THOMPSON:
MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS WILL SEVERELY TEST ADMINISTRATION’S
ABILITY TO ENACT AGENDA
WASHINGTON, DC - Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
Chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN) today, in a speech to the Council
for Excellence in Government’s Whitehead Forum, outlined a set
of management problems he said will severely test the Bush
Administration’s ability to execute its policy agenda unless
they are addressed.
"The new Administration begins with an array of problems
of unprecedented depth and breadth," Thompson said.
"The federal government’s core management problems have
persisted for years and, in fact, have grown worse. In 1990, the
General Accounting Office (GAO) launched its biennial ‘high
risk list’ with 14 problem areas. The list issued this year
contains 22.
"We’re living on borrowed time," Thompson added.
"Peace and prosperity mask a lot of these problems, but
that won’t always be the case. When we no longer have peace
and prosperity, who’s going to trust the federal government if
we’ve eroded public confidence?"
Thompson outlined four overarching areas that he regards as
the most pervasive and critical:
C
Financial management - Poor financial management wastes billions
of taxpayer dollars each year. No one knows how much because the
federal government makes no systematic effort to keep track of
it.
C
Information technology management - Advances in information
technology have yet to register with the federal government. In
addition, weaknesses in government information systems make them
vulnerable to computer attacks. This vulnerability poses
national security threats and jeopardize the confidentiality of
sensitive information on individuals the government holds.
C
Human capital management - As a result of demographic trends
compounded by the downsizing of recent years, many agencies lack
workforces with the necessary skills and experience to perform
their missions.
C
Program overlap and fragmentation - The federal statute books
are full of programs created randomly over the years in response
to the real or perceived needs of the moment. Once created,
however, it is virtually impossible to eliminate them even if
they have long since ceased serving their purpose.
Thompson said the tools to fix these problems exist, via
management improvement laws enacted by Congress over the last
decade and recommendations provided by the GAO and the various
agency inspectors general. However, Thompson said the missing
ingredient up to now has been leadership and sustained
commitment from the President and Congress.
"The President must make clear in word and deed that
resolving these management problems is one of his priorities,
and that he will keep after the agencies and the Office of
Management and Budget until the job is done," Thompson
said. He added that OMB and the agencies must then follow up and
establish specific performance goals, strategies and timetables
to meet them. In addition, agencies must identify, and Congress
must provide, the funding needed to resolve the problems.
However, funding must be linked to results.
Thompson said he "was very encouraged by early
indications that the Bush Administration is taking management
and performance improvement seriously. OMB Director (Mitch)
Daniels recently instructed agencies to develop performance
goals to implement the President’s management reform
initiatives and to resolve their mission-critical problems.
Likewise, the preliminary budget blueprint that the
Administration put out last week has more to say on management
improvements than anything I’ve seen in years."
Thompson said during the 107th Congress, the
Governmental Affairs Committee will work to encourage and
support those efforts. Specifically:
C
The committee will continue to conduct vigorous oversight to
ensure that the management improvement tools that we have
enacted are used effectively to accomplish concrete
improvements. The committee will give particular attention to
implementation of the Government Information Security Act.
C
The committee will work on government’s other critical
information needs, including how the federal government can move
into the information age and make e-government a reality.
C
In the area of critical human capital needs, the committee will
explore how to provide agencies with the talented and motivated
employees they need, and ensure that employees are accountable
for their performance.
C
The committee will take a fresh and comprehensive look at what
the federal government does today and the structure and methods
by which it does it.
C
In the area of budgeting, we will work to enact a biennial
budget to provide time to analyze which programs are working and
which ones are not.
# # #
|