U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

31–422 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018

WORKFORCE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: 

ANALYZING THE PRESIDENT’S MANAGEMENT 

AGENDA 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MAY 16, 2018 

Serial No. 115–96 

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

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov 

http://oversight.house.gov 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

Trey Gowdy, South Carolina, Chairman 

John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee 

Darrell E. Issa, California 

Jim Jordan, Ohio 

Mark Sanford, South Carolina 

Justin Amash, Michigan 

Paul A. Gosar, Arizona 

Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee 

Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 

Thomas Massie, Kentucky 

Mark Meadows, North Carolina 

Ron DeSantis, Florida 

Dennis A. Ross, Florida 

Mark Walker, North Carolina 

Rod Blum, Iowa 

Jody B. Hice, Georgia 

Steve Russell, Oklahoma 

Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin 

Will Hurd, Texas 

Gary J. Palmer, Alabama 

James Comer, Kentucky 

Paul Mitchell, Michigan 

Greg Gianforte, Montana 

Vacancy 

Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

Carolyn B. Maloney, New York 

Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Columbia 

Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri 

Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts 

Jim Cooper, Tennessee 

Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia 

Robin L. Kelly, Illinois 

Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan 

Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey 

Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois 

Jamie Raskin, Maryland 

Jimmy Gomez, Maryland 

Peter Welch, Vermont 

Matt Cartwright, Pennsylvania 

Mark DeSaulnier, California 

Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands 

John P. Sarbanes, Maryland 

SHERIA CLARKE, Staff Director 

WILLIAM MCKENNA, General Counsel 

KEVIN ORTIZ, Professional Staff Member 

JULIE DUNNE, Government Operations Subcommittee Staff Director 

SHARON CASEY, Deputy Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on May 16, 2018 ............................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

PANEL I 

The Honorable Margaret Weichert, Deputy Director for Management, U.S. 

Office of Management and Budget 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 5 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 7 

The Honorable Jeff Pon, Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 12 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 14 

PANEL II 

Mr. Bill Valdez, President, Senior Executives Association 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 41 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 43 

Mr. Max Stier, President and CEO, Partnership for Public Service 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 61 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 64 

Ms. Jacqueline Simon, Policy Director, American Federation of Government 

Employees 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 76 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 78 

APPENDIX 

Letter of December 19, 2017, from Mr. Cummings to Office of Management 

and Budget submitted by Ms. Maloney .............................................................. 104 

Letter of February 16, 2018, from Office of Management and Budget to 

Mr. Cummings submitted by Ms. Maloney ........................................................ 106 

The National Treasury Employees Union Statement for the Record submitted 

by Mr. Connolly .................................................................................................... 108 

Response from Ms. Weichert, Office of Management and Budget, to Questions 

for the Record ....................................................................................................... 116 

Response from Mr. Pon, Office of Personnel Management, to Questions for 

the Record ............................................................................................................. 119 

Response from Mr. Stier, Partnership for Public Service, to Questions for 

the Record ............................................................................................................. 133 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER

KING-6430 with DISTILLER
(1) 

WORKFORCE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: 

ANALYZING THE PRESIDENT’S MANAGEMENT 

AGENDA 

Wednesday, May 16, 2018 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:30 p.m., in Room 2154, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Trey Gowdy [chairman of the 

committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Gowdy, Jordan, Amash, Meadows, 

DeSantis, Walker, Blum, Hice, Russell, Grothman, Hurd, Palmer, 

Mitchell, Cummings, Maloney, Norton, Clay, Lynch, Connolly, Lawrence, Krishnamoorthi, Raskin, DeSaulnier, and Sarbanes. 

Chairman GOWDY. The Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform will come to order. Without objection, the presiding member is authorized to declare a recess at any time. We do expect a 

vote series around 2:00 this afternoon. At that time, we will recess 

for the duration of votes, likely around 30 minutes, and then reconvene shortly thereafter. 

With that, I will recognize the gentleman from Maryland, the 

ranking member of the committee, Mr. Cummings, for his opening 

statement. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And welcome to our witnesses today for this very important hearing. 

If the United States Government were a business, it would be in 

the service industry. Most of the expenses in the service industry 

are for salaries and retirement benefits. In other words, most of the 

expenses are for the workers who provide the services. 

The people of the United States Civil Service are secretaries; 

they are the firefighters; the scientists, and attorneys; you know 

the ones, the janitors that are cleaning the bathroom, the nurses, 

and the doctors. They direct air traffic to keep our skies the safest 

in the world. They keep our military planes, helicopters, and vehicles in optimal condition. 

They care for our veterans and our senior citizens. They ensure 

that our Social Security benefits are delivered on time and accurately. They enforce the laws of the Nation, and protect the environment for generations yet unborn. 

They are the ones that pick up the dead bodies. Come on now. 

They do the jobs so often that nobody wants to do. And when the 

government is not working as it should for our citizens, they blow 

the whistle out of a solemn sense of duty and patriotism. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
2 

Without those brave Federal employees, this committee could not 

perform our job of oversight. 

But government is not a business. The government’s purpose is 

to promote the interests of the American people, not to make a 

profit. 

Federal workers perform vital and essential tasks for our Nation, 

without fear or favor. Our dedicated civil servants do this work 

without any intention of getting rich. 

In other words, they can work a lifetime, quite often, and make 

far less than they would have made had they been in private industry. But they feel a duty, they feel a calling to help people. They 

are public servants, and they support middle-class families. 

Unfortunately, it appears that President Trump does not value 

these workers or the critical services they provide to the American 

people. Today’s hearing will expose the aggressive attacks the 

Trump administration is waging on middle-class Federal workers 

and their agencies. 

Earlier this month, the Trump administration submitted to Congress a draconian proposal to cut more than $143 billion over the 

next 10 years from the pay and benefits of middle-class Federal 

workers, retirees, future retirees, and even their survivors. 

The Trump plan could eliminate, or would eliminate, cost-of-living-adjustments for current and future retirees in the Federal Employee Retirement System, and it will reduce COLAs for other retirees and survivors, including children who suffered a loss of a 

parent. This provision would erode the value of retirement income, 

and would not even keep pace with inflation. We can be a better 

country than that. 

The Trump plan would impose higher costs on employees for 

their pensions without any corresponding increase in retirement 

benefits. I don’t care how you look at it; this is a wage cut. 

The Trump plan would reduce retirement pay by replacing the 

existing system, which is based on 3 consecutive years of highest 

pay salary, with a system based on 5 years of highest pay. This 

provision would lower the retirement pay for many Federal employees. 

Enacting the changes that President Trump demands under the 

guise of reform would betray the promises our Nation has made to 

Federal workers who dedicate their lives to public service, as well 

as their families. It also would severely degrade recruitment, retention, and the performance of our civil service. 

This is not the first time Republicans had degraded the paychecks of public servants. Over the past decade, they have cut Federal pay and benefits by $195 billion, according to the nonpartisan 

Congressional Budget Office. They instituted a 3-year pay freeze 

that costs Federal workers $98 billion. They increased required employee contributions to Federal retirement programs twice, and cut 

employee take-home pay by an estimated $21 billion. 

More than 755,000 Federal employees were furloughed due to sequestration cuts, costing Federal employees more than $1 billion. 

And Federal workers received pay adjustments that were lower 

than specified by statute from 2014 through 2018, costing them an 

additional $75 billion. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
3 

What makes the Trump administration’s proposal so disappointing is that it comes after the President and the Republicans 

in Congress enacted $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for wealthy individuals 

and corporations. Who is going to fund those tax cuts for the rich? 

Middle class workers, that’s who. And that is just absolutely 

wrong. 

President Trump has demonstrated contempt for public servants 

from his first day in office when he prohibited Federal employees 

from filling vacant positions. He has attacked government watchdogs, ethics officials, law enforcement officials, and career government employees. His administration has issued illegal gag orders 

to try to stop whistleblowers from telling Congress what their 

agencies are really doing, and his agencies are attacking employee 

unions that protect whistleblowers from retaliation. 

We need to reject this latest proposal in a string of terrible proposals, this sabotage of the United States civil service. We need to 

begin building back up the confidence of our Federal employees. 

They have already paid billions to help pay down the debt. They 

should not be asked now to help fund tax cuts for the rich. 

And I say to our Federal employees, thank you for all that you 

do every day and that you are doing today, for you are giving your 

blood, sweat, and tears to lift us all up. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentleman from Maryland yields. The 

gentleman from North Carolina, who has worked tirelessly on this 

issue, Mr. Meadows, is recognized for an opening statement. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership 

on this effort and, certainly, for the witnesses who are here today 

as we start to look at this. 

Certainly, on March 20 of this year, the administration released 

the President’s Management Agenda. As we well know, that agenda lays out the administration’s long-term vision for improving the 

performance of the Federal Government; states the specific goals of 

this administration to improve the ability of agencies to deliver 

mission outcomes. And I think that is a critical point, is as we look 

at those outcomes, it is certainly something that all Americans can 

welcome, provide excellent service. 

In this very hearing, we have had a number of hearings where, 

with the IRS, and the ranking member and I have said that the 

service levels in terms of getting a live person is not something 

that we ought to be bragging about. So as we look at that, it is 

really about being an effective steward of the American taxpayers’ 

dollars. 

This administration has identified three key drivers of this transformation: Information technology, modernization, the data accountability and the transparency, and then certainly, the workforce for the 21st century. All three of these drivers are certainly 

interconnected, and success in improving that performance of the 

Federal Government cannot be achieved without progress in all 

three of those areas. 

Today, however, we will focus on that third driver, developing a 

workforce for the 21st century, which is a core jurisdictional responsibility of this committee under the House rules. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
4 

Federal employees underpin nearly all of the operations of the 

government, and we must ensure that we continue to hire and retain the best and brightest. 

I have been very disappointed to find that many times, Members 

of Congress only go to Federal agencies to complain, not to assess 

what is going on; and so, I have found it very illuminating and very 

rewarding, quite frankly, with our Federal workforce when we go 

in, to actually have conversations with the people that do the work. 

And I have been fascinated by their ability to give great suggestions on how we might improve the efficiency of the Federal workforce. 

In fact, I would also say, their recommendations are better than 

any that would come out of this committee on either side of the 

aisle, because they understand both the barriers, the roadblocks, 

and also the disincentives that we have within our 40-year old civil 

service way of doing business. 

So I want to thank both of you. As we look at this particular 

issue, I think probably the most important thing that we can do 

is stay laser-focused on the ultimate goal of this third rail, which 

is looking at how do we retain, how do we make sure that we properly compensate—and yes, you are hearing that from a Republican—and how do we make sure that as we deal with all of this, 

whether it is the annual survey that we sometimes—in fact, we 

get, the annual survey—I see my good friend in the audience here. 

As we look at the surveys, how do we actually take those and make 

an action point? 

This committee is committed to do that in a bipartisan fashion, 

but I also think that it is going to require many of us to perhaps 

pull away the old thinking that we have that it has to be this way 

or that way or no way, and work in a real bipartisan way to make 

sure that we have an effective workforce. 

So I look forward to hearing from both of the witnesses, and I 

thank the chairman for his leadership. 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentleman from North Carolina yields 

back. 

We are pleased to introduce our first panel of witnesses: The 

Honorable Margaret Weichert, Deputy Director for Management in 

the Office of Management and Budget, and the Honorable Jeff Pon, 

Director of the Office of Personnel Management. 

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn before 

they testify, so I would ask you to please stand and raise your right 

hands. 

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony that you are about to 

give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 

so help you God? 

Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

I think you are both familiar with our timing and lights, so rest 

assured that your opening statements will be read by all the members, and you are welcome to take 5 minutes to summarize. We will 

recognize you first, Ms. Weichert. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
5 

PANEL I 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF HON. MARGARET WEICHERT 

Ms. WEICHERT. Chairman Gowdy, Ranking Member Cummings, 

and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to 

appear before you today to discuss the President’s Management 

Agenda, or PMA, which is designed to modernize government for 

the 21st century. 

Most Americans don’t think about the Federal Government every 

day, but when they need government services, they expect them to 

work. The PMA lays out a long-term vision for effective government that achieves missions, and enhances the services upon which 

the American people depend. By modernizing the Federal Government in key areas, we will improve the ability of agencies to deliver 

mission outcomes, provide excellent service, and effectively steward 

taxpayer resources. 

The public believes that the Federal Government serves critical 

roles, and in some areas, performs them well. Yet, public trust in 

the Federal Government continues to decline, currently sitting at 

near-historic lows. While the Federal Government’s business is to 

serve the American people in core mission areas, this becomes too 

bureaucratic and complex to meet the needs of the 21st century. 

The Federal Government still operates with many capabilities 

and processes established in the mid-20th century, if not earlier, 

despite dramatic changes in technology, society, and the needs of 

the American people in the digital age. No matter how well-intentioned, complicated and duplicative Federal processes can create 

confusion among veterans, farmers, job seekers and others trying 

to interact with their government. Those in government must recognize that citizens today are not well-served by the same approaches, technology, and skill sets of the past. We face complex 

and interconnected challenges that cannot be solved via siloed efforts. 

If we want to get traction on fixing real barriers to change, we 

must use broader system-level thinking to address aging technology infrastructure, disconnected data, and an outmoded civil 

service framework. 

So modernizing government for the 21st century requires work in 

three interconnected areas: Modern information technology; data 

accountability and transparency; and a modern workforce that enables senior leaders and front-line managers to align staff skills 

with evolving mission needs. Our management of the workforce 

will have to be more nimble and agile with the capacity to reskill 

and redeploy the workers we already have to keep pace with ever 

faster change. 

We cannot underestimate how tightly woven these three areas 

are, or the extent to which people are the linchpins of success. The 

Federal Government is the largest single direct employer in the 

Nation. Taxpayers invest more than $200 billion annually in the 

productivity of our 2.1 million civilian Federal employees. An even 

larger ‘‘indirect’’ workforce of people employed by contractors supVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:11 Nov 05, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\31422.TXT APRIL

KING-6430 with DISTILLER
6 

ports mission work. We owe it to the public to ensure that we are 

spending these dollars wisely. 

And it is people who drive the business of government. We can 

purchase new IT systems, but do our Federal employees have the 

optimal skills and tools to negotiate contracts and keep computer 

networks safe and secure? We can turn to data to drive results, but 

do we have enough data scientists who know what the data means 

and can figure out how to fill in our knowledge gaps? 

As the majority of our career civil servants approach retirement 

age, have we positioned the Federal Government to compete effectively for the next generation of highly-qualified individuals needed 

for key roles? 

Today, the overarching answer to these questions is no. Why? It 

starts with the Federal civil service system. The job classification 

system is outdated and unwieldy. The compensation structure is 

overly rigid. The lengthy hiring process often results in top job candidates taking jobs elsewhere before we can extend an offer. Employees and managers alike agree that the existing employee performance management system fails to reward the best and address 

the worst employees. 

The reality is that today’s Federal personnel system is a relic of 

an earlier era. It is rooted in the Pendleton Civil Service Reform 

Act of 1883, and the Classification Act of 1923. The Civil Service 

Reform Act of 1978 made a series of changes, including creating 

the Office of Personnel Management, but even these reforms were 

enacted long before many current Federal workers were even of 

working age. 

In the intervening years, a complicated web of process requirements, and confusing suboptimal policies have resulted in an archaic system that does not address the needs of the Federal workforce. 

So a reexamination of the Federal human resource function is 

needed. Healthy organizations are designed to change and adapt, 

and the United States government is no exception. In ratifying the 

Constitution, our Founders sought to establish a durable governing 

framework that would ‘‘establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.’’ 

Our Federal workforce goes to work each day dedicated to this 

constitutional vision, so we must take care to ensure that existing 

government policies and procedures help us to better achieve the 

Founders’ goals, and do not hinder the workforce in pursuing the 

mission, service, and stewardship goals of government. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Weichert follows:] 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
7 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 1 here 31422.001
8 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 2 here 31422.002
9 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 3 here 31422.003
10 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 4 here 31422.004
11 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 5 here 31422.005
12 

Chairman GOWDY. Yes, ma’am. Ms. Weichert, thank you. 

Mr. Pon, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF T.H. PON 

Mr. PON. Chairman Gowdy, Ranking Member Cummings, and 

members of this committee, my name is Jeff T. H. Pon. I am the 

Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 

Today is my first time before this committee as the Director of 

OPM. I am excited to be here to discuss the President’s Management Agenda. This is an especially dynamic topic for this administration which, under the leadership of President Trump, is championing civil service reform concepts. 

Working together with the Office of Management and Budget, 

Margaret and I, and agencies and partners in developing the rollout of the PMA, I believe the work is off to a strong start. 

The civil service system is long overdue for an update. The last 

time there was meaningful overhaul of Federal personnel systems 

was in 1978. President Trump is the sixth President since overhauling the Federal personnel system, and then there was a lot of 

change between the intervening years. However, those rules governing the civil service have not kept up to pace. 

Today, Federal hiring and our pay systems are not simple. As 

the private sector has found out adaptive ways to market sensitivities, the Federal personnel system has remained relatively unchanged and static. Federal jobs can take sometimes more than a 

year to fill, and hiring managers often are frustrated by what they 

perceive as layers of rules and cumbersome and inefficient processes. 

Specific challenges can emerge when the Federal Government 

needs to provide a targeting hiring strategy to address emerging 

needs and threats. This is not to say that we should abandon the 

core principles of our current Federal personnel system, and will 

remain a strong advocate for those principles. 

For example, we all agree that merit systems principles and the 

existence of Federal employment commitments such as those made 

to our Nation’s veterans should continue to hold strong. While retaining these principles, though, we have an opportunity to 

strengthen our execution of the Federal employee experience. 

Today’s workforce is increasingly shifting towards a ‘‘gig’’ economy, where employees work for shorter periods of time in missionfocused areas. Our ability to accommodate this in the Federal work 

employment is constrained by our rules and system of design at the 

time when most workers don’t expect to sign up for a long career. 

The current rules can stymie innovation and, in addition, like 

fostering public-private exchanges between the Federal Government and the private sector. We should also examine the current 

practices to bringing in students and recent grads to be confident 

we are providing the best opportunities for individuals starting new 

chapters in their careers. By addressing bureaucratic hurdles, we 

can better align the Federal Government’s practices and the practices to the private sector. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
13 

Further, as workers enter their careers, we should prize mobility 

over stability. We should seek avenues to give talented individuals 

opportunities to work in short-term jobs with portable benefits. 

As OPM modernizes key elements of the civil service, our IT systems will need to keep pace. The world is becoming increasingly 

paperless, and to address this IT challenge, OPM will create a government-wide employee digital record that will make governmentwide H.R. Data accessible in a secure cloud environment, and employees’ records will include data from various stages of an employee’s career, which will then be available to the employees’ access 

for anytime anywhere. 

We will do this by identifying cost savings areas and opportunities for building greater protections for our systems, while retiring 

existing systems as better ones become available. 

As we move forward, our best resource will always be our people. 

The Federal Government should honor high performers and those 

with mission-critical skills through creative, innovative, and mechanisms that the administration’s proposed workforce fund—the 

workforce fund would allow agencies to better target pay incentives 

for recruitment and retention for top-performing employees with 

critical skill sets. 

Further, through careful planning and consideration of the results presented to each agency through tools like the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, agencies can assess their successes and 

address areas where they may be lagging. 

Finally, in my communications role as Director of OPM, I will 

make regular celebration of our Federal workforce. It will be a cornerstone of my job. Our Federal workers need a strong champion, 

and I am more than proud to fulfill that duty. 

Thank you again for inviting me to testify, and I am happy to 

answer any questions you may have. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Pon follows:] 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
14 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 6 here 31422.006
15 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 7 here 31422.007
16 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 8 here 31422.008
17 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 9 here 31422.009
18 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 10 here 31422.010
19 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 11 here 31422.011
20 

Chairman GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Pon. 

The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized for his questions, Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for 

your opening testimony. 

And so I guess, I ask the obvious question that we continue to 

come to these hearings, we continue to hear great opening statements. Why is this going to be any different than any other time 

in the last 40 years? 

Ms. Weichert. 

Ms. WEICHERT. I think it’s a great question, and I think the 

thing that is different this time is we are really looking at that system-level thinking, so solving problems as complex as the ones that 

we face in balancing mission, service, and stewardship, and in dealing with actually how we deliver services in the digital age is complex, and it can’t be solved in a silo. 

And what I mean by that is, solving people issues without looking at data, solving people issues without looking at the technology 

that those people have to deliver the services that they are there 

to deliver, is not the leading practice. It’s not the leading practice 

for mission delivery, and it’s not the leading practice for serving 

our citizens the way they need to be served. And obviously, it also 

is not the most cost-effective way of delivering those services. 

So really, what’s different is taking this integrated cross-functional view and cross-agency view from an enterprise perspective. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Pon. 

Mr. PON. In human resources we always look for two things in 

candidates: One is, do they do it for a living; and are we lucky to 

have them? 

I do this for a living. I am a human resource professional for over 

25 years. I am probably one of the only OPM directors that have 

had that significant experience, both Federal, and also in the private sector. 

I can appreciate a lot of the challenges that we have in the Federal Government; time to hire, background checks, being paperbased. Many of these things can be overcome. It’s not a question 

of technology anymore. We actually have the technology that works 

on a private phone but not on our government phones. We need to 

make that transition, we need to make sure that we have 

projectized-type execution. 

We have start and stops for different things, and that’s what the 

President’s Management Agenda is doing. 

In our 21st Century Workforce Plan, we have subcommittees and 

sub goals with projectized plans, with milestones. We will be able 

to share those progress and results each and every quarter with 

you. 

I am actually proud to be a part of the PMA because I was a part 

of another administration’s PMA, and we have a track record of results and successes, and I look forward to seeing those successes 

on this administration as well. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. One of the tools that I use is actually 

a survey that the Partnership for Public Service actually provides 

to us each and every year. And on there, we have employees who 

identify that one of the—really, the motivator is the fact that senVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:11 Nov 05, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\31422.TXT APRIL

KING-6430 with DISTILLER
21 

ior management won’t take the appropriate action; whether it is either with merit increases, or whether it is with developmental 

needs. So how are we going to do that, especially in light—it was 

interesting, a GAO report showed 99.6 percent of permanent, non 

Senior Executive Service employees, in 2013, were rated fully successful or above, 99.6. Now, I don’t know of any place that is that 

efficient or that good. 

So how do we make sure that our managers are properly recognizing good performance and dealing with those poor performers? 

How do we do that? 

Mr. PON. Well, we have a lot of different programs that are 

teaching our supervisors and managers. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But it’s more than just teaching. 

Mr. PON. It’s a mindset. 

Mr. MEADOWS. If you look at the surveys, it’s not that they don’t 

know; it’s that we have created a system that makes it so laborious 

to deal with it that they don’t deal with it. You know what they 

do? Is they ship them from here to there and there to there, and 

so they never get out of the system, they just go to a different agency. So how are we going to deal with that? 

Mr. PON. We need to streamline the process for making sure that 

if there are performance differences, giving the employee a chance 

to either correct them, but not go from each place, from OIG to 

LRER to EEO. All of these different places have different processes. We need to come up with a single process for streamlining 

that type of a performance conversation so that managers and employees can actually get on an even footing and make sure that 

they can make some tough decisions if they need to. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I have 18 seconds. Ms. Weichert. 

Ms. WEICHERT. Okay, really quickly, we are actually looking at 

how do we use some of the authorities that Congress has given to 

specific agencies like the Veterans Administration, and how we 

might appropriately apply them across the civilian workforce, and 

using the President’s Management Council and the workforce cap 

goal under the PMA to do that. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back. 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentleman from North Carolina yields 

back. The gentlelady from the District of Columbia is recognized. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I thank 

the witnesses for appearing. I was impressed with your testimony. 

I, in a prior life, ran a Federal agency, and at the time, the important issue was efficiency, so I endorse your ideas to make the agencies more efficient. 

I also think you will agree that you can’t have an efficient agency 

if the workforce isn’t right there pulling the oars with you. Can I 

accept that—do you accept that personnel is key to greater efficiency? 

Ms. WEICHERT. Absolutely. 

Mr. PON. Absolutely. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, you are—the Department of Education—this 

really goes to Mr. Pon. The Department of Education is currently 

in negotiations, labor negotiations, and there are very troubling accusations that allege that a toxic work environment exists there. If 

that is what the newspapers are saying, if that’s what the employVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:11 Nov 05, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\31422.TXT APRIL

KING-6430 with DISTILLER
22 

ees are saying, then I’m trying to understand what it will take to 

make sure that your management improvements take hold. 

So I think what I should ask you, Mr. Pon, is, if you can assure 

the committee that negotiations that are apparently now underway 

will proceed in good faith, and that you will meet and negotiate in 

good faith with the union so that we can proceed accordingly with 

the management reforms that you have just discussed. 

Mr. PON. Delegate Norton, thank you for that question. I am a 

relationship builder. Even early on, I have only been here 9 weeks, 

but I have met with labor union presidents, and I will continue to 

do that. It is very important for me to make sure that we have 

lines of communication and relationships. We don’t want to close 

the door on those relationships because it’s very important to hear 

their views. We might not always agree on things, but we will at 

least have the dialog. 

Ms. NORTON. In meeting with the head of the union, I take it you 

said, whatever union it is, were you aware of, and did you discuss 

pending charges of bad faith, that is, formal charges in the negotiations process? 

And Mr. Chairman, may I ask that those charges be made a part 

of this record? 

Mr. PON. We did not in that discussion, and one of the reasons 

why is that education has a local and OPM does not interfere in 

local collective bargaining unit agreements. We represent the Federal. 

Ms. NORTON. I’m talking about at the Department of Education, 

Mr. Pon. 

Mr. PON. I’m with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 

Ms. NORTON. I know it, but that’s the office that has jurisdiction 

over personnel management in all the offices. I’m not talking about 

the D.C. or the Virginia collective bargaining agreement with the 

teachers union here. I am talking about people or employees now 

at the Department of Education. 

You mean you met with the union and you all didn’t even discuss 

this? And the union didn’t raise that they are having a terrible 

time in collective bargaining, and these notions of a toxic work environment didn’t come up? And they said just pleased to meet you, 

Mr. Pon, glad to have you on board. Is that all you discussed? 

In fact, what did you discuss, Mr. Pon? 

Mr. PON. We discussed certain issues such as a pay freeze; such 

as what our intentions were to help train employees and use the 

workforce funds so that we could better up-skill certain people so 

that the—— 

Ms. NORTON. So you didn’t mention the negotiations process now 

underway? 

Mr. PON. We did not discuss that. 

Ms. NORTON. Are you aware that there is no general counsel who 

could prosecute unfair labor charges? And if there is nobody there 

to prosecute them, is there somebody acting so that, in fact, at the 

Federal Labor Relations Authority, if there are such charges, you 

are not hindered in moving ahead because nobody is even processing unfair labor charges? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
23 

Mr. PON. I am aware that there are certain entities like the 

FLRA, as well as the MSPB, awaiting certain people to be confirmed so that those functions—— 

Ms. NORTON. And there is nothing that can be done at the moment then. They are just piling up. There is nobody acting that can 

begin to move on these, and therefore, move toward the management reforms you are suggesting? 

Mr. PON. I believe that those two entities are waiting for confirmed appointees. 

Ms. NORTON. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do need to know 

whether anyone can act; and I ask the committee to find out, if 

there is no general counsel who processes these charges, whether 

or not there is the possibility, perhaps even the committee can tell 

us whether it’s possible that there could be somebody acting, so 

that, in fact, the agency, FLRA, can move forward. I appreciate it, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentlelady’s unanimous consent request 

is without objection. The gentlelady yields back. 

The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the witnesses 

for being here this morning. 

First of all, I sense an indication that senior leaders, and I think 

you, Ms. Weichert, mentioned this. Some of the senior leaders in 

the agencies have reported some frustration over a lack of empowerment and ability to drive the changes that are needed. What 

are some of the impediments that they’re facing? Is it just institutional? I mean, is this something that the culture makes it difficult 

to pursue change? 

Ms. WEICHERT. I think there are a number of factors that affect 

the ability to create the needed change. I think our President’s 

Management Agenda lays out some of the specific elements that 

we’re focused on, and areas where we’re working across agencies to, 

and both across the political and the career representatives in that 

conversation; so things like hiring and firing authorities, things 

like performance-based compensation we’re looking at, we’re looking at attracting and retaining the best employees. 

Mr. PALMER. First of all, the fact that you have got senior leaders 

within the Federal agencies expressing these concerns seems to indicate that they support these changes and, you know, there are 

some that might lead you to believe that this is a great affront to 

Federal employees. And the fact that you also mentioned, specifically, some of these issues about hiring and firing. We’ve had 

issues of employee misconduct, now many of those have come before this committee, in which the people who were involved in the 

misconduct were, frankly, never punished. They were put on paid 

leave. I mean, we had one had stolen thousands of dollars’ worth 

of equipment that was put on paid leave. 

Would that be part of the frustration? 

Ms. WEICHERT. Yeah, that’s absolutely—and you’re exactly right. 

The Deputy Secretaries who work with actually, you know, motivating and driving change through these agencies, they are concretely involved, and I’ll actually mention something super edifying. We launched the President’s Management Agenda from Kansas City on purpose because there are workforce members all over 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
24 

the country doing great work. And we also rolled it out here in D.C. 

after we rolled it out in the heartland. And every place we’ve gone, 

we’ve actually had workers, both front-line employees, and managers, tell us that they’re glad that we’re tackling these issues in 

an integrated way. And we look to collaborate and partner with 

Congress, with the good government community, and unions, to actually make progress on these issues because, as Congressman 

Meadows mentioned, we’ve been looking at these issues for a long 

time. These are nontrivial issues. 

Mr. PALMER. I’m going to lean into this a little bit and maybe 

step on some toes, and make some people uncomfortable. But Mr. 

Pon, you mentioned this, about the need for updating the IT systems; and with the improvements in technology which has improved productivity, one of the concerns that I have heard voiced 

is that you’ve got a lot of employees that frankly don’t have anything to do. They can’t be moved to another position. You can’t lay 

them off; and that we’re basically paying people that really are not 

productive. That’s a yes or no. Is that a fair assessment, or do we 

need to dig into that a little bit more? 

Mr. PON. No, I don’t know if it’s a fair assessment because I believe that the Federal workers can be skilled up. 

Mr. PALMER. I’m not saying they can’t be. I’m saying that you 

have people who are not necessarily productive and that that—— 

Mr. PON. We need to manage that. 

Mr. PALMER. We need to manage that. 

Ms. WEICHERT. And I’ll just jump in here and say there are a 

number of examples where projects that would save the American 

people money and make service better actually don’t get done because we actually can’t move the workforce to do something else 

productive. 

Mr. PALMER. Okay. And there’s a reason I did this, because I 

want to connect the dots here. I don’t think we’re going to really 

improve productivity at the Federal Government until we improve 

both the civil service issues and the IT. And we are running into 

tremendous problems with improper payments, because we have 

got antiquated IT systems; and part of that is being able to attract 

top-notch IT personnel. 

I know a guy in University of Alabama Birmingham, turned out 

some of the top students in cybersecurity, who applied at the Federal Government, but they wait months to even hear back, and 

they are not going to do that. The private sector will snap them up. 

So any suggestions? 

Is this part of what we’re trying to do is get our ability to hire 

the best talent? 

Mr. PON. Yeah, we are. In regards to cybersecurity talent, we’re 

having direct hire authority for many different agencies, with 

cybersecurity in particular. We’re taking a look at those vocations. 

But to your point, you can’t do it in silos. That’s why the President’s Management Agenda has those three gears. It’s data, technology, and the workforce working together. 

Mr. PALMER. I’m really glad we’re having this hearing Mr. Chairman. I’m excited that Mr. Pon is heading up the Office of Personnel 

Management; and Ms. Weichert, we’re very grateful for your work. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
25 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentleman from Alabama yields back. 

The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, is recognized. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The previous gentleman from Alabama mentioned nonproductive 

Federal workers. I’m sitting here in Congress and I can’t remember 

the last time we passed a budget, so we don’t have to look far to 

find some profoundly unproductive Federal workers. We only need 

to look at ourselves. 

Let me ask you, as Ms. Norton raised earlier, there is no counsel 

at the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and so right now, as we 

sit, there are charges and complaints before that authority that the 

Federal Government is refusing to bargain in good faith. But because we have no general counsel there, those charges keep on piling up, so there is no action being taken on them. 

If you think about the foundations of our labor law in this country, private employees have the right to strike. If that was happening to private employees—I used to be president of the Iron 

Workers—I’d take my men and women out on strike until that 

problem was resolved. 

But in its wisdom, Congress has taken away the right to strike 

from Federal workers. Now, the agreement was we would take 

away the right of Federal workers to strike because we were going 

to provide an arbitration and negotiations process through collective bargaining, by which they could address their grievances. Now, 

by nonfeasance, some would say by malfeasance, we have destroyed 

that system. 

So I am asking you, because we have taken the right of those 

people to have their issues resolved peacefully, and in a way that 

keeps the government going, shouldn’t we restore the right to 

strike to Federal employees so they can get some action on their 

issues? 

It’s not rhetorical. I’m asking you. 

Mr. PON. Sir, I believe that the FLRA and the Office of Special 

Counsel, and also the Merit System’s Accountability Board, they 

serve a vital function. In 1978—— 

Mr. LYNCH. They would if they were working. 

Mr. PON. Correct. 

Mr. LYNCH. Right now, we don’t have counsel, so the problem I’m 

pointing to is that the system has broken down, and so these Federal employees are not having their issues addressed as we promised as a government when we took away their right to strike. And 

I’m just saying, fair is fair. If we’re not going to put a system in 

place where they can have their rights protected and their grievances addressed, do we not owe them a restoration of their right 

to strike? 

Mr. PON. I believe that those entities need to be working—— 

Mr. LYNCH. Me too. 

Mr. PON. —and be staffed up so that they can serve their function. 

Mr. LYNCH. Are we working on that? 

Mr. PON. As appropriate. 

Ms. WEICHERT. Nominations have been submitted by the President, so we are waiting on them. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
26 

Mr. LYNCH. How long has it been? How long have we been without a general counsel over there? It’s been a while. 

Mr. PON. To the best of my knowledge, I do not know the specific 

dates, but it has been an extended time. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Let me jump to something else. We have got 

this new policy at the VA. And originally, it was to address some 

of the substandard care that we have been seeing in some of our 

VA hospitals. There were a couple of very troubling cases. So we 

put in a new system to get rid of workers that weren’t measuring 

up. 

But the way the system—I have been following the data, and the 

data indicate that we are firing people who are food service workers, very lower-level housekeepers, custodians, like I say, you 

know, people that have nothing to do with why the law was passed. 

And I’m just curious about your own assessment of whether or not 

the law is being employed as intended? 

Mr. PON. Sir, I think that the law was broad in terms of giving 

VA the authority to implement a performance management system 

across the whole entire Department and, in that application, all 

employees were under this system. 

Mr. LYNCH. I understand that. But in the debate here in Congress, it was to help with the care of our veterans, to make sure 

they got the excellent care that they deserve and have earned by 

their courageous service. Here, we have random employees just 

being fired right off the bat. We have very little in terms of a grievance procedure for these employees as well. It’s not what we talked 

about, and I’m just curious if there was any sense of refinement of 

that policy that you saw that might be needed. That’s all. 

I know that my time has expired and the chairman has been 

very generous, and I yield back. 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman 

from Georgia is recognized. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This will go to both of you. Ms. Weichert, I’ll begin with you. 

How would you characterize the relationship between Federal 

unions and the administration today? 

Ms. WEICHERT. So the administration supports the right of the 

Federal workers to organize, and we would like to have a productive dialogue on the items around the workforce of the 21st century 

that are critical, both to the workers themselves, but also to the 

American people. 

I think the reality is there’s a lot of partisan positioning that has 

made that difficult; but I would absolutely and genuinely say we 

believe that we need all of the people who care about good government and helping us deliver good government through the people 

in our workforce, that we invite those people to the table. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. You kind of went around the issue. 

Mr. Pon, how would you characterize the relationship between 

Federal unions and the administration? 

Mr. PON. I think they’re not so good right now. I’m trying to 

build a relationship with the union. Since I am new to the position 

of OPM Director, I’m wanting to meet with them, hear what they 

have to say about our ideas, make sure that there is open dialogue 

so that they can help us and we can help them on the things that 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
27 

we agree on. There’s not too much right now that we can agree on, 

but at least we’re having the talks that we can disagree on. I think 

that’s a good first step for us to do, so that we can have some common understanding of what we can mutually work on. I look forward to making sure that we can change the next 40 years with 

employees groups. 

Mr. HICE. I do too. Let me go on with some further questions because, I mean, you’re correct. The relationship is not good. The 

unions are fighting the President on almost every one of the issues 

right now that we’re even discussing here today. So what are the 

challenges in trying to manage the relationship between unions 

and Federal managers? 

Mr. PON. I think it’s really because we have been in a system of 

government that has operated the ways in which it has for quite 

some time, layering on different types of bargaining agreements, 

layering on the different types of rules and regulations for due 

process. These things need to be taken a look at because it is very 

cumbersome. 

Managers that we visited around the country have said the one 

thing that you need to do is make sure that you manage bad performers. And I hope everybody can agree, we need to manage out 

bad performers. But the good performers, the people that have 

great skills, the people that are the civil service, I want to hold 

that up and make sure that they are held up in esteem. 

Mr. HICE. Yes. And it makes it very difficult to manage. 

Mr. PON. Absolutely. 

Mr. HICE. One of the things that I’ve been particularly involved 

in over the last few years is official time, where union workers 

don’t even do the work that they were hired to do. They’re working 

for the union and doing a host of things. 

And all respect to Mr. Lynch a while ago, but the American people have a right to strike too, and it’s their money that’s paying for 

many of these people on official time who are not even doing their 

job. And yet, we don’t have any opportunity to respond to that. 

Does the administration believe that this is in the taxpayers’ best 

interest, Ms. Weichert? 

Ms. WEICHERT. So I think that is something that we would like 

that all the people focused on government be focused, first and 

foremost, on mission, service, and stewardship, and that last piece 

is about how do we use the scarce resources in a fiscally difficult 

time, to do the work that the American people brought all of us 

here to do. 

Mr. HICE. That’d be a great idea to get back to that. 

Mr. Pon, what do you think? Is official time, according to the administration, in the best interest of the taxpayer? 

Mr. PON. Taxpayer-funded time needs to be taken a look at. We 

can’t just write a report and say how much time is being used by 

each and every one of the agencies. We need to actively manage it. 

We need to shed some light on how it’s being used or abused. 

Mr. HICE. So the Department of Education came out with— 

they’re making some pretty aggressive steps to try to address this. 

Is this something that could potentially spread to other agencies? 

Ms. WEICHERT. I think, absolutely, that people are looking at the 

stewardship angle, as you mentioned. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
28 

Mr. PON. And a lot of them are frustrated. 

Mr. HICE. A lot of us are frustrated too. A lot of people are frustrated. You hate to see your money go down the drain, and this is 

one of those areas. And I’m not opposed to people using official 

time, but number one, not on the backs of the taxpayers when they 

were hired to do something else. 

Mr. PON. They need to do their jobs. 

Mr. HICE. Absolutely they need to do their job. I appreciate it. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentleman from Georgia yields back. The 

gentleman from Maryland is recognized. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Pon, do you see official time as a major problem? 

Mr. PON. Sir, I believe it needs to be examined. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. That’s not what I asked you. I said do you see 

it as a major problem? 

Mr. PON. Perhaps in certainly agencies. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And Mr. Pon, you recently submitted to Congress a draconian proposal to cut more than $143 billion over the next 

10 years from the pay and benefits of current Federal workers, retirees, future retirees, and even their surviving spouses and children. Is this really the Trump administration’s idea of developing 

a 21st century workforce? 

That’s a lot of money. 

Mr. PON. These proposals are to make sure that we’re making 

decisions around how we can operate the Federal Government in 

the 21st century. I do believe that we need to take a look at other 

vehicles, not just pensions, but actually defined contributions plans 

so that they become much more portable for people to leave government and come back with portable benefits, versus ones that are 

based upon tenure and also years of service. 

I don’t know too many young Federal workers that are joining 

here are going to be working here for 20 years and then working 

here till 62. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me ask you this: In my office, there are two 

words that govern my office: effectiveness and efficiency. I assume 

that that’s what you want too, right? 

Mr. PON. Absolutely. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And it seems to me you take 143—it’s one thing 

to be aiming at efficiency and effectiveness. It’s another thing to 

take $143 billion out. Now, I could kind of understand if you were 

taking that $143 billion and saying, Okay, we know things are not 

working here, but now we’re going to make sure that we put money 

into training and things of that nature so that we can get that effectiveness and efficiency. Are you doing that? Where does that $143 billion go to? 

Mr. PON. So that’s what we’re intending to do. We’re trying to 

use the working capital or workforce fund for those reasons. It’s 

really targeting the different types of training that we have so we 

can up-skill our Federal workers and preserve and retain their jobs 

in the future. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you’re trying to tell me that that $143 billion—and I haven’t even started yet, because you all are taking a 

lot away from Federal employees. That $143 billion, you see that 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
29 

going into training now to lift up other employees so that they can 

be the very best that they can be, so that they can be most effective 

and efficient? Is that what you’re telling me? 

Mr. PON. The workforce fund is actual $1 billion, and it’s at the 

GSA in the Office of Governmentwide Policy. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, what happened to the other $142 billion? 

Come on, man. 

Mr. PON. We’re supporting the President’s budget as puts and 

takes across the whole entire Federal Government. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. I’m just curious as to what happened to the other $142 billion? 

Ms. WEICHERT. Yeah, so if I might interrupt. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yeah, please. 

Ms. WEICHERT. So, in a fiscally-challenging time, the President’s 

budget included a number of proposals, including the proposals 

that relate to the—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You mean, where we just added $1.5 trillion to 

the deficit? 

Ms. WEICHERT. That wasn’t in the budget. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yeah, okay. Go ahead. 

Ms. WEICHERT. But the recommendations are actually consistent 

around the workforce in what was in the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office evaluations on compensation, and also consistent with things that came out in the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles 

Commission looking at fiscal responsibility. So I think that the 

most clear answer to the question, it’s not a one-for-one moving 

from one place to another; it’s looking in the entirety of government 

and our delivery model of service. 

When we actually look at the data that the employees themselves say about their biggest concerns, actually have to do about 

resources to get their job done. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I only have a few minutes. I don’t have that really. 

Your proposal, Mr. Pon, would slash the pay and benefits of men 

and women who support our military, care for our wounded veterans, protect our homeland from terrorists and other threats, ensure that our air, water, and food are safe. How does that help the 

21st century workforce? 

Mr. PON. We’re taking a look at it on balance, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You don’t think that would hurt the workforce? 

Mr. PON. On the whole, we’re looking at the whole entire way of 

looking at compensation benefits and total rewards. 

Ms. WEICHERT. And actually, the Federal workforce was satisfied 

with their pay and their satisfaction rate. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, rewind. Say that 

again? 

Ms. WEICHERT. Sixty-one percent—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. They said they like the amount of money that 

they’re making? 

Ms. WEICHERT. Sixty-one percent of Federal employees surveyed 

in the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey were satisfied. Considering everything, how satisfied are you with your pay? That’s actually above levels you would see in the private sector around pay, 

for example. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
30 

Mr. CUMMINGS. What about the COLA? One of your most egre- gious proposals is to slash $50 billion worth of cost-of-living-adjustments from current retirees and their survivors. So you want to 

take from those who can least afford it and give to the richest 

among us. How is that fair? 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentleman’s time is expired, but you may 

answer the question. 

Mr. PON. Sir, respectfully, I think our retirement system is a bit 

out of whack, and the reason why I say that is I don’t know of any 

other retirement system that actually pays for COLAs for annuitants. We’re talking about annuitants, not Federal workers. When 

Federal workers actually get COLAs, it’s a part of the factor in 

their salaries; and when they become annuitants, it is not up to the 

Federal Government for us to determine where they move in retirement and pay for their—paying for where they live. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentleman yields back. Votes have been 

called and we’re going to try to squeeze the gentleman from Wisconsin in. We’ve got 10 minutes left in the vote. The gentleman 

from Wisconsin is recognized. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. I’d like to thank you for being here today. I 

know we recently passed an omnibus bill and our discretionary 

spending is going up 18 percent this year. And I know there are 

people who have all sorts of ways to say 18 percent isn’t enough, 

who want to go higher, but I appreciate that you don’t feel that 

way. 

I’ll start with you, Mr. Pon. Does the current general schedule 

pay system incentivize high performers to continue achieving at a 

high level? 

Mr. PON. I think we need to take a look at the general schedule. 

I think it is title 5, it is the law. We’re trying to improve title 5, 

but I think there is a greater need for looking at occupational series and having new pay systems for them that are much more 

flexible, and then we can manage term appointments much better. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Ms. Weichert, I’ll switch to you. There are a lot 

of Weicherts in Wisconsin, so nice to see that last name. 

Could you explain the proposed interagency workforce fund, how 

it would work? 

Ms. WEICHERT. So basically, we requested, in 2018, a $1 billion 

workforce fund that would allow us to spread across agencies in 

consultation with Congress and provide greater incentives around 

retention, recruitment, in high-skilled areas. We would also operate 

in a way that if people wanted to challenge and create new training 

or redeployment-type activities. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. I’ll ask you a general question, because I 

know exactly what I’d do to solve the problem. One of the criticisms 

of government is that everybody makes the same amount of money, 

right? They throw the grid out of there, and whether you just sit 

on your butt for 5 years or are the hard charger, you wind up with 

the same, right? Isn’t that a problem? 

Ms. WEICHERT. Right. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Another concern is that if you are given too 

much flexibility, and we’ve certainly seen examples of this before 

this committee, people who point out problems, maybe even illegalVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:11 Nov 05, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\31422.TXT APRIL

KING-6430 with DISTILLER
31 

ities in their agencies, they don’t move up at all. The boss doesn’t— 

you know. Do you see any way to square that problem? 

On the one hand, you know, we want the better employee to get 

a bigger raise; but on the other hand, we just don’t want the people 

to get a bigger raise, the ones who are, I don’t know what the word 

I should use is. You know, the people who just try to ingratiate 

themselves to the boss. 

Ms. WEICHERT. Yeah. So I think it’s a great question, and it’s one 

of the classic underlying questions in all performance management 

and performance-based compensation programs. There is plenty of 

experience in the broader world of compensation, especially in the 

private sector, around systems that reward both the what, you 

know, mission, service, stewardship, and the how, how do you work 

with others. 

And so most successful programs are fact-based, they are consistent, they are supported by technology, and they try to really 

balance this. 

And, frankly, I think this is one the most critical issues that 

doesn’t get enough discussion, because 31 percent, only 31 percent 

of the employees surveyed actually believe that awards in my work 

unit depend on how well employees perform. So while 61 percent 

are pleased with their own pay, most people don’t think that pay 

and performance are linked at all. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. In other words, they can think of some of their 

coworkers who are just time-servers who are getting increases? 

Ms. WEICHERT. Exactly. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. And I take it another problem is, if you are really a go-getter, then maybe you leave the government. 

Ms. WEICHERT. Yeah. Yeah. 

Mr. PON. We’re going to change that. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Good. Do you feel you can change that? 

I’m kind of—don’t exactly know an answer. 

Mr. PON. There are Federal employees that are amazing Federal 

workers, despite the culture that we have that we cannot manage 

bad performers out or it’s very difficult to do that. It’s a disincentive for them to stay. 

I want to make sure that there is differential pay, market-based 

pay, so that we can, as a government, retain the best and brightest 

for our Federal Government. That’s what they deserve and that’s 

what they need. 

Ms. WEICHERT. And I think we can actually make a difference 

today because we want this to be a bipartisan discussion. We want 

it to be a discussion between Congress and the executive branch. 

And so we need this to be an inclusive conversation because this 

isn’t just rhetoric, we really want to make a difference here. Because when I look at it from sort of 30,000 feet, if we don’t, we 

don’t have a delivery model for the 21st century. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. I appreciate both you folks for coming over. I 

yield my final second. 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentleman yields back. We will now recess subject to the call of the chair and reconvene immediately 

after votes. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman GOWDY. The committee will come to order. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
32 

The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes, is recognized. 

Mr. SARBANES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank the panel. 

I have been struck because your testimony, for the most part 

what you’re saying, the rhetoric of it sounds pretty good, talking 

about mission and service and stewardship, you’re talking about 

making sure that we support the best within our Federal workforce, et cetera. But managing scarce resources, we understand we 

live in a world where money doesn’t grow on trees. 

But then you come with what is what I would say is a scandal- ously irresponsible budget proposal in terms of this cut of $143 billion in terms of the salaries, pensions, other kinds of benefits, as 

you look over time. And there was some discussion back and forth 

about relationships with the Federal employee unions and so forth 

and they could be better. 

It seems to me it’s not a good operating premise to go into the 

room with the unions—or with the workforce, just the workforce— 

and say, we’re going to take a baseball bat or a meat cleaver to the 

budget that’s supporting your operations. And after we do that, 

then we want to sit down and have a constructive discussion about 

all the ways we can find new efficiencies, streamline things, and 

so forth. 

You’re not going to get people to stretch, to be creative, to be innovative, to self-reflect, which are admirable goals. And Max Stier 

will be testifying on the second panel. Partnership for Public Service has come forward with a lot of, I think, constructive suggestions 

about how the Federal workforce and the leadership within it can 

adjust themselves for the future. 

But to maximize the opportunity that that will happen, you can’t 

at the same time come in and say, we’re going to pull billions and 

billions of dollars of resources away from the operations of these 

agencies. 

So I just philosophically don’t agree with the approach because 

I think that it’s counterproductive. 

I did want to talk a little bit about how you’re going to provide 

for the 21st century workforce, because most of the statements of 

consequence that have come from leadership within the Trump administration seem to suggest that the main goal is to just reduce 

the size of the Federal workforce, without regard to the impact that 

it may be having on operations. 

Director Mulvaney issued a memo last April directing agencies to 

submit downsizing plans that include long-term workforce reductions. President Trump wanted us to get a long-term plan in place 

to reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce through 

attrition. 

So how are you going to recruit the workforce of the future if 

you’re coming with these dramatic cuts? If the stated goal is just 

to reduce the size, without, it appears, regard for whether you’re 

impacting the efficiency, the effectiveness, as my colleague from 

Maryland, Congressman Cummings, has spoken to, how are you 

going to get people to come join up, the best and the brightest, in 

that kind of an environment? 

Ms. WEICHERT. So I think they’re all really valid questions, and 

that’s precisely the set of problems we’re trying to square. So 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
33 

square the issues of mission, service, and stewardship in a fiscally 

challenging environment. 

I think that the key thing in all of this is actually looking at 

what are out-of-the-box ways of doing this, and taking the best 

learning from players like folks in the private sector who have been 

there and done this before. 

There are many private sector organizations who faced with fiscal challenges have gotten together with unions, have figured out 

how did they energize the workforce. We are actually going to the 

workforce itself. It’s not rhetoric and it’s not showboating to go to 

Kansas City and meet with nearly a thousand Federal workers 

and—— 

Mr. SARBANES. Well, here’s what I’m worried about. And I’m 

sorry to interrupt because I’m going to run out of time. I know that 

there’s many employees in these Federal agencies right now who, 

just based on the activity, the fiscal constraints, the cuts that have 

been imposed on them over the last few years, have 50 files in their 

pile where they used to have 25, where having 15 would be a reasonable workload. And the cuts being proposed are going to put another 50 in that pile and make it 100 folders in that pile. 

And at the same time you’re raising the stack of files that they 

have got to deal with at the IRS or Social Security or Veterans Administration or whatever, you’re saying, oh, let’s now have a conversation about how to streamline and be efficient and be innovative and creative. And that is not a fair burden to put on somebody, 

if you have those expectations of them. 

So I would urge the administration to reconsider these cuts because I think they are counterproductive to some of the stated 

goals that you have here today. 

With that, I’d yield back. 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentleman yields back. 

The gentlemen from Florida is recognized, Mr. DeSantis. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome. 

Dr. Pon, we have seen situations where some of the union contracts that are done extend far beyond the life of that particular 

administration, and some folks, I know, like in the CFPB, there 

was a contract done in I think late 2016, that has limited the ability of the new Director to make some reforms. 

So is that good policy, to tie the hands of future administrations? 

I mean, if you’re going to do these union contracts, I mean, 

shouldn’t there be an opportunity for the new administration to 

come in and at least renegotiate? 

Mr. PON. I think the Director of OPM needs to have that power 

and needs to have that authority, whether you’re on one side or the 

next. It’s actually doing the business of the government, making 

sure that you can negotiate on behalf of the government and in 

good faith making sure that you can make deals with it. 

Tying the hands of the OPM Director does you no good in managing the government, diffusing the powers of the Director of OPM. 

I don’t know of any corporation or nonprofit organization that 

doesn’t want their head of HR to be responsible for the head of HR. 

And at times that’s difficult because there is such a diffusion of responsibilities. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
34 

Mr. DESANTIS. So performance and firing people for poor performance—I think we have a very high quality Federal workforce. 

But at the same time, I mean, if you look at the number of people 

who are terminated for poor performance, it’s like point-zero-something percent. And there’s no business, there’s no industry in the 

country where 99.9-plus percent are doing an adequate job, I mean. 

And so it’s very difficult to hold people accountable. 

And one of the most recent examples, tragically, was the FBI 

handling of Parkland, Florida. You had had people calling into this 

hotline in 2016—or 2017—complaining about this guy, identifying 

as a possible shooter. Then 2018, same thing happened. Actually, 

the lady who called was a phenomenal—I mean, she provided all 

this information, was worried about the school. The FBI actually 

matched it in the database, knew it was the same guy, and decided 

to do absolutely nothing with that. 

Now, they have admitted that that falls far below the standard 

of acceptable performance, and yet there was no firing of anybody, 

at least to my knowledge. I mean, it certainly wasn’t within a 

month of this. And there was a stress on due process and all this 

other stuff, and I understand that. 

But what about the right of the American people to have some 

accountability if people drop the ball and don’t protect them? 

Shouldn’t there be a way that people are going to be held accountable for that swiftly. 

Mr. PON. I agree with that. We need to make sure that we can 

manage bad performance, and we need to make sure that is 

stressed. Our President in the State of the Union basically said to 

every single secretary, award the great performance of the United 

States, but get rid of the bad performers. 

And I intend to make sure that there’s enhancements and 

streamlining effects so that you can have a single process for making sure you can manage performance, manage people out that 

need to be out. 

Mr. DESANTIS. How long would that process take? I mean, you 

know, some of these folks are on leave forever, and I think that 

could just move people around. You have a poor performer, you’ve 

given them an opportunity to improve, they haven’t. What’s a reasonable time to say, ‘‘Okay, move on with whatever process’’? Because I think the process ends up just eating up the accountability 

where you don’t end you having any. 

Mr. PON. Yeah. Each agency has collective bargaining unit agreements and sometimes these timeframes can go on for years. That 

is not reasonable, obviously. In any enterprise, if you have a bad 

actor in your own organization, you need to basically take care of 

it in a reasonable amount of time—with due process. But due process is not 2 years, it’s more like 3 months to 6 months at the most. 

Mr. DESANTIS. How do you ensure the—I mean, the model of the 

civil service was that it wasn’t going to be political. You know, it 

used to be an administration would come in, they’d put their cronies in, the next one would come in, they’d put—and they’re like, 

yeah, no, we just want professionals and to be apolitical. 

But that is kind of good in theory, but that hasn’t worked in 

practice. I mean, the IRS targeting scandal was something that 

was very problematic. We on this committee did a lot of it. The 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
35 

Justice Department paid a settlement to all these conservative 

groups for having been targeted for their political beliefs. 

And we see some of it with some of the oversight of, like, the 

FBI, with some of the agents who were really, really saying some 

things and appeared to have their actions motivated by political 

bias. 

So how do you deal with that? I mean, you can do great at your 

job, have all kind of political opinions, but when it starts infecting 

the actual actions or the work product, like it did when the IRS 

and like I believe we have seen evidence of with the FBI, you 

know, how do we—how do you guys do it? Is there anything we can 

do to just make sure that we’re following the administration’s directives and we’re not acting as individual political agents—— 

Mr. PON. We need to remind everybody about the law, merit system principles. We need to make sure that there is proper education, training, and enforcement of that. 

I know the next panel, my colleague, Bill Valdez, is going to be 

representing SEA, Senior Executives Association. We’re talking 

with one another to make sure that we can have our senior executives be the career senior executive service without politics. 

That’s really the mainstay of the Federal Government, the executives that are nonpolitical. We hold them up to a higher standard 

than making sure that the political agendas get taken care of. They 

run our government. We entrust them and direct them to do certain things. But if it’s in a partisan way, we need to make sure 

that there’s accountability. 

OIG has been taking a look at these things in different agencies, 

but I think that there should be actually a real hard look at some 

of these quote, unquote, partisan type of activities within our career civil service. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thanks. 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentleman from Florida yields back. 

The gentlelady from New York is recognized. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I thank the panelists. 

President Trump and his administration have been downsizing 

Federal offices and agencies since the first day he took office. On 

day one he prohibited agencies from filling vacant positions, and I 

would say the downsizing began on day one. 

Then, on April 12 in 2017, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney issued 

a memorandum directing agencies to submit downsizing plans by 

September that include, and I quote, ‘‘long-term workforce reductions.’’ 

But OMB has kept this reorganization plan secret. When Ranking Member Cummings wrote to OMB asking for copies of the 

plans that agency produced for OMB, he received this refusal from 

Mr. Mulvaney. And he wrote, quote, ‘‘The deliberative process within the executive branch will continue to play out in an iterative 

fashion.’’ Meanwhile, OMB continues to work with agencies to 

begin taking certain administration actions. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to put the letter 

that he sent Mr. Cummings and Mr. Cummings letter into the 

record. 

Chairman GOWDY. Without objection. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
36 

Mrs. MALONEY. Okay. Thank you. 

And OMB’s response is the polite way of saying that we’re not 

going to give you any of the reorganization plans, even though we 

are reorganizing. So I wonder if Congressman Mulvaney would 

have tolerated receiving such a response when he was a member 

of this committee. 

So my question, Ms. Weichert, OMB’s description of a deliberative privilege to evade congressional oversight is not acceptable. 

Can you provide a legal opinion justifying citing that privilege at 

this time? 

Ms. WEICHERT. I’m not an attorney, so I’m not going to provide 

a specific legal opinion. 

What I can say is it is not the practice of OMB to share internal 

deliberative documents prior to the release of an actual report. 

And we expect to be releasing the reorganization and reform report in the coming weeks, and that will really start the broader 

public deliberation process. And I think there will be plenty of opportunity for this body to have conversations about that. 

I’d also like to share the fact that in the private sector leading 

practice around reorganization takes very seriously the disruption 

to the actual ongoing work of the workforce when reorganization is 

taking place. And leaking out or dribbling out items that have not 

yet been determined is actually fairly disruptive and somewhat disrespectful. 

So it is our view that by sharing, when we publish this report 

in a few weeks, a holistic view that includes all of the deliberations, all of the inputs, that include, in addition to the inputs that 

we got from agencies, it also includes public comment, it includes 

data from the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, and it includes 

leading practices. 

Possibly most importantly, it also includes a lot of data from the 

General Accountability Office about the High Risk List and areas 

where workforce is part of that. It also includes a list of duplicative 

processes and duplicative activities of agencies. 

So I’m hopeful and very happy to continue to have this conversation going forward when we are out of the predecisional standpoint. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, it’s already started, the downsizing and the 

reorganization, without sharing any of this information. 

And to give one example, in June the Department of Interior 

began reassigning dozens of career senior executives and other civil 

service employees. And we learned this not because of any sharing 

of information, but because of press reports. And many of these 

senior executives were totally left in the dark and knew nothing 

about what was taking place. 

The President’s 2019 budget proposal states that a departmentwide reorganization plan will be implemented utilizing a combination of attrition and separation. So are attrition and separation deliberate tools in use by Secretary Zinke to downsize the Department of Interior, Ms. Weichert? 

Ms. WEICHERT. So I can’t comment on all the specifics of Secretary Zinke’s proposal. I think the items that were able to be done 

through an individual agency were included in the 2019 budget 

proposal that you have seen. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
37 

But I’d pull up a bit to say, the original language around reform 

and reorganization was really about good government. And in really digging in and looking at the data on this topic, the focus is not 

primarily on downsizing. The focus is primarily on mission, service 

to the American people. 

And then where stewardship is problematic we need to align the 

overall size. But a lot of what we’re actually seeing is if you deploy 

information technology appropriately, you may be able to think differently about the numbers of resources that you have. 

Mrs. MALONEY. We haven’t seen the plan. All we’ve seen is press 

reports and reports from workers of downsizing. 

Now, the Founding Fathers loved journalism, protected journalism, but they also wanted a checks and balance between the executive and the legislative branch. And right now all our information is coming from journalism, not from the executive branch or 

a sharing of responding to the oversight responsibilities of the legislative branch. 

I hope that that changes with the report you say you’ll be sending out in—— 

Ms. WEICHERT. Yes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. —you said weeks. Do you have a time limit? 

Ms. WEICHERT. It’s in the clearance process now, so I can’t give 

an exact date, but it’s in the coming weeks. And we would like to 

have it be as holistic and thoughtful as possible. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. 

Chairman GOWDY. The gentlelady yields back. 

I’ll recognize myself, and I’ll be the last questioner. 

Ms. Weichert, I think it was you in your opening that mentioned 

a diminution of trust, public trust in the government in general, 

not just employees, but government in general. Is there any data? 

And what does it show in terms of what generates that distrust? 

Because it would be tough to work for an entity that people didn’t 

trust. 

Ms. WEICHERT. So the data that I referenced there is referenced 

in the document, the President’s Management Agenda, which I 

could bring out additional components. 

But we actually looked at specific areas, and we highlight in that 

report what the particular areas of problem that the American people have. And in a lot of cases I think the issues are issues of balance and issues of: Is government focused on the right issues? Are 

they primarily focused on mission? Are they focused on giving people the services they need when they want them, when they need 

them? 

I think a lot of the distrust actually comes from the 

hyperpartisan kind of dialogues that they see on the television. 

And what we see when we’ve done some of these listening tours, 

talking to Federal employees, talking to citizens all over the country about what they’re looking for, they value the services that our 

employees deliver. They absolutely appreciate when FEMA is there 

to rescue them from a flood or a USAID employee is there to help 

protect their home in a fire, whether they are in California or Wyoming. 

But what they don’t like is all the blockages to getting things 

done the right way, and when they have to hang on hold forever, 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
38 

if they’re trying to deal with death benefits, if they’re a survivor 

of a veteran, things of that nature. 

Chairman GOWDY. So there is an efficiency component, if I heard 

you correctly, and then there’s just the general political environment that we find ourselves in, and that when you constantly hear 

how untrustworthy government is, it tends to, shockingly, have an 

impact on the listener from time to time. 

Ms. WEICHERT. Absolutely. And I feel like we’ve got an opportunity, and I mean this most sincerely. Good government is an area 

where I absolutely believe we can have bipartisan support. I’ve actually been completely gratified by the types of dialogues I’ve had 

with Members of this body and other folks about these issues. So 

I really believe we can help change both the outcomes and the process. 

Chairman GOWDY. All right. Well, this is what I want you to do 

for me. I’ve heard you use the word ‘‘bipartisan’’ a couple of times, 

I’ve heard Chairman Meadows use it a couple of times. But I also 

had a really good opportunity to listen to the ranking member’s 

opening statement, and it was not complimentary on the Trump 

administration and how they view Federal workers. 

Lay aside the fact that I disagreed with most of it and have been 

a Federal worker for a large part of my life, as have other Members 

on my side. Take the time I have left and convince, not us, but people who may be watching that this administration and the changes 

you proposed are rooted and motivated in a respect for Federal 

workers and a desire to make it better. 

Ms. WEICHERT. Absolutely. And I think a lot of this starts with 

listening. And I heard what the ranking member said, and I think 

these are very valid concerns. They’re not unique concerns to government. These are issues that our fellow citizens, whether they 

work in government or they work in the private sector face. They 

face challenges of dislocation. They face concerns about taking care 

of their families and doing their daily business. 

We need to have a fact-based conversation. And, you know, I 

think it starts in this particular instance with the data around the 

Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, and it starts with: How do we 

address the problems the Federal employees themselves find to be 

the biggest barriers to serving the American people? 

And when I look at those things, there’s things around performance-based compensation, there’s things around do they have the 

resources to do their job, it’s things around are the right merit system principles in place so that the best people get the best compensation and the worst people aren’t there to disrupt the work of 

everyone else. 

I think those are the things that we legitimately are trying to 

use a fact base to tackle and then use the tools that blend the best 

of IT modernization, the best of data and analytics, with helping 

elevate the work that our American workers do to serve the American people. 

Chairman GOWDY. I’m out of time. And I’m going to recognize 

the gentleman from Missouri. 

There have been a number of witnesses throughout the time I’ve 

been on this committee that have sat at the table where you are, 

and they have described conduct that is not just poor performance, 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
39 

it is trending towards criminal. In fact, had it been reported and 

investigated and prosecuted, it would have been criminal. 

So under the general heading of morale, I would think not having to work for someone who is simply moved from position to position after credible allegations of sexual harassment, I would think 

being able to terminate that kind of conduct, that is not poor performance, that’s criminal. 

So to the extent that you can address that, it would be the right 

thing to do and also good for morale. 

With that, the gentleman from Missouri. 

Mr. CLAY. I thank the chairman. 

And thank you all for being here. 

March the 20th, 2018, President Trump issued his President’s 

Management Agenda. I read through it, and the PMA estimates 

that many Federal workforce occupations could be automated, including 5 percent of occupations that could be automated entirely, 

60 percent of occupations that could have 30 percent-plus of their 

activities automated, and 45 percent of total work activities that 

could be automated. 

Let me share with you so you can share it with the administration, no one on the chairman’s side would defy this. But what’s so 

important about government service and the service that the government renders to the citizens of this country is the person-to-person interaction. 

So, I mean, I’m looking at this and saying, well, you’re trying to 

reduce the workforce, which is going to hamper government’s ability to interact with its citizens, it’s plain, unless you can tell me 

otherwise. Isn’t that the end result of this? 

Ms. WEICHERT. No, actually, I appreciate the question and the 

concern, but what we’re focused on are precisely the kind of things 

that the gentleman from Maryland mentioned earlier around if the 

pile of paper on the desk of a Federal employee keeps stacking up 

because it’s paper-based, they actually can’t serve our citizens in a 

face-to-face way. 

And a concrete example was after Hurricane Harvey the Small 

Business Administration designated some zones as special SBA 

areas. And the Federal workers who were trying to help get people 

money to start up businesses and restart communities are taking 

information that was input on a system over here, print it out, and 

then rekey it over here. Thirty percent of their time was spent on 

that activity, which isn’t directly serving people, and they could 

have given a faster response. 

Mr. CLAY. Okay, I appreciate what you’re saying, but you’re also 

talking about cutting down the number of Federal workers. Is that 

right? 

Ms. WEICHERT. So I think that’s not the primary goal. When we 

actually did the empirical analysis about jobs when we were looking at this, there may be 5 percent of jobs that are purely possible 

to be automated. But we also have more than that number of jobs 

that we can’t fill. And so reskilling and redeploying resources is 

part of what we’re looking at. 

Mr. CLAY. I have a limited amount of time. And I’m just saying 

for the committee’s concern, they know better. They know better, 

because it’s about when we interact with our constituents. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
40 

And it may be that they need a visa or a passport from the State 

Department. They may need to get their Federal records of service 

in our military so they can bury a loved one in a Federal cemetery. 

Anything. But they need to talk to a live person, not a machine. 

That’s what this is about. 

Let me ask both of you. I read through your proposals to slash 

benefits for Federal workers and retirees, and I was appalled. One 

of the most breathtaking proposals is the provision to eliminate 

COLAs for employee death benefit and child annuity. 

Let me see if I understand this proposal correctly. You and President Trump want to cut COLAs for widows, widowers, and orphans. 

Look, I just read what you sent us. I don’t know how else to interpret this proposal other than to see it as a sign that you and 

President Trump and this administration are attacking widows and 

orphans who rely on COLAs just to keep up with inflation. And 

eliminating or reducing COLAs would erode their benefits over 

time. 

This is why you want to do that, to save us money? Is that right? 

Mr. PON. Sir, respectfully, thank you for your question. I do 

think that COLAs serve a very important purpose for having 

COLAs as a Federal worker. But when you are an annuitant, the 

government does not control an annuitant’s residence, and government is actually paying the annuitant, survivor, widower, child a 

COLA based upon their choice of where they live versus where they 

work. 

Mr. CLAY. So am I able? 

Mr. MEADOWS. [Presiding.] We’ve got a second panel. So I thank 

the gentleman for his keen interest on this particular item. 

I want to thank the two witnesses for their insightful testimony. 

I’m hopeful that this is the start of something new after 40 years, 

and I believe that it will be. I appreciate the commitment from 

both of you for being here. 

And we’re going to stand in recess for just a few minutes while 

we set up for the second panel. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. MEADOWS. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Government 

Reform will come to order, and I’m pleased to introduce our second 

panel. 

Obviously, we’ve been interrupted a number of times today on 

votes and everything else, but I thank you for your patience and 

for following this key area. So I’m going to go ahead and introduce 

you. I think Mr. Connolly is on his way. 

Mr. Bill Valdez, president of the Senior Executives Association. 

Mr. Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public 

Service. And Ms. Jacqueline Simon, policy director for the American Federation of Government Employees. 

Welcome to you all. And pursuant to committee rules, we’ll ask 

that you be sworn in. So before you testify, if you’ll please stand 

and raise your right hand. I don’t know that this is your first rodeo 

for any of you. 

So do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you’re 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth, so help you God? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
41 

Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

And as you know, in order to allow time for the back and forth, 

if you’ll limit your oral testimony to 5 minutes, we would appreciate that. Your entire written statement will be made part of the 

record. And so you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

PANEL II 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF BILL VALDEZ 

Mr. VALDEZ. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I’m 

honored to represent the views of the Senior Executives Association 

because we believe the President’s Management Agenda provides 

an opportunity to have a thoughtful and a constructive discussion 

about modernizing the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act. 

The PMA correctly states that the decline in public trust in government can be directly linked to public perceptions about the effectiveness of the Federal workforce. I am convinced that the vast 

majority of civil servants are effective stewards of taxpayer dollars. 

I know this because U.S. taxpayers routinely see the results of this 

dedication through our secure homeland and improvements to our 

economic productivity. 

If this is true, why then have public perceptions of the performance of civil servants declined? I believe the answer lies in structural deficiencies in the CSRA. 

The CSRA has served our Nation well, but it was passed over 

four decades ago. The internet was the stuff of science fiction and 

the Cold War was in full bloom. 

Today, the Internet of Things is transforming our society and 

international terrorism is our premier national security challenge. 

Put simply, the CSRA has not kept pace with these tectonic 

shifts in our society. Decades of haphazard tinkering has created 

a Frankenstein monster that hinders the ability of civil servants to 

deliver optimal value to taxpayers. 

Dr. Pon, in his testimony, referenced a number of latent flaws in 

the CSRA that must be remedied. I agree, and I believe that those 

flaws fall into four major buckets. In the interest of time, I will address three of these four buckets, but I refer you to my written testimony for a full discussion. 

The first is performance accountability systems are antiquated. 

Prior to the CSRA, the Civil Service Commission was the one-stop 

shop that ensured that civil service merit principles were upheld. 

The CSRA, however, created the MSPB, the Office of Special Counsel, the FLRA, and the EEOC. 

All of these forms have their purpose, but the unintended consequence of a performance management system that enables poor 

performers to forum shop and delay the resolution of their cases. 

We need to return to basics. There are two reasons why an employee can be dismissed from Federal service, misconduct and poor 

performance. We must update the CSRA to provide an expedited 

forum for performance issues and let the other forums be used for 

their original purposes. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
42 

Second, hiring and retention practices have become ossified. 

When I was looking for work in 1978, I went to the classified pages 

of my local newspaper, and if I was really on the ball, I would go 

door-knocking. I was operating in an information void that gave 

employers all the leverage. 

Today, job seekers are much more empowered. They can search 

the internet for jobs, and LinkedIn lets them know if an employer 

is worth pursuing. In other words, the leverage has shifted during 

the past 40 years from the employer to the employee when it comes 

to hiring and retention. 

Yet, as Dr. Pon clearly articulated, we have a hiring and retention system that is mired in 20th century practices. It is not nimble, it is not effective, and we are losing the talent war as a result. 

We need to completely rethink the General Schedule, the classification system, and how we incentivize high performance. If we do 

this, we will create a work environment that is aligned with the 

needs of the current generation of workers. 

And then, third, the CSRA has exacerbated the career-political 

divide. The CSRA created the Senior Executive Service as a bridge 

between administrations and to serve as expert advisers to administrations as they pursued their agendas. It also mandated that 90 

percent of the SES slots be reserved for career SES and 10 percent 

for noncareer SES. Today, most of those noncareer positions are 

filled by political appointees. 

This SES framework has had two unintended consequences. 

First, political SES are increasingly occupying operational positions, such as CFOs and principal deputies, that were previous 

filled by career SES. 

Two problems with this: Politicals rarely come into office with 

the knowledge needed to manage these programs, and when they 

leave there is a leadership vacuum that stops government in its 

tracks. 

Second, career SES have indicated in SEA surveys that they believe they are being excluded from decisionmaking. NYU researcher Paul Light analyzed the results of more than 40 failures 

of government over the past 20 years and he pinpointed faulty 

leadership decisions as the primary reason for those failures. 

SEA strongly believes that if we properly align career and political leadership roles, these failures could be mitigated. 

In closing, let me again thank you for this opportunity to discuss 

these important issues. And I would just note that if the current 

Frankenstein workforce model that I’ve described has resulted in 

so much good for our Nation, imagine what dedicated civil servants 

could deliver with a modernized Civil Service Act. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Valdez follows:] 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
43 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 12 here 31422.012
44 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 13 here 31422.013
45 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 14 here 31422.014
46 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 15 here 31422.015
47 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 16 here 31422.016
48 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 17 here 31422.017
49 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 18 here 31422.018
50 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 19 here 31422.019
51 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 20 here 31422.020
52 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 21 here 31422.021
53 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 22 here 31422.022
54 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 23 here 31422.023
55 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 24 here 31422.024
56 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 25 here 31422.025
57 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 26 here 31422.026
58 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 27 here 31422.027
59 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 28 here 31422.028
60 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 29 here 31422.029
61 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Valdez. 

Mr. Stier, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF MAX STIER 

Mr. STIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Raskin. It’s 

a pleasure being here and it’s terrific that you’re having this hearing. You’re going to hear a build-on to some of the things that Bill 

just said, and that’s all to the good, because I think there is some 

real common ground here. 

The starting point is we do have a legacy government that is not 

keeping up with the world around it. How could it? It is a 40-yearold system. No other organization is operating under the same 

rules as it did 40 years ago, and some of the stuff even predates 

that. I’m not going to belabor that. I’m going to give you five statistics that help set the stage here. 

Number one, only 6 percent of the Federal workforce is under the 

age of 30. That is number is closer to 23, 24, 25 percent in the private sector. 

When you look at a specific segment there, number two, there 

five times as many people over the age of 60 as under the age of 

30 in the IT profession inside the Federal Government. The Federal Government spends $80 billion to $90 billion in IT. Almost 70 

percent of that goes to operation and maintenance. That is a big 

challenge. 

Number three, fewer than half of Feds believe that their good 

work is recognized. That number is more than two-thirds in the 

private sector. No organization gets better if all you do is kick it, 

and that’s what we have right now. 

Number four, barely over 60 percent believe that they can raise 

a violation of law or ethics without fear of retaliation. So Chairman 

Gowdy raised a very important point. You can’t operate in an organization, especially a large one, if that information doesn’t get to 

leadership. If that information won’t get there, the people inside 

don’t feel that they can trust their leaders. Come back to that later. 

And then last, almost half of employee attrition occurs in the 

first 2 years. 

So kudos to this administration for their PMA. I think it’s strong. 

One of the things that’s really important to focus on is that it’s actually a continuation of what the Bush administration did and the 

Obama administration did. That kind of continuity is absolutely 

vital. 

So, quickly, 10 things you can do about it that are very concrete. 

Number one, you have to hold the top leaders accountable. The 

most significant difference between government and any other organization is that top leaders aren’t held accountable. They don’t 

own the organizations they run. They don’t believe that they’re responsible for making them better. They’re rewarded for crisis management and policy development. 

And that has to change. You can do that by requiring transparent performance plans, by having oversight hearings around 

management issues, and having a scorecard on some of the issues 

that I just identified in the data. 

Number two, we need to fix that hiring process. On average, it 

takes the Federal Government more than 100 days to hire someVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:11 Nov 05, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\31422.TXT APRIL

KING-6430 with DISTILLER
62 

one. That number is more than double what you’d see in the private sector. I just saw a study today that said only 12 percent of 

job applicants would wait more than 30 days for a job. That’s a 

giant problem. 

How do you deal with that? We ought to have direct hire for recent grads. That’s really important if we’re going to get young people into government. You need to change the standard for direct 

hires so that it’s around a shortage of highly qualified individuals 

rather than minimally qualified individuals. And we need to use 

student interns, something that almost never happens in the government that ought to happen. 

Number three, you need a market-based pay system. The pay 

system was created not 40 years ago, but over 70 years ago, and 

it was for a world in which most of the workforce was clerical. 

Today it’s all profession. The nature of work has changed. You 

have a medical center director for the VA that can’t be paid more 

than the SES cap, and they’re competing with people that are 

being paid more than a million dollars. Ain’t happening, and it has 

big impacts. You need that market-sensitive pay system. 

Four, we need to develop better career leaders. Improved management is the way you’re going to make the whole organization 

work better. You need to look at the military as a model. We need 

to be more investment in training new supervisors. And creating 

a dual track so people who are subject matter experts who need to 

be promoted can be promoted to subject matter experts and don’t 

have to go into management to get promoted. That would make a 

huge difference. 

Five, we do need to deal with the accountability issue. That’s 

what the survey shows. Firing Feds faster isn’t going to get you 

there. Better management will. 

One idea there is to use the probationary period, right? Change 

the presumption. If you aren’t actually affirmatively determined to 

deserve Federal service, then you don’t stay, rather than the reverse, which is what happens now. 

Six, we need more mobility. We need a workforce that actually 

is getting best practice from the private sector and having good 

people here spend time in the private sector. That means more 

public-private talent exchange. 

We need this pass forward notion where people who are in the 

Fed go out into the private sector, develop skills. They have to be 

hired at the same level that they’re now qualified to come in rather 

than the level that they left in, which makes no sense. 

Mr. STIER. Number seven, customer service. That’s an area of 

huge opportunity here. There’s legislation on the floor now where 

that is in the House. One of the big barriers right now is that the 

Paperwork Reduction Act doesn’t allow government agencies to collect the data they need voluntarily. That’s an easy fix, and would 

allow agencies to do what they want to do, which is to get feedback 

and use it to make their activities better. 

Eight, we need to create a culture of recognition. Something you 

are highly aware of we added a Sammie’s finalist to the testimony, 

and you’re doing great stuff in terms of visiting agencies. 

Nine, we need to use data better, like the Federal Employee’s 

Viewpoint Survey. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
63 

And lastly, we need to address the lack of political leadership, 

and that includes, bluntly, having fewer political appointees and 

fewer that require Senate confirmation. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Stier follows:] 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
64 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 30 here 31422.030
65 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 31 here 31422.031
66 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 32 here 31422.032
67 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 33 here 31422.033
68 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 34 here 31422.034
69 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 35 here 31422.035
70 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 36 here 31422.036
71 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 37 here 31422.037
72 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 38 here 31422.038
73 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 39 here 31422.039
74 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 40 here 31422.040
75 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 41 here 31422.041
76 

Mr. MEADOWS. That’s the best use of 5 minutes that I’ve heard 

in 6 years. Thank you very much for the action items. 

Ms. Simon, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF JACQUELINE SIMON 

Ms. SIMON. On behalf of the 700,000 Federal and D.C. government workers represented by AFGE, I thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the President’s Management Agenda, the 

PMA. 

Its soothing words and colorful photographs try to convey a sense 

that the document is a thoughtful and modern approach to the 

management of the Federal workforce and the agencies that employ them. Unfortunately, those pretty pictures mask a dark intent, 

which is to sabotage the operation of Federal agencies by degrading 

the Federal workforce. 

If the PMA were implemented, it would sabotage the civil service 

and agency missions incompatible with this administration’s political priorities. Paradoxically, the PMA would shrink the Federal 

workforce, while simultaneously increasing cost to taxpayers by 

shifting work from public employees to more expensive contractors. 

That’s right. While proposing to lower the cost of the Federal 

workforce by cutting compensation, it also proposes to replace that 

workforce with the more costly and less accountable contractor 

workforce. Federal employee pay, benefits, job security, and due 

process rights are clearly in the cross-hairs of this administration. 

Despite the language about seeking to attract the best people to 

government, the document clearly contemplates making Federal 

employment less desirable by cutting pay and benefits and weakening job security. 

Having more government work performed by contractors puts 

agency missions at risk. Increased contracting out undermines 

management control, as well as the public service ethos. By law, 

contractors’ first loyalty must be to their private profits, not the 

public interest. But duty and loyalty to the American public should 

come first for those doing our government’s work. 

The PMA would politicize government functions and operations. 

Besides the erosion of due process rights, Federal employment, 

even for those putatively still in the civil service, would become an 

elongated probationary period, consisting of temporary and term 

appointments. Federal employment would devolve to a modified atwill employment, with employees beholden to political or commercial interests that would determine their future livelihood. 

The administration’s proposals to cut Federal retirement benefits 

by $143 billion billion over 10 years should be categorically rejected. Federal employee compensation has already been cut by 

$246 billion over 10 years, about $123,000 per employee over the 

period. 

The retirement system cuts that simultaneously charge employees more and deliver less are not motivated by any concern about 

the system’s financial solvency. The Federal Employees Retirement 

System is fully funded as is. No cuts are necessary. 

No, the motivation is something much darker. Likewise, the proposed cuts to paid leave and Federal employee health insurance 

benefits are entirely unnecessary and seem to be driven by nothing 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
77 

more than a desire to reduce the living standards of Federal employees. 

Please do not think of Federal employees as nameless, faceless 

bureaucrats who do nothing but impose unnecessary red tape on 

heroic entrepreneurs. They are our brave border patrol agents who 

protect us from criminals engaged in human and narcotic smuggling. They are our Social Security claims reps, helping your grandmother navigate her benefit eligibility. 

They are our nurses at the VA Medical Center holding the hand 

of a dying veteran. They are mothers and fathers and church choir 

leaders and PTA presidents. They should not be the objects of hatred and disdain. They are middle class Americans trying to get by 

and raise their families, and they should not be losing paid leave, 

having their health insurance made more expensive, or their pensions reduced. 

It is a noxious myth that today’s workers, or tomorrow’s workers, 

don’t want or need job security. Just because the gig economy has 

made employment for so many Americans unstable and insecure 

doesn’t mean the Federal Government should follow suit. 

Indeed, contingent workers, like adjunct professors and Uber 

drivers are doing whatever they can to organize so that they can 

obtain stable career employment. 

The administration’s apparent goal of making the Federal Government an employer of poorly compensated contingent workers is 

not, I repeat, is not what the workforce wants; not older workers, 

not mid-career workers, not younger workers. No Federal worker 

wants his compensation cut or her job security taken away. 

For all the reasons described above, we think the best way to describe the President’s Management Agenda and the administration’s personnel management agenda is a set of worst practices. 

The PMA is a worst practices document that would sabotage government agencies. 

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

questions you may have. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Simon follows:] 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
78 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 42 here 31422.042
79 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 43 here 31422.043
80 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 44 here 31422.044
81 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 45 here 31422.045
82 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 46 here 31422.046
83 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 47 here 31422.047
84 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 48 here 31422.048
85 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 49 here 31422.049
86 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 50 here 31422.050
87 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 51 here 31422.051
88 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 52 here 31422.052
89 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 53 here 31422.053
90 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 54 here 31422.054
91 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 55 here 31422.055
92 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Ms. Simon. Thank each of you for 

your testimony. 

I’m going to recognize myself for a series of questions. So Mr. 

Stier, let me come to you. The Federal Employment Viewpoint Survey that I talked about earlier with the first panel, do you believe 

that that’s a critical tool for helping us understand the viewpoint 

of Federal workers? 

Mr. STIER. Absolutely. I think it’s incredibly useful data. It’s useful as an aggregate, but it’s even more powerful when you look at 

smaller components of government and compare and contrast what 

you see, because there is huge variation across agencies and within 

agencies, and there’s a lot to be learned from that. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So if we’re looking across agencies like that, as 

we have had in a previous hearing, OPM was looking at changing 

the questions, obviously is running a pilot. Is this something that 

you would support? 

Mr. STIER. I think you always have to look at how to improve 

things. There’s a lot of value in having the benchmark data available to you. So I think changes, you have to be careful about what 

you do change so that you can be able to compare over time. I do 

think there are some things this year they’re doing a full census 

rather than a sample, and I think that makes for much, much better data as well. 

So I think there are places that you can have improvement. The 

biggest improvement would be turning around the data faster. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So, I believe earlier this year that the Department of Veterans Affairs made a decision to cease offering the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. So at first, if you don’t succeed, 

change the matrix in terms of what you measure that success. I 

say that, obviously, tongue-in-cheek. 

I would assume that that’s not something that you support? 

Mr. STIER. So interestingly, in this instance, I think the important thing, again, is to have comparable data. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So are they going to compare the data? 

Mr. STIER. Yes. And my understanding is that they’re also planning on doing quarterly poll surveys. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So what you’re saying is they’re going to take the 

model and actually improve on it? 

Mr. STIER. Yes. So, as long as it’s comparable. One of the challenges in the government is that it’s often not looked at an integrated enterprise. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So what are they doing to make sure it’s comparable? 

Mr. STIER. Well, one, they’re talking to OPM is my understanding, and they’re talking to us as well. And to my mind, the 

biggest positive is the idea that if they want to make it management useful, having it more regularly available, i.e., on a quarterly 

basis, is very powerful. So you’re not waiting more than a year to 

get back information about whether what you’re doing is working. 

So I think that is actually a best practice that more agencies 

should be doing. You don’t have to ask the full 80-plus questions, 

but to target smaller groups of questions and have them taken 

more often is actually really good. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
93 

So, again, I think there are some real positive there. Your basic 

point is the right one, which is, no agency should be going off and 

doing it on its own in a way that doesn’t enable the transparency. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Yeah, I guess what I want to do is make sure 

that I’ve got a benchmark so that I’m not comparing an apple to 

an orange. So what you’re saying is that you believe that we can 

accomplish that? 

Mr. STIER. I believe so, and I think, in fact, we might get more 

or a nicer apple too. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So Ms. Simon, let me come to you. From 

your opening testimony, obviously you’re not a fan. So how do we 

fix some of the problems that we have? Or is it your testimony that 

we don’t have any problems? 

Ms. SIMON. Well, obviously, there are problems in the Federal 

Government. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So how do we fix them, because we’ve got a 40- 

year old system, and so, you know, tactically, the plan that’s been 

laid out, I guess you said it had a dark component to it. So how 

do we make it, in your mind, a great way to make sure Federal 

workers get properly recognized, compensated, evaluated, the ability to hire and fire; knowing that that is like nails on a chalkboard 

maybe to your union-covered employees. But how do we make sure 

we do that? 

Ms. SIMON. Well, the idea of hiring and firing and properly rewarding employees is anything but nails on a chalkboard. The 

short answer is through the collective bargaining process. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you’re saying everything can be solved if we 

just had good negotiators and collective bargaining. I mean, history 

does not—you’ve had collective bargaining for the last 40 years, so 

if we’ve got a problem and we’ve had collective bargaining, how is 

that going to solve it? 

Ms. SIMON. I’m not sure that you and I would agree on what the 

big problems are. 

Mr. MEADOWS. That’s why I’m asking the question. I truly want 

to know if this is not the right approach, what’s the right approach? 

Ms. SIMON. Okay. I think that one of the big problems currently, 

you know, very currently, is an effort to politicize the work of Federal agencies. We see that in the Environmental Protection Agency, 

for example, where—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. You mean with more political appointees, or just 

political appointees you don’t like? 

Ms. SIMON. It’s not the political appointees that I like or don’t 

like, it’s their attempt to thwart the work of scientists in the agency to—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So how does collective bargaining fix that? 

Ms. SIMON. I think that you have protections where scientific integrity can be written into a collective bargaining agreement that 

can protect the ability of Federal employees to carry out the mission of the agency without fear of retaliation from political appointees. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you’re saying a collective bargaining agreement would be paramount to any administration directive? Is that 

what you’re saying? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
94 

Ms. SIMON. I do think that there is a tremendous risk right now 

in this highly politicized environment that—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. But this is not the first time. I mean, it’s not just 

this administration. 

Ms. SIMON. This is the first time in my experience and I’ve been 

doing this for over 30 years. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So this is the first time that there’s been a political environment in the Federal workforce. That’s a bold statement. 

Ms. SIMON. It’s substantially worse than it’s ever been. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And what matrix do you have that? I mean, 

you’ve got a matrix for that? 

Ms. SIMON. Yea. 

Mr. MEADOWS. What matrix? 

Ms. SIMON. There was a short period of time during the George 

W. Bush administration where claims representatives at the Social 

Security Administration were required to inform claims applicants 

that—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. That’s anecdotal. So what matrix do you have, 

Ms. Simon? 

Ms. SIMON. I’m not sure what you mean by matrix. 

Mr. MEADOWS. You’re saying it’s worse than it’s ever been. What 

quantitative matrix do you have to support your—— 

Ms. SIMON. Reports from our members in almost every agency. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you can get those reports to this committee? 

Ms. SIMON. They aren’t necessary always written reports. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, that’s not quantitative. 

Ms. SIMON. I can certainly give you information that demonstrates that Federal employees in several executive branch agencies feel as though there are political pressures on them. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So that’s not a matrix, Ms. Simon. 

Ms. SIMON. I don’t know what you mean by matrix. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, I’m a math guy, so let me just tell you. Just 

like with his surveys, you can look at the matrix and say this many 

employees said this, that, and another. That’s a matrix, and that’s 

what I was asking you for, and apparently you don’t have that. 

Ms. SIMON. I can put something together for you but it wouldn’t 

be very scientific. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. I recognize—Mr. Raskin has been here, 

and so a very generous 6 or 7 minutes. 

Mr. RASKIN. Thank you, Chairman Meadows. What a pleasure to 

have you sitting in that seat today. 

Thank you all for your testimony. 

I wanted to start by asking Ms. Simon something, following up 

on a point she made about the President’s proposal to lower the 

cost of benefits for present and future retirees by $143 billion billion over the next decade. One of those proposed cuts is for retirement annuities that qualifying Federal employees earn, and I’ve 

got tens of thousands of those who live in my district in Maryland. 

And this retirement annuity provides a fraction of the income that 

they earned while they worked. 

It’s called FERS, and they paid for the annuity over the course 

of their working lives. The proposal is to increase the amount that 

they pay for it, but not to increase the amount that they get back 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
95 

from it. So I just want to be clear, does this proposal really translate into a pay cut? 

Ms. SIMON. Well, there’s two answers to that question. First answer, yes, it does. The proposal is to shift cost for the provision of 

that benefit from the government to the employee. Right now, that 

would mean for most Federal employees, most Federal employees 

who are under FERS pay 0.8 percent of their salary for their FERS 

annuity. Under this proposal, eventually they’d pay about 7–1/4 

percent of their salaries for the annuity. 

The annuity itself would also be lower. So they would simultaneously pay more and receive less. 

Mr. RASKIN. And get less. Okay. 

Ms. SIMON. It would not—the trust fund that finances the benefit 

is fully funded under the current benefit formula. This is not about 

financial solvency of the retirement plan. 

Mr. RASKIN. Okay. Mr. Valdez, so will this effective pay cut, the 

change in the retirement annuity package, affect supervisor and 

managers and senior executives under the proposal? 

Mr. VALDEZ. Sure. Yeah. It affects all Federal employees. 

Mr. RASKIN. Okay. And so, and this question may be I will come 

to you, Mr. Stier. I enjoyed very much your testimony because you 

had some concrete positive ideas about how we might move forward. But, of course, what we’re getting instead is a proposal just 

to cut, cut, cut. 

What’s the effect of that on the workforce? I mean, intuitively, 

it would seem like that’s demoralizing, but give me your sense as 

an expert in the field? 

Mr. STIER. Well, look, we have data, and what is shows is that 

the Federal workforce is below a reasonable private sector norm in 

terms of their engagement, and substantially so. So what’s most 

striking about the data is that when it comes to mission commitment, that’s the one place the Federal workforce far exceeds that 

private sector norm. People who are in the government are there 

because they want to serve the public and they want to fulfill 

whatever mission is associated with the agency that they are employed at. 

Where they are being held back from achieving that mission is 

mostly through their leaders, and so that’s the place where you will 

have biggest bang for the buck is improving the overall leadership, 

and that’s from the top down. And there are a lot of very, again, 

positive things to do to address that. 

Mr. RASKIN. Got you. What do you think needs to be done in 

order for us to be having the right conversation about remoralizing 

the workforce, uplifting everyone, and making it more efficient and 

effective? 

Mr. STIER. In a minute. 

Mr. RASKIN. No, less than a minute because I’ve got two more 

questions. 

Mr. STIER. Okay. So sorry. I would say that we have done a report on the broader civil service reform. If you force me to focus on 

one point, that would be really on that leadership-ownership point. 

One thing I did not say, which I should have said, is that it’s the 

executive branch leaders but it’s, bluntly, you and all of Congress, 

too. Congress is a steward of the executive branch and could do 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
96 

better in oversight, in the underlying legislation, on providing real 

longer-term budgets, and obviously, in confirmation, which is not 

your piece. 

Mr. RASKIN. Right. There was some discussion earlier about this 

whole controversy about so-called official time, which is the idea 

that representatives at the workforce can do representation of people in the workforce on their official time, on their official duties, 

without losing their progress toward retirement and so on. 

And I made a visit the other day to the PASS office in my district, which is under the FAA, but it’s—they do work like air traffic 

controllers and develop all the maps and so on. And what I heard 

from both the managers there and the workers there is that the official time process has been critical to absorbing the shock of a lot 

of cuts that have come forward because the official time enables 

representatives of the employees to sit down with management to 

transition to new projects. 

And I’m just wondering whether you think this attack on official 

time is, in fact, warranted and justified, or whether it’s something 

that is very much part of the culture of the Federal workplace 

today? 

I don’t know, Mr. Valdez, perhaps you’ve got some thoughts on 

that. 

Mr. VALDEZ. Yeah, I think the discussion about official time actually relates to your question, Mr. Meadows, about the matrix. We 

don’t know enough to be smart on this issue. There hasn’t been a 

good set of data developed to show what is being done at different 

agencies in terms of official time and what those practices are, so 

I think a lot of this rhetoric is—— 

Mr. RASKIN. Well, the ones that I spoke to, again, the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, the PASS office they thought it 

was just critical in order to do their jobs to have all the employees 

represented at the table when they are actually developing new 

work regimes. 

Mr. VALDEZ. There’s no question, you know, from our perspective 

at the Senior Executive Association, that there should be official 

time. But, you know, I think there are questions about whether or 

not it has been an effectively utilized resource in the Federal Government. 

Mr. RASKIN. Okay. I think I’ve taxed the patience of the chair. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you for your insightful questions. The 

chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome to our 

panel. Mr. Valdez, I was intrigued by your last observation. We 

don’t really have enough data to give Mr. Meadows the matrix he’s 

seeking on official time. You would agree? 

Mr. VALDEZ. Yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I find that remarkable, given the fact that this 

committee has actually had hearings condemning official time, 

characterizing it as, you know, something that ought to be restrained, constrained, curtailed. How can we do that if we don’t 

have the data you say we don’t have? 

Mr. VALDEZ. I don’t have a response to that question. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
97 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Uh-huh. Okay. Just thought I’d make the point. 

It works both ways when we want matrices. Data is data. 

Mr. MEADOWS. If the gentleman will yield. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Of course. 

Mr. MEADOWS. My matrix had nothing to do with the official 

time. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Oh, I know. I thought I’d just throw that in. But 

your matrix had something to do with, I think collective bargaining 

and the union? 

Mr. MEADOWS. With regards to performance. How do we know 

where we are, and that is why Mr. Stier has always seen a warm 

welcome in a bipartisan way. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So, Ms. Simon, some things were characterized 

as anecdotal, but the fact that there was a 3-year Federal pay 

freeze, and there’s another one in the President’s budget this year, 

that’s not anecdotal. That’s a fact; is it not? 

Ms. SIMON. That’s correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. The fact that benefits were curtailed, the money 

actually taken out of Federal employees pockets to the tune of 

about $190 million, all in the name of debt reduction, that’s a fact, 

not anecdotal; is that correct? 

Ms. SIMON. Yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And the fact that, for example, this committee 

passed a 2-year probationary time period for future employees of 

the Federal workforce, again, that’s not anecdotal. We actually did 

that; is that correct? 

Ms. SIMON. Yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Now, I’m just spitballing here, but could collectively, those kinds of actions, to say nothing of verbal disparagements of the Federal workforce which, by the way, was not anecdotal. The first significant negative comment with respect to the 

last 8 years actually came from the person who became Speaker of 

the House, John Boehner, when he gave a speech in the fall of 

2010 in Cincinnati, in which he explicitly disparaged the workforce, 

being overpaid, incompetent, too many, all that kind of thing. 

By the way, from somebody who said the Federal Government 

ought to be run like a business; I don’t know a CEO of a business 

who would hold his or her job doing that to the workforce; but 

that’s neither here nor there. 

But that actually happened. Does this have an impact on morale 

and productivity? 

Ms. SIMON. Of course it does. And I’ve been listening to people 

talk about the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey as if it were 

some kind of oracle. You know, people are fed a particular list of 

questions that are, certainly, a good portion of them are leading 

questions, and they are designed to provide data to make a certain 

kind of case. 

They also sort of bypass the union as the representative of the 

workforce. And trust me when I tell you, we hear a lot of complaints, and people, throughout the Federal Government, many of 

whom are military veterans, certainly in the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, large percentages, 

up to a third of the civilian workforce in the Department of Defense 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
98 

and in the Department of Veterans Affairs are veterans themselves. 

And the rhetoric that surrounded the accountability law that was 

passed last year was so harsh and so demoralizing and defamatory 

to that workforce, as if they don’t care about the welfare of veterans. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I’m going to run out of time, but I do want to 

say, the chairman of this session is not one of those people. I mean, 

to my friend, Mr. Meadows’ credit, he has gone into Federal agencies and actually had work sessions with employees to hear their 

perspective to learn more. I wish all of our colleagues took the time 

to do that, because there is such a sense of angst created by this 

kind of rhetoric and this kind of behavior. 

I’m going to run out of time, so if you don’t mind, Ms. Simon, I’m 

going to ask Mr. Stier and Mr. Valdez one last question. 

Impact on recruitment. We’re going to lose—I mean a huge percentage of the current workforce is eligible for retirement. How do 

we find the replacement, especially at the higher end skill set, with 

this kind of context, with this kind of negative or hostile context 

with respect to the Federal workforce and attitudes toward the 

Federal employee coming out of this body, current administration, 

and previous administrations, as my friend, Mr. Meadows, points 

out. How do we do that? 

And then I’ll, of course, yield back my time. 

Mr. VALDEZ. I think, and it’s an excellent question, and I think 

back to the 1970s when the military was under such attack, you 

know, following the Vietnam War and the, you know, morale in the 

military was so low. It’s sort of analogous to what’s happening 

today. 

What I think is important that we restore a sense of purpose to 

the Federal Government worker, and a sense of the nobility of public service; and that is a bipartisan effort that needs to be done, 

and it needs to be done in conjunction with Congress. You know, 

the American people deserve a good government, but they are not 

going to get it with the kind of rhetoric that we are hearing in the 

press and elsewhere. 

Mr. STIER. So look, I think this is a very real problem, and we 

heard the question earlier from the other chairman about trusting 

government, and I think it’s a fundamental issue because we 

need—our government’s our only tool for collective action to address our most critical problems that has the imprimatur the public and the taxpayer resources behind it. It’s a critical element of 

our democracy, and we have a set of problems, and what you’re describing is a real one. 

But it’s a little bit like the house with the leaky roof that’s also 

on fire, and you’ve got to deal with the fire first. The fire first is 

that we don’t have leaders, either on the executive branch, or here 

in Congress, that truly own the organization that they’re responsible for. They are rewarded for crisis management, policy development but not for making their organizations better. 

I would posit that if you required some sort of score card on the 

data points we’ve talked about already and developed better ones, 

had real transparency around whether the leaders are performing 

in a way to drive that number up when you ask how many people 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
99 

can raise a violation of law or ethics without fear of retaliation, 

that would have a bigger impact. 

If you require those leaders to take responsibility for recruiting 

great talent in, that’s not something that happens today and it 

does happen in every other good organization. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your 

patience. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the Record testimony of Anthony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Without objection. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the chair. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman for his kind words, and 

right before I recognize the delegate from the District of Columbia, 

Ms. Simon, I want to point out one thing because I’ll forget it if 

I don’t do it now. 

In your testimony, you talked about displacing Federal workers 

with subcontracted or the like contracts. Just know that the gentleman from Virginia and myself agree on this point, that displacing Federal workers with subcontracted services is not a good 

plan in my mind, unless it truly does make us more efficient, and 

you will find someone who actually supports that position really 

vigorously, because I think at times, we act like we are saving 

money by just subcontracting a service out, and so I wanted to 

point that out. 

So I recognize the gentlelady from the District of Columbia for 

6 minutes. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for pointing 

that out. That would be a matrix that we would have to measure 

as well if we subcontract. 

I’d like to ask the three of you, is my recollection of statistics correct that the Federal workforce is the most highly educated workforce in the country? 

Ms. SIMON. As a group, the answer is yes. On average, and in 

terms of its median educational attainment, yes. 

Ms. NORTON. That’s what I would be going by, speaking of matrices. Yes. 

Mr. Valdez, Mr. Stier? 

Mr. VALDEZ. I actually am not familiar with that statistic, so I’ll 

rely upon my colleague to the left. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Stier? 

Mr. STIER. I think you’re entirely correct that it’s a workforce 

that has a very high level of educational attainment and expertise, 

and that’s one of the reasons why we need to see a different system 

because 40 years ago, it looked very different, and what we’ve seen 

overall—— 

Ms. NORTON. 40 years ago, it was—— 

Mr. STIER. It’s a workforce that has been moving from much 

more in the way of clerical activity to much more professional—— 

Ms. NORTON. And that’s really the point I’m getting to. If we’re 

going to have these, have the best workforce in the country because 

of the nature of the work, Federal work, are we recruiting people 

at the same level that the private sector is, when you consider 

technology and at the same level so that we would end up with the 

same, with a parity workforce today? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
100 

Are we keeping up, in other words, with the competition that 

we’re facing from abroad and from every place else as we try to 

make sure we maintain these standards? 

Mr. STIER. My answer would be no, I don’t think we are. 

Ms. SIMON. I would say that people still want to work for the 

Federal Government because the work is so important. But there 

are certainly concerns about the relentless attacks on the compensation package, with threats to reduce the number of days of 

paid leave, threats to shift costs for health insurance and retirement benefits, and turn everybody into either a term or a temp employee, with no any kind of career tenure. It makes the Federal 

Government a much less attractive proposition than it was even a 

few years ago. 

Mr. VALDEZ. I spent my time at the Department of Energy, 

which is a highly technical organization, and we didn’t have trouble 

attracting the kind of high talent, high level talent that we needed. 

But I would agree that there has been, you know, in recent years 

a reluctance, particularly among young people, to enter Federal 

service when they have options in the private sector. 

Ms. NORTON. I really did have in mind that generation of 

millennials who, ultimately, are going to have to replace—they 

seem to be very opportunistic in how they look for work. 

I’d like to follow up on this official time notion because we have 

had hearings on that, and I believe that, in the course of collective 

bargaining, the Department of Education may have actually dispensed with official time? 

Ms. SIMON. For all practical purposes this faux contract, and it’s 

certainly not a contract, because a contract requires two parties, 

right? This was implemented unilaterally. Official time has been 

eliminated for all representational work. 

Ms. NORTON. So I don’t understand how a collective bargaining 

contract can work at all if there’s no official time in order to attend 

to—so somebody needs somebody to handle their particular grievance. That’s what official time is largely for. How is that done? 

Ms. SIMON. Well, under this what we call it an edict, sometimes, 

faux contract because, again it was not collectively bargained, it 

was imposed unilaterally. The union representative has to ask his 

or her supervisor for permission to take some time off of work 

and—— 

Ms. NORTON. Are you saying the person has to take leave? 

Ms. SIMON. Leave without pay, yes. And it has to, they have to 

gain permission from the supervisor. It might be the same supervisor against whom a grievance has been filed. And then that representation has to occur either outside—it’s impossible. There’s no 

representation. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, has the union done, your union or other Federal unions, done any work to document how that is happening? In 

other words, are people willing to ask for that? 

I mean, I’m sure some people want to do it as good union people, 

but we need some evidence of what the effect is. I think that’s the 

only agency that’s done that. 

Ms. SIMON. Thank God, so far. It’s been about 6 weeks. We’re 

really put in a corner because, as you know, we have a legal obligation to represent members of our bargaining unit. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
101 

Ms. NORTON. Is anybody suing? You actually have a legal obligation. Under the law, is there a lawsuit about being deprived of official time which would enable carrying out that legal obligation? 

Ms. SIMON. Well, we’ve filed an unfair labor practice complaint 

with the FLRA, but without a—the FLRA can’t rule on it right 

now. 

Ms. NORTON. Because they don’t have—we went through that in 

the first panel. 

Ms. SIMON. Yes. And I’m not an attorney, so I can’t really talk 

about our legal strategy. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I am one, and I ask you to ask your own general counsel to look into what I see as—I don’t care what the 

FLRA, if they get counsel or not, unless they correct this, it does 

seem to me to be a violation of the ability to bargain at all. So, I 

don’t want to predict the outcome, but it’s a lawsuit just waiting 

to be filed. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentlewoman for her questions. I 

thank each of you for your testimony, and here’s what I would like 

to ask each of you to do. Actually, Mr. Stier, put a 10-point plan 

out there. So Mr. Valdez, if you’re willing to look at that 10 points, 

and if you need a copy of it, we’ll get it, but I’m sure you already 

have it. If you’ll look at how, from your perspective, some of the 

concerns you have with it, and some of the ways that you could implement it, and report back to this committee within 60 days. Can 

you do that? 

Mr. VALDEZ. Absolutely. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Ms. Simon, if you would do the same 

thing. And I hate to use Mr. Stier’s 10 points as kind of the—but 

in your testimony, here’s—you suggested that there was some concerns that you had in terms of some of the areas, so I’d like you 

to look at his 10 points and, from your perspective, say these are 

areas that we have real concerns with. These are some areas that 

we think that we could support. And that way it doesn’t come in 

one bucket. We can take this as the benchmark and all look to 

that, because what I’d like to do is, from both of your perspectives, 

be able to take the 10 points that he’s recommending, which really 

comes from really the Federal employees. 

I mean, those recommendations come directly from input, and I 

know that you were not positive about the way that they get that 

input because it bypasses the unions. But at this point, it’s really 

the only data that we have as I go down looking at the data in 

terms of what Federal employees are saying. 

And so if you could do that, Ms. Simon, and report back in 60 

days, same timeframe. 

Ms. SIMON. I’d be happy to do that. However, I would also, with 

your indulgence, like to share with you maybe a couple of collective 

bargaining agreements because they really show what the priorities of Federal employees are. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Certainly, if you want to get that along with that 

submission, but 60 days, is that enough time, Ms. Simon? 

Ms. SIMON. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. And Mr. Stier, here’s what I would like to 

ask of you. As you look at this, if you could look at it from your 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
102 

perspective of the two different opinions we may have, from our 

senior executive, and then from our covered employees, if you could 

look at it and say, from an oversight standpoint, here’s some of the 

areas that you have to be really concerned about. If you could get 

that back in the same 60 days, if that would be appropriate. 

So, again, thank you to all of you for your testimony and your 

graciousness for being here so late. 

And if there is no further business before the committee, thankfully, we will go ahead and adjourn. 

[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
(103) 

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
104 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 56 here 31422.056
105 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 57 here 31422.057
106 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 58 here 31422.058
107 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 59 here 31422.059
108 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 60 here 31422.060
109 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 61 here 31422.061
110 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 62 here 31422.062
111 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 63 here 31422.063
112 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 64 here 31422.064
113 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 65 here 31422.065
114 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 66 here 31422.066
115 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 67 here 31422.067
116 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 68 here 31422.068
117 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 69 here 31422.069
118 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 70 here 31422.070
119 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 71 here 31422.071
120 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 72 here 31422.072
121 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 73 here 31422.073
122 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 74 here 31422.074
123 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 75 here 31422.075
124 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 76 here 31422.076
125 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 77 here 31422.077
126 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 78 here 31422.078
127 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 79 here 31422.079
128 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 83 here 31422.083
129 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 84 here 31422.084
130 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 85 here 31422.085
131 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 86 here 31422.086
132 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 87 here 31422.087
133 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 80 here 31422.080
134 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 81 here 31422.081
135 

Æ 


KING-6430 with DISTILLERInsert offset folio 82 here 31422.082