U.S. Office of Personnel Management
Speech by Janice R. Lachance, Acting Director

Town Hall Meeting

October 14, 1997

 

Good morning. Thank you very much for being here. Let me also welcome all those OPM field employees who are hooked up to the meeting by telephone.

President Clinton's nomination of me to be Director of the Office of Personnel Management is a tremendous honor and, if I am confirmed by the Senate, I will work hard to be worthy of the President's trust -- and of yours.

Frankly, I'm very fortunate that, if I am confirmed, I wont be starting from scratch. I've been at OPM for more than four years, serving Jim King first as Director of Communications, then as Chief of Staff, and most recently as Deputy Director.

I was blessed to have those four years learning from as wise a teacher as Jim King. I miss him every day and I will try to live up to the high standards of realism, vision and compassion that he has set for us.

In my four years at OPM, I've gotten to know the agency well and to know many of you well.

I know the difficult times we've been through and the successes we've achieved. I know how hard you have worked and what sacrifices you have made as this agency has reinvented itself in the past four years.

We have been through a substantial downsizing, and it was not easy, but we did it the right way, working together, in partnership with our employees and with concern for every employee, using attrition and buyouts whenever we could, and carrying out an aggressive career-transition program that helped about ninety-six percent of our departing employees make new career moves.

We privatized our investigations unit, creating a new, private-sector, employee-owned company, US Investigations Services, Inc., that has achieved remarkable success in its first year of operations.

We have decentralized hiring, and reinvented our Employment Service as a self-supporting operation that sells its services to federal agencies -- as well as to state and local governments -- and is doing extremely well. In the fiscal year just ended, the Employment Service not only met its target of $22 million of reimbursable services, but it also built a solid retained earnings base and has more than $16 million in signed contracts for Fiscal 1998 and beyond. Lets have a round of applause for that!

We have used modern technology to give ever-improving service to the more than nine million employees and retirees who are covered by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, and we believe it continues to be the finest program of its kind in America.

Our Office of the General Counsel has moved aggressively to identify important cases of sexual harassment in the workplace and has won important legal victories that make it clear that such behavior will not be tolerated.

We have continued to work for diversity in government and to vigorously enforce the veterans preference law. Just a few weeks ago, at a meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, I outlined a new OPM plan to increase the representation of Hispanics in government.

This year, we have played a leadership role in the Presidents welfare to work program -- both in providing guidance to agencies on how they could best carry out the hiring, and in developing the system that is now used to report each months new hires. Just last week, the Vice President praised our role and presented a Hammer Award to three OPM employees -- Linda Brick, Janet Cope, and Diane Tyrrell -- who made a major contribution to implementing welfare to work. If they are present, Id like to ask them to stand.

We have created an Office of Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness that has refocused our energies on our primary mission of protecting the merit system.

Just last week, I testified before Congress on a case which dramatized our commitment to the merit system. Our reviews had shown that the National Credit Union Administration had committed serious violations of merit principles in its hiring policies. When we learned this, we took severe actions to stop those violations.

We decertified the NCUA Delegated Examining Unit, stripped the NCUA's authority to make appointments, and referred evidence of violations to the Office of Special Counsel for investigation.

Our actions were a dramatic reminder both to Congress and the entire Executive Branch of OPM's watchdog role in protecting the merit system and of just how seriously we take our responsibility.

Working together, we have been an acknowledged leader in the reinvention of government. The way we reinvented our agency made it clear to the White House and to Congress that we were willing to make the hard decisions demanded by an era of tight budgets and new demands for improved customer service.

These are just some of the things we have achieved in the past four years -- employees and management, working together -- and clearly, we have much to be proud of.

Still, the question remains, where are we today and where are we headed?

First of all, I think this agency is in the best shape it has been in during the four years I have been here.

We have our new Fiscal 1998 budget authority of $85.4 million, which compares with $87 million last year and $88 million the year before that. Congress gave us every dollar we asked for, and I believe that is in large part because of the credibility we developed by meeting the challenges of the past four years. Today, our budget has stabilized at a level with can live with.

I know that many of you are concerned about reductions in force, and it is understandable that you would be. But based on what I know now, and on the contracts we have, that will bring money into the agency, I don't foresee any more RIFs at OPM.

We have developed a good working relationship with the relevant committees and committee chairs in Congress. I have met with Chairman Mica of the House Subcommittee on Civil Service, and we have found a number of issues we agree on. We are working with him to develop legislation to correct past errors in retirement coverage and to improve the Federal Employees Group Life Insurance coverage, and possibly other reforms as well.

When we don't agree, we will simply agree to disagree and proceed in a candid and civil manner. But here is the bottom line. On any legislative proposal, our test is whether it helps or hurts federal employees and retirees. Our commitment is to our employees and we will fight for you in every way we can.

Perhaps you have heard that a House Committee has sent investigators to talk to us -- and to OMB and GSA -- and file a report on whether the three agencies should be merged or some parts of them should be privatized.

I can't read their minds or predict the future, but let me say this. This idea has been floating around for many years and nothing has ever come of it because it is a bad idea. We have responsibilities the other agencies don't have. We are the governments human resources office. We are the trustee of the merit system.

The idea simply makes no sense and my guess is that Congress will reach that conclusion once more, as it has in the past. If such a proposal actually went forward, one that we believed would harm federal employees or undermine the merit system, then I promise you that I will fight it tooth and nail.

But I hope it doesn't come to that.

We have talked a lot in the past four years about the government of the future.

Well, as the Redskins used to say, the future is now.

OPM is lean and focused. We know what our missions are. We are going to continue to enforce the merit system, to provide governmentwide leadership on human resource management, and to administer the best health and retirement programs that this government has ever seen.

A smaller government has to be a highly-motivated, high-performing government.

We are going to help the President attract the best talent to government, make the best use of that talent, and see that all federal employees are fairly treated with regard to hiring, pay, promotions, disciplinary actions, benefits and retirement.

We are going to work to make OPM a better, more productive agency, and to help the President meet his governmentwide goals as well. If we do our job, we will go a long way toward building the government of the future, one that truly does work better and cost less.

Now, if Michelle Borden, the president of Local 32, will come forward, she and I have the privilege of presenting awards to some OPM employees who have done outstanding, innovative work.

We are honoring two teams of employees from the Retirement and Insurance Service who have participated in innovations that are producing better service to OPM's customers.

First, the Customer Service Standards Partnership Team. This teams assignment was to develop performance standards for the newly established position of Customer Service Specialist. These are front-line employees who deal with our customers directly, in person, or by telephone or sometimes by mail. Working with Local 32, members of this team wrote the standards for these new positions, which now are filled by about 125 employees. These employees will provide Value Added service that will result in measurable improvements in the way we treat our customers.

Ill ask each member of the Customer Service Partnership Team to come to the stage as I call their names:

Roberta Austin; Rebecca Blair; Josephine Caldwell; Mildred Graves; Susie Jefferson; William S. Rogers; Elaine Taylor; Joy Beavers; Deborah Bowen; Linda Fleming; Gary Jacobs; Jacqueline Ragin; David Snell; and Linda Wilson.

Next, we are honoring the Call Monitoring System Partnership Team. This teams job was to develop a call monitoring system to improve the service provided by our front-line Customer Service Specialists when they respond to telephone calls from our customers. This program was worked out in partnership with Local 32 and is an important part of the workplace accountability that all of us believe to be so vital to a reinvented OPM. As a result of this monitoring program, we can identify training needs, recognize outstanding service, and allow both employees and management to stay in close touch with customer needs.

Now Ill ask the members of the Call Monitoring System Partnership Team to come to the stage:

Josephine Caldwell; Thomas Moore; Belinda Reeves; Mary Penny Williams; Gary Jacobs; Ivan Petric; and Pamela Stewart.

Michelle, would you like to say a few words?

Thank you very much. Now Id be glad to take your questions.

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Web page created 23 October 1997