B. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Sustaining Economic Growth and Family Income by Ensuring

Discrimination-Free Workplaces

Equality of opportunity is a deeply felt principle rooted in the hopes and dreams expressed by the Founders, as well as in the statutes enacted by Administrations and Congresses led by both political parties over the last four decades. Discrimination in the workplace on account of race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion or disability deprives the Nation of the skills and talents needed to sustain economic growth and deprives families of the quality of life they deserve.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has demonstrated that it is up to the task of delivering fair and efficient service to the public by setting and meeting challenging performance goals for fiscal years 1999 and 2000, as it has implemented the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA). Consistent with the Administration's reform agenda, EEOC is linking its request for resources with expected results, allocating resources where the payoff will be the greatest, and planning to convert antiquated financial, human resources and program information systems to new, streamlined systems in fiscal year 2002, which will have many beneficial effects, including the expansion of e-procurement and speedier payments to our many vendors.

The EEOC's budget request for fiscal year 2002 is $310 million, a $7 million (2.3%) increase over the fiscal year 2001 budget. The level of resources requested represents fiscal year 2002 adjustments to compensation needed to meet our commitment to continue reducing inventories of private sector charges and federal sector hearings and appeals. The increase will cover government-wide adjustments to pay and benefits, including a 3.6% pay raise, enabling the agency to maintain timeliness and quality of service to the public. Over 80% of the resources for Commission programs is used for maintaining staffing levels. With the funding level requested for fiscal year 2002, the agency will be able to maintain staff levels reached in fiscal year 2001, within Administration assumptions for increases to pay and benefits.

With the $310 million requested for fiscal year 2002, EEOC will sustain the many significant program enhancements achieved over the past five years in both the timeliness and quality of service to the public. For example, by the end of fiscal year 2000, the average time required to resolve a large percentage of charges declined to 180 days or less. Furthermore, using mediation - a non-adversarial method to resolve employment disputes - and strengthening the investigator-attorney collaboration, over 20 percent of the charges resolved resulted in a beneficial outcome. Beneficial outcomes include conciliations, successful mediations, settlements with benefits and withdrawals with benefits.

We have achieved significant improvements in customer service through implementation of the Comprehensive Enforcement Program, a strategic approach to linking and integrating functions performed by staff agency-wide to focus on accomplishing results, as articulated in the performance measures for every organizational unit. These improvements are all the more significant when considering the increase in annual workloads over the past decade, primarily as a result of increases in responsibility stemming from two major pieces of civil rights legislation: the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 and the Civil Rights Act of 1991.

Fiscal Year 2000 Highlights

Improvements have been achieved in fiscal year 2000 in every program area, producing impressive results agency-wide, including:

• Meeting or exceeding all GPRA measures. GPRA measures spanned the agency's strategic goals:
  • Enforcing the law in the private sector through mediation, investigation, settlement attempts and, when these fail, litigation;
  • Enforcing the law in the federal sector by conducting hearings and addressing appeals requested, as well as oversight of federal agency implementation of EEO laws;
  • Preventing discrimination through nationwide outreach, education and technical assistance efforts with the employer and employee communities; and
  • Providing executive direction and support to achieve agency objectives by issuing user-friendly guidance to the public on implementation of EEO laws, building staff skills through training, increasing the use of advanced technology to improve the efficiency of agency operations, and streamlining internal processes to achieve management reforms.
• Cutting the pending inventory of private sector charges (backlog) to 34,297 - a 15% decrease from the fiscal year 1999 level. This dramatic improvement in one year is a continuation of our phenomenal trend in reducing our inventory 69% from its high of over 111,000 charges in June 1995.
• Reducing the average charge processing time for private sector charges to 216 days - a reduction of almost 50 days from fiscal year 1999 and almost 100 days from 1998. During fiscal year 2000, over 60% of the private sector charges were resolved within 180 days from when they were received. A major contributor to this achievement is the increase in mediation activity, where charges were resolved in an average of only 96 days.
• Obtaining a Commission high of $292.6 million in monetary benefits for victims of employment discrimination in the private sector enforcement program.
• Increasing collaboration between legal and administrative enforcement staff to improve charge resolutions and the development of substantive litigation. Also, the agency exceeded its goal and increased to 36% the number of cases filed during the fiscal year involving multiple aggrieved parties or discriminatory policies; the most cost-efficient approach for employers and the agency alike.
• Expanding outreach, education, and technical assistance to small and mid-sized employers and under-served minority communities, including a record number of 2,961 events attended by 218,000 people nationwide.
• Reducing the federal sector hearings inventory by 13% and the appeals inventory by 14% from their fiscal year 1999 levels.
• Completing a multi-year program to build the agency's telecommunications infrastructure to connect all employees electronically and provide them with the means to conduct business, access on-line information, and communicate with each other and with external customers and stakeholders. This new capability includes local and wide-area networks, Internet access, and an Intranet site containing comprehensive program and administrative information. These capabilities have facilitated research, communication and collaboration; provided access to, and sharing of, information in all program areas; increased work efficiency; and improved customer service.

Fiscal Year 2002 Highlights

With $310 million for fiscal year 2002, EEOC will meet the following performance measures to support the Administration's goals of more cost-effective government:

• With the volume of incoming private sector charges projected at 80,000 for EEOC plus 58,000 for Fair Employment Practices Agencies-nearly 8,000 deferred to EEOC for action and over 55,000 resolved under contract and entered into the agency's data system- the EEOC will reduce its fiscal year 2002 year-end charge inventory by 6% from its level at the end of fiscal year 2000. It will also resolve 60% of its charges within 180 days.
• Through its nationwide mediation program and investigator-attorney collaboration focusing on substantive issues, the agency will increase the share of charges closed with beneficial results to 22%.
• Sustain the level of new litigation involving multiple aggrieved parties or discriminatory policies at 36% to consolidate unsettled allegations against the same employer within a given geographic area, which provides an expedited and coherent approach to resolving multiple allegations against employers.
• In the federal sector program, despite regulatory reform and steady increases in productivity by attorneys addressing requests for hearings and appeals, resources dedicated to the program have not been sufficient to reduce inventories enough to provide timeliness of service that is comparable to the private sector program. However, EEOC has established goals to manage its workload by focusing on two aspects of the hearings and appeals inventories: resolve a significant portion of the oldest cases, while ensuring that 20% of the resolutions include a group of cases received in the fiscal year and completed within 180 days. In addition to focusing on these two broader aspects of the federal sector inventory, EEOC will give priority attention to resolving within 180 days 50% of the appeals in two categories that are critical to compliance with anti-discrimination laws covering the federal workforce: appeals involving a breach of a settlement and appeals alleging non-compliance with an agency's final action or final decision.
• EEOC plans new outreach efforts to reach small employers. These employers-with 15 to 99 employees-are least likely to maintain personnel departments to guide employment practices or to retain attorneys to represent them. EEOC will provide 5000 small employers with information on how to prevent discrimination, as part of a special outreach effort. EEOC also plans to reach small employers through 250 events encouraging them to participate in mediation. Mediated charges are resolved on average in 96 days and the need for costly attorneys to represent the employer is avoided.
• EEOC plans to conduct 1,200 consultations with employers on operational and legal issues and reach 50,000 representatives of private sector and federal sector employers through technical assistance activities. It also plans outreach efforts to serve the employee community by conducting 3,900 consultations with employee stakeholders on operational and legal issues and reaching 30,000 employees or employee representatives with educational materials.
• In recognition of the increasing diversity of the nation's population, EEOC strives to make government more accessible to the public by establishing a goal to make 15 frequently requested publications available in an alternate format accessible to the sight impaired and translate them into 7 languages-Spanish, Haitian/Creole, Vietnamese, Russian, Korean, Arabic, and Chinese.
• To improve the quality of our work and stimulate continuous-learning networks, EEOC will conduct Quality Peer Reviews on outreach and initial contact phases of our private sector program in 10 percent (5) of our field offices. The agency receives hundreds of thousands of inquiries from the public each year. Assessing how well we respond and identifying ways to improve customer service are critical to creating a government that is responsive to the public supporting it through their tax dollars.
• Consistent with the President's goals for management reform, EEOC will complete a cost comparison study of at least one activity representing 5% or more of the Full Time Equivalent (FTE) positions included on the agency's FAIR Act Inventory; and will post and provide the opportunity for bids through the government-wide website for procurement activity for 100% of the agency's full and open procurement actions of $25,000 or more. EEOC already uses performance-based contracts for nearly all of its contracts and has already contracted out four major activities that were formerly provided by government employees.
• EEOC will build upon our technology infrastructure and implement new information systems to enhance the operations and management of finance, budget, procurement, human resources, payroll, and program activities. The agency will also continue its electronic-government efforts by implementing the Government Paperwork Elimination Act, streamlining internal processes, reducing paperwork burdens, and providing electronic services to the public.

EEOC remains committed to the noblest goals of this Nation, embodied in the proud legacy of civil rights legislation over the last four decades dedicated to the simple justice of discrimination-free workplaces. At the same time, we are cognizant of the necessity for cost-efficient operations delivering results to the American public for every dollar invested.

As stated by Chairwoman Castro at the September 26, 2000, Commission meeting in celebration of the agency's 35^th anniversary, "[t]he American workplace has changed and the EEOC has played a significant and, at times, crucial role in ensuring that the barriers to opportunity are torn down." Over the past two years, the Commission has improved its services to both the employee and employer communities in its effort to Eradicate Employment Discrimination at the Workplace. Our goal for the future is to sustain and build on our accomplishments in order to ensure timely and high quality service for our customers; continue our quest towards the elimination of employment discrimination, in partnership with the country's employers and employees alike; and support both the Nation's economic competitiveness in a world economy and the economic well-being of American families through the fullest utilization of all of the nation's skills and talents.

Fiscal Year 2002 Budget Request Format

The agency's fiscal year 2002 Budget Request continues last year's successful effort to integrate our budget and GPRA Annual Performance Plan, creating a Program Budget based on results as envisioned by GPRA. This Request uses the format in the Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2000-2005, updated in September 2000. Our Strategic Goals, Strategic Objectives and performance measures for fiscal year 2002 are tied to the following program budget structure: 1)  Comprehensive Enforcement of EEO Laws; 2)  Prevention of Employment Discrimination; 3)  Improving Service to the Public Through Executive Direction and Support, Including Technology; and 4)  the Education, Technical Assistance and Training Fund (the Revolving Fund).

For Sections II to IV-covering our enforcement programs, prevention programs, and executive direction and support-we discuss results expected for the resources requested. In addition, this year we have streamlined our discussion of past-year accomplishments in the budget request by including a copy of our GPRA Fiscal Year 2000 Annual Performance Report in Appendix C-4. Other Appendices contain fiscal year 2002 GPRA Annual Performance Plan requirements, including: Verification and Validation of Agency Information and any Program Evaluation activities and initiatives.

This page was last modified on May 3, 2001.

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