Thank you very much Madam Chairman. I join you in welcoming our nominee this morning.
It is every President's prerogative to implement management proposals like PART – the Program Assessment Rating Tool – or the Management Scorecard, but I believe that management proposals should not make worse the challenges they seek to correct. I fear this administration is using tools that may not address the underlying issue of modernizing the federal government and making it an employer of choice.
A good example of my concern is the recent demand on employees at the National Institutes of Health to sign and return within a day an addendum to their performance plan contract. The addendum included the objective of completing, and I quote, "the FY 2003 competitive sourcing program."
The circulation of this form – reportedly without explanation – created wide spread confusion and even fear among some employees.
The incident raises the question as to why are there such missteps at a time when NIH is seeking to hire young researchers and scientists? Unfortunately, this example is indicative of what I see as a disregard for the government's most valuable asset – its workforce.
If confirmed, I hope you will make it your priority to enhance the government's efforts to recruit, retain, and motivate qualified workers through positive and open policies.
For example, the insistence on numerical targets for contracting out federal work regardless of an agency's needs does not evoke an employee-friendly work environment.
The ongoing debate over what is inherently governmental should involve agency managers, employees, their unions and associations, Congress, the Office of Personnel Management, and OMB.
Unfortunately, I see an increasingly diminished role for Congress, for OPM, and for employees in this debate. Management proposals should not be handed down like edicts. These actions have sparked alarm and distrust among many federal employees who are concerned that their jobs will be contracted out without any consideration to the missions they fill.
As the ranking member of the Senate Subcommittee on National Parks, I have heard these concerns voiced by Park Service managers and their employees over the administration's plan to shift 25 percent of the Service's work to contractors.
I urge you to reexamine what type of work the administration views as inherently governmental and work with employees to allay their fears. Federal contracting policies should be fair to federal workers, be transparent, and be in the best interest of the public. Agency efforts to address challenges in recruitment and retention should not be undercut by numerical targets that simply eliminate jobs.
In closing, let me touch on the budget aspect of your new appointment. Mr. Bolten, I urge you to focus like a laser on the debt burden we are bequeathing to our children.
As you may know, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the on budget deficit to exceed $400 billion in FY 2003. This amount includes Social Security with the budget – if Social Security is off budget as it should be, the actual deficit would approach $600 billion, or 5.5 percent of the gross domestic product. In 2001 there was a budget surplus. With the President's current budget, there would still be a budget deficit in 2013.
Mr. Bolten, I look forward to your testimony.
