. So, the number that I quoted is first that this 
is based on FEVS scores throughout the pandemic.
    Mr. Grothman. Yes.
    Ms. Ahuja. More than 50 percent come in, you know, into the 
office every day. That is what there----
    Mr. Grothman. Would that mean 52 percent or?
    Ms. Ahuja. I don't know. I know it is more than 50, but 
that has been the case. You know, we have almost more than 2 
million individuals in the workforce, and many of their 
occupations require them to be onsite. And then the other data 
point is with the FEVS 2022, the respondents, 60 percent 
indicated that they have, you know, significant in-person time 
in the office, which is a mix of being in the office and 
telework.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. So, what is your goal? Where are we going 
to be in six months? What is your goal? Say, what was it before 
this COVID began? What percent were not in the office before 
the COVID began are teleworking, and what percent are we at 
now?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congressman, I don't know the numbers from 
before the pandemic. What I can say is that it significantly 
shot up, as we all know. Those numbers increased exponentially.
    Mr. Grothman. OK.
    Ms. Ahuja. But there is----
    Mr. Grothman. And you are still near 50 percent are back at 
work. I mean, I would just say why it bugs me. In the middle of 
the pandemic, and I am all for them maybe. I mean, I got a lot 
of manufacturing in my district. Some days away, I go home. I 
go through three cheese plants. Man, the parking lots are 
packed with people working third shift. I know somebody who is 
running a big packaging plant. Nobody ever took a day off. I 
mean, that is the word is in the real world. And when we have 
been at this thing for three years, and three years, you are 
seeing some people can't come to work, I mean, it is just an 
insult to the hardworking people in this country. And so, I 
hope you give me the exact numbers--you should have the exact 
numbers anyway--of the people, who three years after this thing 
broke, are still working telework, and you think should be or 
eventually will be back at work. OK. And it does affect the 
quality of the work you do.
    Mr. Grothman. Next question. Merit is concerned. Again, how 
many employees you think you guys supervise overall, 2 million? 
What did you say?
    Ms. Ahuja. There are more than 2.1 million civilian non-
postal employees.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. And of those who are, say, past their 
probationary period, how many were let go for cause in the last 
year?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, unfortunately, I don't have that 
information.
    Mr. Grothman. Can you get us that information?
    Ms. Ahuja. I can certainly take the request back to my 
staff and have them follow-up with your office.
    Mr. Grothman. OK.
    Mr. Grothman. You got this diversity thing going. How many 
people are in charge of administering this diversity program or 
trying to promote people or hire people for reasons other than 
merit?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, could you clarify your question 
when you are saying how many people are working on this?
    Mr. Grothman. Yes, yes, yes. Well, you have this diversity 
program. You are proud of the diversity program. You are trying 
to promote people, you know, based on diversity. How many 
people are involved in administering such a program or 
overseeing such endeavor?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, we have a small office within OPM, but 
there is also the Chief Diversity Council, so there are 
individuals across the government. But, Congressman, if I could 
just make one point here, which is the way we define 
``diversity'' is quite broad in the executive order. It 
includes veterans, military spouses, individuals with 
disabilities, geographic diversity, of course, race, ethnicity. 
But I want to emphasize here that we have made some great 
strides in employment of individuals with targeted 
disabilities. We have increased the number of military spouses 
in government----
    Mr. Grothman. Yes.
    Ms. Ahuja [continuing]. Because of this executive order 
focused on DEIA.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. I only got five minutes. So, you are kind 
of dodging the question. I will give you another thing. I 
talked to a guy recently. His son is a good guy, went to 
college, got his dream job with the Federal Government. He is 
waiting for his promotion, waiting, waiting, waiting. Finally, 
somebody tells him, look, you are a White guy who is not a 
veteran, and you just said that you hire veterans first. OK. A 
White guy, not a veteran, you know, it is going to be almost 
impossible for him to be promoted. He wasn't even mad. He just 
wishes the government would have told him up front, hey, you 
are a White guy is not a veteran. You don't have much of a 
future around here. How many people do you think are being 
promoted or hired by the government for reasons other than 
merit, proportionately?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, the very core of our Agency is to 
ensure that we uphold merit system principles, and that is a 
big part of the work that we do with agencies every single day, 
and there are requirements for H.R. specialists. There is a 
rigorous review of every register----
    Mr. Grothman. I just need more time, and, you know, you 
never know in this job whether people are telling the truth or 
not. Do you believe what the guy ran into told me, that it 
would be very difficult today, or much more difficult, if you 
are a White guy who is not a veteran to get promoted in Federal 
Government compared to not?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, that has not been my experience. We 
do emphasize and we oversee, we have an entire department of 
oversight focused on reviewing, hiring across the government to 
ensure that agencies are abiding by merit system principles.
    Mr. Grothman. You are not answering the question. Is that a 
believable situation today given your obsession with diversity?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, it is hard for me to answer based 
on my personal opinion. What I did say to you was that I have 
not personally experienced or heard any of that 
characterization from any of my colleagues in the Federal 
Government.
    Mr. Grothman. You are just in an opposite of what you were 
just saying one minute ago, but OK. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you. The Chair recognizes Mr. Frost 
from Florida for five minutes.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you so much 
for being here, Madam Director. You know, earlier, I heard Mr. 
Sessions say that the people deserve to hear from Federal 
employees in a timely manner, and a hundred percent completely 
agree with that. But I think the interesting thing is House 
Republicans' first act in this Congress was to pass a bill to 
eliminate the 87,000 new IRS agents from the Inflation 
Reduction Act. You hear that people watching at home, they are 
clapping when we are talking about people who will help you get 
your information in a timely manner, answer the phones, and 
process what needs to be done, and that is really important to 
know. That is what is being clapped about right now. Mr. 
Sessions and all House Republicans voted for it.
    And so, I want to ask you, would more employees at the IRS 
to help with the backlogs, help with the missed calls, help 
with the poor customer service that could be better, would that 
help for working class families, people that are listening at 
home right now?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, absolutely, and we have been 
helping IRS and other agencies around what we call surge hiring 
in order to manage capacity. We ourselves at OPM have benefited 
from that hiring and retirement services that we didn't have 
before in order to deal with and manage the backlog and case 
processing, similar to IRS where they are trying----
    Mr. Frost. Yes.
    Ms. Ahuja [continuing]. To work through some of their 
challenges. And a big part of that is having the staffing to do 
that.
    Mr. Frost. Are the backlogs, missed calls, poor customer 
service, in your opinion, the result of the IRS' telework 
policy?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I am not familiar with the 
specifics with IRS----
    Mr. Frost. Yes.
    Ms. Ahuja [continuing]. So, I couldn't say. What we do say, 
in determining the best workplace arrangement for an agency, is 
to look at all of those factors. What is the best workplace 
arrangement, and if a workplace arrangement like telework is 
affecting the performance, then you need to make adjustments. 
But oftentimes it is resources and staffing, which is what----
    Mr. Frost. Yes.
    Ms. Ahuja [continuing]. You have spoken about.
    Mr. Frost. Yes. I think the Republicans' attack on telework 
is interesting because it is actually specifically damaging to 
military families, specifically military spouses that do their 
best to support their partners in a career that is dangerous. 
People serving our country helps keep us safe as a Nation, but 
the thing of military spouses, they often have a struggle in 
maintaining a career. What we see from that across the country 
is military spouses oftentimes rely on telework to ensure that 
they can keep up with their family's expenses because of the 
multi-income households that we see, especially with the 
military people in my own district.
    In September 2022, a memorandum from the senior Pentagon 
leadership commanders took significant steps to improve Federal 
career opportunities for military spouses by authorizing remote 
work and telework. We see many different anecdotes, stories, 
people talking about how this has been fundamentally 
lifechanging for them supporting their families, military 
families, working-class people across this country. The goal, 
according to DOD, was to further expand remote work and 
telework options that help military spouses build portable 
careers. The Biden Administration has increased these 
opportunities as well.
    Madam Director, active duty military members cite spousal 
employment as their No. 1 reason for leaving military service. 
So, when my colleagues talk about the deficit going on with 
recruitment, we have to look at a lot of the conditions that 
impact families. My question is, do telework opportunities help 
us retain active duty military members?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I really appreciate that question 
because we are very proud of the work we have done for military 
spouses at OPM. We have issued a special hiring authority, 
direct hire for military spouses so they can take advantage of 
the Federal employment opportunities. It has a part of our DEIA 
initiative. And I want to mention that we did a study of remote 
jobs over the last six months of last year, and on average, 
with the remote job, you had 25 military spouse applications 
compared to 1 to 2----
    Mr. Frost. Wow.
    Ms. Ahuja [continuing]. Of a duty location.
    Mr. Frost. Yes.
    Ms. Ahuja. So, you see this huge, you know, pick up and----
    Mr. Frost. Yes.
    Ms. Ahuja [continuing]. Interest because you have the 
ability to have that portability of that job.
    Mr. Frost. You know, I ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, 
to enter into the record a statement provided to me from a 
group of the spouses of military service members, all who rely 
on the support of expanded telework and remote work for 
opportunities in Federal service.
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you. You know, just a quick story. I will 
leave a few seconds here. Wendy Rayham had served in the 
Federal Government for about 22 years and is currently a State 
Department Foreign Service officer. She hails from the great 
state of Florida. Her husband is about to be assigned to be an 
executive officer aboard a command ship and is preparing to 
move to San Diego for that assignment. Thank God Wendy has a 
100-percent telework remote job with the State Department where 
she is able to continue her work, continue to support her 
family, continue to support her partner.
    There are real-life examples that show outside of the 
military, too, why telework is so important, but because it is 
being politicized for political reasons, people are attacking 
it. But just know, and for people watching at home, when we 
attack things like telework, we are also attacking the people 
disproportionately impacted on that or rely on it, military 
spouses being at the top of that list. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mrs. Luna. Will the gentleman yield for a question? I just 
want to know if you ever were a spouse or served, if you can 
maybe provide some input in that because I can just tell you 
that a lot of people actually have access----
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Order. Point of order.
    Mrs. Luna. I am not done yet until the Chairman calls it.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Point of order.
    Mrs. Luna. You are not the Chairman.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Point of order.
    Mrs. Luna. You are not the Chairman.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Point of order. I am----
    Mrs. Luna. I am on my own time. Thank you.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Point of order.
    Chairman Comer. Actually, Mr. Frost's time has expired, so 
the Chair now recognizes Mr. Palmer for five minutes.
    Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Ahuja, are 
you aware of what percentage of D.C.-based Federal employees 
relocated out of state during the COVID-19 pandemic?
    Ms. Ahuja. I am sorry, Congressman. Could you repeat the 
question, please?
    Mr. Palmer. Are you aware of what percentage of D.C.-based 
Federal employees relocated out of state during the COVID-19 
pandemic?
    Ms. Ahuja. I am not, sir.
    Mr. Palmer. Are you aware of what percentage of D.C.-based 
Federal workers are currently teleworking out of state? Do you 
keep up with that? Do you know where your people are?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, these data points are managed by 
agencies. We do provide at a high level an annual telework 
report that we issue at the end of the year. I did mention that 
we are now going to be collecting additional data variables 
that will provide more granular information that will actually 
pull this information from payroll centers so we will have a 
better sense.
    Mr. Palmer. I am glad you mentioned payroll because that is 
the point here is if you got Federal employees who were D.C. 
based, they were getting locality pay, which is higher than 
what you would if you were working out of state or out of the 
district, if you had moved to another state and you were 
teleworking. So, I think OPM needs to look into this because we 
shouldn't be paying D.C. locality pay for people who are not 
working in D.C., and I really don't think we should, in many 
respects, if they are teleworking from their home. So, can you 
look into that and report back to this Committee what 
percentage of D.C.-based Federal employees are no longer 
working in D.C., that they are teleworking from other 
localities?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I am happy to take that request 
back, and I will have my team follow up with you. I am not sure 
at this point what the data will reveal specific to your 
question.
    Mr. Palmer. Well, Cushman and Wakefield, a commercial real 
estate firm, compiled keycard data from the General Services 
Administration and concluded only five percent of the pre-
pandemic Federal workforce had swiped into a government-leased 
office on an average workday in October/November, and that 
doesn't include government-owned buildings. They are office 
space outside of the Washington metro area, and the GSA in an 
email statement disputed the accuracy. I will give them that, 
but it is unable to provide attendance data. Somebody has got 
to keep up with where our Federal workforce is, and I don't 
dispute the data on the lease properties because you either 
swipe in or you don't. So, I am requesting that OPM look into 
this and provide a report back to this Committee, and if I need 
to, I will put it in writing.
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, we will definitely take it back.
    Ms. Ahuja. I do want to emphasize is that much of this data 
still resides with the agencies specific to the telework and 
remote work arrangements.
    Mr. Palmer [continuing]. With the agencies, but I am 
requesting it from OPM. I also want to ask you something, and, 
again, this may be more agency specific. But the acting Social 
Security commissioner admits that seniors are facing 
extraordinary delays when they try to contact Social Security 
by phone, and when they finally get through, the advice that 
you are getting is often incorrect. And I think this might, 
again, be a problem with telework because I have worked in 
offices before. I have worked for a couple of international 
engineering firms, and when I had a question about something, I 
could go to another office or to the cubicle next to me to get 
an answer, but when you are teleworking, you can't always get 
that answer. I might not be able to get that person on the 
phone in a timely manner.
    And you have got people who are depending on not only 
getting an answer in a timely manner, and many of these people 
are in their 80's maybe or older, they are getting inaccurate 
information, and I want to know if OPM is concerned about that. 
And again, I think a lot of it could be not just the 
incompetence of the employee. I think it may be that they are 
not in a position where they can get the information that they 
need in a timely manner.
    It has gotten to a point where they are making mistakes and 
overpaying some of these benefits, and if that happens, if the 
individual who is depending on the monthly check can't pay it 
back, the Social Security agency just stops sending the checks. 
That is a huge problem. We need to look out for our seniors, 
and I think this conversion to telework may be a big part of 
this problem. What is your response to that?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, let me mention, as I have mentioned 
earlier, that at the forefront for agencies and what we have 
communicated should be how are we delivering on customer 
service. How are we ensuring that we are delivering on mission, 
and we need to ensure that the workplace arrangements allow for 
that.
    Now, I can't speak specifically to what is happening at 
SSA, but I will tell you at the Presidential Management Council 
level, we talk about these issues and includes the acting 
commissioner of SSA. And oftentimes we need to ensure we are 
looking at every factor to determine is it telework, is it 
staffing, are there other issues, the need to make IT 
enhancements in order to be able to streamline some of those 
processes. So, I think we are on the same page here. We need to 
ensure that agencies can deliver.
    Mr. Palmer. I appreciate your response. Mr. Chairman, I 
just think that we need to address these issues with a greater 
sense of urgency. There are a lot of people depending on the 
Federal Government, particularly senior citizens and others, as 
have been mentioned here. So, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to 
getting their response to my request and to us maybe looking 
into this deeper. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. Absolutely. The gentleman yields back. The 
Chair recognizes Ms. Ocasio-Cortez from New York for five 
minutes.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. 
You know, we have about--what is it--seven, eight hearings just 
in this Committee and subcommittees later this week, which is, 
you know, a very high number, and I have no qualms with this 
Committee working hard. I have no qualms with this Committee 
doing everything that it can, but I think we need a 
conversation about priorities here.
    We are having a hearing right now, and it is about that the 
Federal Government is too woke. I mean, that is seriously what 
we are hearing. And then there is no definition of what 
``woke'' is, but on paper, what is actually being criticized in 
this hearing, is that the so-called woke policies are remote 
work for Federal workers, especially those that live in rural 
areas and those who have disabilities, paying interns so that 
critical opportunities don't just go to privileged kids whose 
parents can afford to pay for their rent while they go on a 
free internship. That is what is woke here.
    That is what the other side is calling woke here, making 
sure that that OPM can create opportunities in Federal careers 
for partners of military service members. That is woke. This is 
the woke alleged to take over, that we want wildland 
firefighters who are putting their lives at risk, increasingly 
so, year after year, that we want to make sure that they stay 
on the job, and have dignified conditions and not leave because 
they can earn more money as a greeter at Walmart. This is what 
this whole term ``woke'' means or ``diversity and inclusion'' 
so that the people who work in our Federal workforce are 
actually in proportion to the people that live in this country. 
This is this horrifying woke agenda that the other side is 
trying so hard to block.
    But, you know, on top of priorities, what I can't help but 
communicate that I find frustrating is that there are actual 
crises happening in this country. A couple of weeks ago, there 
was a devastating, devastating derailment in East Palestine, 
Ohio, and yesterday, I was just lucky enough to wrap up a 
hearing early, and I was going back to my office. It was not 
scheduled. It wrapped up early, and there were people from East 
Palestine at my door because they weren't getting a response in 
their own other levels of government. And so, they were just 
roaming around waiting for anybody to open their door to them 
to talk to any Member of Congress to talk to them. And so, we 
sat down, and they explained what is going on.
    And this Committee needs to hold a hearing on the 
derailment in East Palestine. This is not just a disaster site. 
It is a potential crime scene. People are poisoned, and their 
respiratory issues are getting worse day after day, and I 
really make this plea on a bipartisan basis truly. I truly do. 
The chemicals that were spilled in East Palestine have short 
half-lives. Every day that we do not act on this is a day that 
the evidence evaporates from the scene, and I really plead for 
this Committee to get together and not pursue this on a 
partisan basis.
    We need to have executives from the rail company from 
Norfolk Southern here. We need to have independent scientists 
here. We need to have the EPA or whichever agencies, the CDC, 
DOT, whatever it may be, but this cannot be a political food 
fight. Evidence is evaporating and people are getting sick, and 
every day that we go on without accountability, I mean, it is 
not even partisan because, in my view, and I will take 
ownership as well, both parties are failing in this moment to 
address the needs of people.
    And I just sincerely ask that we take this seriously 
because it is not getting handled at the level that it needs to 
be handled. We need to know why there hasn't been a disaster 
declaration that has been requested yet, you know. I do know 
that the President is willing to offer one, but we need to cut 
through the red tape. And if I can just make that plea because 
I do believe that this Committee--this Committee--the Oversight 
Committee--has the unique jurisdiction and power in this body 
to be able to do that, to cut through that red tape.
    And so, you know, Mr. Chairman, I sincerely make that plea, 
me as a Democrat to you as a Republican. I really don't want us 
to drag this out because, again, the half-lives on these 
chemicals. We don't let folks return to the scene of a crime, 
and we have been letting that potentially, potentially, for 
almost a month now. So, for the folks that are there, you know, 
and for the folks that came in yesterday, I just sincerely ask 
that we put things aside and we get to work. We had eight 
hearings this week. You know, we all showed up. We did this 
job, but let's get this to the top of the docket, please.
    Chairman Comer. The lady yields back, and, listen, let me 
add, I agree completely with what you said. And with respect to 
East Palestine, we have a bipartisan briefing set up with 
Norfolk Southern next week coming in, so I assume minority 
staff will be there, and we will certainly work with you on 
questioning. And we couldn't agree more on----
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And if we may, I think, especially what 
is needed is transparency on that.
    Chairman Comer. Absolutely.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I appreciate that that briefing is being 
established, but I think the public needs answers on this.
    Chairman Comer. I agree, absolutely. I look forward to 
working with you on that. The Chair recognizes Mr. Fallon from 
Texas, for five minutes.
    Mr. Fallon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director, we have 2.1 
million employees, and some are going to be outstanding and 
some are going to not be up to the task. How do you fire one? 
What is the process? Can you just kind of, say a supervisor, 
just go in and say, listen, sorry, it is not working out, you 
are fired, and then they leave that day?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I appreciate the question. There 
are processes in place. If you are managing someone who is not 
performing at the level of expectation, you know, you have to 
ensure that those requirements and metrics are put in that 
individual's performance plan. You have to ensure that you are 
putting together a PIP for that individual, Performance 
Improvement Plan, you know, over a period of time to see if 
remedial efforts can rectify the situation. Oftentimes, I find 
that in poor performance, it is indicative of other things--
lack of engagement, not the right fit for that individual, the 
need for additional training. But as you know, and this is not 
just the case with the public sector, even the private sector, 
there are policies that you have to follow to avoid litigation, 
to avoid other expenses for that company. And that certainly is 
the case here for the Federal Government.
    Mr. Fallon. It sounds like it takes a long time for someone 
that is underperforming and consistently underperforms, 
regardless of the remediation efforts, as you just mentioned. 
But do you have any kind of a rough estimate as to how long 
that takes?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I do appreciate the question, and I 
want to emphasize, too, that we take it as a priority and a 
focus around performance. That is a part of the work we do at 
OPM and the communication that we give to agencies. It is very 
hard because, to answer your question specifically, because 
every individual is different, and there is no general 
timeline----
    Mr. Fallon. Well, Director, with all due respect, the 
reality of the situation is when I was in the military, we had 
civilian employees that we worked with. And I had a supervisor 
come in as a lieutenant colonel, and he said this particular 
person is absolutely worthless. They do nothing at all, and 
have Fallon just babysit him because it is so hard to let him 
go, have him fired, it is not worth the effort. That is the 
reality on the ground, and it wasn't just this case. We had a 
myriad of different examples of that, and the guy really didn't 
do anything, and it was a cush job as a GS-11, back then making 
about $40 grand, and just we couldn't get rid of him.
    And that is what concerns me is because whether it is the 
private sector and public sector, there are going to be folks 
that just do not perform well and don't really belong there, 
don't deserve to be there. But there doesn't seem to be any way 
in which we can realistically, I mean, because you kind of said 
it in your answer. There are so many different processes and 
procedures in place, they just kind of pass it along. And so, 
do you have any idea how many Federal employees were fired last 
year out of the 2.1 million?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I don't have those specifics right 
now.
    Mr. Fallon. I would love to get that. I am going to 
formally request that via letter because that would be 
fascinating to see that.
    Mr. Fallon. You know, and it is interesting. I just got a 
text from a constituent, ironically while you were here, and 
how long do you think, like, an acceptable wait time is when 
you are calling in should be for, let's say, a passport and you 
have an issue with a Federal agency? How long do you think the 
wait time should be? Do we have a goal as to what we should 
keep that at?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I appreciate that question, and it 
is important, like we have been talking about today, to ensure 
that we provide good customer service to American citizens and 
to American public. I am not familiar with the processes at the 
passport office and couldn't speak with any particular 
expertise on the processing time or the wait time.
    Mr. Fallon. Because, you know, they took a screenshot and 
texted it to me, and it was on three hours, 46 minutes, and 51 
seconds they were on hold. I don't think that is acceptable. 
Would you agree with that?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I definitely understand their 
concern, and absolutely, there is a question here about the 
need to improve customer service.
    Mr. Fallon. See, one of my Democratic colleagues was 
mentioning that, you know, the workforce in the Federal 
Government should look like America. So, what happens? Let's 
just say percentage wise--I don't know rough math would be--
let's say 32 percent of Americans are White males. If we go 
below that in the Federal workforce, is there going to be in 
the diversity and inclusion an effort to recruit White males? 
We see how absurd this is. Why don't we just hire the best 
people?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congressman, we are not following any 
particular quotas or markers. We are simply wanting to ensure 
that we bring in the best and brightest with diverse opinions 
and experiences. And like I mentioned before to your 
colleagues, in the executive order that the President signed, 
focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility it is 
a very broad definition of ``diversity,'' not just race, 
ethnicity, or gender. So, we are looking at all those factors.
    In fact, we have actually increased the number of 
individuals we have hired with disabilities actually due to the 
fact that we have more workplace flexibilities. We have 
increased those numbers with veterans and military spouses. So, 
it is an interesting dynamic here and a balance, but we are 
seeing the fact that these workplace flexibilities are giving 
us the ability and the geographic representation. If I can 
mention, Congressman, the same study we did on remote jobs over 
the past six months, I mentioned to your colleague, Congressman 
Frost, we had, for every application that was remote, an 
average of 37 states represented in the applicant pool. For a 
duty location, it was only seven states.
    Mr. Fallon. And my time has expired, but with all due 
respect, I don't care if everybody is from Mississippi, I don't 
care about regionally. I don't care what somebody looks like. I 
don't care about anything other than better and more efficient 
performance for the American taxpayer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair 
recognizes Ms. Lee of Pennsylvania for five minutes.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We can all agree that the 
pandemic created unprecedented opportunities, moments, and 
challenges. Can you just explain what would have happened if we 
just did not have telework during the COVID-19 crisis?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congresswoman, for that question. 
Well, we would have had a real challenge in operating the 
Federal Government. I think what we learned with telework is we 
now have the ability in times of emergency to actually have the 
government run when we are away from a building.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. Of the 103 million cases of COVID in 
the United States, there were over 1 million people who died. 
One of every 100 people died, and our government found a way to 
continue operating, so telework is effective, allowed agencies 
to serve this Nation at the time when people in our communities 
needed our government the most. A unilateral decision of 
telework just seems punitive and foolish. You know, as Members 
of the Oversight Committee, we can address where agencies are 
not meeting the mark, but the SHOW UP Act does not seem to hit 
the mark. Ms. Ahuja, you discuss in your testimony you are 
mission driven in your approach. Could you share more on how 
you have seen telework impact organizational health and 
organizational performance?
    Ms. Ahuja. I appreciate that question. There is a lot to 
say here on how the workplace flexibilities have allowed 
employees to be able to do their job and do their job well. 
First of all, let me say that it allows the flexibilities that 
we have now appreciated, especially for families taking care of 
children, elders, so the ability to be able to manage those 
responsibilities while working full-time, and that is 
important. I think it has allowed us to actually accelerate the 
IT enhancements within our agencies in order to be able to do 
that.
    I have been mentioning all these ways to recruit from 
across the country in ways that we just were not able to do 
before, and I think that will give us a cutting edge because 
oftentimes we are competing with the private sector. And I 
always say we went on mission. When it comes to the Federal 
Government people, we score high when people are committed to 
their jobs, but this even gives us the ability to be more 
competitive.
    Ms. Lee. So, it increased your likelihood of being able to 
attract the best and the brightest, irrespective of their race 
or their gender or their ability status?
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely. We do have data from that analysis I 
mentioned, which across the board, just increased those numbers 
in every population.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. It is unsurprising that folks who would 
deny the realities of COVID would also pretend work can only 
happen in an office. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mrs. Luna for five 
minutes.
    Mrs. Luna. Thank you, Chairman. OPM recently hired a senior 
leader who was found to have previous sexual harassment on two 
individuals in his role as executive director of Louisiana 
Housing Corps. Mr. Chairman, I ask for unanimous consent to 
submit to these for the record.
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Mrs. Luna. OK. You know, I hate having to really bring this 
up because I feel like this should have been handled somewhat 
how we do in the military at the lowest level. But 
unfortunately, because of the fact that some of the policies in 
place at your organization seem to have failed some of the 
employees, these people were placed in position of power, which 
ultimately ended up allowing them to victimize people.
    So, this and the ones that I submitted actually come after 
a second Washington Post released in January 2023 highlighted 
how a former high ranking DOD official was hired by OPM in 2021 
to serve as the Chief Financial Officer while under 
investigation by the DOD's Office of the IG for misconduct as 
well. We should all be concerned about these instances, of 
which significantly hinder OPM's ability to establish and 
maintain a trusted workforce as outlined in their vetting 
guidelines, which is why I would like the Chairman to submit 
these for record on which he has.
    And I guess this leads me to my next question for you, 
ma'am. I am sure you are aware of the recent situation in which 
an individual who has previously been investigated for sexual 
harassment on two subordinates was actually hired for a role 
with OPM Retirement Services Division. We are also aware that 
on February 10 of last year, you signed on to a document which 
outlined the vetting procedures to establish and maintain a 
trusted workforce. Were these procedures used when hiring this 
individual in line with guidance that you issued on February 
10, 2022?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congresswoman, for that question. I 
would like to say at the outset that I do take these issues in 
these matters very seriously. I am committed to a workplace 
that is free from harassment. And we do find these reports 
alarming, and we are conducting a careful review right now. And 
because of that, I am limited in going into the details of 
these particular matters. What I can tell you is that, you 
know, these were two distinct matters that we don't think 
indicates any particular flaw in the vetting procedures that we 
have been administering at a governmentwide level.
    Mrs. Luna. Just on average, how long do these reports take 
to close out, though, because when people, especially in 
positions of power, whether or not they are placed on leave, 
there is a certain aspect of, I think, something that you guys 
owe the victims because once something like that happens, you 
are forever changed. How long does it take for these people to 
get fire, because, in my opinion, if I found this in my office, 
and I am sure if you had a subordinate that was making sexual 
comments to you or racial comments to you, you would probably 
fire that individual immediately. But unfortunately, sometimes 
these people, it seems like they get a slap on the wrist, they 
are dismissed, and then that is it.
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congresswoman. Like I mentioned, you 
know, these allegations are alarming, and I am frustrated as 
well to have to manage the situation. But I do want to 
emphasize that as a part of my role as an OPM Director, I have 
to ensure that there is a fair and thorough process in place as 
a part of this review and to let that take its course. And so, 
it is absolutely frustrating and I acknowledge that, but that 
is what I am required to do, the responsibility of this role.
    Mrs. Luna. Are you aware that a senior former Pentagon 
official now serving as the executive leadership at OPM was 
subject of a report finding that he had repeatedly sexually 
harassed women and used racial slurs during his tenure at the 
Pentagon? And you guys hired him.
    Ms. Ahuja. Congresswoman, like I mentioned, I am aware of 
the allegations, and that is why we are conducting----
    Mrs. Luna. I want to specify real quick, though, these were 
not allegations this person was found to be doing this and he 
was hired. The reason I mentioned that, though, is that that, 
to me, is not a qualification of someone that we need to be 
giving a government job to that is potentially in a very senior 
position that can exploit that position of power.
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congresswoman, let me just say that when 
these individuals were hired, I was not aware of the 
circumstances.
    Mrs. Luna. Do I have your word that you will be looking 
into it and seeing that these people will be handled 
accordingly?
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely. Absolutely.
    Mrs. Luna. My final question is, how will OPM ensure that 
other Federal agencies do not onboard individuals to be known 
to either engage in sexual harassment or racial comments?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congresswoman, just to confirm, you are asking 
about how we would ensure that across government or in the 
Agency?
    Mrs. Luna. Just in your practices for hiring people.
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, we continue to do, not just in this 
particular circumstance, but of course, the learnings, and what 
we will find here, we will make adjustments and changes. But we 
are continuously reviewing our hiring processes and our vetting 
processes to determine where changes need to be made, and this 
particular matter and review will inform that. We have a multi-
layered, multifaceted, like, process in place when it comes to 
hiring senior officials, and we also have a commitment, like I 
mentioned, to a workplace free from harassment, and we are 
committed. As I have mentioned, we have a governmentwide role 
around diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, and we 
have the same within our organization. We have a DEIA Council. 
We have high scores when it comes to the DEIA FEVS Index for 
the work that we are doing in this area.
    So, you have my commitment to address these issues. And 
this is the work also within the Agency, again, how we are 
conducting a thorough review and ensuring that we want to take 
what we learned from this and where there might be gaps or 
improvements that we make those changes.
    Mrs. Luna. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair 
recognizes Mr. Casar for five minutes.
    Mr. Casar. Thank you, Chairman. There is important 
conversation happening today about instances of harassment or 
racial slurs within the Federal workforce. But my concern is 
that those examples get brought up as a way of trying to slash 
the Federal workforce who reduced union protections when, in 
fact, my experience with public employees throughout my career 
is that those Federal employees and public employees often are 
the ones that want to root out harassment, and sexual 
harassment, and discrimination more than anyone else. That 
oftentimes are union leaders that are pushing to make sure that 
harassment and discrimination are taken seriously.
    And so, in my view, it is really important for us to 
highlight the amazing Federal employees that are doing the 
right thing for this country because if we highlight their 
work, it becomes clear why we shouldn't be slashing those 
employees, but recruiting them, retaining them, and celebrating 
their work.
    Today, I want to highlight one of those public servants, my 
constituent named Lynn. She is a single mom of two, a volunteer 
at our local animal shelter, an avid gardener, and she spent 16 
years working for the IRS in Austin, Texas. She has contributed 
to recovering millions of dollars from big corporations who 
would have preferred to skip out on their obligation to the 
American taxpayer. Some of my Republican colleagues seem to be 
insinuating that we should further slash the Federal workforce 
and cut important programs. But the reality is that cutting 
workers and services, like Lynn's, would not serve the American 
people, but it would serve those corporate interests that are 
trying to skip out on their tax bill. These Federal workers 
have done incredible work, especially during the pandemic, 
whether they were teleworking or not. Their resilience really 
was on full display during the pandemic. Mail continued to be 
delivered. The VA adapted and expanded telehealth options. We 
provided stimulus payments so families could pay for their 
food, and their rent, and prescription medication. It saved the 
lives of people in my community. Federal employees rose to that 
challenge, and their engagement scores, as I understand it, 
actually went up during the pandemic. So, Ms. Ahuja, why do you 
think that Federal employee engagement scores actually 
increased during the pandemic?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I appreciate that question. I think 
it was a feeling of we are all in this together. We are able to 
continue to deliver on mission for the American people. If you 
look at the scores in 2018, 2019, there is a spike in 2020. And 
they had the workplace flexibilities in order to protect their 
families, protect themselves, be able to balance what was 
happening at home, but also to continue to ensure checks go out 
the door, calls get answered, all the things you just 
mentioned.
    Mr. Casar. In Texas, we are a famously independent 
community, but I think during the pandemic as I was serving in 
the city government, people said this is the moment where we 
really need government and could really see how it could work 
for us. Also, Ms. Ahuja, the Biden Administration has raised 
the minimum wage to $15 an hour for Federal workers. How has 
this initiative impacted our Federal workforce?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congressman, I will mention that it was a 
significant effort by our Agency to put as a floor the $15 
minimum wage. It affected about 67,000 individuals in the 
Federal Government, so compared to 2.1, maybe it doesn't feel 
like a lot, but it certainly was a lot for those individuals, 
but the larger point here is that it sends a strong message. We 
are the largest employer in the country. We have an opportunity 
to be that model, to set the standard for pay, for benefits, 
for workplace flexibilities, for our commitment to diversity, 
equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
    Mr. Casar. Thank you for your testimony. The Federal 
Government has helped build the middle class in this country 
for decades and decades, also while serving the American 
people. And I believe that by continuing to have good workforce 
policies, by supporting our unions within the Federal 
workforce, we can actually improve our services for the 
American people, hold the powerful accountable, stand up for 
the little guy, and root out things like, harassment and 
discrimination by actually supporting our employees who are out 
there doing the right thing. Thanks so much.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Edwards from North 
Carolina for five minutes.
    Mr. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for being 
here. I appreciate you taking time. I know that sometimes we 
don't make this easy on you, but running government should not 
be easy. Much to my chagrin, I think that we have already 
established that we don't have a really good handle on how many 
remote employees that we still have out there, and many of my 
questions were going to be around that. But since we don't know 
that, let me lead with this.
    It occurs to me that almost every business that is out 
there today has had to reinvent itself through the pandemic and 
will maintain those inventions past the pandemic because we 
simply do not have the workforce that we had going into the 
pandemic, nor do we expect it to return anytime soon. Can you 
give me any examples of how the Federal Government may have 
really invented itself, in light of the fact that we don't have 
the workforce that we had three years ago?
    Ms. Ahuja. I appreciate that question, Congressman. First 
and foremost, I will say that I think one thing we don't talk 
about as much is that we had a huge acceleration of IT 
enhancements in our Agency because our agencies needed to be 
able to continue to provide services during the pandemic with 
the fact that we couldn't be in a collective office space. And 
that is significant and is driving more of those efforts across 
government right now. It is supporting the work we are doing 
around recruitment. I think we are thinking about it 
differently. Agencies are expanding their talent pools because 
they have the ability to think more broadly about where they 
might have their employees situated.
    Mr. Edwards. OK. Are you aware of any studies that have 
been conducted regarding the productivity of employees that are 
working from home?
    Ms. Ahuja. We just released a future of the workforce memo 
that lays out the work we are doing in a lot of different areas 
around specifically this issue, looking at policy and training 
and resources. Part of that is also the research piece. There 
are a number of studies that are looking at the private sector, 
as well as the work that we are doing internally in government 
that shows the connection between telework and productivity. 
You have the USPTO. You have got other companies as well. There 
is documentation that links, in some cases, where they are 
seeing higher levels of productivity. I don't have a specific, 
like, research, but we are compiling that.
    Mr. Edwards. I think that would be important because it 
appears that there will be some degree of folks working from 
home when we come out of this. My belief is that folks are far 
less productive, and I would love to see somebody prove me 
wrong there. I have heard stories of, and I envision folks 
working at home, sitting in their pajamas on the edge of the 
couch, watching television while they are reading documents or 
email, and doing their laundry, and walking their dog, and all 
those kinds of things that they would not be doing if they were 
in an office.
    Can you tell us the investment in equipment and technology 
that the U.S. Government has made to send people home to work? 
I know that in business, folks have had to buy computers, and 
printers, and routers, and security software, and all these 
other things. Can you give us a number and what it has cost us 
to send everyone home to work?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I don't have that number available. 
I can also say there are numbers out there of the cost savings 
when there are savings related to less space utilization.
    Mr. Edwards. I am sorry. I am going to run out of time.
    Ms. Ahuja. Sure.
    Mr. Edwards. I don't want to cut you short, but I am going 
to get cutoff here in just a minute. I think we should know 
that number, and I think we should be insisting that as people 
come back to work, they return that equipment to our inventory.
    Mr. Chair, I would just like to make a comment that through 
this pandemic, we have been told over and over that we were 
going to use science and data to manage us out of this. And I 
am extremely disappointed that we have science and data so 
specific as to tell us that the pandemic is going to be over on 
May 11, yet we don't have the data to support how many people 
we have got working, at home and what it cost us to send them 
home, and we are going to bring them back, and that sort of 
things. So, with that, I yield back. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair 
recognizes Ms. Crockett for five minutes.
    Ms. Crockett. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning. I am 
over to your left. Sorry about that. I do want to make sure 
that I could clarify for my colleague that just finished up 
before I begin my specific questioning. You were about to say 
that you do have data as it relates to the fact that we have 
actually saved money because most of us understand that when 
you are housing people and, say, a building, it cost us, 
whether it is the amount of money to lease that space, whether 
it is a cost of the energy in that space. But essentially, I am 
sure you would agree with me that renting out a space to maybe 
house 300 people, say, in one agency may be a little bit more 
expensive than just giving them computers, computers that they 
were already going to be required to work on to do their jobs 
in the first place. I mean, am I missing something or does that 
sound almost accurate?
    Ms. Ahuja. It does, Congresswoman. I was going to mention 
earlier that, you know, giving that equipment and ability to 
work from home, if someone is under a telework arrangement, 
also allows if there are any issues around continuity of 
government, that they can easily shift, or when the OPM closes 
the government because of snow or other things, there is no 
longer really a day off. In fact, you really can't say, well, I 
can't work because I can't come into the office.
    Ms. Crockett. Absolutely. And in fact, you may not be 
aware, but here at the House, I am just a freshman, but when I 
swore in, I was given a bunch of laptops to give out to my 
staff as well, and there is actually equipment on our laptops 
that allow my staff to answer calls from anywhere. If anybody 
calls into one of our official numbers, we can absolutely 
answer those calls directly from our laptops. So, even here in 
the U.S. House of Representatives, we make it to where our 
staff have the ability to actually work, even if they are not 
in the office here.
    But what I want to talk to you about is solutions over 
scare tactics and scarcity. It is my understanding that funding 
has been continually gutted specifically to the IRS, and more 
so to the tune of the fact that there was a reduction in your 
staff levels at the IRS to about a 1974 level, despite the fact 
that there are more people in this country, which means that we 
have more people to service. But because there was a lack of 
funding and it is my understanding, if I remember correctly, 
that a little bit earlier last month we voted, or actually 
maybe in the very first bill that we voted on, I believe 
Maxwell was referencing it was a defund the IRS bill. It seems 
to me that there are some people, they just don't want you all 
to be successful because it is hard to hire people when 
somebody ties your hands behind your back and tells you we 
don't have any money for that.
    Nevertheless, I do want to make sure I tell a couple of 
stories because, honestly, I think you have made it pretty 
clear to anybody that is paying attention and really cares to 
listen about the work that you are doing and what you are 
trying to do. And I don't believe for two seconds that you want 
on your watch specifically for people to feel as if you are a 
failure to the American people. No one goes to work and wants 
to have that on their record, so I do thank you for your 
service.
    I am from Dallas, Texas, and there is a woman by the name 
of Susan. Susan is a financial operations specialist in the 
Office of Grants Management within the Administration for 
Children and Families in HHS in Dallas. She served for four 
years in the U.S. Navy and worked in the ACF Region 2 Office 
before being transferred to Dallas. Susan is currently a single 
mother of three school-aged children. Susan is a high-
performing employee and continues to receive high ratings on 
her employee performance appraisal, despite the fact that she 
has a crippling disability because of her service to our 
country. To make performing her duties easier, Susan requested 
to work remotely, and with the help of her union, NTEU, she was 
recently approved for five days of remote work.
    Now, I am going to tell you about another person. Her name 
is Gwen, and Gwen has worked for the IRS. That was her very 
first job, and then she went on to work for DOD. She worked for 
Army. She worked for Navy. And, in fact, she was working for 
Navy when they had the shooting at the Navy Yard. Gwen is an 
older African-American woman who, when the pandemic happened, 
she was high risk, and she was given an opportunity to work at 
home. Gwen also managed to raise a new freshman Congresswoman 
by the name of Jasmine Crockett.
    And so, it is offensive when people want to say that the 
face of Federal Government employees are lazy and ridiculous 
when my mom graduated from high school at 16, and then she went 
on to WashU and graduated at the age of 19. So, let me tell 
you, this is not about making villains out of the people that 
make this country go. And I will do everything that I can to 
make sure that you have the resources that you need to make 
sure we take care of the people. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair 
recognizes Mr. Donalds from Florida for five minutes.
    Ms. Ahuja. Chairman, would it be possible to take a quick 
break, if at all possible?
    Chairman Comer. OK. At the request of the witness, we will 
recess for five minutes.
    Ms. Ahuja. Just a quick bio-break.
    Chairman Comer. Five minutes. Without objection, we stand 
in recess.
    [Recess.]
    Chairman Comer. The Committee will come back to order.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Donalds from Florida for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Donalds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director, thanks for 
coming in. I appreciate it. You said earlier in your oral 
testimony that about 50 percent of the Federal workforce was 
actually showing up in the office during the pandemic. Do you 
know which agencies in particular actually showed up?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, thank you for that question. It is 
tied to those agencies that have occupations that require----
    Mr. Donalds. OK. But like which ones? You tell me.
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, DHS or DOD. I don't know all the agencies, 
but it is tied to the occupation that requires onsite presence, 
so it is oftentimes Border Patrol other----
    Mr. Donalds. So, if you are Border Patrol, Homeland, DOD, 
over at the Pentagon, FBI, ATF----
    Ms. Ahuja. Facilities for----
    Mr. Donalds [continuing]. Facilities, because, you know, 
you got to actually keep the staff working, they had to come in 
to work?
    Ms. Ahuja. And there are, of course, other occupations. I 
don't have the whole list of them.
    Mr. Donalds. So, what is the difference between a worker at 
DOD or Homeland, or actually the better example, what is the 
difference between a Federal employee with Border Patrol and a 
Federal employee at the Department of State?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I don't quite understand your 
question.
    Mr. Donalds. What is the difference between a Federal 
employee that is on our southern border, with Border Patrol 
that shows up for work every day, mind you, under terrible 
immigration policies by Joe Biden, and an employee working at 
the Department of State? What is the difference between those 
two employees?
    Ms. Ahuja. And still, I don't mean to be disrespectful----
    Mr. Donalds. OK. Director, let me simplify. Why is it OK 
for an employee at the Department of State to not show up when 
somebody who actually has to secure the southern border under 
Border Patrol has to show up? Why does the border agent have to 
show up every single day, in, frankly, in some office buildings 
down on the southern border, which are extremely confined, but 
somebody over at the Department of State doesn't have to show 
up to do their job? Why the distinction?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congressman, I, respectfully, don't agree 
with that characterization. Department of State employees 
aren't showing up. I have shared on our FedData that we have 
employees, at least for that particular survey, 60 percent of 
the respondents said they have significant in-person time, but 
they are showing up whether they telework or----
    Mr. Donalds. Hold on. Reclaiming my time. Can you define 
``significant?'' What does ``significant mean?'' Is that 30 
hours a week because I would define ``significant'' as at least 
35 hours a week, maybe 40, but that is me. What do you guys 
define ``significant'' as?
    Ms. Ahuja. I don't have the report in front of me, but it 
is specified in the report.
    Mr. Donalds. So, you don't have, OK. Can you make sure you 
get us that because I think the definition of ``significant'' 
is an important criteria for us to understand if we have half 
the Federal workforce during the pandemic, actually didn't go 
into the office.
    Mr. Donalds. Let me ask you this question post-pandemic. I 
know what the President is doing about May 11 is the end of the 
pandemic. That is just because the President wants to send out 
$600 billion in American Rescue Plan money. That should not 
actually be going out, by the way, because we are hitting the 
debt ceiling with $31 trillion in debt, so sending $600 billion 
out the door for the ``pandemic'' which is already over, to me, 
is budgetary foolishness, but that is what the President wants 
to do. That being said, now that the pandemic is over, what 
percentage of the Federal workforce is actually back in the 
office?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, like I have shared before, that 
number is based on workplace arrangements within those 
agencies, and those agencies have to continually assess what--
--
    Mr. Donalds. Director, I got 1 minute and 10 seconds left. 
I will sharpen the question. Do you know today what percentage 
of the Federal workforce is actually back in the office place?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I don't know that information. We 
have a telework report data--I mean, sorry--report that we have 
issued at the end of the year.
    Mr. Donalds. Director, here you are testifying in front of 
Oversight. You don't have the data in front of you about what 
percentage of the Federal workforce is actually back in the 
office?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, it varies from agency to agency.
    Mr. Donalds. But, Director, you are a head of OPM. You are 
head of all personnel management. You should be knowing who is 
in and out of the office, at a minimum, on a month-to-month 
basis. This is data you should have from a month ago, not even 
today. From a month ago, do you have the data?
    Ms. Ahuja. Like I mentioned, Congressman, it is captured in 
this report. I don't have those details in front of me, and 
that report is public to look at, so, and the question here----
    Mr. Donalds. But, Director, you are here now. It being 
public is great, but we are talking now. Last question. I got 
10 seconds. Last question. Do you think that Federal employees 
should be back in the workforce at an 80-percent clip, or 
actually, do you think they should be back in the workforce 
according to work protocols pre-COVID-19 pandemic? Yes or no?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, our workforce is back to work. They 
have been working----
    Mr. Donalds. According to pre-COVID-19 protocols?
    Ms. Ahuja. Protocols, meaning?
    Mr. Donalds. I mean, Democrats opposed our bill in the SHOW 
UP Act. They opposed it. All we said was go back to pre-COVID-
19 protocols. They said no. Do you think we should go back to 
pre-COVID-19 protocols? Yes or no.
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, it is a more complicated question 
than a yes or no answer.
    Mr. Donalds. That is not complicated at all. People got to 
show up for work. Thank you, Director.
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Ms. Balint for five 
minutes. Balint, I apologize. I did that again. Sorry.
    Ms. Balint. That is all right. Rhymes with ``talent.'' 
Director, thank you so much for being here. I am concerned 
because our Republican colleagues want to take steps that would 
remove protections for Federal workers, allowing for them to be 
removed if they refuse to essentially buckle to political 
demands of a President, even if science or the law are on their 
side, and these concerns are not theoretical. As we know, back 
in 2019, then President Trump circled areas on a map with a 
Sharpie that he claimed were dangerously in the path of 
Hurricane Dorian, but that assertion was not based on fact and 
was contrary to what expert scientists at NOAA forecast. 
Fortunately, the scientists at NOAA's Birmingham office tweeted 
a correction and pointed out the President's error.
    I ask unanimous consent to include the Department of 
Commerce inspector general report from June 26 that found Trump 
Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, among others, discounted 
expert weather predictions and harmed trust in NOAA and the 
National Weather Service.
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Ms. Balint. So, while #sharpiegate made for a very funny 
day on Twitter, the consequences really could have been 
catastrophic, and ultimately, it is not funny. It is not funny 
at all. It is dangerous, and it erodes our norms. It cuts at 
the credibility of our government. And so, what if FEMA was 
deployed to the wrong region because experts were too scared of 
losing their jobs to contradict a President? What if millions 
of taxpayers dollars had been wasted sending Federal help where 
it was actually not needed? And what if families in the storm's 
path were stranded because first responders in the Federal 
workforce had to cater to the whims of a President? Not the 
policies of a President, the whims of a President. So, in that 
instance, civil servants saved the day like they do every 
single day. So, Director Ahuja, would a partisan civil service 
filled with only loyal Democrats help you perform your job more 
effectively? Why or why not?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congresswoman for that question. Like 
I have shared, I think it is important to have a nonpartisan 
civil service so we can utilize the expertise and institutional 
knowledge of these individuals to get the frank feedback and 
conversations. And I think that it is impossible to do your job 
well if you don't have those varying in viewpoints. I often say 
that I want difference of opinion around me to tell me if the 
decisions I am making are really going to have the impact that 
I intend for them to have, and a part of that is leaning on 
career leaders in my Agency, who have had the knowledge over a 
period of years to tell me what will be the impact, how should 
we think about these policies? I may not always agree, but I 
think it is important to have that.
    Ms. Balint. So, to follow up on that, can you tell us a 
little bit more about these career civil servants, who have 
served both Republican and Democratic presidents, who show up 
in your office to do their level best to give you advice? Tell 
me what that looks like when you have a diversity of opinion.
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely, Congresswoman. I think that is the 
only way I can be an effective leader is to have those varying 
in viewpoints. I don't want to know who is Democrat or 
Republican. I don't know, actually, and that is really not the 
basis. It is really, you know, you are working in a particular 
department, you have the knowledge and skill over a period of 
time, and I think it is critical to have that carryover. It is 
critical to encourage that level of frankness and that we can 
have that type of relationship between the political leaders 
and the career leaders.
    Ms. Balint. I really appreciate that. And the other thing I 
want to ask you is, you know, what kind of chilling effect does 
it have when you have someone who is the Commander-in-Chief 
getting on national television with a sharpie on a map? What 
does that do for the people who show up every day, day in and 
day out, to do their job and they feel like they are being 
asked to lie, essentially?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congresswoman, I appreciate what you have shared 
today. I think, in all of these cases, it is important that as 
a leader, that you respect and value the input and perspective, 
and that you are OK when you have made a mistake, that you 
actually can be corrected, and you don't fear correcting that 
leader. I think that is particularly important, and I would 
worry, as we have seen in the last administration, where you 
did have individuals leave their agency, and we are still 
rebuilding those agencies today.
    Ms. Balint. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Perry from 
Pennsylvania for five minutes.
    Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director, I want to 
reset the conversation a little bit and focus our attention. 
Generally speaking, why do government agencies exist? Just 
generally speaking. It is not a ``gotcha'' question.
    Ms. Ahuja. OK. That is good.
    Mr. Perry. Yes, sure.
    Ms. Ahuja. To serve the American people?
    Mr. Perry. Yes, sure. Right. Yes. To do the job of the 
American people, you get different agencies doing different 
things. And what is the role of the good folks, whether they 
work in your office or mine, they are Federal employees. What 
is their role in this whole thing? Again, it is not a 
``gotcha'' question. I think we are probably going to agree.
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, it is to deliver on mission for those 
agencies. It is to deliver good customer service. What is 
really interesting is in the FEVS scores, Federal employees 
score really high on their commitment to mission.
    Mr. Perry. They want to do a good job, right? They are 
there for a mission. They want to service the American people. 
They are bosses, right? They are all our bosses. How much time 
do you think it is acceptable? I imagine you look at this 
stuff. How much time is it acceptable for Federal employees to 
spend on their own interests while on Federal time? And that 
could be anything from looking up the price of a new car to 
whatever, but they are at work not on break. Is there a certain 
amount of time that is acceptable for them to be working on 
their own interests as opposed to the interest of the agency 
and the American people?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I appreciate that question. I am 
not aware of any particular quantity of time.
    Mr. Perry. OK. Can I give you some figures here? So in 
2019, so this is Fiscal Year 2019. We are now in 2023, but in 
2024 fiscal year, but in 2019, 2.6 million hours. In that year 
alone, 2.6 million hours were spent on interests other than the 
American people by Federal employees, particularly union 
activity. And look, we want our Federal workers to be 
protected, we want them to be represented. But understand there 
is a different dynamic when Federal employees are negotiating 
with other Federal employees and taxpayers that pay the bill 
are over here, they are not in the negotiation. Take DOD for 
example: 60 years, 527,000 hours. That is equivalent of 60 
years of time were spent in that year working on their own 
stuff. Is that acceptable? Is there a limit?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congressman, I am not familiar with those 
data points from those agencies----
    Mr. Perry. OK. Even if you are not familiar----
    Ms. Ahuja [continuing]. Or the arrangement they may have 
experienced.
    Mr. Perry. What is acceptable? So, you take the VA. There 
are veterans in the room. I happen to be one. You know, if you 
are working at the VA, God bless you, you are trying to service 
members, whether you are a nurse practitioner or some 
specialist. I would think you would want to spend the bulk of 
your time doing that, but in the same year, 2019, 500,000 hours 
at the VA. In that year, that is 57 equivalent years of time 
were spent negotiating for their own benefits.
    I am just asking, what is appropriate? Is there some level, 
like, of an average employee's time, 40 hours a week, 1 hour a 
week, 10 hours a week? How many hours a week is acceptable? Is 
there any limit?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, you are speaking about union 
activity in particular.
    Mr. Perry. Yes.
    Ms. Ahuja. And often, that is dictated by the collective 
bargaining agreement with, between the union and that agency, 
and it would vary, so----
    Mr. Perry. But do you have any personal thought? You are 
managing this thing, and we are trying to get the most 
efficiency for the Agency for the good people working there for 
their bosses, the American people. You are in charge of all 
that. What is cool with you?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congressman, I appreciate that question 
again, but----
    Mr. Perry. I know you do, but what is the answer?
    Ms. Ahuja. Right, but oftentimes, and really the case is, 
you know, we provide technical assistance to the agencies----
    Mr. Perry. OK. All right. So, you don't have an answer. I 
got it. Let me ask you this. Is it OK and acceptable to use 
Federal facilities for private activities? Like, let's say that 
one of us here wants to have the NRA show up down at the EPA 
and use their facility, Monday, for some convention from 8 to 
5. Good to go or not good to go?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I can't speak to that particular 
situation. I don't manage----
    Mr. Perry. OK. Pick your own situation, some private 
organization working at a Federal facility during work hours.
    Ms. Ahuja. This is the purview of the General Services 
Administration around Federal buildings and spacing, and I 
couldn't speak with expertise. It is not under my purview.
    Mr. Perry. OK. Fair enough. Then what if it was union 
activity on behalf of Federal employees, is a union, a Federal 
organization, or it is a private organization?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, unions have a special status in their 
relationship with the employer, and oftentimes----
    Mr. Perry. So, are you telling me that unions are Federal 
organizations?
    Ms. Ahuja. No, I am saying through the collective 
bargaining agreement, there are----
    Mr. Perry. So, it is OK for them to use Federal facilities 
and not pay for them?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, again, this will be laid out in 
collective bargaining agreements. I don't----
    Mr. Perry. So, it is OK. It is OK as long as it is in the 
collective bargaining agreement? So, if the NRA calls itself a 
union, it can then go down and use Federal facilities during 
work time?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congressman, unfortunately, I don't have 
enough information to answer your questions.
    Mr. Perry. All right. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair 
recognizes Ms. Brown for five minutes.
    Ms. Brown. Thank you. First of all, I want to set the 
record straight on a couple of things. First, President Biden's 
budget, which he will release tomorrow, will cut the deficit by 
nearly $3 trillion over the next 10 years. That is a stark 
contrast to congressional GOP's proposal, which adds $3 
trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years with handouts 
for the ultra-wealthy, well-connected, rich big corporations, 
and special interests. Second, President Biden took office 
after his predecessor signed a reckless and unpaid tax handout 
for the wealthy and large corporations, which added nearly $2 
trillion to the deficit. Third, thanks to President Biden's 
unprecedented vaccination program and economic recovery, the 
deficits fell by $1.7 trillion in the first two years of the 
Biden-Harris Administration, and the President's Inflation 
Reduction Act, will reduce the deficit by more than $200 
billion over the next decade.
    Building on that record of fiscal responsibility, the 
President's budget cuts the deficit by nearly $3 trillion over 
the next decade. The budget achieves this while lowering costs 
for families, investing in America, and protecting programs 
Americans have paid into because it proposes tax reforms to 
ensure the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share, 
while cutting wasteful spending on special interests, like Big 
Oil and Big Pharma.
    So, now that I have cleared up a few things, I want to 
highlight an outstanding Federal employee in Ohio's 11th 
congressional District. Kortney Mosley was born and raised in 
Cleveland, Ohio, where she is a trial lawyer for the United 
States Department of Labor. As a trial attorney, she works to 
further the Department of Labor's mission by fostering, and 
promoting, and developing the welfare of wage earners and job 
seekers, improving conditions, and assure work related benefits 
and rights. She joined the DOL in 2021 after serving as an 
assistant law director and housing prosecutor for the city of 
Cleveland. Her previous experience helped her navigate in a new 
practice area where she has effectively and successfully 
handled all phases of litigations, including areas of Fair 
Labor Standards Act, Occupational Safe and Healthy 
Administration, Employment Retirement and Security Income Act, 
Mine Safety Health Administration. She has also successfully 
handled multiple settlement negotiations, and in doing so, she 
conducted herself in a professional manner, maintained proper 
perspective, recognized the policy and objectives of the 
clients, and ultimately reached fair and equitable outcomes to 
all involved.
    Her desire to give back to her community began at an early 
age, but it was during law school when she found her calling 
for public service. In addition to her work at the DOL, she 
serves as the president of the Northeast Ohio Young Black 
Democrats, recorder for the Norman S. Minor Bar Association, 
co-parliamentarian and counsel for the Cuyahoga County 
Democratic Party, and a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha 
Sorority, Incorporated.
    Our dedicated public servants and their families deserve 
timely processing of their retirement benefits, and the OPM 
serves nearly 2.7 million survivors and eligible family members 
and paid $83 billion in retirement benefits in Fiscal Year 
2021. OPM's retirement service has its challenges: a high 
processing backlog, complaints about its customer services and 
call center, and improper payments. The system also relies on 
paper-based manual processing, has an insufficient staffing, 
and old IT. It currently takes 90 days. That is three full 
months for the OPM to process a retirement application. It is 
unacceptable. OPM's strategic plan includes goals to improve 
customer service for retirement services and strategies for 
strengthening customer engagement.
    So, Ms. Ahuja, have processing times and customer 
satisfaction improved for concerned retirees?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congresswoman. Related to processing 
times, and we are certainly appreciative of our Fiscal Year 
2023 that allows us to do some considerable staffing up. But 
even with that, with the surge in retirement, we have increased 
production of cases by 20 percent, so we have brought down the 
inventory there. And we are doing work toward addressing some 
of the customer service challenges with our call center, in 
particular, trying to move more of the common questions online. 
And we have just launched a chatbot to be able to manage some 
of these easier questions we find with the particular clientele 
we have, and I have listened to some of these calls myself. It 
is truly the volume of calls that come in. But when they get a 
customer service representative, there is that wholesome 
exchange of whatever question they are asking that they are 
getting the full attention of that customer service rep.
    Ms. Brown. Well, thank you. I see my time has expired. I do 
want to correct the record. All these days run together, but 
the President's budget will be released at 2:30 today, and I 
just want to say, yes, we do need to do better for our Federal 
employees who have earned their benefits from their years of 
service, but we do thank you for the years of public service 
that you have given us. And with that, I yield back. Thank you, 
Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Ms. Greene for five 
minutes.
    Ms. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Ahuja, I would 
like to talk to you a little bit. Over 20 years I have been an 
employer. I own a commercial construction company. Our primary 
objective is to serve our customer and provide the best service 
and product possible. That is pretty much how businesses work 
in the private sector. I am also a big believer in hiring the 
best people that I can hire because whether they are one of my 
top employees or the lowest person in my business, they 
represent our company, and we want them to represent us well 
and do the best job for our customer who is paying us.
    So, I would like to talk to you a little bit about work, 
hiring people on merit and firing people. President Trump's 
executive order, E.O. 13957, removed many job protections for 
poorly performing or insubordinate officials in important 
Federal jobs. It made it easier to take action against at-will 
employees, up to and including firing them for performance 
issues, and denied at-will employees the ability to appeal 
disciplinary procedures and firings. On the third day of 
President Biden's presidency, he rescinded this executive order 
along with many others.
    You are a big supporter of diversity, equity, and 
inclusion, as you stated in the beginning of this hearing, but 
on January 31, 2023, Director, you released a proposed rule to 
update Federal hiring procedures for determining suitability 
and fitness. I am quoting you: ``knowing engagements and acts 
or activities with the purpose of overthrowing Federal, state, 
local or tribal government; two, acts of force via violence, 
intimidation, and coercion with the purpose of denying others 
the free exercise of their rights under the U.S. Constitution 
or any state constitution; attempting to indoctrinate others or 
to incite them to action in furtherance of illegal acts; active 
membership or leadership in a group with knowledge of its 
unlawful aims, or participation in such a group with specific 
intent to further its unlawful aims.'' You said, ``Anyone that 
fits these characteristics should not be hired.'' Director, in 
your opinion, is a person who participated in the riot at the 
Capitol on January 6 fit to serve in the Federal workforce?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congresswoman, for that question. I 
can't speak to that specific instance, but what I can tell you 
is we look at the whole conduct case by case, and we are, with 
this particular revision of the questionnaire, seeking to 
balance the First Amendment rights and also the conduct that 
would be of concern by individuals coming into the Federal 
Government. So, it is a balance----
    Ms. Green. Director, specifically, if anyone was involved 
in activities on January 6, could they be employed by the 
Federal Government?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congresswoman, I can't give a ``yes'' or ``no'' 
answer here. We look at each individual on a case-by-case 
basis, and look at the set of conduct and their background.
    Ms. Green. Well, according to your proposed rule of Federal 
hiring procedures, you are determining their suitability and 
fitness. What about a person who rioted at a BLM or Antifa 
riot, and attacked police officers, burned or vandalized 
Federal buildings?
    Ms. Ahuja. The same would hold true, Congresswoman. We 
would look at the whole set of circumstances, review that case, 
again, of that individual. I couldn't speak to a hypothetical 
situation in this instance because it is a pretty vigorous 
review, and so----
    Ms. Green. Director, you are in charge of hiring and firing 
people for the Federal Government. I would think this is a 
question that you could answer.
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congresswoman, we manage the policies, but 
I don't manage the hiring and firing of individuals in the 
Federal Government.
    Ms. Green. I think you could answer this since you set the 
policy. This is a ``yes'' or ``no'' question.
    Ms. Ahuja. Congresswoman, I do appreciate your question, 
but I am not able to answer a hypothetical. It truly is based 
on all the set of information that comes in to our adjudicators 
and our investigators to look at that individual.
    Ms. Green. OK. Director, on June 3, 2020, you wrote a blog 
supporting BLM and a call to action for people to donate to the 
Northwest Community Bail Fund, which is dedicated to ending 
cash bail and pretrial detention in Washington State of BLM and 
Antifa rioters in 2020. These were rioters that, you know, took 
over the streets of Portland, Oregon, attacked police officers, 
Federal courthouses, and local government. They had the 
autonomous zone. Do you support pretrial detention, and do you 
think the January 6 pretrial defendant should continue to be 
held in pretrial detention?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congresswoman, my understanding here is I am 
here as the Director of OPM, and that is the basis of this 
hearing, and I am happy to answer questions based on my role in 
this Agency.
    Ms. Green. Director, you avoided all my questions today, so 
I hope you do better with my colleagues. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Moskowitz from 
Florida for five minutes.
    Mr. Moskowitz. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Well, what an 
exciting hearing today. You know, we heard that we should go 
back to Trump's hiring procedures, and that, you know, we have 
heard that, you know, we should hire people on merit, you know, 
like Trump did. Well, it certainly wasn't merit when he hired 
his children into the White House or his stepson, all right? I 
assume you weren't the one who approved Jared Kushner's 
security clearance when security experts said he shouldn't have 
security clearance, I shouldn't have listened to you.
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I wasn't in the Administration at 
that time.
    Mr. Moskowitz. Yes. No, I know. You know, I assume you also 
weren't the person who hired General Michael Flynn. You know, 
that wasn't your hire.
    Ms. Ahuja. We do career civil service and not politicals.
    Mr. Moskowitz. Right. You know, I am not the only one who 
thought the hiring procedures from the Trump Administration 
were pretty bad. I mean, one of Trump's own allies just said a 
couple of weeks ago that he loves President Trump, but his H.R. 
was horrible. In fact, quite frankly, it is President Trump 
himself that says, quite frankly, his hiring procedures were 
quite terrible. John Bolton, who worked in the Trump 
Administration, Trump called him a wacko and a sick puppy. Jeff 
Sessions, who was hired by Donald Trump, was called mentally 
unqualified. John Kelly, who was hired by Donald Trump, Trump 
said he was way over his head. Rex Tillerson who was hired by 
Donald Trump, he was dumb as a rock. You know, Mick Mulvaney, 
who was hired by Donald Trump says, ``If there is one criticism 
that I would level against the President is he didn't hire very 
well.''
    So, I am again perplexed. Here we are yet again at another 
hearing where we want to talk about, you know, going back to, 
you know, Trump's good old days, and now we want to bring back 
Trump's hiring procedures because, you know, they are trying to 
score some points for you. But, you know, H.R. wasn't really a 
strong suit in the Trump Administration. Don't listen to me. I 
just listened to Donald Trump. He admits the people he hired 
were terrible. He hates all of them, in fact, which is an 
unbelievable sort of event, and so with that, I yield back. 
Thank you.
    Mr. Connolly. Would my friend yield?
    Mr. Moskowitz. Absolutely, Mr. Chair. Oh, I am sorry, Mr. 
Connolly. Yes.
    Mr. Connolly. I thank my friend. Ms. Ahuja, going back to 
questions about looking at backgrounds and who we might hire, 
and we understand you don't hire for individual agencies, 
right?
    Ms. Ahuja. No, I don't, Congressman.
    Mr. Connolly. Right. You are the H.R. agency of the whole 
Federal Government, but the hiring is done agency by agency?
    Ms. Ahuja. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Connolly. And they set their own needs and parameters. 
They set the criteria. They have individual specific 
requirements, depending on the mission of the agency and that 
division and so forth. Is that correct?
    Ms. Ahuja. Certainly we set the broader policy.
    Mr. Connolly. Right.
    Ms. Ahuja. But agencies will have their own policies around 
hiring.
    Mr. Connolly. Are there flags, however, that OPM either 
sets for agencies or that might go off for you, for example, 
somebody with a history of violent engagement?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, we serve as a part of the Performance 
Accountability Council with OPM, OMB, the ODNI, and DOD, so we 
are the suitability executive agent for the Federal Government. 
So, we do set broad policies in conjunction with our partners 
on how to determine certain conduct that was----
    Mr. Connolly. Right. So, I am trying to get at the question 
you were accused of evading. If somebody, for example, were 
involved in a violent, let's use the word, insurrection, and 
pled guilty to it, and is going to jail for it, might that 
affect that person's future as a prospective Federal employee, 
or do we just turn a blind eye to that and we don't pay any 
attention to the fact that you were arrested, convicted, you 
pled guilty, and you served time or you are going to serve time 
for a violent activity?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congressman, it certainly would be a part 
of the investigation. If that individual applied to the Federal 
Government, look at the conduct, there is----
    Mr. Connolly. And let me just say, I think for most of us, 
it should be. I don't want you hiring people who have harmed 
other people in a violent activity, especially when one as 
public as an insurrection here at the U.S. Capitol. So please, 
to speak up for this side of the aisle, I think we would 
applaud you using that filter, and carefully, so thank you. I 
yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mrs. Boebert of 
Colorado for five minutes.
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, 
Director, for being here with us today.
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you.
    Mrs. Boebert. On March 1, 2021, Joe Biden said that it is 
time for the American people to get back to work. More than a 
year later, only 1 in 3 Federal workers has returned to the 
workplace since the start of COVID and far fewer than that 
right here in Washington, DC. In fact, a leaked memo that I 
have here from January 2021 to the then Chief of Staff at the 
Department of Health and Human Services showed that between 20 
and 30 percent of the Department's employees did not even log 
into work on any given day between March and December 2020.
    Mr. Chairman, I do ask for unanimous consent to submit this 
into the record.
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you. Because these bureaucrats have 
basically joined the pajama party, the Federal Government has 
somehow gotten even worse at serving the American taxpayers 
from significant backlogs in case management and lengthy 
response times. These are issues that I deal with on a regular 
basis with my constituents who are having frustrations with 
Federal agencies. These Federal agencies have been unable to 
process retirement paperwork for seniors, correct errors on tax 
returns, and even fulfill requests for veterans to access files 
in order to access lifesaving medical care. Now, Director 
Ahuja, do you know as up to date, what percentage or the number 
of Federal employees that have returned to work full time, in 
person at their agency office?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congresswoman. I have mentioned 
before, I don't have that specific data.
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you, Director. So, you had mentioned 
that there is a public report, correct?
    Ms. Ahuja. The telework report that we issue every year.
    Mrs. Boebert. Correction. So, we have gone through that 
report, that public report. It is the remote telework 
enhancement to enterprise human resources, integration data 
files. That number is not in there.
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, I did mention also that we just released 
new data variables that we are going to be collecting through 
the payroll service providers in order to be able to have more 
specific data.
    Mrs. Boebert. So, are you telling me that Federal agencies 
track this percentage or they are going to begin tracking the 
percentage of employees that returned to work in person?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, the data is there. We just want to be able 
to bring it into one house and to be able to automate it.
    Mrs. Boebert. Where is it currently if it is not under one 
house?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, the agencies house that data through their 
payroll providers, and that is----
    Mrs. Boebert. And you weren't able to collect those and 
bring them in before your report was submitted yesterday? Why 
is this something that is brand new that you are looking into 
providing?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, I think what you are referring to is the 
memo that we announced that we are actually going to be setting 
up the collection, and we want to be able to give agencies 
time----
    Mrs. Boebert. I just don't understand why OPM, the 
Director, would not know how many Federal employees have 
returned full time to work, in person. Even if other agencies 
have this information, why don't you have that information, 
Director?
    According to the OPM website, it is official policy for the 
Federal employee to receive a lump sum payment for any unused 
annual leave when he or she separates from Federal service, 
meaning if any employee does not use all of their vacation 
time, they will receive payments, sometimes totaling multiple 
thousands of dollars. Now, normal vacation days no longer have 
to be reported in the traditional sense under agency telework 
policies, allowing employees to claim that they will be 
teleworking, and instead, well, they're spending all day at a 
swim up bar in Cabo, so, with over 25 percent of department 
employees not logging into work without agency officials or 
even the director of the OMB noticing. Can you tell me, 
Director Ahuja, are the American taxpayers paying bureaucrats 
thousands of dollars to vacation under the guise of agencies' 
telework policies?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congresswoman, I actually take issue with 
the characterization that there is a change in policy. I will 
tell you at OPM, individuals have to document their hours every 
pay period, and so I am not aware of the policy change that you 
are speaking of.
    Mrs. Boebert. You are not aware of any employee taking 
something that one would consider a vacation time and bringing 
their computer and maybe logging in just a portion of that time 
or not at all? We have more than 25 percent of Federal 
employees not logging into work, and they are teleworking.
    Ms. Ahuja. Congresswoman, I do take issue with the 
characterization that 25 percent of individuals are not logging 
in.
    Mrs. Boebert. It is in this leaked document right here that 
we just submitted into the record.
    Ms. Ahuja. You are basing that from 2020, which is in the 
last administration, and I can't speak to that particular 
incident, and I don't know the particular----
    Mrs. Boebert. Do you currently know how many employees are 
logging in for telework? Do you have that number?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congresswoman, that is not a number that I would 
know.
    Mrs. Boebert. So, we don't know anyone who's working full 
time, part time, in person, telework? We have no idea?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, that is based on the agencies, and the 
supervisors, and managers, and they would know that.
    Mrs. Boebert. Do you or do not oversee personnel in the 
Federal Government?
    Ms. Ahuja. We oversee personnel policy. Agencies manage 
their employees.
    Mrs. Boebert. And you have no documentation of what 
employees are actually working in person or telework?
    Ms. Ahuja. Agencies manage their telework and remote worker 
demands.
    Mrs. Boebert. I hope that this gets straightened out. I 
hope that you get reports under one house, and, please, do it 
soon for the sake of the American taxpayer. Thank you, and I 
yield.
    Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair 
recognizes, Ms. Porter, from California, for five minutes.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to start 
by recognizing a Postal Service letter carrier in my district 
named Bea Lee. For 38 years, Bea has connected constituents to 
their essential medicines, ballots, notes from loved ones. With 
so many hospitals and medical offices on her route, she is 
proud that her work helps keep our communities healthy and 
safe. As we discuss ways to improve the Federal workforce, I 
want us all to remember that Federal employees are dedicated 
public servants and valued members of our communities. I thank 
my constituent, Bee, for her years of service to Orange County.
    Second, I want to take up a partial response to what my 
colleague, Mrs. Boebert, was discussing an article alleging 
that 25 percent of HHS employees did not actually telework, and 
I just want to flag for everyone here that VPN and using a VPN 
login as a way to measure employee engagement and productivity 
is notoriously inaccurate and misleading. It does not 
necessarily reflect an employee's access to their email, the 
internet. They can be working on Microsoft Word, drafting a 
document. They can be in Excel inputting data without being 
connected to the internet at all, much less to VPN. It also 
fails to reflect the work of the thousands of doctors, 
researchers, scientists, and other HHS employees who spend much 
of their time working in the field not logged on to a computer.
    I now like to turn to an area that I have worked on before, 
which is----
    Mr. Connolly. Would my colleague just real quick yield?
    Ms. Porter. Real quick.
    Mr. Connolly. Yes. I am not even sure if VPN is required, 
by the way. Thank you.
    Ms. Porter. Correct. I want to turn to an issue I have 
worked on before, which is wildland firefighter classification. 
We know that wildfires in California get worse and worse each 
year. We don't even talk about a season anymore. It is an all-
year-round risk, and we owe our wildland firefighters debts of 
gratitude for what they do. Director, would you agree that 
achieving equity across the wildland firefighter workforce is 
an important goal?
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely, Congresswoman.
    Ms. Porter. So, we should expect that wildland 
firefighters, who do the same work, to have the same job 
descriptions, pay benefits, et cetera. Would you agree?
    Ms. Ahuja. Yes, I would.
    Ms. Porter. OK. So, as you know, the Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law directed coordination between OPM and the 
Departments of Interior and Agriculture on developing a 
distinct job series for Federal wildland firefighters. And the 
goal here is to accurately describe their duties and what they 
should be paid for the hard work that they do. Last June, OPM 
issued guidance for developing this job series, which includes 
employees in the Forest Service Bureau of Land Management, Fish 
and Wildlife, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and National Park 
Service, five agencies. Is OPM facilitating interagency 
coordination on this classification process to make sure that 
it is completed properly and fairly?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congresswoman. We are. We helped with 
the, like you mentioned, the job series and now we are working 
through the classification, the occupation series, and now 
working through the classification aspect of it.
    Ms. Porter. Would you characterize your role here as hands-
on in helping the agencies come to consistent descriptions?
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely. We do see that as our role to ensure 
continuity. We also might want to make sure that we see as our 
role to ensure there is a career path and trajectory for 
firefighters.
    Ms. Porter. Wonderful, because we don't want the U.S. 
Forest Service to end up short of people because BLM has a 
different classification. We want all of these agencies to have 
the ability to have trained and skilled wildland firefighters 
to keep us all safe. Can you talk a little bit about whether 
you have worked with Federal wildland firefighters directly to 
get their input to make sure that what the agencies are doing 
and what those in Washington or field offices might be doing 
matches what is happening on the ground, what the challenges 
that our firefighters are facing?
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely, Congresswoman. We have a, what I 
would hope, is a good relationship with the associations and 
unions that support the firefighters. I had the opportunity to 
meet them in person and hear firsthand about some really 
challenging stories about how they are managing just their 
livelihood with the current pay. And so, we want to ensure as a 
part of our role, not only this occupation, but to ensure that 
the pay is a permanent feature. That is now through the BIL, 
but will expire soon.
    Ms. Porter. Wonderful. I just want to encourage OPM to 
continue taking a leadership role so that we don't have 
agencies acting kind of independently and leave the wildland 
firefighters with the short end of the stick here.
    I want to use my remaining time. We hear so much about the 
cost of Federal employees, the cost of their wages, the cost of 
their benefits. Has OPM formerly studied the costs of 
recruiting and training for when employees leave? Can we weigh 
the cost of paying an existing trained, qualified, excellent 
employees which we hear a lot about? What does it cost us when 
that person leaves to get a new person and to train them to the 
same level?
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely. There are significant costs when it 
comes to recruitment and also retention, the knowledge that you 
have lost, and getting that person up to speed. Congresswoman, 
I do know that there have been a documentation at individual 
agencies. I would have to check to see if our agency has done 
something across government.
    Ms. Porter. I would really encourage that as a way of 
making sure we have all of the data so that we can come to the 
right conclusions as we think about workforce issues. I would 
encourage you to think about how to make that more of an 
initiative and how to coordinate that data across agencies, I 
think, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The lady yields back. The Chair recognizes 
Mr. Burlison from Missouri for five minutes.
    Mr. Burlison. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I want to say 
you look very healthy for someone that was up until 3 a.m. last 
night. Thank you, Director, for coming. I wanted to say it is 
clear from this hearing a few things, right, that we have been 
moving in a direction toward remote work before the pandemic, 
that it was greatly expedited during the pandemic, and then now 
we are at a situation where we have a lot of employees that are 
working remote.
    So my question, and I think what is coming out of this 
hearing is not the fact that people are working remote. The 
question is, are the parameters in place that normally anyone 
would see in the private sector. Having been someone myself who 
worked in IT and worked remote, you have specific expectations 
of a workforce, and you put into place tools, policies, 
procedures, that then enable you to take your work workforce 
remote. And I am wondering if we didn't get the cart before the 
horse here, right? And it may be because we have the pandemic, 
but the question is, and this is from your testimony, you 
indicated that there are individual agencies that have had 
success, right? So, but when you read between the lines, what 
agencies have not had success in remote working?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, I was speaking to, Congressman--thank you 
for that question--of where I have seen reports and studies. 
That is not to say that other agencies haven't been able to 
document it. What I have sought to emphasize during this 
hearing, and maybe not as effectively as I would like to, is 
that we have really emphasized to agencies that they have to 
continue to assess to ensure their organizational health, I 
mean, organizational performance is on par for them to be able 
to deliver on mission. And I think a part of that is also 
ensuring that they have the tools. They have considerable IT 
enhancements. The pandemic has allowed for individuals to work 
away from the office. We are doing trainings governmentwide 
focused on how to manage in a hybrid work environment, all the 
things that I think are important.
    Mr. Burlison. Right. And so, I want to just kind of get 
down to that. First, before I forget, I want to ask, we have 
heard that there is a great percentage of workforce that is now 
working remote. How much space has that freed up? Has that 
freed up office space that we are either leasing or potentially 
could sell?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, that is not my area. It is with GSA, but 
we are working closely with them. And that is certainly part of 
the effort is to determine, now with the new work place 
arrangements and the new environment, what space is being 
utilized and what isn't in order to build in that cost savings. 
The USPTO, that has been really the longest running.
    Mr. Burlison. So, there is potential there is what you are 
saying.
    Ms. Ahuja. Yes.
    Mr. Burlison. And something that we could get information 
from you in the future?
    Ms. Ahuja. From GSA.
    Mr. Burlison. OK. From GSA.
    Ms. Ahuja. Yes.
    Mr. Burlison. OK. Back to the performance metrics. So, for 
example, it sounds like you have given the goal, but have you 
given any objective measurable goals to these different 
agencies to say if you are not hitting, you know, this level of 
satisfaction, this level of turnaround time, this level of call 
wait time, are you giving those kind of levels of objective 
goals for each of these agencies to achieve?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, OMB manages kind of performance across 
government, and so we serve on the President's Management 
Council. We also work closely with OMB, and these are 
conversations we are having at the senior leadership level, and 
it is going to be dependent on each agency, right, every sub-
component. We have more than 2.1 million individuals in the 
Federal Government, so it is really going to vary, component by 
component, what those performance metrics need to be, but they 
absolutely need to be articulated.
    Mr. Burlison. Right. And, well, I understand that, like, 
they can't be universal, but there are certain things that can 
be. For example, satisfaction, like customer, or in this case, 
the taxpayer, and their satisfaction at the end of whatever 
service is performed is something that could be universally 
adopted, right?
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely. There is a GSA customer service 
survey that is a barometer, and we use that at OPM, and we have 
actually increased those numbers----
    Mr. Burlison. But that is inner office, right? It is not 
sent to taxpayers. So at the end of, for example, the passport 
issue, is that individual sent a survey saying are you pleased 
that you were on the phone for four hours?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, for retirement services, we send out a 
customer survey. So, I would presume, but I don't know for 
sure----
    Mr. Burlison. OK.
    Ms. Ahuja [continuing]. From what State Department and for 
the passport----
    Mr. Burlison. And then the other question is, is any of 
that information, could it be made transparent because in the 
private sector, the very idea of sending employees remote is 
that you have to have these tools in place. Otherwise, 
employees are really not managed. And if you have these tools 
in place, then the transparency is the final part, and the goal 
is, are you making this information transparent. Are the 
taxpayers able to see what are the satisfaction scores? What is 
the ticket turnaround time? What is the average wait time?
    Ms. Ahuja. What I can do, Congressman, is and certainly 
take this back to our colleagues at OMB because they manage 
Performance.gov where there are a number of metrics that are 
out for public purview. And certainly we have a customer 
experience executive order, which is also setting a certain 
standard that OMB helps coordinate. So, I would be happy to 
take that back as well the request that you have made.
    Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Garcia for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and, 
Director, thank you so much for appearing before us. I just 
want to just first start off just by addressing some of the 
comments that were made earlier in the Committee and, really, 
the shameful attack on trans kids and families that we saw that 
happened earlier today. And it is also really disturbing to see 
that so much energy is spent by the Republican conference 
attacking and bullying these families. And I am grateful 
personally that there is some level of gender-affirming care 
that is accessible to Federal employees through their insurance 
plans.
    And I served personally as mayor of my city for eight years 
prior to coming to Congress. I had 6,000 city employees. They 
are incredibly hardworking folks. I am proud that they were 
represented, and I was also grateful that we were able to work 
with a different insurance plan, that those employees also were 
able to receive gender-affirming care through decisions made 
between the doctors and the employees. We know that issues and 
support around trans-inclusive healthcare is made between 
doctors and patients, not between employers, in this case, the 
Federal Government, and those patients. So, I think it is 
really important to clarify that, and I appreciate your answers 
earlier today. And just to make it even more clear for our 
other colleagues here in the Committee, does the Federal 
Government directly recommend gender-affirming care to its 
employees?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, thank you for that question. As a 
part of our communication with healthcare carriers, we have 
encouraged that they cover gender-affirming care, and that if 
an employee seeks to get that care, we have 80 plus carriers to 
ensure that they have those services available to them.
    Mr. Garcia. That is exactly right, and those are just the 
services as part of the insurance plan. But the decision to get 
affirming care is made directly between the doctor, and I think 
that is important to clarify because I think there is this 
misconception that somehow the Federal Government is directing 
folks to receive certain types of care. And as a personnel 
professional, which you are, is it your opinion, which it 
certainly was mine as mayor, that the only folks that should be 
making any decision about trans-inclusive healthcare, gender-
affirming care, should be directly doctors or healthcare 
professionals to those employees?
    Ms. Ahuja. I do.
    Mr. Garcia. Well, thank you. I think that is really, really 
critical to clarify. I think that these constant attacks on 
this community is something that is quite disgusting that we 
find not just in this Committee, but also in the rest of the 
Congress. So with that, I yield back the remainder of my time.
    Mr. Connolly. Yield? Would my friend yield?
    Mr. Burlison. Absolutely, sir.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you. I want to second what he just 
said, and, Ms. Ahuja, to make the point here, I said in my 
opening statement, but perhaps you can reaffirm it, the Federal 
Employee Health Benefit Program, which you manage, you oversee. 
Is that correct?
    Ms. Ahuja. Yes, it is.
    Mr. Connolly. And it extends to 8 million people. Is that 
correct?
    Ms. Ahuja. A little over 8 million, yes.
    Mr. Connolly. A little over 8 million people, and you have 
got over 80 vendors providers----
    Ms. Ahuja. Carriers, yes.
    Mr. Connolly [continuing]. Each of which has multiple 
offerings?
    Ms. Ahuja. They do. They have different geographic regions.
    Mr. Connolly. Right. So, to get in the business of telling 
OPM, you will provide this, don't provide that legislatively is 
a strange kind of mission for us to play, it seems to me, given 
the enormous number of people you serve, the complexity and 
diversity of that number. And your goal is to try to provide 
the widest array of services that might be needed at the most 
reasonable cost. Is that not your mission?
    Ms. Ahuja. It is true. We are the largest employer-
sponsored healthcare program in the country, but we contract 
with private healthcare companies.
    Mr. Connolly. Right.
    Ms. Ahuja. Yes.
    Mr. Connolly. So, I might not think it is a good idea for 
somebody to have, I don't know, cosmetic surgery, but I am not 
going to legislate that because it happens not to be my choice 
or even a choice I approve of. That is not really my role here. 
It is to protect that workforce and to provide them with the 
best quality care we can, understanding that we can't 
anticipate every need, nor should we judge every need, it seems 
to me. And I think that is really the mission of OPM, and to 
ask otherwise is to impose on you a judgmental role, a kind of 
substantive role that is really not appropriate for OPM. Your 
comments in the last five seconds?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congressman. You know, we certainly 
want to ensure that we are providing the most comprehensive 
services. And similar to ensuring telehealth COVID-19 vaccine 
protections, maternal health, this is a part of the package of 
what we provide Federal employees to ensure that they feel that 
they are getting the benefits that they deserve, but also they 
consider the Federal Government a good place to work.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Timmons for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Ahuja, what 
is your mission at OPM?
    Ms. Ahuja. Sorry about that. Just looking across the room.
    Mr. Timmons. OK. What is your mission?
    Ms. Ahuja. So, thank you for the question. Really, we are 
the H.R. arm of the Federal Government, and being a strategic 
human capital leader to support Federal agencies and also 
benefits for employees and their families.
    Mr. Timmons. So basically, your job is to make sure that 
the Federal employees are healthy, happy, hardworking, have the 
resources they need to do their job. Fair?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, we do our best to kind of set the broader 
kind of framework, but, you know, a lot of that is managed at 
the agency level as well.
    Mr. Timmons. OK. So, we have a healthcare crisis in this 
country. We spent twice as much as the average country. Just 
our obesity rate is actually three times the average. Forty-two 
percent of Americans are obese, and that costs us trillions and 
trillions of dollars in both lost work hours because of health 
concerns. During COVID, it was the No. 1 indicator of your 
likelihood to succumb to COVID, so it is a problem. And I think 
it is interesting, the previous Congressman was talking about 
the transgender concern. And I am looking at your Federal 
benefits highlight for this year, and if you take out the intro 
page and a couple of the graphs and lists, it is really about 6 
pages long. You spent one sentence on obesity, and page-and-a-
half. About 20 percent of the entire thing is on transgender-
affirming care.
    So, I guess I think that is a problem, and let's go back. 
Again, 42 percent of Americans are obese, let's just assume, of 
the 8 million. Some studies say it is actually higher. Zero-
point-three percent individuals in this country identify as 
transgender. So, there is a resource issue here. We need to be 
facilitating health and wellness, maybe fighting obesity. And 
again, it is one sentence first, almost 20 percent of the 
entire Federal Benefits Open Season highlights. Is that a 
problem?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congressman, I do want to just emphasize 
here that we have had a significant focus on helping employees 
manage obesity for a number of years. It is in prior call 
letters and built out, so we carry it forward every year. So 
some years, it may not have as much of a presence, but we have 
put a significant focus on specialized medications. We have 
focused on other areas as well. So, just to assure you, on 
obesity, we have had a significant emphasis on that particular 
issue.
    Mr. Timmons. So, the one sentence you have in here is about 
anti-obesity medications and how they have to have adequate 
coverage. But I think the general consensus is that diet and 
exercise is generally the best way to fight the obesity 
epidemic. Do you all have health and wellness programs? Do you 
facilitate individuals making healthier eating decisions? Do 
you facilitate allowing them to appropriately exercise? Are 
there programs like this that you all facilitate?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, I can't speak to what is the most 
appropriate way to manage weight or obesity.
    Mr. Timmons. Well, the American way is to take a pill for 
everything, so, and that doesn't seem to be going very well.
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, we have a broader part of OPM which is 
focused on wellness. In many ways we focus on the Employee 
Assistance Program, which has been around for quite some time. 
There has been more of an emphasis on mental health counseling, 
and so that has been a focus as well.
    Mr. Timmons. Do you think that OPM could create best 
practice health and wellness program that can be pushed down to 
your agencies? Is this something that Congress could help you 
with?
    Ms. Ahuja. We have certainly been talking about, among 
other agency H.R. officials, about what would be helpful, and 
there is an interest certainly and a focus on mental health. 
So, we would appreciate the partnership with Congress.
    Mr. Timmons. There is a program on Capitol Hill, it is 
coming out next few weeks, you get a basically a Fitbit and you 
have to log hours, and it is a competition between the House 
and the Senate and each office. I mean, something like that 
could be effective in agencies. Could OPM look into something 
like that?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, I will say that there are a lot of 
activities happening across the agencies that I may not know 
about, so it is not something where we would coordinate a one-
size-fit-all. What we are doing specifically in wellness is 
around really in the mental health space where we are trying to 
set some standards and encourage really a wholesale change in 
how we are supporting the Employee Assistance Programs, which 
are in every agency.
    Mr. Timmons. Sure, thank you. Mr. Chairman, I am out of 
time. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair 
recognizes Mr. Goldman for five minutes.
    Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield my time to 
Ranking Member Connolly.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields.
    Mr. Connolly. I thank my friend from New York. We keep 
hearing stories from our colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle about the need to show up for work, return to pre-
pandemic telework levels because of processing backlogs at 
certain Federal agencies, but I think it is important to remind 
ourselves of a little context, for example, passport services, 
which I would point out does not allow its staff to telework. 
They talked about backlogs at IRS, an agency that was starved 
for almost a decade by my friends on the other side of the 
aisle, such that they are still using 60-year-old legacy 
systems, IT systems. They have had trouble replacing retirees 
or employees who leave, let alone getting ready to hire the 
next generation of employees.
    They talk about access to veterans records. It is the 
National Archives and Records Administration. Those records we 
are talking about are stored at the National Personnel Records 
Center. They are vital to veterans, proving that they qualify 
for medical treatment, homeless shelter access, and burial 
sites. Each year NPRC receives 1.1 million requests, and that 
is about 4,000 per day. During the pandemic, access to those 
paper records was curtailed because staff were getting ill. By 
March 2022, the records backlogs stood at 604,000.
    Many of my friends on this dais are aware that this 
Committee on a bipartisan basis came together to try to address 
that problem. And through our support for the TMF, that 
Technology Modernization Fund, an idea that came out of this 
Committee, we encouraged the leadership at NARA to apply for a 
TMF grant. They did, and guess what? They got $9.1 million, and 
they reduced the backlog by 33 percent as of today and going 
down. So, Ms. Ahuja, you have a backlog at OPM in your 
Retirement Services processing, as we have discussed, Mr. Biggs 
brought up. Is that correct?
    Ms. Ahuja. Yes, we do.
    Mr. Connolly. And is that backlog because so many employees 
are teleworking? What is causing that backlog?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, it has been from a number of years of 
underfunding within Retirement Services. I think, as you had 
spoken to, Congressman Connolly, the period of time that we 
lost when there were efforts to dissolve the agency certainly 
had a huge impact on Retirement Services. We have not had the 
investments around staffing and also doing the modernization 
efforts that we are now doing. That is going to take time.
    I will say, though, that even with the surge in retirement, 
we have with situational telework, with folks in the office--it 
is a paper-based process--we have actually improved processing. 
Actually, the number of cases that we have processed, we have 
actually improved that by 20 percent, so we have brought the 
inventory down. So, we have done that even with employing 
workplace flexibilities with some in-office time and some 
telework.
    Mr. Connolly. I mean, I would echo what Mr. Biggs says 
because I get it. As you might imagine, I represent a lot of 
Federal employees and would-be retirees, and we get a lot of 
concerns and complaints about the backlog because that backlog 
translates into income for families, right? If they are 
retiring December 31 and they haven't been processed come 
January 1, they can go months without a paycheck or a 
retirement check. Can you just describe, in the 56 seconds I 
have got left, what kind of prioritization are you putting on 
eating into that backlog and trying to make sure people are 
whole when, in fact, they retire in a timely fashion?
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely. So, we have a number of efforts in 
place to manage the backlog, but even with that, like I 
mentioned, we are making progress. We have brought the 
inventory down by 12,000. I do want to give this data point to 
the Committee. Fifty percent of our cases are processed in less 
than 60 days, so we have done a fast-track, tiger teams, over 
time. The challenge becomes when we have these more complex 
cases that extend out our timeline to 90 days or close to 90 
days, and that is also an area that we are focused on. But 
truly, Congressman, it has been the challenge around resources.
    We are going grateful for that support. I would also say 
that the other efforts we are focused on is the IT 
modernization. We are working on an online retirement 
application we are going to launch later this year, a pilot, a 
chat box, annuity calculator. There are a number of efforts 
because of the support of this Congress to allow us to start to 
make those investments.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you, and I thank Mr. Goldman for 
yielding.
    Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Fry for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Director, for 
being here. In President Biden's 2022 State of the Union, he 
declared that it is time for the American people to get back to 
work, people working from home can feel safe again and begin to 
return to their offices, yet this has not happened for Federal 
workers in the Federal Government.
    According to an article in October 2022, just last year in 
the Federal Times, it was said that only one-third of Federal 
employees have returned to work since the start of the 
pandemic, and far fewer in the D.C. Metro area. OPM obviously 
issued guidance in the 2021 guide to telework and remote work 
in the Federal Government, even though certain agencies rely on 
paper copies only accessible in the physical building. For 
example, the National Personnel Records Center went full remote 
despite the fact that all records are on paper. In fact, in 
NPRC's extended telework policy, based on the guidance, pushed 
the backlog to grow to more than 600,000. Director, was there 
any consideration in the guidance for specific agencies and the 
missions that they have when talking about telework?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, a part of the guidance is that 
agencies are the best position to determine what workplace 
arrangement is going to work. And like I have been mentioning 
here to this Committee, we have been very clear since before 
reentry that agencies have to ensure they have the right 
workplace arrangement in order to ensure good customer service 
and they are delivering on their mission. So, that is not 
something that we can dictate to agencies. It is 2.1 million, 
more than 2.1 million, and there are so many different 
occupations in government, it is impossible to say that these 
are the areas. We need to be able to entrust our agency 
partners. They know the work the best to determine what is 
going to be the best arrangement.
    Mr. Fry. You issue, I would say, blanket guidance for all 
agencies, but not specific to that agency's individual 
requirements?
    Ms. Ahuja. That is correct.
    Mr. Fry. Does OPM recognize the challenges associated with 
remote work?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, we certainly understand that there are 
challenges with management, and that is why we have put 
together a governmentwide training for managers on how to 
manage in a hybrid work environment that is actually focused on 
performance. That particular training, we provide resources. We 
issued a memo earlier this week. We have a website with 
resources and other support. We provide technical assistance. 
So we do understand, but there have been a lot of benefits as 
well.
    Mr. Fry. Right. So, but you understand, though, at least 
from a concept standpoint and in your own guidance, that there 
are challenges associated with remote work from an 
accountability standpoint. I think you even issue that in the 
guidance, somewhere in there--let's see here, page 65--that 
there are challenges associated from an accountability 
standpoint with remote work. Is that correct?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, we come from the perspective of there is 
accountability whether you are in the office or whether you are 
remote or telework. And we want to ensure that there is an 
emphasis, of course, on performance management, but as well, it 
is a balance again, Congressman, on ensuring that you are 
providing workplace flexibilities that we know employees want 
because oftentimes there is a fear of losing individuals and 
having to compete in the private sector, but also as well, 
ensuring that agencies have the tools and the resources to be 
able to manage their employees. So, it is an emphasis on both.
    Mr. Fry. What do you think some of the challenges of remote 
work are from an agency perspective?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, I think it is requiring managers to manage 
differently, and, listen, I was an----
    Mr. Fry. But there is also, I would say, a manager 
monitoring their employees' conduct and progress on whatever 
they are working on. There is an accountability component to 
that, too. There is a challenge. Would you agree with that?
    Ms. Ahuja. I am sorry. Could you repeat your----
    Mr. Fry. I mean, in your own guidance--let me just pull it 
up, this will probably easier--it says, ``To some degree, 
remote work may pose a greater challenge for effective 
performance management of remote workers for supervisors to 
successfully navigate within the structures and procedures.'' 
Yadda, yadda, yadda. So, within your own guidance, you 
acknowledge that remote work poses greater challenges to those 
management, I guess, say, upper-level management, in 
supervising the work of their subordinates.
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, the way I would like to explain that 
particular part of the report is that it is requiring a 
different set of tools and a different way of managing that we 
are not used to. I mean, we want to ensure managers have those 
tools.
    Mr. Fry. Right. Obviously people have had challenges with 
this. Obviously we have just highlighted the NPRC's challenge. 
To your knowledge, has anyone ever been terminated or 
disciplined for abuse of remote work procedures within their 
agency?
    Ms. Ahuja. I wouldn't have that information, Congressman.
    Mr. Fry. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair 
recognizes Mr. Gomez for five minutes.
    Mr. Gomez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I start on my 
question, I do want to focus on just all the comments that have 
been made regarding gender-affirming care and the transgender 
community. And the reason why is that, you know, I think is a 
deliberate attack on this community. It is not just in this 
Committee. It is in the Budget Committee. It is in 
Appropriations. It is in floor speeches. It is a concerted 
strategy by the Republican majority to scapegoat this 
community, and they are just being, in my opinion, bullies, 
right?
    You are picking a fight, literally, with one of the most 
marginalized, one of the most discriminated groups in our 
country. That is what they are picking a fight with, you know. 
They are picking a fight with the transgender community who has 
one of the highest rates of suicide. It has one of the highest 
rates of unemployment, it has one of the highest rates of 
poverty, and it has one of the highest rates of homelessness, 
but yet, you know what? That is where we should focus our 
attention, you know, but that is not going to create a single 
job. That is not going to put people back to work or lift up 
our communities. You are just doing this in order to score 
political points for the 2024 elections. That is it. And so, I 
find it personally offensive when they continuously go after 
this community. You are not being tough. You are not being 
patriots. You are being bullies, and I think that they need to 
stop, and we are going to keep taking them head on.
    So, one of the questions now, I want to focus on how do we 
retain workforce, you know, because that is what it is about. 
And I know there are concerns about telework, but even the 
private sector, my colleagues love to say they are the 
champions of the private sector, but even the private sector 
knows in order to compete with amongst each other and also get 
employees, they have to adopt new policies that meet the 
demands and the preferences of a workforce that is changing. 
All right. So, that is from telework, but also to paid family 
leave and childcare.
    I started a Dads Caucus to focus on those issues, but I 
focused on paid family leave from back when my days when I was 
in the state legislature. Why? Because when I grew up, my 
parents working four to five jobs a week without health 
insurance, you know, couldn't take me to the hospital when it 
was needed, and I ended up spending about seven days in the 
hospital with pneumonia. And because my parents took shifts off 
from work and lost that income and the hospital bills, we 
almost bankrupted my family, and we didn't have paid family 
leave then and we don't have it now.
    So, but in 2019, Congress passed the Federal Employee Pay 
Leave Act, which did ensure the Nation's public servants had 
access to paid leave following the birth or adoption of a 
child. And this is something that spared them the decision do I 
give up my paycheck or do I use my vacation time or sick time 
in order to take time off to bond with that new child or 
adopted child. I know that it can be life changing.
    So, one of the things I want to know is, like, how did it 
impact, in that short period of time, having paid family leave 
for the Federal branch? I believe we need to mark up the 
Comprehensive Paid Family Leave for Federal Employees Act, and 
we need to do a national paid leave program for everybody. But, 
Director, my question is, what benefits have you seen from the 
implementation of the paid parental leave for Federal 
employees, and how would expanding access to paid caregiving 
and medical leave benefit the Federal workforce?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congressman, for that question. You 
know, part of one of our goals at OPM and really across 
government with our agency partners is to make every Federal 
job a good job, and that includes pay benefits, the right set 
of policies that you have mentioned. I will say with the paid 
parental leave, we do a biannual survey that has documented 
that because of parental leave for, you know, for women under 
the age of 40, it was a high consideration. It was an important 
factor in them staying in the Federal Government. So, that is 
an important piece of data point that I saw that I took back 
and said, OK, we are moving in the right direction.
    I will also say that we have a workforce where less than 
seven percent of our workforce is under the age of 30. So, if 
we think about what we want to bring in the next generation, we 
want to attract early career talent, we want to have the 
policies in place that are ones that they want to see as an 
employer. This is an important effort, I think, to continue to 
attract both early career talent, but also see the individuals 
in our organizations that want to stay because of the policies 
that we have.
    Mr. Gomez. Yes, I think it is one of the major issues on 
how do we compete for that talent. The private sector is ahead 
of us, but there are other issues like affordable childcare 
that we have to look at, just not even for retaining talent, 
but economic growth in the country as a whole. Thank you, and I 
yield back.
    Ms. Foxx. [Presiding] Thank you. Ms. Mace, you are 
recognized for five minutes.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you, Madam Chair, and quite honestly, 
Director Ahuja, I don't know where to start today. You can't or 
won't answer our questions, or maybe you are ignoring me right 
now as I am speaking to you. You can't or won't answer 
questions about whether or not the Federal Government funds sex 
change surgery on kids. Some on the left are calling that 
gender-affirming care. Quite frankly, it is worse than that. 
There is no scientific data to support it, and just because 
someone doesn't agree with the chopping off the private parts 
of a 15-year-old doesn't mean we are bullying children. I find 
it ridiculous. Do whatever you want to do as an adult, but by 
God, don't do it to our kids. And I find it offensive that my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are calling us 
bullies because we don't want to chop off the breasts of a 15-
year-old girl, and we certainly don't want the Federal 
Government funding it.
    You can or won't answer questions on how many Federal 
employees work from home. You are the director of the Office of 
Personnel Management. I don't know how you don't know the 
answer to this question. You have obfuscated today. You can't 
even tell us the most basic data about how many Federal 
employees worked from home before COVID, during COVID, and now 
after COVID. Like, why are you here if you can't even answer 
our questions?
    You can answer questions all day long related to DE&I, but 
you won't answer questions about bargaining agreements. You 
just hide behind them and won't answer those questions. Do you 
know what happens when you have a job in the private sector and 
you don't show up? What happens?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congresswoman, I don't quite understand the 
question.
    Ms. Mace. OK. You are the director of the Office of 
Personnel Management and you don't know in the private sector 
if you don't show up to work you know what happens? You get 
fired. Like, you oversee Federal employees, and you can't even 
answer the simplest most basic questions here today. Like, why 
are you here if you can't answer our questions? Why are you 
here if you can't or won't answer our questions?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congresswoman, I am trying my best to provide--
--
    Ms. Mace. You are not. You are obfuscating. You are 
filibustering. You are refusing to answer the most basic of 
questions that the taxpayers, quite frankly, on both sides of 
the aisle deserve to hear. Federal employees are not showing up 
to work. That is a fact. You are physically here today, but you 
are not actually showing up to work because you are not 
answering any of our questions. So, I would like to know, my 
first question, my second question, why the director of the 
Office of Personnel Management doesn't know what is happening 
with Federal employees.
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congresswoman, I do take issue with that 
characterization. I have shared a lot today on our guidance, 
our processes, how we are supporting agencies, whether it is 
telework, remote work, the benefits----
    Ms. Mace. You haven't. Do you think the American taxpayers 
who sign the front of your paycheck, do you think that they 
deserve answers?
    Ms. Ahuja. We serve the----
    Ms. Mace. Do you think they deserve to know how many people 
aren't showing up to work? Do the American taxpayers deserve to 
know that answer?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congresswoman, our employees show up every 
day and they----
    Ms. Mace. They don't. They absolutely do not, and there is 
data showing that, supporting that. We have mentioned that data 
today, and you have ignored it, and, in fact, you are not 
telling the truth.
    Cybersecurity is very important to this Committee. I am 
going to move on to another subject. Cybersecurity is very 
important to this Committee. I had a hearing yesterday as a 
Subcommittee Chairman of technology and cybersecurity on 
Oversight. We had a hearing with Dr. Eric Schmidt and others 
from MIT on AI. Do you know how many of our IT workers in the 
Federal workforce are over the age of 60?
    Ms. Ahuja. I don't know that exact number, but I know we 
trend within the cyber IT workforce----
    Ms. Mace. Do you know how many of our Federal employees in 
the IT space in our Federal workforce are under the age of 30?
    Ms. Ahuja. I believe it is four percent or a little less 
than four percent.
    Ms. Mace. Correct, it is just under four percent. Did you 
know that there are four times as many IT workers over the age 
of 60 than IT workers under the age of 30?
    Ms. Ahuja. I do know we swing in a certain direction----
    Ms. Mace. Yes or no. That wasn't a filibustering question. 
Yes or no, did you know that?
    Ms. Ahuja. I knew about the----
    Ms. Mace. Yes or no? Answer the question. It is a simple 
question. So, my last question to you is what are you doing to 
reform the hiring process to take on these jobs when all these 
individuals retire who are over the age of 60?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you for that question. We actually have a 
robust cyber talent management plan that we are looking to 
submit to Congress very soon that is going to focus on hiring 
flexibilities and other efforts across government, similar to 
what we have done with DOD and DHS. It is about increase in 
pay, other flexibilities so we can bring in cyber talent.
    Ms. Mace. Does that include, like, education as well 
because there are a lot of IT workers who don't need a four-
year college degree to do those jobs?
    Ms. Ahuja. I am sorry. Could you repeat?
    Ms. Mace. Does it include education considerations? Like, 
you don't need a four-year degree to be a computer IT engineer.
    Ms. Ahuja. No, absolutely, we have a whole effort around 
skills-based hiring, and the IT cyber community is a perfect 
example of it. It doesn't matter, like, where you get your 
skills or, you know, whether you have got a particular degree 
or education, but actually that you have those skills.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
    Ms. Foxx. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Mace. I now recognize 
myself for five minutes.
    Director Ahuja, last Congress I was pleased to be part of 
the bipartisan coalition to help bring about passage to the 
Postal Service Reform Act. As you know, that legislation 
requires employees, dependents, and retirees of the Postal 
Service obtain health insurance coverage through the Postal 
Service Health Benefits Program by 2025. Is OPM on track to 
implement the Postal Service Health Benefits Program by 2025 as 
required by law?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you for that question. We are certainly on 
track. It is a very aggressive timeline, Congresswoman, but we 
will be issuing an interim final rule in April that is really 
going to govern the entire program. We just put on the streets 
an RFP for the entire IT infrastructure to manage enrollment 
and eligibility. So, we are meeting our performance metrics on 
this particular pretty sizable effort within our agency.
    Ms. Foxx. Do you have any serious concerns about the 
implementation?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, like I mentioned, we are managing in a 
very aggressive timeline, and we will do our best to get the 
basic requirements up for postal reform and then add to that. I 
do want to mention, Congresswoman, that we will be coming back 
on our Fiscal Year 2024 budget, which was already anticipated.
    Ms. Foxx. Yes. That was my next question.
    Ms. Ahuja. OK.
    Ms. Foxx. Can you provide us with an estimate of the annual 
cost to administer this program?
    Ms. Ahuja. Yes, I can. I know the particulars are in the 
budget that haven't been officially released, but we have laid 
them out.
    Ms. Foxx. OK. All right. Will you also provide us with an 
estimate of how many staff will need to be hired to implement 
the program?
    Ms. Ahuja. Yes, we would be able to do that.
    Ms. Foxx. Good. As this Committee knows all too well, new 
programs must have proper oversight and safeguards in place so 
that they do not become rife with waste, fraud, and abuse. GAO 
recently highlighted significant concerns about waste, fraud, 
and abuse in FEHB enrollments. How will OPM make sure that 
these same issues are not carried over into the Postal Service 
Health Benefits Program?
    Ms. Ahuja. I appreciate that question, Congresswoman. I do 
want to mention one thing that is distinctive with the FEHB 
program that will not be with the Postal Health Benefits 
Program, is that the FEHB program has been a decentralized 
program for 60-plus years, meaning that every agency manages 
the enrollment of their employees. And so, while we have issued 
guidance and communication to agencies to manage eligibility, 
it is a challenge from our end because it is decentralized. The 
Postal Service Health Benefits is actually going to centralize 
that enrollment, and we will see it as a test case for what we 
would like to actually incorporate with the FEHB to manage 
improper governance.
    Ms. Foxx. Well, that is also a question that I have. Will 
you be able to apply any lessons learned with the 
implementation and creation of the Postal Service Health 
Benefits Program to improve FEHB?
    Ms. Ahuja. Oh, absolutely. I think we are really taking 
from the things that we would like to improve with FEHB and 
incorporating them in the Postal Service Health Benefits 
Program, such as centralized enrollment, being able to check 
eligibility. We will have a decision support tool that will be 
much more customer friendly. These are all the things that we 
would then, Congresswoman, like to take back and make those 
improvements with the support of Congress.
    Ms. Foxx. Well, I haven't been here for the whole hearing, 
but I have heard enough from my colleagues to know that they 
have shared with you the frustrations all of us have about the 
incredible backlogs and delays in response to requests, 
including congressional casework. So, I am going to give you a 
chance again to talk about what OPM is doing to alleviate 
delays and backlogs in response times and congressional 
casework because this is not the way a Federal agency should 
work. And I support my colleagues in saying these employees 
need to be back in their offices answering calls from 
constituents.
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congresswoman, for that question. I 
have said also here today that I have given a lot of attention 
to retirement services. I said this during my confirmation that 
I am focused on it. We have a number of efforts underway around 
improving the inventory, which we have been able to bring the 
inventory down and actually improve the number of cases that we 
have processed by 20 percent. Obviously you have heard that.
    Ms. Foxx. I heard that. Twenty percent when it is nothing 
isn't anything, I mean, if you are improving from such a low 
bar, so we don't want to hear about improving percentages when 
the bar was set so low. Just tell people to come back to work 
and answer the needs of the constituents. They need to be in 
their offices. Just like Ms. Mace was saying, if you don't show 
up in the private sector, you lose your job, and that is what 
should happen in the public sector. It is hardworking taxpayer 
dollars that are hiring these people who refuse to come back to 
work. Fire them if they don't come back to work. My time is up.
    I now recognize Mr. Burchett. You are recognized for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Connolly. Mr. Lynch.
    Ms. Foxx. I am sorry. Yes, they told me. I recognize Mr. 
Lynch.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Director 
Ahuja, thank you very much for your willingness to testify and 
to help this Committee with this work. I would like to talk to 
you a little bit about the use of telework in the Federal 
Government.
    In April 2021, a McKinsey report found that 48 percent of 
the Federal workforce would actually like to work telework 
full-time, while 86 percent of the entire U.S. workforce would 
like at least one day of telework per week as we continue 
moving on from the pandemic. And a 2022 FlexJobs' Career Pulse 
Survey, 65 percent of the respondents reported that they prefer 
to work telework full time, and 32 percent of the respondents 
reported that they prefer a hybrid work environment, working 
both in the office and telework.
    Flexible workplace policies are not new to the Federal 
Government. For many years, Federal agencies have used 
telework. However, in 2020 it was recorded that only three 
percent of Federal employees were teleworking daily. I was 
wondering, last year during your testimony before the 
Subcommittee on Government Operations you stated, ``I think we 
have learned that employees really do want to be able to have 
the flexibility to manage their personal responsibilities and 
exercise telework option.'' Is there any evidence that telework 
or remote jobs are attracting applicants? Is that an incentive 
that we are using in our hiring model? Is there a difference, 
for example, in how many individuals apply to jobs advertised 
as telework or remote work eligible when compared to those who 
are not, and how does telework increase the Federal 
Government's ability to compete for the top talent that is out 
there?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Congressman, for that question. I had 
mentioned earlier that we have done a study on remote job 
announcements over the last six months of 2020, and it showed 
an incredible uptick in applications for those remote 
positions. It included a significant number of military spouses 
who applied. They represented 37 states, over seven states if 
you just listed a specific duty location. So, it has truly 
expanded our already pretty expansive geographic footprint, and 
it has allowed us to bring the diversity of perspectives, 
making sure that we are providing the opportunity for a Federal 
job really no matter where you might be in the country. I will 
say that it has also allowed us to, you know, compete. We know, 
like you mentioned, there are studies out there that this is a 
priority, and we want to make sure that we can pull in.
    Just in the prior question, cyber IT is a huge area where 
we leave a lot of jobs on the table, and in this case, you 
know, now we have got the tech layoffs. We have been doing a 
huge push to bring in this tech talent. They are, frankly, the 
ones leading the way on the workplace flexibilities that they 
want. And so, we have to be able to accommodate, if we can't 
always accommodate on pay, for certain occupations.
    Mr. Lynch. All right. And I am curious, you know, when we 
first approached the subject of telework in the Federal 
workforce, there was some apprehension about losing the, you 
know, physical control of employees. Do we have any data on 
productivity and retention and performance with respect to 
employees that are operating remotely?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, I do know, Congressman, that those are 
efforts that have been happening and underway agency by agency, 
that they are managing the data around performance metrics 
whether it is tied to someone's performance plan or something 
they have set for the entire organization. I will say that in 
the FEVS, there are a number of questions where you will see 
teleworkers score higher on their responses to their agency 
being more effective and performing at a certain level. And so 
I do think, you know, there is a correlation between high 
employee engagement scores and high productivity and high 
performance. An engaged employee is someone who is committed to 
that agency and who will perform no matter where they might be.
    Mr. Lynch. Yes. OK. Madam Chair, my time has expired, and I 
yield back. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back. The 
Chair recognizes Mr. Burchett for five minutes.
    Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Ahuja, did 
I say that name right?
    Ms. Ahuja. You did.
    Mr. Burchett. All right. Thank you. What percentage or 
number of OPM staff are currently assigned to work remotely?
    Ms. Ahuja. So, we have about 70 percent coming into the 
office with a mix of full-time in-person and telework 
arrangement, and about a little less than 30 percent remote.
    Mr. Burchett. Thirty percent. OK. If you send an email to a 
member of your team and they fail to respond for months until 
you have sent at least two subsequent emails, would you find 
that acceptable?
    Ms. Ahuja. I would not.
    Mr. Burchett. Would it be acceptable for it to take four 
months for you to get a response to an email?
    Ms. Ahuja. I would not.
    Mr. Burchett. Why then does my caseworker who handles OPM 
issues consistently report that it takes months and months and 
multiple emails in order to get someone from your legislative 
affairs team to respond to her emails?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, if you are speaking about Retirement 
Services, Congressman, that is not the customer service that we 
want to have on display.
    Mr. Burchett. Well, you got to understand our frustration. 
I mean, this one young lady who works in my office, she 
continuously complains about that, and I wish you all can fix 
that. Surely you are aware that every Member of Congress has a 
team of caseworkers whose job it is to help their constituents 
to navigate the Federal bureaucracy and that network and to 
seek resolution to issues they face.
    Ms. Ahuja. I am aware, yes.
    Mr. Burchett. Would you agree that if the Federal 
Government operated more efficiently, Congress wouldn't need to 
have so many taxpayer-funded caseworkers to help them fix the 
mess-ups in the Federal Government? I mean, literally that is 
their full-time job, is just dealing with the mess-ups that are 
in there. Would you----
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, I take issue with the characterization. 
And I was a constituent service rep for a Member of Congress in 
my early in my career, so I understand the importance of them 
being a conduit and managing the bureaucracy, and, you know, 
figure out who to talk to in an agency.
    Mr. Burchett. Right, and I get that, but still, it is just 
not acceptable. I think we need to get people back to work, as 
mentioned before, in the office. The idea that the Federal 
Government can operate from people's apartments, or their back 
porches, or parents' basement to me is bogus. If the Federal 
Government was more efficient than the taxpayers, then everyday 
Americans wouldn't have to deal with the headaches at the VA, 
the State Department, or at your Agency, Director Ahuja. 
Director, if the very agency responsible for issuing personnel 
policies for the entire Federal Government is run so poorly 
that it takes congressional offices months, and I mean months, 
to even get a response to an email, how can we possibly begin 
to trust the OPM to make decisions that are in interest of the 
American taxpayer?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, Congressman, I appreciate your 
frustration, and we certainly want to address the particular 
issue that you mentioned and set a standard for customer 
service. We have actually improved on our customer service 
surveys, the one that GSA issues. We are certainly working to 
make strides in other areas. I hope that you would have the 
confidence that we have a commitment to the Federal workforce 
and to supporting agencies, which we have done through search, 
hiring, ensuring that we have benefits that are affordable and 
comprehensive, that we can ensure that we stay competitive, 
especially around cyber and IT talent.
    These are all the things that we would love to work with 
you in partnership because we do think, especially IT security, 
cybersecurity in the Federal Government, is absolutely 
important, and if we have 2,500 jobs over a few years that 
never get filled, that is a challenge that we should care 
about. And so, I look forward to sharing our cyber talent 
proposal with you and others to work in partnership.
    So, I hope that you see this as a partnership. We may not 
agree on everything, but in some ways, what you all are talking 
about with telework and remote work, we have individuals, like 
I mentioned, who spend considerable time in the office. I 
didn't have the data before, but our Fiscal Year 2021 telework 
report, which was issued at the end of last year, includes 47 
percent of our Federal employees that do some in-person time 
and also telework. So again, we want to balance here, staying 
competitive, giving flexibility----
    Mr. Burchett. I understand it. I am running out of time, 
but the point is the accountability. You know, I know, 
literally multimillionaires, who go to work every day, and they 
work in a cubicle next to the people in their businesses, and 
the reason they are in that cubicle is because they can have 
eye-to-eye contact and there is an accountability. There is 
zero accountability when someone is not in the office. I 
appreciate all these studies that you all have done. And we are 
talking about your trusting somebody's integrity that maybe 
doesn't have integrity that is doing this testing, so I 
question all of that. And when I have constituents on the other 
end of the line that are in a desperate situation, that cannot 
get an answer, ma'am, that is pitiful, and it needs to be 
corrected. Thank you.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair 
recognizes Mr. LaTurner from Kansas for five minutes.
    Mr. LaTurner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Ahuja, 
thank you for being here today. The Office of Personnel 
Management serves as the chief human resources agency for the 
entirety of the Federal Government, supporting a workforce of 
approximately 2.1 million people. It suffices to say the 
policies and protocols of the OPM have far-reaching 
implications over the day-to-day endeavors of the Federal 
civilian workforce. So, I was alarmed when I learned of OPM's 
January 31 rulemaking entitled, ``Federal Suitability and 
Fitness,'' and your Agency's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 
manifesto published February 15.
    When it comes to Federal hiring practices, you and other 
OPM decisionmakers seem determined on sacrificing mediocracy 
for a litmus test with a political agenda. Your Agency's budget 
justification for Fiscal Year 2023 even lists fostering a 
diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible workplaces its 
second-highest strategic priority above other directives, such 
as building the skills of the Federal workforce and attracting 
skilled talent. How can Americans have faith in their 
government when its H.R. agency prioritizes DEI initiatives 
over the skill set of the workforce?
    Ms. Ahuja. I am sorry, Congressman. Would you repeat that 
question, please?
    Mr. LaTurner. How can the Americans have faith in their 
government when its H.R. agency prioritizes DEI initiatives 
over the skill set of the workforce?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I assure you that there are a 
number of priorities that we list as top priorities and that 
are a focus of our agency. We have been spending quite a bit of 
time on skills-based hiring.
    Mr. LaTurner. But you listed diverse, equitable, inclusive, 
and accessible workplaces above building the skills of the 
Federal workforce and attracting skilled talent. Your Agency 
requested over $415 million in discretionary spending alone, 
but, frankly, I am not certain I can trust your Agency's 
discretion with the Americans hard-earned tax dollars. I 
believe in competency over quotas. The Federal workforce should 
be comprised of our Nation's best and brightest, not hindered 
by reductionist hiring practices predicated on one's 
demographics or political beliefs.
    I am sure some of my Republican colleagues may also take 
issue with OPM standards of employment, so rather than belabor 
the point, I would like to turn your attention to another 
issue--the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Billions 
of dollars in drug spending annually contribute to FEHB cost 
and premium growth, weighing heavily on the Federal budget. I 
understand that OPM has previously directed carriers to offer 
pharmaceutical cost transparency tools as a service 
enhancement, but also perhaps to achieve incremental savings 
through smarter consumer behavior. Have you considered placing 
more emphasis here given the enormous spend and waste 
attributed to pharmaceuticals? For example, have you considered 
being more prescriptive to carriers as far as what a tool like 
this should ideally look like to achieve true maximum savings?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, I appreciate that question. I don't 
feel at this time I have enough details to be able to give you 
an appropriate response, but I would be happy to take your 
question back to the team and follow up.
    Mr. LaTurner. I would appreciate that. I am aware of third 
party drug cost transparency and decision-making support tools 
in the market. And I think this is a topic worth exploring. If 
we could communicate with your office and----
    Ms. Ahuja. Certainly.
    Mr. LaTurner [continuing]. Give more detail on it, I would 
very much appreciate that.
    Mr. LaTurner. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the remainder of 
my time.
    Mr. Connolly. Would my friend just yield for one thing on 
FEHBP?
    Mr. LaTurner. Of course.
    Mr. Connolly. I thank my friend. Ms. Ahuja, you are going 
to get heat today and you have got some, but, you know, I do an 
annual open season town hall for my constituents. It is 
attended by hundreds of people, Federal employees and retirees. 
And I just want to say with respect to FEHBP, you have been 
sending, I think, the head guy. He has been outstanding. He has 
given his personal cellphone number to hundreds of people at 
this meeting, and it is livestreamed. He has answered all 
questions, he has followed up, and I really want to commend you 
for that kind of service. Hopefully we can replicate that in 
other services provided by OPM, but on that one, and that has 
been a number of years now, he and OPM have done a really great 
job, and I thank you. Thank you for yielding.
    Mr. LaTurner. Of course. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. I recognize 
myself for five minutes of questions, and, Director, again we 
thank you for being here.
    On January 23, I sent you a letter in response to a report 
that GAO released in December, again talking about the billions 
of dollars of ineligible payments made to the Federal Employees 
Health Benefit Plan. A lot of our Members have mentioned that. 
According to our research, the ineligible payments were 
documented by the OPM's IG in 2018 with estimates as high as 
between $1 billion and $3 billion annually. Now, how was this 
issue not raised with Congress sooner?
    Ms. Ahuja. Thank you, Chairman, for that question. Well, we 
have been focused on this issue. It is a very decentralized 
health benefits program, and we have been working with agencies 
and carriers to be able to ensure that we manage any 
ineligibility.
    Chairman Comer. Is the problem fixed, or are these payments 
to eligible employees going to continue to happen? Do we know?
    Ms. Ahuja. Well, actually we have created a Master 
Enrollment Index that will focus on actually determining, now 
that we have the data, where there might be discrepancies in 
the enrollment from agencies and from carriers, and that is 
going to be a way forward. Our challenge, frankly, Chairman, 
has been that this particular department has been under 
resourced. Certainly the prior years were challenging, and that 
this audit was going to be three times the budget of this 
particular office. So, we were certainly navigating those 
issues as well and figuring out a solution.
    Chairman Comer. The Committee has made several document 
requests, as was included in the letter. Can we have a 
commitment from you that you will work with us to ensure that 
we receive the documents in a timely manner because this is a 
big issue for this Committee that we are looking into.
    Ms. Ahuja. Certainly, Chairman, and my understanding is our 
team is also going to be setting up some time to also speak 
more fully about this.
    Chairman Comer. Then on the telework issue, I think we have 
been very clear on this side of the aisle we are not happy with 
the performance of the Federal Government, especially when you 
deal with what our caseworkers deal with every day. For those 
of us who have been here pre-COVID and post-COVID, there is a 
difference. There is a difference with the Social Security 
Administration. There is a difference with the State 
Department. There is a difference with VA. There is a 
difference with the IRS. There is a difference with the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture, and I know that agency very well. 
And from who we talk to and the research that we have done, we 
believe that that is because there is a significant number of 
employees who are teleworking. So, obviously we would love to 
see some research and data from OPM regarding the impact of 
telework in the Federal Government.
    Is that something you are doing because the reason we 
passed the SHOW UP Act, which, as you know, would take the 
telework numbers back to pre-pandemic levels, which was around 
21 percent of the Federal workforce was working telework pre-
pandemic, is we didn't ever see a plan from the Biden 
Administration as to why this person was teleworking and this 
person wasn't, whether or not this plan was saving money or 
improving efficiency, when they were going to go back to work, 
if they were going to go back to work, you know, no plan. And 
it was very concerning because we have to answer to our 
constituents, and it has been very difficult doing case work 
and we believe because there is a significant number of Federal 
employees who aren't working.
    I don't quote Bloomberg very often, but I would like to 
enter into the record this Bloomberg story that says Washington 
Suffers as Federal Employees Work From Home.
    Without objection, so ordered.
    Chairman Comer. This is a big issue for the Majority on 
this Committee. Last, I want to mention postal reform, 
something Mr. Connolly and I worked very closely on and will 
continue to work closely on. I just wanted to ask about the 
Postal Service Health Benefits Program, which was established 
through the recent postal reform package signed into law last 
year. Based on what we know now, is OPM on track to implement 
these reforms by 2025, and why or why not?
    Ms. Ahuja. We are, Chairman. I had mentioned to your 
colleague earlier that we have met our timeline in issuing an 
RFP on the major IT infrastructure that is going to support the 
centralized enrollment, which also is going to be really a test 
case for what we would like to do with FEHB around also 
managing improper payments, to have that more centralized. We 
will be issuing an interim final rule in April which, again, is 
going to cover the entire program. So, those were two of the 
major milestones that we have met.
    As you know, you are a sponsor of the bill. I appreciate 
your support there. It is a huge effort. It is an aggressive 
timeline. We have to enroll a little less than 2 million 
individuals when we have this stood up. An example of the 
difference, when we have open season for FEHB, we usually just 
enroll five percent when either, you know, they are changing 
healthcare carriers. So, it is a massive undertaking, and we 
hope to work in partnership with you and your colleagues.
    Chairman Comer. Any information you can give us on that, we 
would appreciate because we are going to have the postmaster 
general in very soon, probably for a subcommittee hearing, just 
to give us a report. We have got a lot invested in this. We 
want to see some performance from him as well. Performance 
would, in my opinion, indicate cutting the losses and improving 
postal performance, so that is something. I will yield.
    Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with 
you because I think you are going down the right track. And we 
need some sort of post-passage Oversight hearings of that 
postal reform bill in terms of implementation, so I look 
forward to working with you on that.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you. My time has expired. I recognize 
the gentleman from New York, Mr. Langworthy, for five minutes. 
Did you want to follow up? Yes.
    Ms. Ahuja. Could I just mention just there is a great 
working relationship that we have with the U.S. Postal Service. 
It has been really hand-in-glove the entire time, just to let 
you know. That is an important working relationship that we 
have.
    Chairman Comer. OK. Very good. Mr. Langworthy you are 
recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Langworthy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As Federal 
employees, we owe it to the American people to do our jobs to 
the best of our ability. And after all, the taxpayers of this 
great country pay our salary, and they expect that we uphold 
our centuries-old agreement that we work for them. However, it 
seems to me that the Biden Administration has forgotten about 
this. The Biden Administration has put forth policy that has 
degraded the level of our once very high-performing and highly 
talented Federal workforce in the name of woke policies. 
Director, yes or no, do you believe that there has been 
discrimination in the Federal hiring process?
    Ms. Ahuja. Congressman, that doesn't really lend to a yes 
or no answer. I wouldn't know how to answer that question.
    Mr. Langworthy. OK. Are you aware that President Biden 
issued Executive Order 14035 entitled, the Diversity Equity, 
Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce?
    Ms. Ahuja. Yes, I am aware.
    Mr. Langworthy. OK. Are you aware that this was passed to 
increase diversity and inclusion in the workplace?
    Ms. Ahuja. Yes.
    Mr. Langworthy. OK. Concerns have been raised, however, 
that overly emphasizing DEIA principles could result in unequal 
treatment of Federal workers or applicants merely on account of 
their race or sex, neither of which have anything to do with a 
person's ability to serve their country. Now, Director, would 
you agree that the Federal Government should attract talented 
individuals into Federal service without regard to an 
applicant's immutable characteristics?
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely. We at OPM uphold merit system 
principles, and that is a big part of ensuring merit-based 
hiring. I will say just, Congressman, that in the executive 
order, we define ``diversity'' very broadly. It includes 
veterans, military spouses, individuals with disabilities, 
geographic representation. So, when we talk about building the 
diversity in the Federal Government, it is with that lens.
    Mr. Langworthy. Do you agree that it is essential that the 
Federal Government be able to attract top talent into Federal 
service on behalf of the American people?
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely.
    Mr. Langworthy. Are you familiar with the statistics 
regarding Federal Government employee performance, like the 
fact that once an employee is beyond the first year of service, 
the chance of a Federal employee being dismissed declined to 
0.054 percent, or a 1 in 1,800 chance of being dismissed for 
cause?
    Ms. Ahuja. You asked whether I was familiar?
    Mr. Langworthy. Yes.
    Ms. Ahuja. Could you repeat that point again, please?
    Mr. Langworthy. After a Federal employee has passed their 
first year of service, that their chance of being dismissed 
declined to 0.054 percent, or a 1 in 1,800 chance of being 
dismissed for cause?
    Ms. Ahuja. I wasn't familiar with that statistic.
    Mr. Langworthy. Are you aware that former President Trump 
signed multiple executive orders which were intended to 
institute general workforce reforms, including some that 
increased the accountability of civil servants and others that 
strengthened discipline and removal procedures for poor 
performance in the workplace?
    Ms. Ahuja. I am familiar with those executive orders. I 
take issue with how they are being characterized, Congressman.
    Mr. Langworthy. OK. Are you aware that the Biden 
Administration, through Executive Order 14003, rescinded those 
President Trump's executive orders calling for increased 
consequences for poor performance?
    Ms. Ahuja. I am familiar that we did rescind those 
executive orders with the purpose of rebuilding the 
relationships with our union partners. And also I think, you 
know, there is a really a difference of opinion about how we 
should be tackling performance management in the Federal 
Government.
    Mr. Langworthy. Well, Director, can we at least agree that 
our Federal Government needs the most talented employees that 
it can track regardless of race, gender, age or identification?
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely.
    Mr. Langworthy. Do you agree that we owe the best service 
possible to the hardworking taxpayers of my congressional 
district and all the congressional districts of the Nation?
    Ms. Ahuja. Absolutely.
    Mr. Langworthy. OK. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back, and this 
concludes our questions. And in closing, I want to thank you, 
Director, again, for being in attendance today for this 
important and insightful testimony. We are going to follow up 
with a lot of questions. Several of our Members asked questions 
that they weren't satisfied with the answers or want more 
detail. Obviously any data you can get on teleworking and the 
postal reform, we would appreciate that, too, in our ongoing 
efforts for reform with those agencies. We are very concerned 
about the health benefit ineligibility payments that were sent 
out, so please keep us posted on that.
    With that, and without objection, all----
    Mr. Connolly. I just have some stuff.
    Chairman Comer. You what?
    Mr. Connolly. I just have some stuff to put in the record.
    Chairman Comer. Yes, go ahead. I yield to the Ranking 
Member.
    Mr. Connolly. I thank the Chair, and I echo his sentiments. 
I look forward to follow up. I will make the point I made a 
little earlier. When we talk about telework, there are two 
different things going on here. The frustration I think we are 
hearing from a lot of our colleagues is the aftermath of 
universal remote working in a pandemic. That is not a telework 
program. In fact, that began in almost chaos because there 
wasn't enough direction going out to Federal agencies in terms 
of what do we do. And so, we--I think, rightfully so--my 
friends on this side of the aisle are saying, hey, when do we 
go back to work in a more normal style, and that is a fair 
question. And I think OPM has to reevaluate guidelines, 
especially in light of the fact that President Biden has said, 
I am, you know, vitiating the national emergency as of May. I 
think that then calls for new guidelines for personnel.
    But robust telework programs existed before the pandemic 
and will exist after the pandemic, and we want them. We want 
them well-managed. We want them overseen. We want them 
productive. We want them improving morale. And we want to use 
those programs as part of the toolkit when we are recruiting 
the next generation of Federal employees who expect it because 
they get it in the private sector. So, I just wanted to make 
that distinction because some of the conversation we have had 
today conflates the two, and they are different.
    Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your indulgence, I just 
want to ask unanimous consent to insert a number of statements 
into the record: a statement from the American Federation of 
Government Employees, AFL-CIO, remarks from the International 
Federation of Professional Technical Engineers, a letter from 
the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, 
NARFE, a letter from the Partnership for Public Service, a 
statement from a group comprised of the spouses of military 
service members, visual and written statements I have 
referenced already from Mika Cross, who wrote the Federal 
workplace report, a statement from Ms. Kate Lister, the 
president of Global Workplace Analytics. And with that----
    Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
    Mr. Connolly. And with that, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chairman Comer. The Ranking Member yields back. And just to 
touch on what he said on the telework, we would support 
telework if we have evidence that it saves money and doesn't 
cost efficiency and productivity in the Federal Government. If 
telework is the way to go, and it saves money, and doesn't do 
anything to harm the productivity of the Federal employees, we 
will go along with it. But then we are going to sell those 
buildings that are empty in downtown Washington, like Mayor 
Bowser has suggested, to try to save money because we are 
serious about saving money. That is a big role in this 
Committee. We are looking for every way, shape, or form to save 
taxpayer dollars, so this is something that we are very 
concerned about that falls squarely under you. So, we look 
forward to hearing back from you and working with you in the 
future.
    With that and without objection, all Members will have five 
legislative days within which to submit materials and to submit 
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be 
forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
    Chairman Comer. If there is no further business, without 
objection, the Committee stands adjourned.

                                 [all]