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LEGISLATIVE BRANCH DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT

REVIEW

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE,

POSTAL SERVICE, AND THE DISTRICT

OF COLUMBIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

Serial No. 110–153

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

JACKIE SPEIER, California

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

LAWRENCE HALLORAN, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE, POSTAL SERVICE, AND THE DISTRICT OF

COLUMBIA

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio, Chairman

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

JOHN M. MCHUGH, NEW YORK

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

TANIA SHAND, Staff Director

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on September 16, 2008 ..................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Bailey, Teresa, Director, EEO/Conciliation Program, Architect of the Capitol; Gloria L. Jarmon, Chief Administrative Officer, U.S. Capitol Police; Ronald Stroman, Managing Director, Office of Opportunity and

Inclusiveness, U.S. Government Accountability Office; Nadine Elzy, Director, Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, U.S. Government

Printing Office; Stephanie Ruiz, Director, Human Resources, Congressional Budget Office; and Jesse James, Jr., Acting Director, Office

of Workforce Diversity, Library of Congress .............................................. 77

Bailey, Teresa ............................................................................................ 77

Elzy, Nadine .............................................................................................. 107

James, Jesse, Jr. ........................................................................................ 124

Jarmon, Gloria L. ...................................................................................... 85

Ruiz, Stephanie ......................................................................................... 113

Stroman, Ronald ........................................................................................ 90

Bates, Carol, Inspector General, Architect of the Capitol; Carl W.

Hoecker, Inspector General, U.S. Capitol Police; Frances Garcia, Inspector General, U.S. Government Accountability Office; J. Anthony

Ogden, Inspector General, U.S. Government Printing Office; and Karl

W. Schornagel, Inspector General, Library of Congress ............................ 5

Bates, Carol ............................................................................................... 5

Garcia, Frances .......................................................................................... 20

Hoecker, Carl W. ....................................................................................... 12

Ogden, J. Anthony ..................................................................................... 39

Schornagel, Karl W. .................................................................................. 53

Chrisler, Tamara E., Executive Director, Office of Compliance; and Janet

Crenshaw Smith, president, Ivy Planning Group LLC ............................. 137

Chrisler, Tamara E. .................................................................................. 137

Smith, Janet Crenshaw ............................................................................ 144

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Bailey, Teresa, Director, EEO/Conciliation Program, Architect of the Capitol, prepared statement of ........................................................................... 79

Bates, Carol, Inspector General, Architect of the Capitol:

Letter dated October 1, 2008 .................................................................... 59

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8

Chrisler, Tamara E., Executive Director, Office of Compliance, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 139

Davis, Hon. Danny K., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Illinois, information concerning breakdown of workforce ...................... 3

Elzy, Nadine, Director, Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, U.S.

Government Printing Office, prepared statement of .................................. 109

Garcia, Frances, Inspector General, U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ........................................................................... 22

Hoecker, Carl W., Inspector General, U.S. Capitol Police, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 14

James, Jesse, Jr., Acting Director, Office of Workforce Diversity, Library

of Congress, prepared statement of ............................................................. 126

Jarmon, Gloria L., Chief Administrative Officer, U.S. Capitol Police, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 87

Ogden, J. Anthony, Inspector General, U.S. Government Printing Office,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 42

Ruiz, Stephanie, Director, Human Resources, Congressional Budget Office, prepared statement of ........................................................................... 116

Page

IV

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by—Continued

Schornagel, Karl W. Inspector General, Library of Congress:

Overall comments ...................................................................................... 67

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 55

Smith, Janet Crenshaw, president, Ivy Planning Group LLC, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 146

Stroman, Ronald, Managing Director, Office of Opportunity and Inclusiveness, U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 92

(1)

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH DIVERSITY

MANAGEMENT REVIEW

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE, POSTAL

SERVICE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:23 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Danny K. Davis (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis, Cummings, Clay, Norton,

Marchant, and Jordan.

Staff present: Tania Shand, staff director; Lori Hayman, counsel;

William Miles, professional staff member; Marcus A. Williams,

clerk; Alex Cooper, minority professional staff member; and Howard Denis, minority senior professional staff member.

Mr. DAVIS. The subcommittee will come to order.

Welcome, Ranking Member Marchant, members of the subcommittee, hearing witnesses, and all those in attendance for the

Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and District of Columbia’s hearing to examine the legislative branch Office

of Inspector General’s report on their respective agencies’ diversity

programs.

The Chair, ranking member, and subcommittee members will

each have 5 minutes to make opening statements, and all Members

will have 3 days to submit written statements for the record.

Hearing no objection, so is the order. I will begin with an opening

statement.

This afternoon, the subcommittee will hold its second hearing on

diversity in legislative branch agencies. The first hearing, which

was held last November, focused on diversity in the senior ranks

of these agencies. At that hearing, the subcommittee released a report analyzing the racial and gender diversity of the senior executive corps of six legislative branch agencies: the Government Accountability Office [GAO]; the Library of Congress [LOC]; the Congressional Budget Office [CBO]; the Government Printing Office

[GPO]; the Capitol Police [USCP]; and the Architect of the Capitol

[AOC].

The report, which was based on information provided to the subcommittee by these agencies, found that women and minorities in

the Senior Executive Service [SES], are underrepresented in most

legislative branch agencies. As a followup to the November hearing,

I asked the Inspector Generals [IGs], of the legislative branch

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agencies to conduct a review of their respective diversity offices.

With the exception of CBO, which does not have an IG, last week

each of the agencies issued a report of their findings to the subcommittee.

A summary report compiling the data from all the legislative

branch agencies was also issued to the subcommittee. The IG reports are the subject of today’s hearing.

The summary IG report paints a slightly more optimistic picture

than is warranted. The congressional support agencies have a long

way to go to improving diversity in the SES and in the developmental pools. This is particularly true for GPO and the AOC.

For example, the summary states that the Architect of the Capitol and the Government Printing Office have been increasing minority representation since 2002. And while this is true, the Government Printing Office, the agency with the greatest percentage

of progress, still has the lowest minority representation percentage

points of the five agencies, 18.5 percent. And the actual increase

was from 1 minority out of 21 SESs to 3 out of 26 SESs. At the

Architect of the Capitol, the increase was from 2 minorities in the

SES out of 15 to 5 out of 27.

At the Government Accountability Office, the IG found that the

agency underreported its complaint and discrimination data. The

Ivy Consultant Group, which recently issued its final report on the

ratings disparities between Caucasian and African American analysts at the GAO will be testifying today.

The USCP does not have a diversity program or equal employment opportunity office, and its complaint and discrimination data

is collected by the Office of Compliance, OOC. The Office of Compliance, who will also be testifying today, administers the dispute resolution system established to resolve disputes that arise under the

Congressional Accountability Act.

As I did last year, I would like to caution the legislative branch

agencies in comparing themselves to the executive branch when it

comes to diversity in the SES. The executive branch is doing poorly

in that regard, and legislative branch agencies are doing only

slightly better. I encourage interested parties that impact each of

the legislative branch agencies to obtain a copy from their respective reports. These reports are the first of their kind and serve as

a wake-up call to Congress that it needs to do more to ensure that

its own agencies are representative of the people it serves.

This subcommittee will continue to hold hearings on this subject

and will look to agency heads and their diversity offices to make

improvements in this area.

I now ask unanimous consent that the percentage breakdown of

work force, SES, and GS–15 or equivalent table be included in the

record. Hearing no objection, so is the order.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. So I thank you now, and will yield to the ranking

member, Mr. Marchant, for any opening remarks that he might

have.

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank

you and the witnesses today for their appearance before this subcommittee.

Today marks our sixth subcommittee hearing in the 110th Congress on diversity, and I look forward to listening to our witnesses

and hear about the subcommittee’s findings regarding the legislative branch. And I would like to commend you, Mr. Davis, for your

strong and motivated efforts on behalf of work force diversity.

The topic of today’s hearing deals with diversity programs in several legislative branch agencies, mainly the Architect of the Capitol, the Government Printing Office, the Government Accountability Office, the Library of Congress, and the U.S. Capitol Police.

In many cases, the legislative branch agencies are doing well and

continuing to improve with respect to diversity, but in some cases

there appears to be some slippage. I believe that this hearing will

allow us the opportunity to look at the stats more closely and make

recommendations that will make the legislative branch a much

more diverse agency.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Marchant. And let me just

express appreciation for your steadfastness. I agree when you said

that we have had six hearings on this topic during this session of

Congress. It reflects an indication of what a serious matter we

think it is, and I appreciate your attention to it.

And we will now call our first group of witnesses for panel 1.

Our witness list consists of Ms. Carol Bates, who is the Inspector

General for the Architect of the Capitol. She joined the OIG in

2002 as an audit manager, and was named Assistant Inspector

General for Audits in 2004. Ms. Bates also served the OIG as Acting Inspector General from late 2004 through mid-2006.

Ms. Bates, thank you very much for joining us.

Our next witness is Mr. Carl W. Hoecker. He is the Inspector

General for the U.S. Capitol Police. Mr. Hoecker’s responsibilities

include reporting directly to the U.S. Capitol Police Board, which

is responsible for establishing and maintaining rates and schedules

of basic pay for eligible employees. The OIG supervises and conducts audits, inspections, and investigations involving USCP programs, functions, systems, and operations.

Thank you, Mr. Hoecker, for being with us.

Ms. Frances Garcia is the Inspector General for the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Prior to being Inspector General, she

was the Director of the Office of Recruitment, where she was responsible for all of GAO’s nationwide recruitment.

Thank you very much, Ms. Garcia.

Mr. J. Anthony Ogden is the Inspector General for the U.S. Government Printing Office. Mr. Ogden joined GPO in 2004 as Assistant Inspector General for Administration and Inspections and Legislative Counsel.

Thank you very much, Mr. Ogden, for being here.

And our last witness on this panel is Mr. Carl W. Schornagel. He

is the Inspector General for the Library of Congress. He was most

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recently a senior auditor in the Office of the Inspector General in

the Department of Commerce and Project Manager For Evaluations of Information Technology Resources. He has more than 20

years of experience in evaluating Federal Government programs.

Mr. Schornagel, thank you for being with us.

And if you will all stand and join in raising your right hands, it

is the custom and tradition of this committee that all witnesses be

sworn in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. DAVIS. The record will show that the witnesses answered in

the affirmative.

Again, I thank all of you for being with us.

As all of you have testified before this subcommittee before, you

know the usual drill of summarizing a statement in 5 minutes. The

green light indicates that all of the time is present; the yellow light

indicates that we are down to 1 minute; and, of course, the red

light means that the time is up. And if we will follow that, all of

the written statements will be included in the record.

And so we thank you again for being with us. And, Ms. Bates,

we will begin with you.

STATEMENTS OF CAROL BATES, INSPECTOR GENERAL, ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL; CARL W. HOECKER, INSPECTOR

GENERAL, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE; FRANCES GARCIA, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; J. ANTHONY OGDEN, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE; AND KARL W. SCHORNAGEL,

INSPECTOR GENERAL, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

STATEMENT OF CAROL BATES

Ms. BATES. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Congressman

Marchant, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the

opportunity to summarize the Architect of the Capitol Inspector

General work force diversity report of July 28, 2008.

The report, prepared at the request of this subcommittee, includes statistical information about the AOC’s senior-rated [SR],

employees and the developmental pool positions, GS–15 or equivalent. The report also includes the results of the review of the agency’s hiring practices and equal employment opportunity office.

I am a newcomer to the AOC, having joined the agency as its inspector general on August 18th, and have spent the past few weeks

familiarizing myself with the organization, viewing the facilities,

and reviewing recently issued AOC inspector general reports, including this report.

The objectives of the review were to identify and assess the diversity programs of the agency and determine if it is creating a

more diverse population of women and minorities in top leadership

positions; evaluate the accuracy and completeness of the complaints and discrimination data being reported to the Congress;

and assess to what degree the diversity offices are independent of

the agency’s general counsel.

For objective two, the report includes a recommendation to improve data gathering, but concluded that the complaint and discrimination data is accurate and complete. I do note that the ConVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:14 May 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\48814.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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gressional Accountability Act of 1995 gives the Office of Compliance

the responsibility to handle formal EEO complaints for the Architect of the Capitol. Although the Office of Compliance is responsible

for formal complaints, the AOC’s EEO conciliation program can

handle informal complaints if the parties agree to use this resource.

The review found that indeed the EEO office operates independent from the Office of General Counsel.

My remaining comments provide information on the report’s objective to determine if the AOC diversity program is creating a

more diverse work force. The answer is yes, but there is room for

improvement.

The statistics show that women and minority representation

have generally improved between fiscal years 2002 and 2007. At

the end of 2007, the work force was made up of 25 percent women.

The ratio of women to men is less than the civilian labor force,

which is made up of 46 percent women, and is also less than the

executive branch composition.

In terms of minority representation, the Architect of the Capitol’s

work force is 50.9 percent women, which—I am sorry, the minority

representation is 50.9 percent, which exceeds the minority representation in the civilian labor force and the executive branch.

In the same 5-year period, the composition of the AOC’s seniorrated positions has changed to include more women and have become more diverse. Women made up 23 percent of this group in

2007, an increase from 13.3 percent in 2002. Minorities comprised

18.5 percent of the SR staff in 2007, an increase over the 2002 minority percentage of 13.2. In the developmental pool, the number

of women increased from 12.5 percent in 2002 to 23 percent by the

end of 2007.

The minority representation in terms of percent decreased from

37.5 in 2002 to 12.8 in 2007. Due to the relatively small size of the

AOC’s senior-rated and developmental pools compared to some of

the other legislative branch agencies, shifts of a few employees significantly impact the ratios.

Mr. Chairman, moving beyond the statistics, I am pleased to note

that the AOC has adopted or is planning to adopt all nine of GAO’s

nine best diversity practices. The report also found that the AOC,

while not required to file EEOC Management Directive 715, has

adopted appropriate elements of this directive.

The report also includes 15 recommendations designed to improve the hiring process and increase the role of the EEO conciliation program office. The recommendations include changes to formalize and manage the hiring process, document applicant interviews, to formalize and manage the process, and for the Director

of the EEO conciliation program office and the Architect of the

Capitol to meet on a regular basis. It also includes a recommendation for the agency to set diversity goals and conduct agency-wide

diversity training.

The Acting Architect of the Capitol’s response to the report includes an action plan designed to improve the diversity of the work

force and address the report’s recommendations. Some of the actions are already complete. I reviewed the plan and believe that it

is responsive to the recommendations, and the timeframes for comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:14 May 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\48814.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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pletion are reasonable. Furthermore, the action plan should help

achieve a more diverse work force at the Architect of the Capitol.

In addition to the response to the report, the AOC’s human capital plan includes goals for the agency’s affirmative employment

program. The Acting Architect of the Capitol is committed to improving the diversity of the work force.

Again, I want to thank the subcommittee for this opportunity to

communicate the results of the AOC work force diversity report,

and I am available to answer any questions you may have.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Ms. Bates.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bates follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. And we will go now to Mr. Hoecker.

STATEMENT OF CARL W. HOECKER

Mr. HOECKER. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee,

good afternoon. My name is Carl Hoecker. I am Inspector General

for the Capitol Police. Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the executive level employees at the U.S. Capitol Police.

At your request, my office conducted an audit of the Capitol Police’s diversity efforts. Our objectives were to identify and assess diversity programs within the Department, evaluate the accuracy

and completeness of complaints and discrimination data being reported to Congress, and to assess to what degree the diversity office is independent of the Department’s general counsel and agency

head. Our scope included diversity programs in effect as of January

1, 2008, and complaints and discrimination data for fiscal year

2007.

OIG found that the Capitol Police does not have a formal diversity program or an equal employment office employment function.

However, the Capitol Police has made some progress in improving

diversity in its executive level positions.

Overall, the number of executive positions increased from 18 to

21 between 2002 and 2007. Within that total, the representation of

women increased from 16.7 percent for 2002 to 28.6 percent for

2007, whereas representation of minorities decreased from 16.7 for

2002 to 14.3 percent for 2007.

The Capitol Police representation of women in the executive positions was slightly higher than the career SES governmentwide percentage of 28.2 percent for 2007. The representation of minorities

of Capitol Police executive level positions was below career SES

governmentwide percentage of 16.6 percent. As of May 12, 2008,

however, minority representation in the Capitol Police executive

positions had increased to 22.7 percent.

The Capitol Police has also made progress improving diversity in

the developmental pool for executive level positions. Overall, the

senior level developmental pool has increased from 28 positions to

56 positions between 2002 and 2007. Within that total, the representation of women increased from 14.3 percent to 30.3 percent,

whereas representation of minorities increased from zero percent to

22.7 percent. Although Capitol Police compared favorably with the

governmentwide SES developmental pools for total minorities,

three categories—American Indian, Alaskan Native; Asian American, Pacific Islanders; and Hispanic—were below governmentwide

percentages.

Additionally, our comparison of the Federal work force and civilian labor force to Capitol Police’s total work force showed that the

overall Capitol Police total minority representation was greater

than the Federal work force and the civilian labor force; however,

women remain underrepresented in the Capitol Police total work

force as compared with the civilian labor force and the Federal

work force.

The Capitol Police has implemented some of Government

Accountability’s best practices and Equal Employment Commission’s Management Directive 715 for establishing and maintaining

effective diversity and equal opportunity programs; however, the

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Capitol Police could achieve a more diverse work force if it had a

formal diversity program.

The Office of Compliance for legislative branch agencies administers alternative dispute resolution program established by the

Congressional Accountability Act, and is responsible for reporting

complaints of discrimination data from the Capitol Police to Congress.

During fiscal year 2007, 18 Capitol Police employees requested

counseling through the OOC process. Capitol Police employees may

also report their complaints through a collective bargaining agreement, the grievance process, and/or the Capitol Police process. During 2007, Capitol Police employees did not make any grievances related to EEO discrimination through the collective bargaining

agreement.

The Office of Professional Responsibility for the Capitol Police is

the element for investigating antidiscrimination reprisal allegations. They reported four cases for fiscal year 2007.

As stated before, the Capitol Police does not have a separate diversity or EEO office; however, the OPR is independent of the general counsel and of human resources. Yet, the Office of Employment Counsel does handle disciplinary review, legal sufficiency reviews, and represents the Capitol Police and the Capitol Police

Board in EEO complaints. Best practices state that legal sufficiency reviews of EEO matters must be handled by a functional

unit that is separate and apart from the unit which handles agency

representation in EEO complaints.

OIG made four recommendations to the Capitol Police for more

effective and efficient diversity strategies to assist women and minorities in advancing to executive level positions within the organization.

Specifically, USCP should finalize its human capital strategic

work force plan, identifying critical executive level and supervisory

positions and the needed skills and abilities required for its future

diverse work force. In addition, we recommend that the Capitol Police consider outsourcing investigation of discrimination complaints

or obtain formal training for EEO investigators; and determine

whether the duties of legal sufficiency reviews and agency board

representation in EEO matters are incompatible and impair independence either in fact or appearance with respect to EEO complaints.

I will be happy to respond to whatever questions you may have.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hoecker follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. And we will proceed to Ms. Garcia.

STATEMENT OF FRANCES GARCIA

Ms. GARCIA. Chairman Davis and members of the subcommittee,

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the work we did on GAO’s

diversity programs. This hearing also gave me a great opportunity

to be able to work with the other legislative inspector generals. I

am of Mexican descent, and it is especially noteworthy for me to

be here today talking about diversity on Mexico’s Independence

Day.

As you know, in today’s multicultural work force, diversity brings

a wide variety of perspectives, approaches to bear on policy development and implementation, strategic planning, and decisionmaking. Organizations that promote and achieve a diverse workplace attract and retain high-quality employees. GAO, similar to

other Federal agencies, faces both opportunities and challenges in

increasing the diversity of its top leadership. The bottom line is, diversity is good business.

In your request, you asked us to review three areas, the first

area, whether GAO’s diversity efforts are achieving better representation of women and minorities in top leadership. We found

that overall, between 2002 and 2007, GAO made gains in the representation of women and minorities in its SES, management

ranks, and equivalent positions.

As shown on figure 1 that you had before you and in my written

statement, GAO’s leadership is generally more diverse in comparison with the executive branch and the labor civil force. At the same

time, gaps remain.

Top management has made a commitment to increasing the diversity of its workplace and has implemented many lead and diversity management practices. GAO has taken steps to identify, examine, and address potential barriers to the hiring and advancement

of women and minorities.

Last year, by contract and with the Ivy Planning Group, the

agency began to expand differences in the average ratings between

African Americans and Caucasian analysis, including those at the

manager level. Some of the recommendations of that study have

been implemented and others will be soon.

In June of this year, GAO issued its first mandated work diversity plan which analyzed the demographic composition of the agency’s entire work force and identified potential barriers to the advancement in hiring of minorities. As a result, GAO now has baseline data to assess its future diversity efforts and an action plan

for the next year to address gaps in minority representation. The

acting controller general intends to annually prepare this plan,

which will help the agency sustain attention on this important

matter. We recommended that a formal policy be established to

continue to annually produce a work force diversity plan. GAO

agreed to this.

Your second request was to evaluate the accuracy and completeness of GAO’s fiscal year 2007 complaint and discrimination data.

We found mistakes such as wrong dates and numbers were posted

on the Web site. These errors have since been corrected. Also,

GAO’s report to Congress on fiscal year 2007 complaint and disVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:14 May 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\48814.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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crimination information contained mistakes. Our recommendation

in this area is that GAO revise relevant orders, procedures, and internal controls to assist them to accurately collect and report on

complaint data. GAO agreed to a recommendation.

Your final request was that we assess the independence and reporting relationship of the head of GAO’s diversity office. We found

that GAO voluntarily follows the first two of the three EEO requirements for executive branch executives regarding the independence and reporting relationships of EEO directors. The first requirement is that the director report directly to the agency head.

The second requirement is that investigations and the legal sufficiency review on legal agency discriminations decisions not be done

by an attorney that represents or defends the agency in such disputes.

The third requirement states that personnel-related discrimination complaints functions be separated. GAO does not follow this,

and currently this is under review.

Mr. Chairman, and subcommittee members, this completes my

oral statement. You have before you a copy of my written statement and my report, which is being released this afternoon. I

would be happy to respond to any questions you have.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Ms. Garcia.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Garcia follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. And we go to Mr. Ogden.

STATEMENT OF J. ANTHONY OGDEN

Mr. OGDEN. Thank you, Chairman Davis and Ranking Member

Marchant, for the opportunity to testify before the subcommittee on

this timely and important issue.

I believe that embracing the unique qualities of each individual

and ensuring the implementation of equal employment and diversity policies and objectives is essential to enhancing the quality of

our work life and the productivity of our work force. Everyone in

the workplace should be afforded the opportunity to develop, perform, and advance to their maximum potential based solely on

their merit and without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation.

At the request of this subcommittee, my office conducted an

audit of the diversity program at GPO. Along with my other legislative branch colleagues, we used EEOC Management Directive

715 and the leading diversity management practices identified by

GAO as the benchmarks to conduct our assessment. On September

11th, we issued a report entitled Diversity Management Programs

at the Government Printing Office.

Our audit specifically identified that although GPO is not required to comply with MD 715 or GAO’s leading diversity management practices, GPO has generally adopted three elements for creating and maintaining a model EEO program, namely, demonstrated commitment from leadership, efficiency, and responsiveness in legal compliance. Agency officials have also demonstrated

top leadership commitment, one of the GAO’s nine leading diversity

management practices.

Our audit results indicated that GAO has made progress in developing its pool of senior grade 15s. In 2002, 31 out of 32 Grade

15s were men and included only 6 minorities. However, in 2007 the

pool of 15s grew to 79, and included 23 women, a nearly ninefold

increase, and 25 minorities, a nearly 70 percent increase.

Only limited progress has been made in the makeup of the Senior Level Service employees. In 2002, there were 21 SLS employees—20 men, 1 woman, 1 minority—and in 2007 there were 26 SLS

employees, including 3 women and 3 minorities.

We also found that during 2007, GPO complaints and discrimination data reported to EEOC and Congress were accurate and complete.

Finally, we found the EEO director is independent of the general

counsel and, to an appropriate extent, independent of the public

printer in EEO matters.

Based on the results of our audit, we believe that GPO could improve its diversity management. Accordingly, we recommended that

agency management incorporate the remaining three elements of

MP 715, and all or a combination of the leading diversity management practices identified by GAO.

Key to the success of any diversity program is top leadership

commitment. The Public Printer has emphasized his personal commitment to equal opportunity and diversity at GPO, with a position

more comprehensive than that contemplated by MP 715 or contemplated by this review, as it includes persons with disabilities as

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well as gays and lesbians. Indeed, a conversation about diversity

is not possible unless all diverse populations and cultures that enrich our work force are included in the discussion.

The following is a summary of our significant recommendations

to GPO management.

Because diversity management can help reduce costs by reducing

turnover, increasing employee retention, and improving morale, we

recommended that GPO place additional emphasis on integrating

diversity into the agency’s strategic plan to foster a culture of

change that supports and values differences.

GPO does not have effective methods for evaluating and measuring success of its diversity management program; therefore, we recommended GPO implement such methods and maintain and provide sufficient resources, including work force data and information

technology tools, to allow EEO officials to track and evaluate the

effectiveness of agency diversity efforts.

Because hiring officials are crucial in diversity management, we

recommended that GPO should emphasize in performance plans

the commitments by managers to create a diverse work force and

address the culture of diversity in order to nurture talent, create

diverse opportunities, and maximize the potential of GPO’s work

force.

Given the projected wave of retirements in the next decade, we

recommended that GPO focus on succession planning by continuing

to identify and develop candidates who have the potential to be future leaders, and selecting individuals from among a more diverse

pool of qualified candidates to include Asian, Hispanic, and Native

Americans. To improve its recruitment efforts, we also recommended that the hiring manager should be included in outreach

and recruitment efforts.

Although GPO has very active employee involvement through

various employee groups such as the disability program, the Hispanic Employment Program, and the Federal Women’s Program,

we recommended that GPO continue to involve employees in diversity management and evaluate the existing employee groups to

identify whether employees issues are fully represented before

agency management. And finally, GPO should develop a diversity

and training curriculum for all its employees.

Although GPO management concurred with our recommendations, management did not provide details regarding what actions

the agency plans to take to implement the recommendations. As a

result, the recommendations are considered unresolved until we received details concerning the implementation.

My office is committed to working with agency management to

help ensure that GPO’s diversity program continues to improve,

and that GPO will be able to meet its future employment challenges with a more diverse population of qualified women and minorities in top leadership positions.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify before this subcommittee today. Additionally, I wish to express my thanks to the

Supervisory Auditor, Joe Birch, and my assistant inspector general

for audits, Kevin Carson, for their work, as well as my IG colleagues that are sitting with me today—Anne Toniashan—for helping us to make this come to fruition today.

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This concludes my testimony, and I will be pleased to address

any questions.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Ogden.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ogden follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. And we will now go to Mr. Schornagel.

STATEMENT OF KARL W. SCHORNAGEL

Mr. SCHORNAGEL. Thank you, Chairman Davis.

For our review, we defined senior-level positions as those in the

Library’s senior level executive [SL], system, which is roughly the

equivalent to the SCS system. We defined the SL developmental

pool as positions in the GS–13 to –15 range.

For the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, the Library reported a total work force of 3,786 staff, of which 55.2 were women

and 45.6 were minorities. These percentages are above Federal and

civilian work force levels. Included in these numbers are 95 senior

level executives, of which 43.2 percent were women and 21.1 percent were minorities. The representation of both women and minorities is significantly higher than the governmentwide average,

but slightly lower than the civilian work force.

Women are similarly represented in the developmental pool. Minority representation in the developmental pool is lower than the

governmentand civilian work forces, although there has been

progress in the past 5 years.

We determined and the Library agreed that there are several

ways to further improve the Library’s diversity program, so I will

summarize our three findings from our July 2008 report.

First, the Libraryis adopting many of the best practices in diversity management. Our assessment found that the Library is following most of the best practices recommended by the GAO and the

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This includes linking

its diversity plan and its strategic plans, and including diversity as

a major element in managers’ performance requirements. The Library’s Office of Workforce Diversity is taking steps to better focus

its efforts on identifying potential systemic barriers, if any, impeding full minority participation in upper-level positions.

In addition to increasing its focus on barrier analysis and measuring program effectiveness, the Library also needs to complete its

succession planning efforts. These are a major element in diversity

management. The Library also needs to ensure that the service

units are committing to and implementing diversification activities.

Success of the Library’s affirmative action initiative depends in

large part on the service unit’s success in providing equal employment and affirmative action opportunities.

Second, the Libraryhas made progress in improving the developmental pool. Despite the favorable comparison of the Library’s senior-level staffing with the executive branch and the genuine efforts

we believe the Library has made and is making to improve, diversity at senior-level positions has remained constant since 2002.

However, progress has been made in diversifying the GS–13 to –15

positions. This bodes well for the future, because GS–15 positions

are widely considered to be the developmental pool for the senior

level jobs.

For librarian positions, the Library’s efforts to achieve more diversity in the management ranks are hindered by the lack of qualified applicants. According to the American Library Association, the

percentage of credentialed minority librarians lags significantly behind the representation of minorities in the civilian labor force.

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This highlights the importance of in-house grooming of current

staff through training and mentoring programs.

And third, the Library’s diversity office is independent, and its

data is accurate and complete. Results of tests we performed show

that the Library’s EEO data is accurate and complete—I am sorry.

Likewise, we concluded that the Library’s Office of Workforce Diversity and its component Equal Opportunity Complaints Office are

independent of the Library’s general counsel, human resources director, and, to the extent practical, the Librarian.

Our conclusion is that, overall, the Libraryis committed to diversity. Union officials we spoke with believe the Library’s diversity

and equal employment policies and procedures, as well as its merit

selection plan, promote diversity in the workplace. Likewise, the

Library has effective diversity programs if fully implemented.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schornagel follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, and we want to thank each

one of our witnesses. Let me ask a couple of general questions and

I’d like for each one of you if you would to respond. On the basis

of the experiences of your agency, when I look at the diversity, as

I guess some of us do, I try and look comprehensively across the

board at what we really mean when we talk about diversity. So I

would like to ask what areas of diversity on the basis of race, sex

and disability would you say had the greatest need of attention to

your agency? And perhaps I would begin with you, Ms. Bates.

Ms. BATES. Mr. Chairman, in light of the—my recent taking over

the position of the Inspector General, I would like to get back to

you on that and submit an answer for the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. All right. We would appreciate that. Mr. Hoecker.

Mr. HOECKER. Yes, sir. With disability I just wanted to say that

with officers it would be kind of hard for them because they are

supposed to be physically fit, etc. So I don’t know if they could really do much in that area, sir, in terms of officers, perhaps in a support role. But since most of the work force population, 1,600 or so,

is officers, it might be difficult to reach any kind of standards or

goals for disability.

But for race and sex, I think they made progress mostly in terms

of race, we reported, as of 2007 fiscal year. So I think the Department can answer this and bring you up to date currently, but I

think there have been a number of minorities that would be a positive there. But I think they are neck and neck. I think if you look

at our developmental pool we have made great progress in the Capitol Police on that, but I think race and sex are neck and neck. You

have to focus on both of them.

Mr. DAVIS. Does the agency have a goal for people with disabilities?

Mr. HOECKER. If they have a goal for what, sir?

Mr. DAVIS. For people with disabilities.

Mr. HOECKER. I’m not aware of that, sir. I could get back to you

if you’d like.

Mr. DAVIS. I know that there are some agencies that are beginning to establish and recognizing difficulty of a population group

with one or more disabilities that kind of begin to look at areas of

work preference in terms of where those individuals perhaps could

fit in, notwithstanding the disability that they may have or experience.

Ms. Garcia.

Ms. GARCIA. Our biggest need is in African American women,

Asians, Hispanics and people with disabilities.

Mr. DAVIS. And so you see the need to improve in the recruitment and movement of African American women as one area certainly and then the others?

Ms. GARCIA. In top management, yes, that’s our biggest need, African American women, Asians, Hispanics and people with disabilities.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Ogden.

Mr. OGDEN. Chairman Davis, with respect to race I think, as

noted in my testimony previously, the greatest need in the agency

is with Asian, Hispanic and Native American to improve outreach

and efforts and to increase predominantly their outreach to those

areas to elicit larger support.

When you look at what’s happened within the pool of 15s the primary senior leadership prior to SLS, and there has been significant

progress that the agency has made with respect to women and minorities, but again those areas could continue to see improvement.

With respect to disability, it’s my understanding—and we did not

look at this specifically with this report. I believe Ms. Elzy in her

followup testimony in the next panel can address this more specifically. But I understand GPO is one of the top five Federal Government employers for persons with disabilities and has a proud

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record with respect to its work force that has physical or mental

disabilities.

And so I would just also add a note that was not included in this

review, but the agency has made outreach efforts and is doing work

in the area of employing persons regardless of their sexual orientation as well.

Mr. DAVIS. All right. Mr. Schornagel.

Mr. SCHORNAGEL. At the Library of Congress I believe Hispanics

is an area that kind of stands out. We lag somewhat behind the

rest of the Federal Government and quite a bit behind the civil

labor force, and to the a lesser extent people with disabilities.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Why don’t I go to Mr. Marchant.

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think my first question for each of you would be what impact from a time standpoint

in responding and has the creation of the diversity management office had on your agency?

Ms. BATES. I would like to note that the Architect of the Capitol

issued a Human Capitol Strategic Plan in 2007, and that plan is

an umbrella for many affirmative plans and equal employment opportunity plans. As it is in its infancy with goals and targets for

completion in 2009 and 2010.

Mr. MARCHANT. So it has had little impact because you were already working on it?

Ms. BATES. Yes, they are working on it, but my colleague on the

next panel can address more of the achievements, but it is relatively new.

Mr. MARCHANT. OK.

Mr. HOECKER. Sir, since Capitol Police does not have an EEO office per se, the timeline is going to be when they request one. They

had requested one in the 2009 budget request. So that is going to

be huge if that position is funded. And also they have issued a

draft strategic, Human Capitol Strategic Plan. They are working

off some of those tenets in that plan right now, but it just needs

to be formalized and approved. That’s kind of the timeline with

that.

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you.

Ms. GARCIA. With the recent work force diversity plan that was

created—or issued in June of this year, it will give the diversity office a baseline to be able to do more and accomplish some of the

barriers that are now facing minorities and women and they’ll have

a road map in which to be able to determine what efforts and how

successful they have been at them. Since this is going to be done

annually, they will be able to see the progress that is being made.

Mr. MARCHANT. OK, thank you.

Mr. OGDEN. At GPO one of the recommendations we made is

that the agency place more emphasis within the strategic planning

process and develop the diversity plan and process and develop a

diversity plan, as there isn’t one that exists currently.

Again Ms. Elzy can probably address the progress they are making in that regard. I can say that when the agency recently had a

change and at the time our new Public Printer came on he demonstrated top leadership commitment, with both the GAO practices

and MD–715 is contemplated as being one of the primary things

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and issued a very strong policy for the agency. And I do know that

he did that in concert with the EEO office and the director of EEO,

Ms. Elzy, and has been advancing efforts around diversity initiatives, because he’s certainly made it a priority.

Mr. MARCHANT. OK.

Mr. SCHORNAGEL. Last year at the request of the Chief Operating Officer at the Library of Congress my office conducted a review

of the Office of Workforce Diversity, which resulted in a fairly critical report of the entire organization. And I’m very optimistic because it is resulting in the, at least partially, reorganization of that

office and refocusing of its efforts. And I think the Library has done

a good job, even with the Workforce Diversity Office operating the

way it had been for several years, and I’m certainly optimistic for

the future.

Mr. MARCHANT. OK. The next question will be kind of a little bit

more philosophical. Do you find that when you have in your agencies specific job skills that would require an education—a specific

education, that the trends in that specific field, let’s say accounting,

library science, that the trends of hiring follow pretty much the

trends in those people that are seeking those degrees, so that if

there are fewer Hispanics seeking library science degrees, then

you’re going to have a pretty direct correlation to the number of

Hispanics that you can hire that you have a requirement that it

is library science? Also in accounting and there’s probably several

other disciplines that are just a requirement of your hiring. So are

you following—are your studies following those trends as well and

do you see that as a major impediment to actually realizing the diversity that you’re seeking or is that something that is of no consequence?

Mr. SCHORNAGEL. I think it is of a lot of consequence as a matter

of fact. It is something certainly that my office did not follow as

part of the scope of this review. I’m not sure that the Library does

either. Maybe they can comment on that later. But I think it is a

very, very important element.

I think that if you establish criteria on the assumption that you

have a certain number of Hispanics who are graduating with accounting degrees or some other degree, then you may be working

on criteria that can perhaps never be attained. And so you need to

know exactly what percentage of college graduates are in a certain

minority population and even break it down further as to the kind

of position that you’re trying to fill. So that’s important data and

that’s, I think, the direction certainly that the Library is going in

and all the agencies. I believe we have made those sorts of recommendations. And these are the kinds of things that the criteria

that we talk about, GAO’s criteria and the EEOC criteria, gets a

more focused analysis of why things are the way they are, and

what can be done to change the situation.

Mr. MARCHANT. And even further—and I know we have a long

way to go, but a larger rhetorical question is, can government pay

the amount of money that government needs to pay to compete in

society generally for the diversity that corporate America has already identified that it needs to have, corporate America has already been fairly actively pursuing, and now maybe at last government is beginning to catch up with this zeal and this goal. Does

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government have the tools, does government have the jobs, does

government have the income to properly compete after we’ve identified our goals?

I’ll let somebody respond to that, but I guess I know what your

answer will be, but I think that’s an important part of the component and might be the ultimate impediment to reaching the goals.

So, Mr. Chairman, I think I’ll stop at that.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Marchant.

Mr. Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank all five agencies for the preparation of this report. I think it is well documented. That’s why I’m wearing glasses so I can read the small

numbers, too.

Let me make several observations and then I’ll have a couple of

questions, but one is that all agencies I think must do a better job

of putting minority workers on track for promotion. If they are in

the agencies, then the culture of the agency dictates that they stay

on track and move up through the ranks.

Another observation is that agencies should strive to maintain

equivalent levels of work force. That’s in the SES, that’s in the GS–

15 or equivalent. Otherwise the managerial chart is lopsided in

comparison to the overall work force, which is part of the first

point.

Mr. Ogden at GPO, let me just recommend that—or warn the

IGs that agencies should not pass over employees that have been

waiting in the wings for a fair shake for years for a promotion. You

reference the deficiencies among Asians and the disabled. I would

suggest the IGs remain vigilant in regard to allowing agencies

and—to not allowing agencies to pass up long serving minority employees for promotion too. I will let you respond if we have time.

Ms. Bates, on the AOC, I notice that you had a decrease in minority level in the SES pool. Let me suggest that the new CVC, visitor center, is coming on-line and it may be that we may want to

start off correctly in that new facility with minorities in decisionmaking position as far as this new facility is concerned. This way

we don’t get behind the proverbial 8 ball so to say and not having

numbers that are reflective of your work force. You have a 51 percent minority work force, yet it is not reflected at the SES or the

GS–15 level. And that’s one recommendation.

Let me ask then is it possible, I’m curious, could we get a breakdown of the numbers, a racial breakdown of the numbers of women

who are on track for SES? The whole percent of women in SES and

GS–15, could you provide this committee with the numbers, the racial breakdown of the women in that category racially; is that possible?

Mr. SCHORNAGEL. Isn’t that in the report already? I thought we

had a table to address that.

Mr. CLAY. I see percent of women and then you’ve got three subcategories, the work force, SES and GS–15. Is there a breakdown

of women? I was curious about the percentages of women, like at

AOC you have 25 percent female work force. Then you have 33 percent in SES and then GS–15 is 23. Can you get a racial breakdown?

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Mr. SCHORNAGEL. Is page 8 the consolidated information you are

looking for?

Mr. CLAY. Page 8.

Mr. SCHORNAGEL. Or page 7?

Mr. CLAY. Does it give us total women, too?

Mr. SCHORNAGEL. It gives gender breakdown and racial, ethnic

group breakdown by agency.

Mr. CLAY. GPO has one female.

Mr. SCHORNAGEL. Over 5 years.

Mr. CLAY. 23. No, I mean of the total work force, racial breakdown of the total female work force, can you give us that?

Mr. SCHORNAGEL. The racial breakdown?

Mr. CLAY. Yes, of the total female work force.

Mr. SCHORNAGEL. No, I don’t believe we have that.

Mr. CLAY. Well, can you provide that to this committee?

Mr. SCHORNAGEL. Yes, I think we can do that with the cooperation of the other agencies, yes.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. CLAY. Go ahead, Mr. Ogden. Did you have a response——

Mr. OGDEN. Yes, Mr. Clay. I believe we have provided that information in one of our attachments to our report. We have a complete breakdown of the entire work force. Just one of the distinctions at GPO is we have a fairly significant blue collar work force

as well as a large white collar work force, too. Those numbers are

broken down, and in the back of our report—I’m looking right now.

Mr. CLAY. In this one, right?

Mr. OGDEN. Page 26 of our report.

Mr. CLAY. Page 26. You did understand what I was asking in regards to——

Mr. OGDEN. I did understand what you were asking previously,

Mr. Clay, as well. Under the circumstances, as you know, we don’t

get involved in any complaints to this—with respect to the issue of

whether or not people are being passed over. That information

wouldn’t necessarily come to our office. We didn’t look specifically

at that particular issue in the numbers of people that have alleged

being passed over. But certainly it is an important issue for the

agency to address, to ensure that everyone is being given a fair opportunity.

And I think that one of the things you also discuss though, and

also Mr. Marchant, was the importance of expanding the pool, so

to speak, and ensuring that the outreach is there. One of the recommendations that we did make is that our EEO office does get

to go to universities and do outreach in historically black universities and Hispanic universities to try to enlist, you know, interest

in the Government Printing Office and in the work that we have

coming up available and such. What we’ve recommended is they

now develop some tracking mechanisms to ensure that those methodologies are actually coming to fruition and proving, you know,

fruit.

The other issue is to think much more broadly and to expand

those horizons, and I think those are issues that we are certain

that we have encouraged the agency to look at, and the EEO office

has indicated they are looking to expand those opportunities as

well.

Mr. CLAY. And that’s the point I would like to stress, that when

they come back to you with their affirmative action plans, that just

don’t let them off the hook, so to say, on an entire group or subsection of that work force that’s been there for years that have

played by the rules and done everything right and have been

passed over for promotion. Don’t let them off the hook.

Mr. OGDEN. Yes, sir.

One other I guess comment, too, is that diversity, as you mentioned, Mr. Marchant and also Mr. Clay, is it is a cultural issue,

it is not just a numbers issue. And that’s why it’s so important that

the breadth of the conversation be enlarged and that the outreach

efforts be made.

Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Mr. Ogden, and to clarify, Mr.

Chairman, if I may, for all of the other agencies, if they could

breakdown for the subcommittee the racial breakdown of the total

female employment force.

Mr. DAVIS. If they would do that, we would appreciate it.

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

[NOTE.—The report entitled, ‘‘Compilation of Legislative Branch

IGs’ Reports on their Respective Agencies’ Diversity Programs for

FY 2007,’’ can be found in subcommittee files.]

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Clay. Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to

go to Mr. Ogden first. I was just thinking about how at the Government Printing Office—I used to work for the Government Printing

Office as a student at Howard University 35 years ago, and I was

thinking about the work force and looking at these figures where

59 percent—well, basically 60 percent of the work force is minority

and then when you look at the SES figure it is 11.5. Are we to

draw any conclusions on that?

Mr. OGDEN. Um, I think that the——

Mr. CUMMINGS. Maybe I’m leading you down a road that you

don’t know where you’re going. Let me shine a little light on it.

When the ranking member asked his question about whether people had the educational requirements to do certain things and

whether they were coming out with the kind of degrees and whatever. You know, I did a journey back to when I was there at the

Government Printing Office and we were students working from

about—and I don’t know whether they still have this program or

not, but we would working from about 10 at night to 6:30 a.m., and

the money was good, two nights a week. But there were a lot of

very frustrated people who were permanent employees there who

basically could not see themselves moving up. Many of them had

a good education, a lot of them felt that they had been passed

over—my time can’t be up, Mr. Chairman—oh, oh. I was just getting warmed up. And they were passed over, they felt that they

were passed over. And I guess I just wonder, you know, when we’re

looking at all these numbers, and if you went to any group, any

barber shop or you talked to any group of people working for an

agency like this, what you will hear are some stories that, if assuming they are true and many instances they are, are very painful, because so many people feel like they’ve been invisible.

Let me tell you what you’ll hear a lot, the people came in and

then they were under me; I trained them and then they became my

supervisor. I see people in the audience nodding their heads. I’m

just wondering taking that into consideration, are we pulling on

the work force that we have? In other words, are we passing them

by to get to some other folk who, you know, since you have a pool,

you have a big pool there, what happens to them, do they stay

there and then die or retire? Can you help me with that?

Mr. OGDEN. Mr. Cummings, I believe you raise some very valid

points. And unfortunately, in my office we didn’t look at any of

those particular issues in this report. And some of the issues you

raise are really imperatives for the agency to address and for our

office to assist in the manner in which it is appropriate for our office to do so in that regard. I think that this report is valuable in

that we’ve made recommendations and the agency has concurred

with those recommendations that will hopefully address some of

the long-term systemic issues and will again help create a much

more diverse pool.

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Mr. CUMMINGS. Give me three recommendations that would go to

what I just said, off the top of your head.

Mr. OGDEN. One is developing a plan of action with respect to

their diversity outreach and the diversity within the agency; having a solid plan is going to be an imperative. Incorporating diversity as a basic tenet of the strategic planning process of the agency.

I mean those two are fundamentally. And three is ensuring that

the agency head take annual and a regular commitment to the responsibility for diversity in the work force.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know I remember, I think it was this subcommittee, maybe it was called something else, but I remember

every year we had one time some folk from these private corporations that they are entitled the best places to work. And one of the

things that was consistent with them is they had excellent diversity plans, and another consistency within those plans was that

they promoted people based upon their supervisors, based upon

their ability and outcomes of having a diversified work force with

regard to promotions. Is that a part of anything that you all are

doing, any of you all? You just talked about the plan, that you’ve

got to have a plan; is that part of it?

Mr. OGDEN. Yes, I believe so. And—yes, it is an imperative.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You seem confused.

Mr. OGDEN. The plan of action is an imperative. And again it is

one of the recommendations not only in MD–715 but in the GAO

best practices. It is the recommendation that we’ve made to the

agency because we feel, you know, in the IG that it is an important

aspect. And the agency has responded back in the affirmative, but

I will let them address specific——

Mr. CUMMINGS. I understand. The other thing I want to say is

this, is that when people get passed over, it is not just them that

get passed over, their families get passed over too, because of

things they could be doing for their families, the schools that your

children go to, that they would like to send their kids to, they don’t

have the resources and when they should have had the resources.

A lot of people don’t think about it like that, but it is real. And I

just, you know, I think these kinds of—whatever you have come up

with, I think it is important that these agencies strive to make

sure they happen.

Yes, on the end.

Mr. SCHORNAGEL. I want to mention that one of the things that

we have recommended in our individual report is that the Library

evaluate the success of its programs. I think that’s a very, very important thing for all agencies. How are these programs working?

You can say you have all these programs in place, but if you can’t

afford to fund them, if you don’t know whether they are resulting

in any difference, then, you know, you might be just spinning your

wheels.

Mr. CUMMINGS. My mother calls it motion, commotion, emotion,

and no results.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Cummings.

Let me just continue for a minute. Has any of your agencies done

any analysis to identify barriers to the advancement of hiring

women, minorities or people with disabilities? Any agency done any

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study to look at barriers that would prevent individuals from moving?

Ms. BATES. I don’t know if the agency has done a study of the

barriers; however, I would like to note that when an applicant applies for a job, whether or not they check their race is an optional

feature. So despite an agency’s attempt to get a diverse applicant

pool, the selection officials may or may not know the true makeup

of the pool, and that would be one barrier to hire more women and

minorities.

Mr. DAVIS. Anything, any of the other agencies?

Mr. SCHORNAGEL. The Library has agreed based on recommendations to conduct those barrier analyses. And one of the things that

we also recommend and that the Library agreed to is to conduct

exit interviews to find out why people are leaving the Library. It

is something that was done quite a while ago but it was stopped.

But I think it could possibly provide some valuable information.

Mr. DAVIS. Then I would like to ask if each one of the agencies

would take a look at what barriers may be existing that would prevent us from making more progress than what it appears that we

have made. It seems to me that we’ve been discussing diversity

ever since I’ve been an adult, at least I have, every place that I’ve

ever been. And we still, while we’ve made some progress, it seems

to me that the pace is much slower than what the pace has to be,

especially if we put a real focus on it. And that’s certainly what we

hope to do and it is what I hope to do in this subcommittee, not

only for certainly the rest of this year, but I would suspect I’m

going to be chairman of it next session as well. And it’s one of the

areas that I just find very difficult to understand, especially as

we’ve talked about goals, as we’ve talked about approaches, as

we’ve talked about ways to do things. It just seems to me that we

are still so contradictory and have not found a way to do it. And

so I would appreciate it if you would take a look at those barriers.

Ms. GARCIA. Mr. Chairman, the GAO has taken two giant steps

regarding that. One element is the new diversity work force plan

which identifies barriers. And the other one is the pay disparity review that the Ivy Planning Group did for us on African Americans.

While they concentrated on African Americans, the recommendations will apply to all minorities. And GAO is in the process of

starting conversations with staff which will be mandatory on race.

So I’m very optimistic that by this time next year there will be

some improvements in GAO’s work force diversity plan because we

now have a road map and something to compare ourselves to.

Mr. DAVIS. Well, thank you very much.

Mr. Marchant, do you have any additional questions or comments?

Mr. MARCHANT. No, sir.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Cummings.

Then thank you very much. We appreciate you being with us.

Ms. GARCIA. Thank you, Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS. As we transition to our next panel, I will identify

them. Our panel 2 witness list consists of Ms. Teresa Bailey, who

is the Director of the Equal Employment Opportunity and Conciliation Program at the Architect of the Capitol, which provides internal Architect of the Capitol procedures for claims of alleged emVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:14 May 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00079 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\48814.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ployment discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin,

age, religion or disability and for claims of EEO-based retaliation.

We also have Ms. Gloria Jarmon, who is the Chief Administrator

Officer for the U.S. Capitol Police where she is responsible for financial management, information technology, human resources

management, and facilities management. Prior to this she was the

Managing Director for Congressional Relations at the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

We have Mr. Ronald Stroman, as the Managing Director for the

Office of Opportunity and Inclusiveness for the Government Accountability Office. The office manages GAO’s Equal Employment

Opportunity [EEO], program counseling and GAO’s former discrimination complaint process. The Office of Economic Opportunity

and Inclusiveness also operates the agency’s early resolution and

mediation program by helping managers and employees resolve

workplace disputes and EEO concerns without resorting to the

former process.

We have Ms. Nadine Elzy, as the Director of the Office of Equal

Employment Opportunity for the U.S. Government Printing Office.

Ms. Elzy directs the activities of the affirmative programs and

counseling and complaints processing divisions within the office.

She has 20 years of Federal experience, most of it within the area

of equal employment opportunity. Thank you.

And Ms. Stephanie Ruiz is the Director of Human Resources and

Equal Opportunity Office at the Congressional Budget Office. Prior

to joining CBO, Ms. Ruiz was the Assistant Director for the Employee Relations at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of

Business and was the Human Resources Administrator at Sampson. Thank you very much, Ms. Ruiz.

And Mr. Jesse James, Jr. is the Acting Director for the Office of

Workforce Diversity in the Library of Congress, a position that he

has held since February 2008. Prior to his appointment as the Acting Director of the Office of Workforce Diversity, Mr. James held

a position of Associate General Counsel in the Library’s Office of

General Counsel, where he managed and supervised the Litigation

and General Law Sections of the Office of General Counsel.

Let me thank you all. If you will join with me, I will extend the

oath. It is the procedure of this committee that all witnesses be

sworn in, so if you’d raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. DAVIS. The record will show that the witnesses answered in

the affirmative. Let me thank all of you for being here with us this

afternoon. Our usual procedure is to take 5 minutes of summation

of your written testimony. The entire written statement will be included in the record. The green light indicates the full 5 minutes

are available, the yellow lights indicates we are down to 1 minute,

and of course the red light indicates time is up and we would then

proceed to questions.

Thank you very much, and we will begin. Ms. Bailey.

Ms. BAILEY. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Marchant, members of

the subcommittee—is it on?

Mr. DAVIS. I think you may need to hit that button.

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STATEMENTS OF TERESA BAILEY, DIRECTOR, EEO/CONCILIATION PROGRAM, ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL; GLORIA L.

JARMON, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, U.S. CAPITOL

POLICE; RONALD STROMAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, OFFICE

OF OPPORTUNITY AND INCLUSIVENESS, U.S. GOVERNMENT

ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; NADINE ELZY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY, U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE; STEPHANIE RUIZ, DIRECTOR,

HUMAN RESOURCES, CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE;

AND JESSE JAMES, JR., ACTING DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF

WORKFORCE DIVERSITY, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

STATEMENT OF TERESA BAILEY

Ms. BAILEY. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the AOC’s

diversity management program and our efforts to identify, attract,

hire, promote and retain a diverse work force. Respect and diversity are among our agency’s core values.

The AOC values our employees’ individual differences and the

very backgrounds, talents and skill they bring to their jobs. Our

commitment to Equal Employment Opportunity is strong and we

have marked a number of achievements in the past year.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to report that the Architect of the

Capitol recently implemented its first affirmative employment program. As noted in the AOC’s Inspector General report, this order,

‘‘will form the basis and framework for success in the resolution

and removal of barriers impacting the diversity management program and the under representation of women, minorities and persons with disabilities.’’

This program assures that job applicants and employees looking

to advance professionally are considered fairly and equally. Its primary component will be a plan delineating action-oriented strategies and measurable goals to increase our work force diversity. The

program puts into action our longstanding commitment to equal opportunity in every area of employment.

We are also implementing our first reasonable accommodation

policy for persons with disabilities which formalizes procedures to

accommodate the needs of disabled employees and prospective employees. The AOC also provides mandatory EEO training for all supervisors and managers, and we are looking to expand this training

to include diversity training for all AOC employees.

In addition to continuing to development existing talent in our

agency, we are conducting a comprehensive work force analysis.

The information gathered will help us to better focus our recruiting

and hiring efforts. While the representation of women and minorities in our senior level positions remain the 33 percent and 18.5

percent respectively, these percentages demonstrate a significant

increase over our 2002 levels.

As of August 15th, minority representation in the GS–15 theater

pool has increased from 12.8 percent to 18 percent, and for the

number of women has increased from 23.1 percent to 25 percent.

The IG’s report also noted the importance of establishing a diversity network between the AOC and other EEO diversity directors

to share best practices and discuss critical issues we have in common. I am pleased to note that my peers on this panel agree and

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welcome the opportunity to strengthen our ties and work together

toward common goals.

Last, the report highlighted personnel practices in other areas

that merit attention. We have developed an action plan to address

a number of these issues and are working to expand programs or

policies already in place.

As I noted last November, we advertise our career opportunities

nationwide through a wide and diverse number of Web sites, newspapers and professional networks and associations. We also continue to actively participate in recruitment events to increase

awareness of job opportunities with our agency.

In addition, we recently advertised positions in our Architect’s

mobility program. This program offers career opportunities for high

potential employees who are currently in career limiting positions

and lack the experience to enter other AOC career fields. Participants are provided on-the-job training and formal classroom training. The program will assist us in increasing diversity in established career fields, while providing an exciting path for the participants.

We are also participating in Operation Warfighter, the Defense

Department’s program for service members convalescing at military treatment facilities in the Washington area, many of whom

were stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. This program enables us

to benefit from the considerable talents of these soldiers and to affect their recuperation by providing a positive work environment.

To date five service members have worked with us in a variety of

jobs.

Although we have made great progress, we recognize we still

have work to do. The AOCis deeply committed to our goal of attracting and retaining a diverse work force, and this commitment

began at the top of our organization. We all benefit from a workplace that brings together people with different backgrounds, skills,

experiences and perspectives, and we are diligently working to further increase the diversity in our work force and in particular

among our senior level management.

This concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer any

questions that you may have.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bailey follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Ms. Bailey, and we will proceed to Ms. Jarmon.

STATEMENT OF GLORIA L. JARMON

Ms. JARMON. Chairman Davis and members of the subcommittee,

thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss

diversity within the work force and especially within the senior levels of U.S. Capitol Police. I assure you the Chief of the U.S. Capitol

Police and his executive team are totally committed to the continued improvement of the Department’s work force diversity, including our requested funding for a diversity officer in fiscal year 2009.

We also intend to have a formal written diversity policy in fiscal

year 2009.

Despite the lack of a formal equal employment office or a diversity office we believe that the Department’s made significant improvements in recent years and achieve strong female and minority

representation within the Department’s work force and its senior

level staff relative to the Federal and civilian work force.

That said, we also know that we need to improve the representation of females and specific minority staff throughout the Department, especially in our sworn and senior level staff, and we will

continue to seek new approaches toward achieving these goals.

As of the end of August the Department’s on board staff total

2,010, 350 civilian and 1,660 sworn. Of these about 23 percent are

women and about 39 percent are minority staff. Minority representation among our senior level staff has improved in the past fiscal

year from about 14 percent to 22 percent, while our female representation at a senior level has experienced a slight decline from

about 28 percent to 22 percent.

We are encouraged by the increasingly diverse composition of our

senior level developmental pool, which will provide the Department

with a trained and experience cadre of minority and female inspectors, captains, and civilian managers from which to draw into our

senior level positions going forward. This developmental pool has

increased its representation of minorities by 5 percent and of

women by 2 percent in the current fiscal year.

Much of our success can be attributed to our aggressive recruiting plans, which includes universities, colleges and job fairs

throughout the country targeted toward women and specific minority populations and also targets returning veterans. In addition, we

have used participation in senior level developmental training programs to improve the representation of women and minorities in

our senior levels.

Our Strategic Capitol Plan draft has been completed and is being

reviewed before final issuance. We intend to update the strategic

plan with fiscal year 2008 data as appropriate and view this plan

as a living document through which we will be able to set that recruitment, retention, advancement and succession planning goals,

measure our progress in meeting them and make adjustments as

warranted.

Diversity representation is an integral part of this plan, and we

intend to fully implement it early in fiscal year 2009.

Within the U.S. Capitol Police discrimination complaints are investigated by our Office of Professional Responsibility. That office

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in was currently investigating seven cases of alleged violations of

our policy on anti-discrimination, anti-harassment.

In response to our recent Inspector General report on our work

force diversity we are reconsidering the appropriate office to perform legal sufficiency reviews in consultation with the Capitol Police Board for all of the Office of Professional Responsibility cases

involving grievance or discrimination complaints.

Currently our Office of Employment Counsel conducts these reviews in addition to representing the Department or the Capitol

Police Board should the case make its way to court. In conjunction

with new directives on discipline, dispute resolution and grievance

procedures, we will determine the best process to avoid any appearance of conflict going forward. We expect to make these sound determinations and issue these directives in the near future.

We appreciate the attention this subcommittee has focused on

this issue within the Department and are working diligently to address the IG’s recommendations related to this issue.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, this concludes

my statement. I will be happy to answer any questions you may

have.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jarmon follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much. And we will go to Mr.

Stroman.

STATEMENT OF RONALD STROMAN

Mr. STROMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Marchant.

First of all, we agree with all of the Inspector General’s recommendation and we have moved quickly to implement them. We

have instituted internal controls for our tracking and case processing. We are amending our complaint to clarify responsibilities when

we move cases from our office to another office, and we are making

it clear in our order that our diversity plan will be done on an annual basis.

We appreciate the Inspector General’s recognition of the gains

that have been made at the managerial ranks. African Americans

exceed the civilian labor force at the SES level, as well as the GS–

15 equivalent level. Asian Americans exceed the civilian labor force

at the SES. We’ve had a 53 percent increase in the percentage of

Hispanics in our managerial ranks, and women have, you know,

had tremendous growth within the agency.

Although, that being said, Mr. Chairman, we have gaps and we

recognize that we have gaps, and we have developed what we think

are plans to address them. We received, as you know, in April the

Ivy report which had over 20 recommendations. The Acting Comptroller General has clarified that we will implement all of them and

implement them quickly. We have begun that. We are having—

starting with Ivy’s recommendation that we begin with a facilitated

conversation on race; that is, given the impact that race has in

terms of performance related dialog and conversations, we need to

raise this issue directly within the agency. So all of our employees,

it is mandatory, will be part of this facilitated conversations on

race that will begin in October.

We are reassessing our entire performance appraisal system. To

date we have had over 15 interviews at the managerial level. We

have had 30 task forces of GAO employees involved in this reassessment. Of those, 37 have been specifically targeted on issues of

diversity. We have had African American—looking at African

American issues, Hispanic issues, disability issues, gay and lesbian

issues within the agency.

With regard to reviewing our standards for appraisal reviews,

the Ivy report suggested that we standardize those. We have done

that. We have met and created standard processes for all of our

teams with regard to performance appraisals. Ivy recommended

that we expand the mentoring program to include our PDP staff.

We have expanded the mentoring program in the last several

months.

Ivy suggested that we begin to track the ratings of our PDP staff

at the same level that we are tracking the ratings of our analysts.

We have instituted a tracking process and we have begun the process of tracking.

Ivy suggested mandatory DPM training; that is, that we train

our analysts who are reviewing and assessing our analysts. We

have instituted mandatory DPM training. We are having training

for the development of self-assessments within the agency. We

have established a task team to review the way in which we do reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:14 May 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00094 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\48814.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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cruiting, where we go to recruit, who is involved in the recruiting

process, and the establishment of a diversity recruitment plan.

This is ongoing, Mr. Chairman.

We have taken steps to implement what Ivy suggested was to institute an upward feedback tool, similar to a 360, so that our staff

can assess the performance of managers. We are in the process of

doing that.

We have established a diversity committee, and that is made up

of all of the diversity groups within the agency, African Americans,

Hispanics, Asians, people with disabilities, and indeed our union,

and we are consulting with them as we are implementing all of

these changes.

We have developed, as the IG testified, a work force diversity

plan which is directly consistent with Managing Directive 715 by

the EEOC. And we did a data analysis of our work force, we did

a barrier analysis, and then we had recommendations. And with

regard to those recommendations, we not only had recommendations, but we had timeframes under which those recommendations

will be implemented so that we can hold ourselves accountable.

In sum, Mr. Chairman, we understand that we have gaps in the

diversity of our office. We have a plan. We are moving quickly to

implement all of the Ivy recommendations. We are monitoring our

work force diversity plan and we believe we will be able to show

progress as consistent with what—the IG’s testimony.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stroman follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Stroman. And we will proceed to Ms. Elzy.

STATEMENT OF NADINE ELZY

Ms. ELZY. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the

subcommittee. Thank you for inviting the Government Printing Office to be here today. I am Nadine Elzy, the GPO’s Director of

EEO. My prepared statement has been submitted for the record,

and with your permission I will summarize my remarks.

We have reviewed the Inspector General’s report and concur with

the recommendations. I am sure these recommendations will be

submitted to the Public Printer for his review and consideration. I

believe that the recommendations will have a positive impact to

create a more diverse GPO in the future.

I would like to point out that even though GPO was not required

to comply with MD–715 that it is noteworthy that we as an agency

have already adopted many of these elements and feel that these

initiatives have assisted us in our diversity efforts.

I am also very glad to be here to testify before you today, because

I’m excited to report that since we—I was last here in November,

we have made additional gains. We have in the Senior Level Service since my appearance here, we have one additional female and

two additional minorities at a senior level. At that time GPO had

three females in SLS positions, we now have four, which is 15 percent of the SLS population. We also now have four minorities in

SLS positions.

Last fall 29 percent of Grade 15 positions were held by females.

Now 32 percent of positions at the Grade 15 are held by females.

Also minorities comprised 32 percent of the Grade 15 at the end

of 2007; minorities have now grown to comprise 34 percent of employees at a Grade 15.

One of the things I would like to point out is in 2002 we had 1

female in the Grade 15, now we have 24. In 2002 we had 6 minorities in the Grade 15, now we have 26. This demonstrates small but

steady strides that GPO is making to increase its diversity at the

higher grade levels.

We also are continuing with our efforts to place qualified minorities and females in positions at the Grade 13 to 14, which will prepare them to become GPO’s future leaders. The Public Printer has

personally demonstrated his commitment to increasing diversity.

Commitment comes from the top and flows down. In a recent Public Printer meeting Mr. Tapella expressed the importance of diversity and his support. He encouraged our continued outreach to colleges and universities.

GPO has developed a college recruitment plan for fiscal year

2009 that again includes colleges and universities that will

strengthen our applicant pool with highly qualified diverse candidates. These colleges include Florida A&M University, the University of Texas El Paso, the University of New Mexico, and Berkeley. We have expanded our recruitment to include organizations

such as the National Association of Black MBAs. We truly realize

the importance of a diverse work force.

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We will also again be recruiting at the national institute—Technical Institute of the Deaf in an effort to ensure that our organization is representative of this country’s diversity.

EEOC has indicated that the percentage of people with disabilities in the Federal Government is decreasing, but we still rank as

one of the top Federal Government employers for people with disabilities. As of September 8, 2008, the U.S. Government Printing

Office had a work force of 2,398 employees. Of this total almost 7

percent are employees with a reportable disability and almost 2

percent are individuals with targeted disabilities. Most Federal

agencies have less than 1 percent of employees with targeted disabilities. These employees work in various business units throughout our agency.

During this fiscal year we have also become actively involved

with the Coming Home to Work Initiative. Through this initiative

with the Veterans Administration, eligible service members and

veterans are placed in positions at the Government Printing Office

to gain valuable experience. The first participants reported to work

this month.

We have also developed other efforts to ensure that GAO’s supervisors and managers knows the agency’s perspective on diversity

and equity in the workplace. During this fiscal year myself and the

Deputy EEO Director have been meeting with each business union

manager to have an in-depth discussion on their organization’s diversity and other EEO-related issues. During these meetings we

discuss their current work force statistics and possible strategies to

address any noted imbalances.

Again we are involved with EEO at GPO and most especially

Public Printer Tapella clearly recognizes the significance of attaining diversity in GPO’s management ranks, and we are firmly committed to achieving this goal. I am proud to be a part of an agency

that is moving forward with great speed in the right direction, and

again I would like to emphasize my personal commitment to attain

this objective. GPO is an organization that wants to utilize the

skills and abilities of all of its employees to move us forward in the

21st century.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, this concludes

my prepared statement, and I will be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Elzy follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, and we will go to Ms. Ruiz.

STATEMENT OF STEPHANIE RUIZ

Ms. RUIZ. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Marchant and members

of the subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to discuss our efforts to have a diverse work force at the Congressional Budget Office. CBO’s leadership shares your interest and diversity and,

though we have made significant efforts to create such a work

force, we are not yet satisfied with the results of those efforts and

continue to seek ways to enhance them.

This afternoon I will address the following key points summarized from my written statement, the challenge of recruiting skilled

staff in the fields necessary to do the analysis CBO prepares for

the Congress, CBO’s effort to recruit a diverse work force recent

addition to those efforts, and recent progress toward greater diversity in the agency’s work force.

As you know, CBO employs individuals with very specialized

skills to do the complex economic and budgetary analysis the agency is charged to do for the Congress. More than two-thirds of our

professional staff hold Ph.D.’s or Master’s Degrees, and as a result

of these specialized skills the demographics of the qualified candidates pose a significant challenge in creating a diverse staff.

According to the most recent survey of earned doctorates, approximately 1,000 people earned Ph.D.’s in economics in 2006. Only

30 percent of those new Ph.D.’s in economics were women. And

even more dramatic, of those who came into the labor market only

6 percent were identified as members of a minority group. That is

60 people in the entire Nation. Those numbers are even more disheartening when you note that 14 percent entered government

service in that population.

The demographics of Master’s level graduates are somewhat less

of a problem. According to data from the National Association of

Schools of Public Affairs and Administration, those completing

Master’s Degrees in 2007 were 58 percent female and 31 percent

minority.

In the face of the demographic challenges we have, CBO must be

both aggressive and creative in its efforts to reach out to women

and minority candidates.

A few examples of how we target our recruiting are sending mailings to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, HBCUs, and

Hispanic-serving institutions, HSIs, that have populations from

which we can draw candidates; visiting myriads of college campuses, including HBCUs, HSIs, and large campuses with diverse

student populations, and contacting the American Indian Graduate

Center to provide Native American candidates information about

CBO opportunities.

CBO also manages a summer internship program with an eye toward diversity. For example, 63 percent of our interns were minorities and 38 percent with women. In addition to the substantive

work these students do, the program introduces them to the challenge and reward of public service. Our goal is for them to consider

CBO employment upon graduation, and considering 7 percent of

our current work force are former interns, I think we are doing OK

there.

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Despite our small size, we devote considerable effort to grass

roots recruiting; that is, seeking to enlarge the pool of female and

minority candidates in the populations from which we recruit. Data

indicate that most students who pursue a doctorate in economics

also studied economics as an undergrad, and so CBO, although we

don’t hire very many analysts with just a bachelor’s degree, engages in various recruitment activities to introduce undergrads to

the ideas of pursuing a Ph.D. In economics or a master’s in public

policy, and to acquaint them with the types of government careers

to which those paths may lead.

For example, we make special efforts to present to groups such

as Moorhouse Filman’s joint economics clubs, and to Howard economics majors every year. We also participate annually in two national programs, the Public Policy Institute and International Affairs Program, and the American Economic Association’s summer

program and minority scholarship program. Both of these are national programs focused on preparing students of underrepresented

groups for advanced degrees in the areas from which we recruit.

In short, few students from underrepresented groups complete

advanced degrees in economics and public policy. We have little

hope of recruiting CBO staff representative of the Nation’s rich diversity.

Recent additions to our program since the subcommittee’s hearing last November have been many. I will share a few of them. Dr.

Peter Orszag, our director, and deputy director Robert Sunshine

make diversity a principal topic of the CBO management conference in January, emphasizing CBO’s unequivocal commitment to

diversity, highlighting the challenges we face, and encouraging vigorous and creative efforts toward that goal. We followed up with

CBO’s staff to communicate our efforts and solicit suggestions to

improve diversity, and we have implemented a number of those

suggestions.

We implemented a tracking system that identifies candidate

CBO interviews, and in several cases the director and deputy director have declined to consider making job offers until there was additional diversity amongst the candidates interviewed.

Dr. Orszag has developed personal efforts to develop new recruitment opportunities. Among them, he contacted permanent economists, who were minorities, to solicit assistance. One of those contacts resulted in identifying a new program designed to address the

underrepresentation of minorities in public policy research. We

were able to make a presentation to that program’s initial class,

and several CBO staff shared one on one about CBO’s work and

job opportunities with those students. He telephoned the deans of

top programs offering Ph.D.s in economics and master’s degrees to

emphasize CBO’s interest in recruiting their strong minority students.

Though there are many more other recent additions, I will wrap

up with the seminars that we provided to the fellows of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and the Congressional Hispanic Institute this past summer, as we hope to make those staples

of our annual recruiting events.

Most important to these efforts are progress. Like his predecessors, Dr. Orszag is committed to diversity. In his short tenure,

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52 percent of the staff hired at CBO have been women and 17 percent have been minorities. Looking forward, if we include those

who are scheduled to start work at CBO in the next month, that

17 percent minority number goes to 23 percent. Since last year, we

have increased the share of employees who are women and the

share of professional positions filled by women by about 2 percentage points, to 42 percent. The shared employees from minorities remains essentially unchanged at about 13 percent. And as for executive-level positions, the share filled by women and minorities both

increased by nearly 3 percentage points.

This improvement has occurred despite the fact that our minority

staff members are often highly sought after. And with CBO’s small

staff size, the gain or loss of a few staff members can significantly

affect our numbers.

In conclusion, CBO’s most valuable resource is a strong staff, and

to that end we dedicate a great deal of time, effort, and resources

to the agency’s recruitment program. An important focus of that

program has been and will continue to be the recruitment of a diverse work force. Though we are pleased with our progress, we

take seriously our need to continue the improvement and diversity

of our staff. I will be happy to take whatever questions you may

have.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ruiz follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Thank you we have. We have four votes. Fortunately,

they are 5-minute votes. So if you can remain, we would appreciate

it, and we should return in about 20 minutes.

[Recess.]

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much. I think we are OK for a

minute, and I really do appreciate the fact that you all are still

here.

And I believe we had gotten down to you, Mr. James.

STATEMENT OF JESSE JAMES, JR.

Mr. JAMES. Yes, sir. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Davis, members of the subcommittee, my name is

Jesse James, Jr. I am the Acting Director of the Office of Workforce

Diversity at the Library of Congress, a position which I have held

since February 2008. Prior to this appointment, I had retired from

the Library’s Office of General Counsel, where I managed and supervised the litigation and general law sections of the Library for

approximately 8 years. Thank you for the opportunity to update

you on the status of our efforts to increase staff diversity throughout the Library of Congress and specifically within the senior level

management.

For the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, the Library’s total

work force of 3,786 consisted of 55.2 percent women and 45.6 percent minorities. Of the total of 95 senior level executives, 43.2 percent were women, and 21.1 percent were minorities.

With respect to the feeder positions of GS–13 through GS–15 pay

cluster, who are the Library’s future senior leaders, women represent 50.3 percent, and minorities represent 25.6 percent of those

employees. The number of minorities at this level has gone from

281 in 2002 to 380 in 2007. While the percentage of Hispanics in

this group remain below that of the general population, the number

of Hispanics at the GS–15 level more than doubled over the same

period of time. The percentage of women has remained stable.

Since your last review of the diversity within the legislative

branch, the Library has undertaken a number of new initiatives.

First, our chief operating officer created a Library-wide task force

to overhaul the Library’s hiring process for filling senior level vacancies. The Library’s proposed process incorporates best practices

of the private sector.

Second, our Office of Workforce Diversity, which reports directly

to the Office of the Librarian, is undergoing a major reorganization.

We expect this new entity will play a more effective leadership role

in fulfilling our diversity and fairness goals throughout the Library.

As part of the development of the Library-wide 2008–2013 strategic plan, we link the function of OWD to our overall work force

goals and objectives. We have provided more details about the reorganization in our written statement. The new reorganization will

address and evaluate the successes of programs, analyze barriers,

and provide data to management as to how to address any concerns

that we come in contact with.

Let me just assure you that under this new plan OWD will be

better positioned to focus on and identify potential systemic barriers to diversity, measuring programs’ effectiveness, and working

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proactively to ensure that Library managers continue to successfully implement strategies to recruit and retain a diverse work

force.

Third, we have expanded our staff development programs for Library employees at all GS levels.

Finally, we have retained an executive recruitment consultant to

assist us in identifying and seeking highly qualified diverse candidates for senior level positions. We are using this consultant

presently to assist us in filling the vacant position of the Law Librarian of Congress.

While we are working diligently on the recruitment front, we find

these efforts are undercut by the fact that we are falling behind the

rest of the Federal Government on senior level paid compensation.

Our senior professionals trail virtually all executive agency level

employees in both pay caps and aggregate compensation caps. We

ask the subcommittee to consider the impact on the Library of S–

1046 currently before this body, and that you assist us in maintaining our position as an employer of choice for talented professionals.

This series of hearings and our reorganization of OWD are taking place at a key juncture for the Library. We are expanding our

internal staff development leadership programs to enhance the

available pool of applicants in order to have a diverse, talented,

and qualified work force that we need to have everyone in the marketplace participate.

I am happy to answer any questions the subcommittee may have.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. James follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. And again, let me just thank all of you for your patience and your willingness to be here to share with us.

Let me just ask, are we all aware of the fact that the Office of

Compliance offers training and workshops for agency personnel regarding workplace rights? We all are aware of that? That being the

case, what is your opinion of the training? I mean, do you think

it is helpful or do you have an opinion that you would venture? Ms.

Bailey.

Ms. BAILEY. I have had the opportunity to attend one of the Office Compliance trainings not that long ago. It was a training on

alternative dispute resolution, and it was good information to have

in terms of addressing some information that we have already

known, particularly for those of us who are in that profession. But

I think overall the training was helpful to us.

Mr. DAVIS. Anyone else?

Ms. ELZY. I attended that same training. It was very beneficial.

The only difference I have from any of the other legislative

branches is that the Government Printing Office, as far as complaints, reports to the Equal Opportunity Commission. But the

training itself was very beneficial.

Mr. JAMES. I also had the opportunity to attend, and I think I

have attended at least twice. And I think it was beneficial and

helpful, at least in the instances that I attended.

Ms. RUIZ. Equally, at the Congressional Budget Office, I attended

and I had one of my colleagues from my office attend. And the first

training they offered on ADR, alternative dispute resolution, we

had a number of our staff members attend. And one of the things

that was most beneficial was the exercises they did with us at the

end and the fact that they bring in a variety of different consultants and different perspectives into the training.

Mr. DAVIS. Did they address EEO diversity issues in any of the

sessions that any of us may have attended?

Mr. JAMES. I don’t think so.

Mr. DAVIS. Do you think it might be helpful if they had a structured program where a part of the training kind of centered on

EEO and diversity kind of concerns that would help people to have

those issues in mind and recognize them as part of workplace expectation?

Ms. RUIZ. Sir, yes. I think that would be a very beneficial thing

from a couple standpoints. No. 1, it would provide uniform information to all the leg branch agencies. And it is also, from the standpoint of the appropriators, who we all have some recollection with,

the ability for us to capitalize on working cohesively together and

using money in an appropriate way.

Mr. DAVIS. Anyone else?

Ms.BAILEY. I concur with what Ms. Ruiz has said. But I also

think that we also need to consider the right audience. We have to

target the right audience for those programs. So we need to include

it and expand it to supervisors and managers of our various agencies.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. STROMAN. Mr. Chairman, there have been a number of studies recently, some done by Harvard University, that have shown

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that some diversity training is not very helpful in terms of resolving issues, EEO issues.

The key, it seems to me, is to have targeted training. That is,

that you have to have training which is directly targeted to the

concerns in your workplace, or else you are going through an exercise.

The other thing that their studies have indicated is that the

training has to be part of a larger package of changes within the

institution. And if that is kind of what you are focusing on, again,

you are not going to be successful.

So I would say two things: that it would be helpful to do the

training, but they need to do the training targeted to specific issues

at specific leg branch agencies, and it needs to be part of a larger

package.

Mr. DAVIS. Let me ask. We have talked about success of pools,

and especially that you have highlighted them, Mr. James. Let me

just ask, why are these successive pools important? And could any

of you think of what the impact might be, let’s just say, if your

agency was to promote women and minorities in direct proportion

to their GS–15 successive pools? That if you had as many people

above as you had in the GS–15 pool, do you see any kind of impact,

either negative or positive, that would have on your agency?

Mr. JAMES. Well, I think that if it were possible in a world where

everything was equal, that you could actually do that, I think that

it would have positive effects for the agency. But some of the discussion that would take place with the IGs, I question whether you

are going to be able to get that, unless you have these schools and

others where the people coming out of school are going to be equal

to that. And if you don’t have that, then I think that is the thing

that affects it more than anything else. And I know for a fact that

the Library is making those efforts, but it is running up against

the difficulty of finding people to bring into the agencies coming out

of colleges and places like that. It is going to the Historical Black

Colleges and making contacts with those schools. But as we all

know, the numbers coming of minorities coming out of colleges isn’t

as large.

So I think that is where the problem is. I don’t think the problem

is actually getting them there; the problem is getting the numbers

in sufficient numbers to put them in the feeder pools so that they

can come up through that system.

Mr. STROMAN. Mr. Chairman, I think particularly at the SES

level, that is really where the decisionmakers are. And if you have

a proportionate representation, I think what you will have is two

things: One is I think you will have better results as an agency.

Studies have indicated that when you have a diverse workpool,

particularly in the leadership level, that your solutions are better;

that you get more creative, more innovative, faster solutions as an

agency. So I think that they would be better.

Second, I think that when you are trying to attract people to the

agency, they are really looking at the leadership. They are looking

at the leadership to determine whether or not, you know, they can

get to that point. I mean, one of the things, you know, regardless

of one’s political affiliation, is what Senator Obama has done.

When they talk to young African American kids now, 65 percent

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said they believe they can be President of the United States. Forty

percent of white children say they could be President of the United

States. And I think that is a direct correlation between seeing a

role model that you can model your behavior after. So I think it

has tremendous potential within each of the agencies.

Ms. JARMON. I just wanted to add, at the Capitol Police we have

been focusing on the successive pool. For us, it would be like inspectors, captains on the sworn side; and on the civilian side it

would be civilian managers. And our numbers for that feeder pool

are actually higher than the SES equivalent group as we have been

focusing on development and training of that group. And I think

it would be helpful in years to come as those people are promoted

to higher levels.

Mr. DAVIS. As I think about, I think of situations where I know

individuals who are police captains but they never get high command posts. I have never been able to quite understand it. Of

course, this is outside the Federal Government. This just happens

to be in the Chicago Police Department, which is a great big agency. It is a big operation. It is no small entity. We have about 3 million people in our city. But I actually know people, and we have

sort of wondered, I mean, how is this person a captain but might

be a watch commander, and somebody else is a lieutenant and they

are a station commander or they have some other executive post

beyond that. And what kind of criteria is being used by the upper

levels who make these decisions and determinations.

Well, that is not your problem. It is just something that I have

thought about.

Well, let me just thank you all very much. We have a number

of questions that we would like to submit; and if you would agree

to answer those in writing and get them back to us, we would really appreciate it. We have some questions that I think could be very

helpful to us, if we could submit those and have you respond in

writing.

Thank you so very much. And, again, you have been a wonderfully patient group, and we greatly appreciate it.

And we will go to our last panel, panel 3. We have Tamara

Chrisler. She is the Executive Director of the Office of Compliance.

She was appointed to this position in January 2008. Prior to joining the Office of Compliance, Ms. Chrisler served as a labor and

employment attorney for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, representing the interests of the government as well as the administrative

agencies in claims brought by employees before the Federal court.

And we have Ms. Janet Crenshaw Smith who is the president of

Ivy Planning Group LLC, which is a leading consultant and training firm that specializes in diversity strategy and leadership.

Ladies, I appreciate your being with us. And if you would stand

and be sworn in, then we could proceed.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. DAVIS. I certainly want to thank both of you for your longenduring patience and the fact that we are still here. And if you

would begin, and we will try to wrap this up.

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STATEMENTS OF TAMARA E. CHRISLER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF COMPLIANCE; AND JANET CRENSHAW

SMITH, PRESIDENT, IVY PLANNING GROUP LLC

STATEMENT OF TAMARA E. CHRISLER

Ms. CHRISLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening. I would

like to thank you for the opportunity to testify at your oversight

hearing on the representation of women and minorities in executive

level positions in the legislative branch. The Office of Compliance

is privileged to be included in your review of the reports from those

agencies that have performed diversity audits at the direction of

this subcommittee. Briefly, I would like to tell you a little bit about

our office before answering any questions that you may have.

The Office of Compliance is governed by the Congressional Accountability Act [CAA] of 1995, which requires covered legislative

branch agencies to follow employment and workplace safety laws

applied to the private sector and to the Federal Government at

large.

Of particular relevance to today’s hearing is section 201 of the

CAA, which requires that all personnel actions involving covered

employees be free from discrimination based on race, color, religion,

sex, or national origin, disability, and age for those 40 or older.

The Office of Compliance is committed to guaranteeing that the

workplace of legislative branch employees is a fair one and providing assistance to Congress and its instrumentalities and agencies

in meeting their workplace demands.

Certain of our core statutorily mandated functions are pertinent

to this hearing. Our education mandate requires us to educate covered employees in employing offices in the legislative branch about

their rights and responsibilities under the CAA. We meet this mandate by maintaining a comprehensive Web site and providing written materials and publications; by participating in a quarterly

briefing sponsored by the Congressional Research Service; and, by

publishing our Annual Report to Congress, providing both statutorily mandated statistics and narratives detailing accomplishments tracked to our strategic plan.

The agency has most recently conducted our second major conference on alternative dispute resolution for managers, which the

prior panel spoke to briefly, and has a similar conference scheduled

for September 23, 2008 for union officials.

The CAA establishes a confidential and mandatory dispute resolution process for covered employees that is implemented by the Office of Compliance as a neutral and independent agency. The statutorily mandated process requires initial counseling and mediation.

Our mediation program, a proven method of alternative dispute

resolution, has been highly successful in assisting both employees

and employing offices come to resolution without the cost and burdens of litigation.

Not included among our core functions is the authority to review

and comment on the adequacy of any particular diversity plan, nor

do we develop those plans for our covered community. However, we

do have authority to conduct educational programs tailored to the

specific diversity needs of our covered community. We seek always

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to serve as an expert resource and an educator and trainer on the

rights and protections afforded by the CAA.

I appreciate the question that you asked, Mr. Chairman, on

training that our office can provide. Our office is always looking to

improve our education and outreach program.

The point that I would like to make about our education and outreach program is that the training that we provide is provided from

our perspective. What we would like to do and what the office has

efforts to provide at this—as we speak is engage the employing offices and employees in a survey so that they can tell us what their

needs are. They can share with us their understanding of their

rights and responsibilities under the CAA so that we can target

and focus our training efforts to the needs of our stakeholders.

This survey is being implemented now. It is on our Web site. It

was sent out in our newsletter, so that all employees of the legislative branch were made aware of the survey. And hopefully that information will help us to target our efforts and training.

We are here to serve you and to assist you in ensuring a fair,

safe, and accessible workplace for the thousands of legislative

branch employees and visitors to the Capitol complex. We are constrained in our aspirations only by resources to do more and better

education and outreach. With additional resources, our agency

could provide enhanced outreach to our stakeholders and district

offices, additional publications and materials, and more training

sessions and conferences. The Office of Compliance applauds the

work of this subcommittee in seeking to ensure that legislative

branch agencies’ personnel policies and practices are both fair and

promote the opportunity for all employees to maximize their contributions to their agency. The Office of Compliance is dedicated to

those same ends, and we seek to assist the subcommittee in its efforts.

I am available to answer any questions you may have.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much. And we appreciate your testimony.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Chrisler follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Ms. Smith.

STATEMENT OF JANET CRENSHAW SMITH

Ms. SMITH. Chairman Davis and members of the subcommittee,

thank you for the invitation to testify regarding the GAO African

American and Caucasian analyst performance assessment study. In

March, I testified before this committee on tasks one and two.

Today I am pleased to return to provide the final report, and I will

highlight just a few points.

As background, the Ivy team performed the tasks, the study in

three tasks. Task one was the statistical analysis; task two was an

assessment and comparison of education, engagement roles, background, etc., of new hires; and task three was collecting more qualitative data on the analysts and raters, the interview focused

groups, and also an assessment of best practices. We completed the

study in April 2008 and presented our findings.

Ivy concluded that the factors that contribute to the average performance ratings disparities between African American and Caucasian analysts fell into three categories: human capital, processes

and management practices, GAO’s culture, and the significance of

race.

With regard to human capital processes and management practices, GAO has invested a significant amount of resources, result

in human capital processes including performance management,

that do incorporate industry best practices. There are opportunities

to improve these processes, including recruiting, the role of the

PDP advisor, and training and development. And also, some of

these processes, while best practices, are executed inconsistently,

which may attribute to the ratings disparity.

With regards to GAO’s culture, GAO has a distinct culture. It is

an intense environment where people are committed to meeting the

mission with limited resources and with a focus on excellence.

There is a GAO way, and some of its elements are both unwritten

and subtle.

The benefits of GAO’s culture, that it is high energy, high quality

work, with a consistent look and feel and demand for more from

their satisfied clients. However, the same culture drives supervisors to manage production, not people.

Regarding the significance of race, statistical analysis show there

are differences in ratings between the African American analysts

and Caucasian analysts in general by competency, pay band, team

location, regardless of the race of the rater, and those differences

are statistically significant. While it is clear that race is a factor

in the ratings disparity, the causes for the ratings disparity are not

clear.

The statistical analysis didn’t determine the disparity between

the actual performance and the rated performance. It also didn’t

address the impact of subjectivity on the disparity. Beliefs about

these causes and disparities vary also by race. Caucasians were

more likely to question the quality of the recruiting process, while

African Americans were more likely to question the quality, integrity, and execution of the performance appraisal system itself.

The workplace experience also varied by race. Ivy’s final report,

as you have heard, provided more than 20 recommendations to the

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GAO. Many of those recommendations require a shift in GAO’s culture, and culture change does not happen quickly. Some of those

recommendations included that GAO take steps to create a more

inclusive workplace culture; that they address the race issue directly; and they provide skills training, not just awareness training.

We also recommended that GAO encourage more balance between managing the work and developing people; that there should

be a culture of shared accountability. We recommend that GAO

take steps to make the unwritten rules of the workplace more

clear; that they do it through analysis, communication, mentoring,

and training. We also recommended that GAO reassess how it evaluates performance.

As the president of an 18-year-old management consulting firm,

I know that success comes by moving beyond strategy and taking

action. We therefore encourage GAO to create performance metrics

to monitor their progress.

Although many of our recommendations require a shift in GAO’s

culture, overall GAO’s senior leaders and employees at all levels

have been receptive. Ivy will be involved in some aspects of the implementation of our recommendations. As you heard earlier in Mr.

Stroman’s and Ms. Garcia’s testimonies, GAO has also taken steps

independently to act positively on our recommendations.

This study centered on issues that are critical to GAO’s work

force, and I also believe that it has more broad implications to the

entire Federal work force. Issues of fairness, diversity, integrity, inclusion, and transparency should be considered by all agencies.

These issues impact the performance of our government, and they

impact the experiences and the careers of employees.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared statement. Thank

you for the opportunity to testify on this critical matter.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much. And we certainly appreciate

the work that you and your company does and the work that you

have done.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Smith follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Ms. Chrisler, let me ask you, what happens when

there is a complaint; and say if the complaint is found to be valid

or there is validity, what happens as a result of that?

Ms. CHRISLER. Mr. Chairman, there are a number of results that

could come about after having a finding that a complaint is valid.

Let me just give a little background about our program and what

it is we offer and the process that we have.

When an employee approaches our office with an inquiry, with

an allegation of a violation of the CAA, we offer the counseling program, which is strictly confidential; we offer mediation, which is

also confidential. And if the issue is not resolved in mediation or

in counseling, then the employee has the opportunity to move forward to a complaint, either an administrative complaint filed with

our office that goes before a hearing officer for an evidentiary hearing, or a civil action in court that goes through a court proceeding.

In answer to your question, once a determination has been made

that the allegation of the violation of the Congressional Accountability Act is in fact an act of discrimination, a hearing officer or

a court could award a number of things for the employee: could

award damages, could award reinstatement, could award selection

to the position for which there was a nonselection.

Going more to the matters at hand before this subcommittee,

perhaps what could happen within the agency is that the agency

take a look at some of the scenarios and circumstances that gave

rise to the allegation where there was a finding of discrimination.

Our office and our agency is not involved in that process in the

aftermath of the finding of discrimination.

What we do is provide the process, the fair and neutral and impartial proceeding for the employee through our dispute resolution

program. The education and outreach components of our statutory

mandate does provide the agency with the ability and the authority

to reach out to the agencies’ employing offices and employees, and

provide training and provide workshops and provide conferences to

help assist them in addressing any of the issues that were part of

the circumstances that gave rise to the allegation.

Mr. DAVIS. Does the agency receive any kind of instruction or

recommendation? And, if so, where does it come from.

Ms. CHRISLER. Would you explain your question for me, Mr.

Chairman?

Mr. DAVIS. The question is: Does the agency receive any kind of

instruction? Does anybody say to the agency, you have been found

to not be in compliance with the Accountability Act, and here’s

what we think you ought to do. Or, here’s what you should do. Or,

here’s what you must do.

Ms. CHRISLER. Thank you for that clarification.

Once there is a determination that there has been a violation of

the Congressional Accountability Act, if there is an administrative

complaint filed—and I want to be clear in the distinction between

the administrative complaint and the civil action, because our

agency is not involved in the processing of the claim once it reaches

district court. We are not even privy sometimes to the filing of a

complaint in district court. But once there is a finding of a violation

of the CAA through an administrative proceeding, the hearing officer will render a decision with an analysis of the facts and analysis

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of the law and a determination as to why the circumstances that

brought about—equal to a violation of the act.

In the hearing officer’s decision, there is the remedy that is provided to the employee. Going beyond that, our agency does not step

into the employing office and say, Now that this finding has been

entered against you, you should do this or you must do that. Our

act is very specific with respect to the jurisdiction that we have,

with respect to dispute resolution programs, and we don’t have that

authority. However, our education and outreach program does

allow us to hold these trainings and workshops in other seminars

and other venues and functions should an employing office request

our assistance. If the employing office receives the finding and

says, ‘‘Office of Compliance, we would like for you to hold some

training for us,’’ we would be more than happy to sit down with

the employing office and help them work through some of the underlying issues.

Mr. DAVIS. So the employee gets a remedy, but there is nothing

necessarily that will keep the agency from doing the same thing

again to another employee other than the fact that we got caught

this time. And so if individuals don’t continue to—as often happens. I mean, not every person will file a complaint, not every person will followup and follow through. And I am just trying to think

through. Maybe we want to revisit a little bit and see if there is

some way to help the agency to not do the same thing over and

over and over again, as well as getting some remedy for the employee.

I really appreciate you taking me through that process.

Ms. CHRISLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I may add, we do

hope that our proactive programs are helpful to the agencies and

do act as information providing and educating the agencies in different methods that they can use to address issues. At a lower

level, our dispute resolution conference we heard from the testimony was very helpful and very beneficial. Hopefully, our baseline

survey that we have implemented, that we are hoping to get data

back on, will also inform us of other areas where we can be helpful.

So in addressing the issue that you so eloquently raised, we hope

that our actions and our efforts through our education and outreach program are helping the agencies be proactive, and not waiting to get to a point where there is a complaint filed and there is

a hearing and there is a finding against the agency before they say,

OK, well now what do we do? We want our efforts to help on the

front end and not on the back end.

Mr. DAVIS. I recognize that you have not been with the agency

an extended period of time. But have you had a chance to look at

data and notice any trends that might relate to the last 5 years as

to whether or not there is an increase in complaints, or are they

about remaining the same or a decrease in any of the areas?

Ms. CHRISLER. Thank you for that. And I have not been with the

agency for an extended period of time, but I have looked at some

of the data that we have over the last few years. Let me preface

this by saying we only see the numbers from our perspective. We

only see a portion of the entire circumstances. So we don’t see the

agency’s recruitment efforts. We don’t see the internal informal

programs that they have to address issues of discrimination and to

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address other workplace issues. So we do see the numbers only of

what’s brought to our office.

But from what it is that we have seen, there is no significant

changes in the numbers over the years to suggest a trend one way

or the other.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. Smith, let me ask you. You found there to be significant differences in the ratings of African Americans and Caucasian or nonAfrican American staff at the GAO. As you found, or as this was

revealed to you through your efforts, what came to mind in terms

of your thinking about all of the individuals that obviously got

hired. I mean, they all had certain prerequisites in order to merit

hiring. They had all been to school, they have all basically got the

same kind of credentials coming in. What went through your mind?

Ms. SMITH. Well, Mr. Chairman, this was what I consider to be

groundbreaking work because the nature of the study allowed for

the opportunity to go about answering the question in a very structured manner. So the statistical analysis allowed the opportunity

to really isolate all of the factors that may have contributed to the

performance, the average performance ratings disparity.

So at first what went through my mind was well, let’s break it

out to see what might be contributing, and the regression analysis

allowed us to do that. So we could look to see, was it degree? Was

it work background? What might be causing that difference? We

were able to, through the data—and it was really important to perform the data analysis, because that allows people to really understand when it is looking at the data versus only talking to people

to get their perspective. And the data showed that race indeed was

a factor.

Now, what caused that? One of the most interesting things to

witness was to be in those focus groups where we had focus groups

with Caucasian analysts and then African American analysts, with

Caucasian raters and then African American raters. And, again,

the difference just in the voices in answering the question why the

difference in performance ratings again was divided by race, such

that Caucasian analysts, Caucasian raters are more likely to believe that it was a matter of the talent, the actual performance,

while African American analysts and raters are more likely to believe that it was something about the system. Although, across the

board, both African Americans and Caucasians said there is a lot

of subjectivity in this system.

The answer is it is probably a ‘‘both and,’’ both in terms of something about the performance—again, we were never able to determine is the actual performance consistent with the actual performance rating? So does the performance rating that says you are a

great writer, is it actually consistent with you being a great writer,

for both African American analysts and Caucasian analysts?

So the answer, we believe, is very much tied to developing people, understanding what it takes to do well, those unwritten subtle

things that are going on, and learning to look at all kinds of differences not as less than but indeed as more than. And in terms

of how do you actually address this, you address this through having a clear plan that is focused on organizational improvement, and

then holding people accountable for executing that plan.

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Mr. DAVIS. If you were asked to make some recommendations to

GAO in terms of saying here’s what I believe or we believe that you

can actually do to strengthen diversification throughout your agency, what would you say to them?

Ms. SMITH. Well, we had the opportunity to make recommendations and there were more than 20. I think one of the key pieces

is starting with an understanding that we must do this for our survival, because we are already a diverse agency and we need to be

more inclusive. There is a lot of talent here. They couldn’t have entered the work force unless they were talented. Let’s understand

what it really takes to do well here, and let’s do it across the board,

because we don’t know that the Caucasian analysts who got high

performance ratings performed better than those who didn’t—even

inside, even inside race. So let’s understand what it takes to do

well here, and make sure that everybody knows.

The beauty of transparency is if everybody knows the rules, then

those who really perform well will be the ones that are the highest

performers. If everybody knows the rules, then let’s measure true

behavior, true performance, and the agency wins. And when you

look at diversity as that mission-critical enabler, that is when organizations do well, because they understand that we need the true

talent to be leading this organization.

Mr. DAVIS. Well, let me just thank both of you, as we thank all

of our witnesses for the evening. We may have some additional

questions that we would like to submit to you and ask if you could

respond to those in writing.

I appreciate greatly the work in which you are engaged, all of

you, because I firmly believe that the greatest of all human desires

is the desire to be treated fairly, equally, with equal protection

under the law, and the notion that you will experience a sense of

equal justice and that man is in absolute pursuit of that notion.

And that as long as there are people who feel that is not happening

to them and for them, then there will be the divergent notions and

attitudes about our country, about America, and about how far

America has actually come.

I think of the athletes who, if you hit 800 home runs, everybody

knows that you are a superstar athlete. But if you were a minority

athlete and you were kind of like a journeyman utility player, a

guy who could make it but wasn’t a superstar, you generally didn’t

stick around too long. I mean, before you knew it, you were back

on the sand lot playing in pickup games. You had some skill, but

you weren’t a superstar and you just didn’t stay long. And I know

athletes who just had that kind of comparative resentment when

they think of other players that they have known that they felt

they were just as talented as. I mean, they were all scoring six

points a game, which weren’t that many, but they stayed a little

bit longer.

So let me thank you as we struggle with this highly complex

issue. We appreciate all of you coming, we appreciate your testimony, and we appreciate those whose endurance have kept you

with us into the evening. So thank you very much. And this hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:48 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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