Washington, D.C. - U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Kay Coles James thanked OPM career civil servants recently for their outstanding leadership and team efforts which led to a perfect green quarterly score. The agency, one of the two most improved agencies according to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is making real, measurable progress toward becoming a results-oriented organization, as prescribed by President Bush's Management Agenda (PMA). The quarterly scores were published in the President's 2005 budget.

"By earning a green score on e-Government, and all green scores for each management goal in the progress category, this demonstrates Team OPM is clearly getting results on the PMA scorecard," remarked James. "The scorecard is extremely significant because it is used to assess an agency's implementation of the PMA. Just as importantly, it reflects the fact that employees are dedicated to openly identifying problems and opportunities and working closely to implement changes. Our team recognizes that more challenges will arise but they are not afraid to identify and embrace change."

According to OMB, OPM has addressed deficiencies in three main areas and is a government leader in the area of e-Government and information technology management. Specifically, OPM is a leader of the Administration's e-Government initiatives, expecting a savings of well over $1 billion from the six initiatives it manages. Additionally, OMB highlighted OPM's successes in its role in leading the government's strategic management of human capital, its utilization of competitive sourcing to ensure its commercial activities are performed at the best value to the taxpayer, and its issuing audited financial statements in an accelerated time frame and providing assurance that its financial management meets high standards of integrity resulting in a more responsible accounting of the people's money.

"OPM is leading the pack with regard to management improvement and are furthest along to becoming the well managed, results-oriented organization we want the whole government to become," said Clay Johnson, the OMB's Deputy Director for Management.

The scorecard is divided into two categories: one for current status of meeting the PMA's management goals, and the other for progress in meeting those management goals. OPM received four yellows and one green in the status category (one of only two agencies to do so) and all green in the progress category. Human Capital, Competitive Sourcing, Financial Performance, e-Government, and Budget/Performance Integration are the management goals agencies are assessed at implementing.

In other good news for the agency, OPM received a green progress score for both status and progress of implementing the six e-Government initiatives mandated to the agency by the PMA. To receive a green progress score, OPM had to meet on time all cost, schedule, and performance targets for the e-Government component of the PMA scorecard. Much of this progress can be linked to OPM's improvement in Information Technology (IT) security. To support its e-Government initiatives, OPM developed an active program to identify and correct IT security weaknesses on a continuing basis.

"OPM's progress in implementing the e-Government initiatives shows our commitment to the PMA," James stated. "We are committed to strengthening IT security so that the President's wish for a customer-focused, citizen-centered, and results-oriented federal government becomes a reality."

Exhibiting this vision is the OPM USAJOBS website. Since its re-launching last August, the new website has logged over 42 million visits, over 414 million pages viewed (hits), and almost 400 thousand online resumes created.

OPM is leading the effort to transform human resource operations within federal agencies. Under the Human Capital element of the President's scorecard, OPM, OMB, and the General Accounting Office have developed a set of standards that form an integrated, results-oriented vision of what constitutes effective human capital management. When an agency "gets to green," it means they have achieved the desired results laid out in the scorecard.

Our mission is to ensure the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce. OPM supports U.S. agencies with personnel services and policy leadership including staffing tools, guidance on labor-management relations and programs to improve work force performance.