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Federal
News Radio
More
(or
less) with less, the new normal?
By Mike
Causey
8/15/2013
Doing
more
with less seems to be the new normal.
Many
federal agencies and private sector operations have tightened their
belts with
mixed results for their customers. Example:
Two
of the
three federal agencies that often touch the most Americans have some
real
problems. The U.S. Postal Service is cutting jobs, offering buyouts and
looking
for ways to make money. Having a monopoly on first-class mail isn't
much good
in an era of email and texting, when even the most devoted grandchild
sends
Grannie a computerized birthday card.
Currently,
the USPS is trying to convince Congress to stop forcing it from
pre-funding its
retirement plan, something other federal operations don't have to do.
It is
also looking at a stand-alone health plan and other changes that make
some of
its employees nervous.
Some
of its
ventures appear to be working. Others, like sponsoring the U.S. Tour de
France
bicycling team, not so much...
The
Social
Security Administration, which directly touches one in every six
Americans is
also trying — and in most cases so far, succeeding — to do more with
less. In
theory, Social Security, for politicians, is the third political rail.
That is,
touch it — as in mess with its operations or delay those checks — and
you die.
Senior citizens are known to vote.
Social
Security managed to escape most of the impacts of sequestration. Other
agencies, like the Defense Department, the Internal Revenue Service,
the
Housing and Urban Development Department, the Environmental Protection
Agency
and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have furloughed people.
Social
Security cut back office hours and is doing more with fewer people.
It's had
two budget cuts in the last two years, and Congress — when it gets back
from
its latest extended vacation — may or may not approve a new budget.
In
the
meantime, Acting Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin has sent an all-hands
message
to staffers asking them to hang in there. Effective now, she said, "We
are
facing our toughest fiscal challenge in 30 years...we anticipate
lengthy
debates over our budget...Congress may not reach agreement before Sept.
30,
which means we may enter a new fiscal year under a continuing
resolution and
under the continued effects of sequestration."
Colvin,
a
veteran fed with four decades of service, noted that SSA has lost
10,000
employees in the last three years, and this has resulted in imbalances
in
different offices.
She
said
she is telling SSA bosses to "provide for broader empowerment at the
staff
level," greater delegation of both "accountability and
responsibility" — while asking each employee to come up with
"game-changer" processes, rules, procedures or systems that make it
easier to do more with less.
So
what is
the likelihood that Congress — when it returns after Labor Day — will
be able
to reach an agreement on budgets for the fiscal year that begins Oct.
1? The
odds are about as good as they were this time last year, and the year
before,
and the year before that.
The
other
reach-out-and-touch someone agency, the Internal Revenue Service, has
long been
under orders to do more with less. The IRS has also suffered through a
round of
furloughs.
For
feds
the message is this: Keep on doing what you are supposed to do, except
maybe
not so often or so well.
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this
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