The Government Efficiency, Accountability And Reform Task Force Proposes How The Federal Government Can Be Better sponsored by Aaron Steele
The Government Efficiency, Accountability, and Reform Task Force has published a report on what the government can do to be more efficient. Whether Congress will make these changes is another story by Aaron Steele.
We will be going over some of the proposals that would affect federal workers if they were to become a reality.
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The task force mentions a pilot program that placed subject matter experts and hiring managers at the head of the process for hiring employees. This pilot was implemented within the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Interior. They appointed eight subject matter experts in the process of hiring for every two HR employees. Aaron Steele said it took an average of 37 days to select a new hire. In the pilot testing, the process took 16 and 11 days for the two departments.
The authors of the report advise that agencies should keep a continuous line of workers to fill their needs instead of just looking to fill a position when it becomes vacant. They state that agencies should constantly be looking through federal workers to fill positions throughout the government.
Another part of the report cites the Merit Act, which has been introduced but has not passed the Senate, as being a part of the process to remove underperforming workers. The report states that the Act would make the process of letting go of these types of workers more efficient and quicker. The Merit Act would also allow agencies to dismiss a senior executive for not meeting their duties as required instead of just receiving a demotion. The Merit Act would also restrict benefits for the retirement of workers that are dismissed from their duties because of a felony that is related to their job-related role. The Act would also enable agencies to recover bonuses and rescind awards when performance or conduct problems arise.
There is also a suggestion to extend the length of time for probation for competitive positions to two years instead of the current one-year probationary period. This is so that there is a significant amount of time to assess the new worker. They would also like to limit the capability for intermediates to intervene and countermand the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB)’s decisions or rulings.
Another thing the authors would like to do is to sustain protections for whistleblowers. The Merit Act would also cut the time to remove an employee that is underperforming or due to behaviors that go against policy. At this time, to remove a federal worker that is needed to be dismissed takes more than 300 days on average.
The report also mentions that under current legislation, federal agencies can suspend a federal worker that has broken the law for an unspecified period of time as the process to remove the individual is being worked. Some agencies state that they have to maintain the employees that are caught committing serious crimes on their roster as dismissing then would be “wrongful termination.”
The task force wants to change the policy from needing to provide a preponderance of evidence to providing substantial evidence to remove a federal employee from their post. They believe that the current system is not providing the best merit on behalf of the American people, but for federal workers to be less liable to consequences for inappropriate actions.
It seems that the authors of the report would like to change the current evidentiary system as the ongoing process drags things along, where the new standard would put the firing process more like a private business, quick and to the point.
The report also states that union representatives should have more limitations on how they can use their official time. They believe that it is unfair to the American people that political or union activity be used on official time and should be prohibited. If done, it should be an action that leads to being dismissed.
The report states that current federal workers receive raises for essentially working just enough not to be fired. On top of that, federal workers receive a yearly pay raise almost every year. They believe that the employees have a very minimal reason to work much more productively and efficiently that would be in the interest of the American people.
The taskforce also mentions data that the Congressional Budget Office revealed, which was that federal workers that graduated from high school or those that had less education had a salary that was 34 percent more than civilians with the same education level. On the other end of the spectrum, federal workers with higher education were getting paid 24 percent less than their private-sector counterparts.
They concluded that this is causing highly qualified and higher performing workers to leave the federal labor force due to low pay, while under-qualified and underperforming workers stayed due to their higher pay.
The task force report would like for the government to even out this imbalance and would like for them to utilize Special Rates more so than they are now. The report also would like a reform on the federal pension system as they state that the benefits for retired federal workers is the highest cost for the federal government when it comes to benefit-related expenses. It indicates that federal workers are currently receiving benefits that are about the value of 14 percent of their pay when their private sector counterparts receive three percent of their salaries in retirement benefits.
The authors have advised that eliminating the Federal Employees’ Retirement System and offering only an improved and better-incentive Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) for federal employee newcomers in the future. They believe that this would save the American people money and give a better surety to future participants.
The task force report also suggests restructuring the Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) program. With the current system in place, the federal government covers around 70 percent of the health plan premiums for their workers. Aaron Steele said the percentage does not change even if an employee selects a higher-priced plan or a lower-priced plan.
The authors advise that the system be changed so that the government would only cover contribution amounts that are the same across all the plans, and that the rest of the cost would be up to the federal worker to take care of. The motive for this change would be to steer workers to buy health plans that they only need so that it would save taxpayers a significant amount of money.
The proposals that the Government Efficiency, Accountability, and Reform Task Force have made would need to be put through by Congress if we were to see any of these changes. However, with one political party in charge of the Senate and the other in charge of the House, it isn’t likely that we will see any action happening with these suggestions. Political differences between the two political parties have resulted in little change in the system of federal civil service.
