Chairman Voinovich, I want to thank you for holding today's hearing, which builds upon the one held in July of last year. When I chaired the Postal Subcommittee, I continued the long-standing tradition of holding an annual hearing on the state of the U.S. Postal Service. I hope that we will continue to hold at least a yearly hearing on workforce flexibilities to review the implementation, use, and training for these new flexibilities.

You and I have worked hard to ensure that agencies have the tools and resources needed to recruit, retain, and manage their workforce. As you noted, we joined together to add government-wide flexibilities to the Homeland Security Act to give agencies increased authority to manage their workforce. Among those flexibilities were:

• Permanent use of Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments (VSIP) and Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA),
• The use of categorical ratings instead of the rule of three for hiring, and
• The creation of Chief Human Capital Officers and the Chief Human Capital Officers Council.

I was also pleased to join you as a cosponsor to the substitute amendment to the Federal Workforce Flexibility Act last year, which included my provision allowing employees to receive compensatory time off for time spent in travel outside of normal work hours. Compensatory time for travel is a good work-life program and it is one that I believe will help attract and retain quality employees.

I would like to note that in 2002, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported on the government's flexibilities and said that those most effective in managing the workforce are work-life programs, such as alternative work schedules, child care assistance, transit subsidies, cash, and time-off awards.

Last year we heard that agencies were not using the flexibilities Congress granted them and that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) had given little guidance in terms of training and general information about the flexibilities available.

Despite OPM implementing a 45-day hiring process, applicants for federal jobs still complain that it takes too long to get hired. We need to figure out why the tools currently available to agencies are not making a difference.

However, judging from the President's Human Capital Scorecard and the testimony submitted for today's hearing, it appears that some progress is being made in the use of VSIP and VERA for agency restructuring, the use of annual leave enhancements to recruit mid-level hires, and provisional certification for participation in the Senior Executive Service (SES) pay-for-performance system.

I am still concerned, however, that agencies continue to lack funds to implement these flexibilities. Similar to the questions over funding for the pay-for-performance system and employee training on the flexibilities at the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), we need to know how agencies are paying for the government-wide flexibilities. Agencies need adequate funding to implement pay-for-performance systems; award bonuses; utilize critical pay authority; provide academic degree training; and provide student loan repayment.

With agencies still not making the most effective use of the workforce flexibilties granted by Congress in addition to a lack of adequate funding, I find it premature to discuss at this time expanding the broad flexibilities granted to DHS and DOD to the rest of the federal government, especially in the areas of collective bargaining and appeals -- which have never been tested.

Mr. Chairman, we have with us a distinguished group of witnesses today, and I look forward to hearing from them on how their agencies are using these flexibilities, as well as any barriers they have encountered relating to their use.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.