Page 10 - FCW, May 2017

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How to keep feds happy
Federal employee satisfaction scores have risen, but lawmakers believe there’s still a long way to go.
The 2016 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government, produced by the Partnership for Public Service in conjunction with Deloitte and mostly derived from the Office of Personnel Management’s
Federal Employee
Viewpoint Survey,
reported a govern-
mentwide job sat-
isfaction score of
59.4 out of 100.
That trails the
government’s all-
time high of 65.0 in 2010 and the pri- vate sector’s score of 77.1.
Max Stier, president of the Partner- ship for Public Service, testified at a congressional hearing in April that “there’s no reason why we should have that kind of discrepancy between pub- lic and private sector other than poor management. It’s not because federal employees are not committed to the mission. We have short-term political leaders who don’t align to the long- term needs of the organizations they run.”
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said government management is overly rule- driven, which “seems to stifle, some- times, creativity and seems to minimize performance.... It’s not the model we need moving forward.”
He also said the Trump administra- tion’s proposed budget cuts will likely have a negative impact on feds’ morale.
Stier agreed. “Uncertainty is the most corrosive of all,” he said. “For any other organization in any other con- text, the idea that they could manage effectively and achieve results without knowing what their resource base is [would be] impossible.”
— Chase Gunter
$19.8 billion worth of spectrum was reallocated in the
latest FCC auction
Milley said a continuing resolution would affect the Army’s ability to fin- ish the Cyber School Center of Excel- lence at Fort Gordon.
“It means that the National Guard is not going to be able to field their cyber protection teams...and we will
not be able to contin- ue our level of train- ing that we need to do for the teams that are already formed in the regular Army,” he added.
A continuing resolu- tion would also under- mine work being done to upgrade systems to make them more cyber resilient, Richardson said.
The Navy’s latest ini- tiative involves estab- lishing a digital war- fare office “that will work with the fleets
Military leaders say cyber will suffer under a CR
The Joint Chiefs of Staff were blunt in their comments to the House Armed Services Committee on the impact of passing another continuing resolution rather than a full budget.
“Candidly, failure to pass a bud- get in my view as both an American citizen and the chief
of staff of the United
States Army consti-
tutes professional mal-
practice,” Gen. Mark
Milley said. “I don’t
think we should accept
it as the new normal.”
He and his col-
leagues said that
under a continuing
resolution, any efforts
to grow the number
of military personnel
would halt. In addition,
new procurements and
programs would not
happen, money would
have to be pulled from
other areas to prioritize readiness and training, and modernization efforts would stall.
The House passed the fiscal 2017 defense budget and submitted a full budget to the Senate in March. There is little the committee can do now except call attention to the impact a continuing resolution would have on the Defense Department. Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and other members have said they will not vote for a continuing resolution.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said that while the U.S. military spent the past eight years constrained by continuing resolutions and sequestration, adversaries such as China and Russia have been modern- izing and growing their capabilities. They have gained ground on cyber- security in particular.
10 May 2017 FCW.COM
Rep. Gerry Connolly
“Candidly, failure to pass a budget
in my view as
both an American citizen and the chief of staff of
the United States Army constitutes professional malpractice. I don’t think we should accept it as the new normal.”
GEN. MARK MILLEY
to enhance our agility in the infor- mation domain across the board,” he said. “It’s a very comprehensive program...but that will stop without this funding.”
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said a continuing resolution would undermine the work of Adm. Michael Rogers, commander of U.S. Cyber Command, because each of the services contributes teams to the command.
In addition, the military leaders said industry would suffer under a continu- ing resolution. DOD would have less money to spend, and there would be more uncertainty about whether con- tracts would proceed.
“Industry has to have predictable funding, and we can’t do that,” Mil- ley said.
— Sean D. Carberry
CONNOLLY.HOUSE.GOV