Federal Daily - December 2, 2008
CBO: Too Early to Gauge NSPS Success
It’s too early to tell if DoD’s National Security Personnel System (NSPS) is meeting its goals of improving DoD hiring and enhancing compensation packages for high-performing employees, according to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report released last month. The CBO report noted that not enough time had elapsed since NSPS was authorized in 2003 to make a complete analysis of the personnel system, which has replaced the General Schedule system for many DoD employees. CBO did note that employee perception of whether NSPS was an improvement could affect their support. So far, employees don’t have a completely favorable view of NSPS, the report said. In the five surveys conducted between October 2004 and May 2007, only about 30 percent of DoD employees who had not been converted to NSPS agreed or strongly agreed that NSPS will improve selected personnel processes, such as those for hiring new employees. “The results of CBO’s analysis suggest that DoD’s employees are not yet convinced that NSPS’s desired effects on DoD’s personnel processes have been or will be achieved,” the report said. “Those findings could portend unfavorable views about personnel processes under NSPS.” The report cautioned that the survey findings for the sampled group may not extrapolate to the rest of the DoD workforce. To see more, go to: www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/97xx/doc9705/11-26-NSPS.pdf.
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OSC Failed to Protect FAMS Whistleblowers, Group Says
The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) failed to protect from retaliation whistleblowers who complained about wrongdoing within the Federal Air Marshals Service (FAMS), according to claims in documents posted Nov. 25 on the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) Web site. POGO contacted about a dozen current and former air marshals who blew the whistle on problems within FAMS, the group said in a statement. Of those whistleblowers it contacted, the group said that none were helped by OSC, which is tasked with providing a secure whistleblower disclosure channel for the resolution of workplace improprieties, and for protecting whistleblowers from retaliation. The group, in its review of whistleblower cases, said OSC leadership was unwilling to hold offending agencies accountable. It also found that OSC’s Complaints Examining Unit did not effectively communicate with complainants, and that the OSC certification and outreach program did not work well enough. “The POGO report describes in great detail what actually happens to federal air marshals when they do come forward to root out misconduct and criminal behavior––they are retaliated against, and in most cases terminated,” P. Jeffrey Black, a federal air marshal from the Las Vegas office, said in a statement posted on the POGO Web site. To see more, go to: www.pogo.org/pogo-files/alerts/homeland-security/hs-aviation-20081125.html.
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VA, Louisiana Announce Sites for New Medical Facilities
Officials with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the state of Louisiana on Nov. 25 announced the selection of adjacent New Orleans downtown sites for construction of facilities to replace those lost during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The new Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Louisiana State University (LSU) Academic Medical Center will be built next to one another under an agreement between VA and the City of New Orleans. The city has agreed to acquire the land for the new VA facility, prepare the site for construction and turn over the site to VA within one year. The new VA center will replace the old New Orleans VA hospital, which was heavily damaged during the hurricane flooding and is now providing only outpatient services. The LSU facility will replace the old Charity Hospital, which closed because of storm-related damage. “The new VA hospital in downtown New Orleans will provide needed medical care for veterans throughout the region and will serve as a key economic driver for our future,” said New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin. “Along with the new LSU hospital, it will serve as the centerpiece of our biomedical district.” To see more, go to: http://www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=1619
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