Table of Contents

Vision and Mission

Introduction

COMPREHENSIVE ENFORCEMENT OF EEO LAWS

Strategic Goal 1

Enforce Federal Civil Rights Employment Laws

Strategic Objective 1.1.

Improve the effectiveness of the private sector enforcement program, including the use of charge prioritization, mediation and, litigation.

Strategic Objective 1.2.

Enhance the effectiveness of the federal sector program.

Strategic Objective 1.3.

Promote coordination and enhance efficiency by strengthening partnerships with State and Local Fair Employment Practices Agencies (FEPAs) and Native American Tribal Employment Rights Organizations (TEROs).

PREVENTION OF EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION

Strategic Goal 2

Promote Equal Opportunity in Employment

Strategic Objective 2.1.

Encourage and facilitate voluntary compliance with equal employment opportunity laws among employers and employer groups in the private and federal sectors.

Strategic Objective 2.2.

Increase knowledge about individual rights under equal employment opportunity laws among the public and employee groups.

IMPROVING SERVICE TO THE PUBLIC THROUGH EXECUTIVE DIRECTION AND SUPPORT

Strategic Goal 3

Enhance agency effectiveness to achieve our mission and strategic goals.

Strategic Objective 3.1.

Enhance staff capabilities and substantive knowledge to improve work processes and job functions through training, partnership, team-based approaches, and customer-based principles.

Strategic Objective 3.2.

Provide policy direction and guidance to achieve all Strategic Goals.

Strategic Objective 3.3.

Improve the agency's infrastructure.

Verification and Validation

Program Evaluation

Our Vision

Become the World's Preeminent Civil Rights Employment Law Agency and Serve as the Standard Bearer for Excellence in Outreach, Enforcement and Professionalism.

Our Mission

Eradicate and Prevent Employment Discrimination at the Workplace.

Introduction

This Report summarizes the EEOC's results and accomplishments of performance measures for fiscal year 2002. As required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, our Fiscal year 2002 Annual Program Performance Report links to our Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 by incorporating its three broad strategic goals and eight strategic objectives. Using specific performance targets, we track our progress towards achieving our mission to eradicate and prevent employment discrimination at the workplace.

We continued to address key Commission and Administration initiatives that carried over from fiscal year 2001. These multi-year initiatives are critical to achieve our mission and are some of the guiding principles for future planning efforts.

We continued to focus on our Five-Point Plan as a foundation for our work. The Plan strategically focuses on key elements to improve our programs: engaging in proactive methods to prevent discrimination from occurring in the first place; proficiently resolving allegations of discrimination in a timely fashion with quality work; strategically enforcing the laws and litigating cases; enhancing the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) by mediating employment disputes earlier for more effective resolutions; and making EEOC a model workplace.

In addition to the Five-Point Plan, during fiscal year 2002, we addressed the President's Management Agenda (PMA) which requires agencies to strategically manage human capital; integrate budget and performance by focusing on agency results; plan for competitive sourcing of activities on its Federal Activities Inventory Reform (FAIR) Act list; improve performance for the timeliness and accuracy of financial data and payments; and expand electronic government to deliver improved services and benefits to Americans.

We also worked on several other Commission and Presidential initiatives in fiscal year 2002. We engaged the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) to evaluate the agency's organizational structure and make recommendations to improve services in more efficient ways to help us develop and implement a five-year Restructuring Plan. We anticipate initiating efforts on implementing the Restructuring Plan during fiscal year 2003. The Plan will help us become more customer-centered, with as little distance as possible between customers and decision-makers. The Plan will explore ways to reduce decision-making layers; increase the span of control at different organizational levels; ensure that the largest number of EEOC employees are in direct service-delivery positions; and, retrain and redeploy employees.

The Commission also continued to reinvigorate its role under Executive Order 12067 to coordinate civil rights employment discrimination programs and policies throughout federal government. In fiscal year 2002, we promoted consistent, inter-agency outreach, education and enforcement policies in equal employment opportunity efforts across government. We provided major support in the implementation of the Administration's New Freedom Initiative, which was designed to ensure equal opportunity in the workplace for people with disabilities. At the same time, we focused on the EEOC's Freedom to Compete Initiative to ensure that all of America's workers are free to compete on a fair and level playing field; a necessity for free and fair competition in the workplace.

During fiscal year 2002, we formed a Strategic Planning Working Group and an Executive Team to revise our Strategic Plan. The revised Plan will better align our performance plans to fully integrate the agency's continuing initiatives and improve our measures so that we can better identify levels of performance results. We plan to implement our revised GPRA Strategic Plan by fiscal year 2004.

Strategic Goal 1 covers three major enforcement programs involved in investigation and litigation/adjudication activities: the private sector program, the federal sector program, and the state and local program.

Strategic Objective 1.1.

Improve the effectiveness of the private sector enforcement program, including the use of charge prioritization, mediation, and litigation.

The Commission's private sector enforcement program is vital to the statutes we enforce. Individuals file charges alleging employment discrimination. We assist them in the charge filing process, review and investigate their charges, offer mediation to both charging parties and respondents charged, and conduct other settlement efforts throughout the charge process. Finally, in appropriate cases, we file litigation based on the merits of a case, the legal precedents involved, and the effective, strategic use of the agency's resources.

Measures for Strategic Objective 1.1.

Total workload is defined as pending inventory at the beginning of the fiscal year + receipts + net transfers. Resolved charges include Merit Factor, No Cause, and Administrative closures.

In fiscal year 2002, we exceeded all of the targets in our measures. We resolved private sector charges more quickly, benefitted more victims of discrimination and retained the quality demonstrated by the appropriate categorization of charges. Our mediation program was key to achieving these targets. In fiscal year 2003, we will continue to emphasize the use of ADR to resolve charges of discrimination.

Strategic Objective 1.2.

Enhance the effectiveness of the federal sector program.

Our federal sector enforcement program focuses on eradicating employment discrimination in the federal government. Its emphasis is different from EEOC's private sector enforcement program in several important ways. In the private sector program, individuals file charges directly with the Commission. Individuals in the federal sector file complaints with their own federal agencies first. The agencies initially investigate allegations of employment discrimination. Complainants can request a hearing by the EEOC on the allegations, which is not part of the private sector enforcement process. Also, a complainant or federal agency can file an appeal with the EEOC. This appeals procedure is also not part of the private sector enforcement process. If dissatisfied with the outcome, federal sector complainants can file a lawsuit in federal court, similar to a private sector charging party.

In addition to the hearings and appeals federal enforcement programs, our efforts include program evaluations of federal agencies as part of our federal oversight role. These reviews help us identify concerns and discriminatory issues, as well as provide us with opportunities to advise federal agency managers about the federal sector process. Similar to the private sector program, we also establish policies in the federal sector to implement the equal employment opportunity laws and conduct outreach, education and technical assistance activities to prevent or correct discriminatory practices in the federal sector.

Measures for Strategic Objective 1.2.

EEO Cases from Other Federal Agencies

EEOC Internal EEO Cases

EEO Cases from Other Federal Agencies

During fiscal year 2002, we achieved significant results in resolving both hearings and appellate cases within 180 days, as well as addressing the aged inventory of these cases. Nearly half of hearings closures were cases over 360 days old, contributing to the reduced number of older cases burdening our inventory. At the same time, we exceeded our target for closing hearings cases within 180 days, supporting our efforts to keep our inventory current.

Overall, we achieved dramatic reductions in the appellate inventory, providing significant and measurable results. During fiscal year 2002, we resolved 9,452 appeals. This is an increase of just under 2% from fiscal year 2001, and continues a significant trend where we have increased appellate resolutions by almost 38% compared to fiscal year 1997.

We also focused on managing the inventory during the past two years. We dramatically reduced the appellate inventory to 4,809, a 36.2% reduction from the inventory level at the end of fiscal year 2001. More significantly, it represents a reduction of almost 60% from a high of approximately 12,000 appeals in January 2000.

The reduction in the inventory is even more dramatic when the composition of resolved cases is considered. We paid considerable attention to our aged inventory of appellate cases. We identified 2,885 cases that were over 500 days old at the beginning of fiscal year 2002 and resolved 2,670, or 92.5%, of them. In addition, we identified 2,741 appellate cases that were less than 500 days old at the beginning of fiscal year 2002, but would have been over 500 days old by the end of the fiscal year if they remained open. We closed 2,296, or 84%, of these cases. Completing all of these older cases reduced the average age of the remaining appellate inventory to 256 days, a 40.4% reduction from fiscal year 2001.

Even though we made significant progress in closing aged cases, we did not ignore the new cases. Similar to hearings cases, we resolved 40.3% of the appeals cases we received in fiscal year 2002 within 180 days. We developed a plan of action to ensure that new appeals were resolved in a timely and efficient manner.

These combined efforts to resolve newly received appellate cases and aged cases resulted in a significant reduction in the appellate inventory and shifted the balance of that inventory towards cases that were recently filed during the fiscal year.

In fiscal year 2002, we took a more proactive approach for monitoring agencies' activities under settlement agreements reached by the parties, and to determine whether agencies are complying with the terms of these agreements. We also established a target for closing within 180 days at least 50% of the appeals we received during the first three quarters of the fiscal year that alleged a breach of a settlement agreement. We substantially exceeded this measure by closing almost 80% of these appeals within 180 days.

Early in fiscal year 2002, we improved our process for collecting accurate and timely data about agencies' EEO programs and operations. We completed the first year of internet/web-based data collection to obtain federal agencies' fiscal year 2001 data; using a system that is embedded with edit checks to increase data validation by agencies prior to and after submission. More timely data collection and analysis, using our new electronic system, resulted in the public distribution of the fiscal year 2001 Annual Report on May 8, 2002; 10 months sooner than the fiscal year 2000 report could be issued.

EEOC Internal EEO Cases

The EEOC stresses in its Five-Point Plan the importance of becoming a model agency. One key component is to become a model for the federal government in the application of its EEO program. We have focused on using innovative approaches, including ADR, to improve the time to process our own, internal EEO investigations. During fiscal year 2002, we continued this focus with an ambitious set of balanced measures to reduce the time it takes to investigate an EEO complaint and, for those cases where a hearing is requested, complete the hearing.

There were significant challenges because the inventory included complaints that had aged significantly, as well as newly-filed complaints. Although the agency made considerable progress by fully investigating and closing 88% of the older complaints in the inventory, it was difficult to issue final investigative reports on all of these older cases within the expected time frame. Also, to balance the work on older and newer complaints in the inventory, we issued final investigative reports within 180 days on 29% of the newer complaints instead of on all of these complaints. The agency is retaining for fiscal year 2003 the measure to issue investigative reports within 180 days for all complaints, in its commitment to radically improve its program and its efforts to become a model agency. We believe that it is important to hold ourselves to the highest standard; emphasizing the importance of this goal to all federal agencies. We have already made significant changes to our organization and EEO process to ensure that we will attain timely service for completing investigations of complaints in subsequent years.

The agency did substantially exceed its goals to issue hearings determinations on both aged cases and newly requested hearings cases. At the beginning of fiscal year 2002, 41 internal hearing requests were pending. Determinations were issued in 37 of them, or 92.7%, by the end of the fiscal year; substantially exceeding the 75% target for completing hearings on the older cases in the inventory. There were 14 new hearings requested after February 1, 2002. Only one had to be completed within 180 days before the end of the fiscal year to meet the target in this measure. The agency actually issued the determination within 60 days, significantly exceeding this goal also. In addition, the agency issued determinations in three additional hearings requests, well ahead of the required 180-day time period.

Strategic Objective 1.3.

Promote coordination and enhance efficiency by strengthening partnerships with State and Local Fair Employment Practices Agencies (FEPAs) and Native American Tribal Employment Rights Organizations (TEROs).

EEOC partners with many state and local FEPAs and TEROs to enhance efforts to jointly enforce employment discrimination statutes throughout the country. Through work-sharing agreements and other activities, we are able to benefit both the employer and employee communities for several important reasons.

We coordinate charges that are dual-filed under both state or local law and federal law. This effort prevents duplication of effort, coordinates enforcement activities, streamlines the charge resolution process for both charging parties and respondents, consistently applies enforcement practices, and conserves government resources. In addition, we provide training to our partners on investigative and legal issues and conduct joint activities to benefit our mutual constituencies; such as outreach to provide education and technical assistance, as well as support with management information systems.

We contracted with FEPAs to resolve 55,635 dual-filed charges and contracted with 64 TEROs to promote employment opportunity on Native American reservations. Our success in partnering with the FEPAs and TEROs fully supports Administration efforts to focus resources to directly serve customers.

In fiscal year 2002, we provided significant information technology support. We installed the Charge Data System (CDS)–the main data base of charges of employment discrimination–in seven new FEPA offices. We configured and installed new network servers; connected local systems; pre-loaded charge data; trained local technicians on-site on the CDS system administration requirements and the FEPA investigators and managers on the CDS functions, including data entry requirements and reporting capabilities; and provided subsequent help-desk support for the new users. In addition, EEOC enhanced the technological capabilities of four other FEPAs by configuring the CDS for network access; implementing custom intake forms; adding printer capabilities to support Spanish language requirements; and providing CDS access and printing from satellite offices.

Preventing employment discrimination from occurring in the workplace in the first place is preferable to remedying the consequences of discrimination. A major component of EEOC's enforcement strategy and Five-Point Plan is our outreach, education and technical assistance initiatives to assist employers, employees and stakeholder groups to understand and voluntarily prevent employment discrimination. We believe that discrimination can be averted if companies, federal agencies and individuals know their legal rights and responsibilities and learn ways to resolve concerns or disputes early.

Our current Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Strategic Plan establishes separate objectives and measures for employer and employee groups. Although employers and employees, and their respective stakeholders, attend many of our outreach, education and technical assistance events or benefit from our educational activities, we have separately focused on the unique issues and perspectives of each group.

Strategic Objective 2.1.

Encourage and facilitate voluntary compliance with equal employment opportunity laws among employers and employer groups in the private and federal sectors.

We believe that it is important for employers to know about practices and behaviors that can lead to unlawful employment discrimination and to find ways to voluntarily resolve disputes. They have a better opportunity for eliminating or changing policies or practices that violate EEO laws when they have this knowledge and understanding. Since the employer community is a key component in the equation to eradicate and prevent employment discrimination at the workplace, our enforcement strategy and plan includes extensive outreach, education and technical assistance efforts to assist private sector and federal sector employers voluntarily comply with the laws we enforce.

Measures for Strategic Objective

In fiscal year 2002, we exceeded all of our goals, continuing our strong support for assisting the employer community in efforts to remove discriminatory barriers. In the private sector, we engaged in over 1,300 consultations with employers on operational and legal issues involving employment discrimination. We specifically focused on small employers, who received educational materials. A substantial number of both private and federal sector employers attended many of our technical assistance initiatives outside of our Revolving Fund activities.

Our Technical Assistance Program Seminars (TAPS) sponsored by the Revolving Fund continued to receive very high ratings. For the first time, TAPS attendees received the seven-volume EEO Technical Assistance manuals on an easy-to-use, searchable CD-ROM disk. Our Revolving Fund events increased by 16% over fiscal year 2001, and 46% since fiscal year 1999. These events include seminars, on-site training sessions and sign-up courses.

In the federal sector, we expanded our outreach activities, developing and delivering a variety of education, technical assistance, and training activities under the auspices of the Commission's Revolving Fund. For example, for one federal agency, the EEOC developed a 16-hour EEO Training Course for Managers and delivered courses on-site on over 60 occasions. We also opened training opportunities to all federal agencies. We provided numerous EEO counselor and investigator courses across the country, and began development of a new, multi-day course for EEO investigators on writing final agency decisions.

Also, in the federal sector, we vigorously promoted additional efforts to prevent discrimination by providing comprehensive outreach, training, technical assistance and education activities. Our policy to proactively prevent employment discrimination in the first place benefits everyone, and has become a major thrust of the Commission's federal sector strategy. The costs of discrimination are high. Victims of discrimination suffer immeasurable harm, agencies must expend valuable resources to remedy incidents of discrimination, and the productivity of the workplace suffers while the complainant utilizes the administrative EEO complaint process. For these reasons, prevention has become a cornerstone of the Commission's federal sector strategy and all federal sector staff have been involved in proactive activities.

EEOC provided federal agencies, federal employees and applicants, concerned members of the public, and all stakeholder organizations with clear and easy-to-access information on how to comply with the federal equal employment opportunity statutes. We expanded the availability and access to federal sector informational materials and publications, including web-based information; expanded outreach/technical assistance activities, including on-site assistance visits, training seminars, telephone consultations and program evaluations; and conducted no-cost public speaking engagements.

We also developed an ADR web page that provides basic ADR information for interested federal employees, employers and stakeholder groups, as well as detailed information for the federal ADR professionals to assist them in developing agency ADR programs.

Strategic Objective 2.2.

Increase knowledge about individual rights under equal employment opportunity laws among the public and employee groups.

We make extensive information available to private sector and federal sector employee groups to help educate them about their rights and assist them in the important steps they need to take to exercise those rights. Several of these initiatives were described under Strategic Objective 2.1., above. The EEOC recognizes that employees and applicants for employment are valuable partners in the quest to eradicate and prevent employment discrimination. We have instituted measures designed to reach this important, broad employee audience.

Measures for Strategic Objective

In fiscal year 2002, we exceeded our target and made 17 EEO documents available in alternate languages and formats. These documents will be included on the EEOC's Internet website.

We exceeded our target level to provide information and technical assistance to our employee community; matching our efforts to our employer community. We exceeded our target to consult with employee groups, and significantly exceeded our target to provide educational and information materials by reaching over 100,000 employee and employee representatives above what we expected.

Our third Strategic Goal encompasses a key aspect of our Five-Point Plan to become a model workplace and to achieve the President's Management Agenda. Each of the three Strategic Objectives for this Goal is essential for achievement of our enforcement and prevention initiatives–sending a powerful message that all three of our Strategic Goals, working together, are necessary to accomplish our mission.

Strategic Objective 3.1.

Enhance staff capabilities and substantive knowledge to improve work processes and job functions through training, partnership, team-based approaches, and customer-based principles.

Improving our employees' skills and abilities is a key to the successful accomplishment of our mission. We must provide our employees with the necessary information and tools to do a quality job because employment patterns and skills and technological requirements are quickly changing in our society. Part of the President's Management Agenda emphasizes critical components of human resource management, because federal agencies are now facing challenges to retain current employees and recruit and select new employees. Our measures address several of these important areas to enhance staff effectiveness.

Measures for Strategic Objective

E-government and Strategic Management of Human Capital are two top priorities of the President's Management Agenda. Both initiatives are complementary as we implemented new ways to train our employees. For example, in fiscal year 2002, we successfully launched a pilot e-learning program. All employees in four field offices and two headquarters offices and one-fourth of the employees in the remaining headquarters offices are participating to improve their skills and abilities by selecting from approximately 1800 courses available on-line over the Internet. This represents approximately 700 agency employees. This e-learning is advantageous because it is employee-driven and cost effective. The courses can be accessed from the office or from home at the employee's convenience. We will be using this e-learning approach to conduct several major technology training initiatives in fiscal year 2003.

In addition to piloting e-learning, during fiscal year 2002, we utilized video technology along with computerized presentation applications to enhance the delivery of our New Employee Orientation Program in headquarters. The video was used to introduce our mission, programs, and structure to new employee entrants. In fiscal year 2003, we will expand this program to field offices and offer these orientation materials using our Intranet web page, InSite.

Also, with InSite, employees were provided easy access using a Frequently-Asked-Questions (FAQs) format to a variety of materials and training on new agency programs. All new programs are utilizing this method to reach employees. In fiscal year 2003, we will use this blended approach to communicate and train employees in other areas, including programs to enhance the use of ADR within the EEOC and other programs supporting our Five-Point Plan and the President's Management Agenda.

Strategic Objective 3.2.

Provide policy direction and guidance to achieve all Strategic Goals.

Internal and external policy direction and guidance assists employers, employees, courts, Congress and our own employees to understand EEOC's interpretation of our statutory and regulatory authorities. Policy direction and guidance provides valuable information about individual and employer rights and responsibilities. It also encourages voluntary compliance with federal employment discrimination laws. With this policy direction and guidance, our employees apply investigative and legal standards accurately, effectively and consistently nationwide. In addition, federal courts have often deferred to Commission regulations and policy guidance when interpreting employment discrimination law.

Our policy direction and guidance is also an effective component for establishing the Commission as a model employer; a key feature of our Five-Point Plan. We believe that it is critical to adopt and implement policies and guidance that allows each of our employees to work in an environment free of discrimination or other conflicts that detract from performing their work.

Measures for Strategic Objective

In fiscal year 2002, we implemented an outreach initiative for small businesses to employ individuals with disabilities, as part of our implementation of the President's New Freedom Initiative (NFI). The initiative included events for small business and the publication of a handbook. The events gave practical advice on the Americans with Disabilities Act's (ADA) requirements and encouraged small businesses to employ people with disabilities. These events were presented in cooperation with field offices, local chambers of commerce, and other business and disability groups. In addition, we developed a Primer, as a central component of our outreach effort. Since small businesses often do not have human resources or legal departments to guide them and need information quickly, the Primer explains ADA obligations in a simple, easy-to-read format.

Finally, as a part of the NFI, we partially met the target by drafting a fact sheet explaining how telework can be one option for employers to consider as a reasonable accommodation for employing individuals with disabilities. The fact sheet was published February 3, 2003.

During fiscal year 2002, we expanded our efforts to coordinate policy issues by creating a new page on EEOC's Internet web site to explain our role in federal EEO coordination. This new page focuses on the private sector and on federal agencies and their responsibilities when they receive charges of employment discrimination filed under federal grant statutes. We also proactively coordinated with the Department of Labor on how best to address what constitutes an "applicant" for a job in the Internet age; anticipating future discussions and consensus with the Department of Justice and the Office of Personnel Management.

We made significant progress in addressing our fiscal year 2002 policy and guidance measures. We provided outstanding support to external stakeholders and our own offices and staff by preparing thorough question-and-answer documents and managing issues arising on the regulatory agenda.

We are shifting from traditional face-to-face training to more cost effective on-line training. During fiscal year 2002, we started to evaluate on-line diversity training courses for managers and supervisors. We plan to utilize the agency's current "e-learning" pilot program to provide diversity training to managers and supervisors in selected field and headquarters offices.

Significant steps were taken during fiscal year 2002 to develop a workforce restructuring plan, however, the agency did not complete that effort by the end of the fiscal year. In fiscal year 2002, the agency contracted with the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) to assess EEOC ‘s structure and make recommendations that will be used by the agency's leadership to formulate the restructuring plan. As part of NAPA‘s review, EEOC management and staff were interviewed and statistical data were collected, reviewed, and analyzed. In fiscal year 2004, modifications may be made to our accounting structures to help facilitate the collection of cost and workload data to track agency budget and performance measures and to provide additional and improved data to inform our restructuring plan. The agency's measure to develop a restructuring plan will carry into fiscal year 2003, when we will begin implementation based on NAPA recommendations and other agency information.

Strategic Objective 3.3.

Improve the agency's infrastructure.

Our third Strategic Objective includes the central components of the agency's infrastructure–financial and human resource management, technology and administrative support systems. It is vital that our infrastructure aligns with our program initiatives. Without this critical alignment, our front-line operations would not be able to effectively and efficiently accomplish the agency's mission.

EEOC exceeded the established targets for improving our infrastructure. We improved the timeliness and accuracy of financial data and payments by deploying a new financial management system, the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS). We also implemented procurement and fixed asset modules, in addition to core accounting and budgeting modules.

The IFMS provides managers with on-line access to budget and financial information, automates our acquisition processes, generates on-line forms, and integrates inventory management with the procurement and financial functions. To further expand e-government processes and enhance internal efficiencies, a web-based travel management module was piloted to convert paper-based travel authorization and voucher processing to an electronic system that speeds up approval and payment activities. The travel management module will be deployed to all offices in fiscal year 2003.

In addition to the financial system, we completed the two-year roll-out of our Federal Personnel and Payroll System (FPPS) EEOC-wide. This system has streamlined the process of submitting personnel actions to the Office of Human Resources (OHR). This process went from an average of ten days, prior to the introduction of FPPS, to one day with FPPS.

Our Office of Human Resources (OHR) also completed the agency's transition to paperless processes that allow employees to view and make certain changes to their personnel and payroll accounts. Employees may change or view their address, federal and state taxes, direct deposit, allotments, earnings and leave statement, Thrift Savings Plan and more. Also, employees have access to an employment and income verification service that eliminates delays by providing on-line access to W-2 forms and other related services. These changes successfully support EEOC's plan to expand electronic government to its own employees and minimize paper-based transactions. For example, in the last quarter of fiscal year 2002, there was a 43% increase in usage for employee-initiated TSP transactions.

The Integrated Mission System (IMS) consolidates the agency's charge intake, investigation, mediation, litigation, federal complaint adjudication, and outreach functions into a single, shared information system. This undertaking eliminates several of the EEOC's antiquated stand-alone systems. The IMS integrates many of the agency's business functions and data sources and will improve data integrity and work efficiency by eliminating redundant data entry, information storage, and duplicated processes and procedures. In addition, the IMS provides improved user-accessibility and friendliness through a web-based interface and integrates with word processing and spreadsheet operations. The IMS was piloted in four field offices during the summer of fiscal year 2002, and will be implemented throughout the agency during fiscal year 2003.

Also, early in fiscal year 2001, we implemented the new Federal Data Collection web-based system. Federal agencies began using this system to report their fiscal year 2001 EEO results. The new system contains embedded edit checks to increase the validity of the data submitted by the agencies. This system allowed for a more timely collection and analysis of the data, and resulted in the completion of the fiscal year 2001 annual report months sooner than customary. This system has been well received by the different federal agencies. Recommendations they have made to enhance the system were incorporated in fiscal year 2002. With improved data analyses, the Commission will be able to better identify agencies' systemic problems and strategically design outreach and technical assistance activities to assist the agencies in complying with the law.

We achieved significant efficiencies in all of these areas; however, we were unable to meet one performance target. The volume of procurement actions was higher than estimated when the target value was developed. Also, the new procurement system implementation efforts adversely impacted the procurement processing times due to start-up issues and learning curves. In spite of the delays in procurement processing times, we made significant improvements in paying our commercial vendors. We conducted a campaign to increase the proportion of payments using credit cards. This resulted in substantial progress in improving the efficiency for paying our commercial vendors.

Finally, in fiscal year 2002, the Revolving Fund met its goal for covering 84% of its costs with revenues, because of increased sales of products and services. The actual attainment of a 94% reported rate for fiscal year 2002 is due to enhanced procedures for collection and recording of past due, prior-year accounts. In fiscal year 2003, we anticipate meeting the goal at the 90% level.

Verification and Validation

Accurate and reliable data is critical for planning and allocating our resources. Our major front-line programs require this data to determine their efficiency and effectiveness; for example, the number and status of pending matters or financial and human resources deployed.

In fiscal year 2002, we made significant progress on our 5-year technology plan to implement core components of an integrated information technology architecture at the EEOC. We completed the testing of sub-systems in our Integrated Mission System (IMS) for four programs: the private sector administrative enforcement, the litigation, the federal sector enforcement, and the outreach programs. IMS consolidates into a single shared system the Commission's charge intake, investigation, mediation, litigation, and outreach functions to improve accuracy of the information and decision-making capabilities.

In addition, the agency completed the development and testing of a web-based system to improve the collection and reporting of aggregated equal employment opportunity (EEO) data from all federal agencies. The Commission was able to implement the system by November 2001; almost a year ahead of time.

We implemented a new Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) by October 1, 2001, in partnership with the Department of Interior. The new system automatically interfaces with new personnel and payroll systems and our bank card service provider, Bank of America (BOA); gaining several significant advantages. We can participate in GSA's Fastpay program; paying BOA every day and receiving a rebate. Previously, vendors waited 30 days under the Prompt Payment law and we received no rebate. Now, thousands of transactions are processed between the two systems without manual intervention or data entry, eliminating potential human error. Also, card holders can review transactions on-line the next business day and catch billing errors immediately, rather than up to 30 days later under the former monthly paper statement. With this interface and our commitment to the purchase card program, BOA selected EEOC as a best practice agency.

We also implemented our new Federal Personnel and Payroll System (FPPS). The system integrates human resource and payroll data and interfaces with our financial management system to provide critical information necessary for managers to make budgetary and human capital decisions.

The deployment and integration of these systems will provide computerized edit routines to verify data as one approach for ensuring the validity of the information.

Also, at the end of fiscal year 2002, we published guidelines governing the quality of data disseminated to the public. The guidelines, mandated by statute, require agencies to provide a process whereby the public can challenge certain types of information published by the EEOC.

Program Evaluation

We conduct evaluation activities to inform management of the effectiveness of programs. The work on the revised Strategic Plan that began in fiscal year 2002, and will continue in fiscal year 2003, will enhance our program evaluations. We will be identifying programs and a time schedule for conducting program evaluations that will be tied to results identified in the new Strategic Plan.

Ongoing Evaluation Efforts

We took several steps in fiscal year 2002 to assess our outreach, education and technical assistance programs that reach employers, employees and stakeholder groups. Outreach results were reviewed at least quarterly and checked against our outreach plans, using data and reports submitted by field offices. Our overall outreach performance is reviewed to ensure that we are making progress towards meeting our GPRA goals. Finally, we use participant evaluation forms to evaluate our fee-based training programs held by the Revolving Fund.

FMFIA Reviews

We will also evaluate and improve our process for reviewing internal management controls under the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act (FMFIA). The FMFIA reviews will support and enhance our GPRA program evaluations. Our ongoing and future evaluations will provide reasonable assurance that our programs support our mission, strategic goals and objectives, and are operating as intended.

This page was last modified on July 8, 2003

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