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The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Fiscal Year 2000 Accomplishments
EEOC's achievements in fiscal year 2000
demonstrate that the agency is working diligently to provide enhanced customer
service to all of our stakeholders. Our comprehensive enforcement
approach and strategic utilization of resources have allowed us to
capitalize on the major progress made in FY 1999. Moreover, our FY
2001 budget increase will allow us to sustain and build upon our
significant accomplishments.
Chairwoman Ida L. Castro
In fiscal year 2000, the Commission continued its progress in
making the agency more effective and efficient to serve the public
better. Some of the more significant accomplishments include
cutting its pending inventory (backlog) of private sector charges
to a 17-year low, obtaining record-breaking monetary relief for
victims of discrimination, further reducing the average charge
processing time, increasing charge resolutions handled through its
National Mediation Program, and expanding outreach and technical
assistance to employers and under-served minority communities.
In fiscal year 1999, the EEOC received a much needed 15% funding
increase of $37 million, allowing it to implement its National
Mediation Program and other vital enforcement and outreach
initiatives. In addition, Congress increased funding for EEOC for
fiscal year 2001, appropriating $303.8 million an 8% increase of
$22.9 million over the agency's fiscal year 2000 budget.
The Commission's accomplishments in fiscal year 2000 centered
around the Comprehensive Enforcement Program (CEP) formulated at
the beginning of October 1998. The CEP is a broad-based approach to
enforcement involving the strategic coordination and integration of
agency resources. A key aspect of the CEP is increased
collaboration among staff in all agency functions, from outreach
through resolution of cases in the private and federal sector
programs.
Under the CEP, the Commission has focused its enforcement and
outreach efforts on key issues first identified in the agency's
1996 National Enforcement Plan. These issues include sex-based wage
discrimination and equal pay violations; harassment based on race,
gender, and national origin; "glass ceiling" cases affecting women
and minorities; language and accent discrimination, including
speak-English-only rules; and cases involving egregious instances
of systemic and pervasive discrimination.
EEOC's fiscal year 2000 accomplishments (covering the period
from October 1, 1999, through September 30, 2000) include:
- Reducing the private sector pending inventory (backlog) to
34,297, its lowest level since fiscal year 1983. This is down 15%
from 40,234 in fiscal year 1999 and down 69% from an all-time high
of 111,345 reached in the third quarter of fiscal year 1995;
- Obtaining $292.6 million in total monetary benefits for private
sector charging parties, including a record-breaking $245.7 million
through administrative enforcement (pre-litigation);
- Decreasing the average charge processing time for resolving
private sector charges to 216 days. This is a reduction of almost
50 days from fiscal year 1999 and 163 days from fiscal year 1996
when it took an average of 379 days to resolve a charge;
- Increasing the number of successful charge resolutions handled
through voluntary mediation to 7,438 a 54% increase from 4,833
successful mediations in fiscal year 1999. Also, cases were
mediated in fewer than 100 days on average;
- Increasing the rate of resolutions benefitting charging parties
(merit factor rate) to 21% up from 17% in fiscal year 1999 and 9%
in fiscal year 1996;
- Increasing the number of "cause" resolutions to 8,248, 9% of
all resolutions up from 6.6% in fiscal year 1999;
- Conducting a record 2,961 outreach, education and technical
assistance events reaching more than 218,000 people nationwide,
including 242 events geared exclusively to small business audiences
attended by 8,628 individuals;
- Obtaining several major litigation victories and settlements in
a wide variety of occupations addressing discrimination against
vulnerable recent- immigrant communities, women in non-traditional
jobs, people with disabilities, older workers, and minority
individuals. The Commission also filed several high-profile
lawsuits in geographic locations nationwide addressing
discrimination in areas such as failure to hire blacks and women;
failure to refer minority and female applicants; failure to pay
women equal wages; disparities in benefits for older workers; and
hostile work environments based on national origin, race and sex,
including cases involving hangman's nooses used to intimidate and
threaten minorities;
- Implementing new federal sector 1614 regulations (effective on
November 9, 1999) to streamline the procedures governing the
discrimination complaint process for federal employees; cutting the
appeals inventory by 14% and the hearings inventory by 13% from the
fiscal year 1999 levels; and issuing comprehensive revisions to
Management Directive (MD) 110, which explains in detail the
administrative processes for filing and adjudicating an EEO
complaint under the 1614 regulations;
- Issuing policy guidance on the following key issues:
disability-related inquiries and medical exams under the Americans
with Disabilities Act; remedies for undocumented workers under the
EEO laws; prohibiting discrimination in federal employment based on
genetic information; and a new Compliance Manual section on
"threshold" issues; and,
- Upgrading and expanding EEOC's industry-acclaimed Internet Home
Page on the World Wide Web. The Home Page now includes an historic
special section commemorating the Commission's landmark 35th
anniversary, a special report on the 10th anniversary of the
Americans with Disabilities Act, and a user-friendly search engine
to locate information on the site. Use of the Internet site
increased 88% last year; from 82,714 average number of visitors per
month in fiscal year 1999 to 155,496 in fiscal year 2000. The
public's use of EEOC's site increased a dramatic 289% over the
39,980 average number of visitors per month in fiscal year
1998.
The performance measures and the target levels adopted by the
Commission in this Plan for fiscal year 2001 are designed to
further enhance the agency's significant progress over the past few
years.
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This page was last modified on May 3, 2001.
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