Federal Emergency Management Agency: Additional Actions Needed to Improve Handling of Employee Misconduct Allegations
Published: 2017-07-27T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: This testimony summarizes the information contained in GAO's July 2017 report, entitled Federal Emergency Management Agency: Additional Actions Needed to Improve Handling of Employee Misconduct Allegations ( GAO-17-613 ).
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has developed and documented misconduct policies and procedures for most employees, but not its entire workforce. Specifically, FEMA has developed policies and procedures regarding misconduct investigations that apply to all FEMA personnel and has also documented options to address misconduct and appeal rights for Title 5 (generally permanent employees) and Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees (temporary employees who support disaster related activities). However, FEMA has not documented misconduct policies and procedures for Surge Capacity Force members, who may augment FEMA's workforce in the event of a catastrophic disaster. Additionally, FEMA's Reservist (intermittent disaster employees) policies and procedures do not outline disciplinary actions or the appeals process currently in practice at the agency. As a result, supervisors and Reservist employees may not be aware of all aspects of the process. Clearly documented policies and procedures for all workforce categories could help to better prepare management to address misconduct and mitigate perceptions that misconduct is handled inconsistently.
FEMA records data on misconduct cases and their outcomes; however, aspects of this data limit their usefulness for identifying and addressing trends. GAO reviewed misconduct complaints recorded by FEMA's Office of the Chief Security Officer (OCSO) from January 2014 through September 30, 2016, and identified 595 complaints involving 799 alleged offenses, the most common of which were integrity and ethics violations. FEMA reported 546 disciplinary actions related to misconduct from calendar year 2014 through 2016. In addition to OCSO, two other FEMA offices involved in investigating and adjudicating misconduct also record data. However, limited standardization of data fields and entries within fields, limited use of unique case identifiers, and a lack of documented guidance on data entry across all three offices restricts the data's usefulness for identifying and addressing trends in employee misconduct. Improved quality control measures could help the agency use the data to better identify potential problem areas and opportunities for training.
FEMA shares misconduct case information internally and with the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) on a regular basis; however, FEMA does not have reconciliation procedures in place to track DHS OIG referred cases to ensure that they are reviewed and addressed. GAO reviewed a random sample of 20 cases DHS OIG referred to FEMA in fiscal year 2016 and found that FEMA missed 6 of the 20 complaints during the referral process and had not reviewed them at the time of GAO's inquiry. As a result of GAO's review, FEMA took action to review the complaints and opened inquiries in 5 of the 6 cases (1 case was closed for lack of information). In 3 of these cases, officials determined that the complaints did not involve FEMA employees. The 2 remaining cases were open as of April 2017. While the results from this review are not generalizable to the entire population of referrals from DHS OIG to FEMA, they raise questions as to whether there could be additional instances of misconduct complaints that FEMA has not reviewed or addressed. Procedures to ensure reconciliation of referred cases across FEMA and DHS OIG records could help ensure that FEMA accounts for all complaints.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: I am pleased to be here today to discuss our recent report on employee  misconduct at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  FEMA is responsible for coordinating government-wide efforts in  preparing for, protecting against, mitigating the effects of, responding to,  and recovering from all domestic natural or man-made disasters,  including acts of terror. To accomplish this mission, the agency relies on a  total workforce of more than 22,000 permanent and disaster-related  temporary employees. These employees play a key role in supporting  communities and first responders. However, incidents of misconduct can  detract from FEMA’s mission, damage the agency’s reputation, and  hamper the agency’s ability to respond to disasters and maintain public  trust if not effectively managed.
Within FEMA, three primary offices are involved in reviewing,  investigating, and adjudicating employee misconduct allegations.
Office of the Chief Security Officer (OCSO) Internal  Investigations Branch: conducts investigations related to more  serious allegations, such as those that may involve potential criminal  misconduct.
The Office of the Chief Component Human Capital Officer Labor  and Employee Relations Branch (LER): advises supervisors who  conduct lower level investigations and inquiries, such as time and  attendance violations, and provides recommendations on any  counseling or any disciplinary or adverse action for all cases.
The Office of the Chief Counsel Personnel Law Branch (PLB):  provides legal advice during investigations and conducts legal reviews  of certain reports of investigation and all disciplinary and adverse  actions.
Representatives from these three offices form FEMA’s Administrative  Investigations Directive (AID) Committee, which reviews misconduct  allegations, assigns investigators, and tracks the status of open cases.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General  (OIG) also plays a role in reviewing and investigating certain misconduct  allegations, such as allegations of criminal misconduct against a DHS  employee and any allegations of misconduct against senior employees.
My testimony discusses findings from our July 2017 report on the  handling of employee misconduct allegations at FEMA. Accordingly, my  testimony addresses: (1) the extent to which FEMA has developed  policies and procedures for addressing employee misconduct; (2)  available data on FEMA employee misconduct cases and their outcomes  and the extent to which FEMA uses these data to identify and address  trends; and (3) the extent that information regarding misconduct cases is  shared within FEMA’s personnel management offices and with DHS OIG.
To conduct this work, among other things, we reviewed, where available,  FEMA’s documented policies and procedures for reporting, investigating,  and adjudicating allegations of misconduct across all of the agency’s  workforce categories, including the following: Title 5 employees, Cadre  of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees (CORE), Reservists, Surge  Capacity Force members, and FEMA Corps members. We also  interviewed officials from FEMA units with responsibilities related to  managing misconduct and analyzed available FEMA data on employee  misconduct. Specifically, we reviewed and analyzed available 2014  through 2016 data contained in three misconduct case tracking  spreadsheets maintained by FEMA’s OCSO, LER, and PLB. Our July  2017 report includes a detailed explanation of the scope and methods  used to conduct our work, which was performed in accordance with  generally accepted government auditing standards.
subsections: section_title: FEMA Has Developed and Documented Misconduct Policies and Procedures for Most Employees, but Not its Entire Workforce
paragraphs: FEMA has developed a policy and procedures regarding misconduct  investigations that apply to all FEMA personnel and has also documented  policies and procedures regarding options to address misconduct and  appeal rights for Title 5 and CORE employees. However, FEMA has not  documented complete misconduct policies and procedures for Surge  Capacity Force members or Reservists.
DHS issued the Surge Capacity Force Concept of Operations in 2010,  which outlines FEMA’s base implementation plan for the Surge Capacity  Force. However, the document does not address any elements  pertaining to Surge Capacity Force human capital management,  specifically misconduct and disciplinary policies and procedures.  According to the FEMA Surge Capacity Force Coordinator, despite the  lack of documentation, any incidents of misconduct would likely be  investigated by FEMA’s OCSO, which would then refer the completed  report of investigation to the employee’s home component for  adjudication and potential disciplinary action. However, although no  allegations of misconduct were made at the time, the Federal  Coordinating Officer in charge of one of the Hurricane Sandy Joint Field  Offices said he had not seen anything in writing or any formal guidance  that documents or explains how the process would work and stated that  he would have had to contact FEMA headquarters for assistance in  determining how to address any misconduct.
Without documented guidance, FEMA cannot ensure that Surge Capacity  Force misconduct is addressed adequately in a timely and  comprehensive manner. Therefore, in our July 2017 report we  recommended that the FEMA Administrator document policies and  procedures to address potential Surge Capacity Force misconduct. DHS  concurred and stated that FEMA is developing a Human Capital plan for  the Surge Capacity Force and will include policies and procedures  relating to potential misconduct. DHS estimated that this effort would be  completed by June 30, 2018. This action, if fully implemented, should  address the intent of the recommendation.
Additionally, we found that FEMA’s Reservist Program Manual lacks  documented policies and procedures on disciplinary options to address  misconduct and appeal rights for Reservists. Both LER and PLB officials  told us that, in practice, disciplinary actions for Reservists are limited to  reprimands and termination. According to these officials, FEMA does not  suspend Reservists because they are an intermittent, at-will workforce  deployed as needed to respond to disasters. Federal Coordinating  Officers and cadre managers have the authority to demobilize Reservists  and remove them from a Joint Field Office if misconduct occurs, which  may be done in lieu of suspension. Furthermore, LER and PLB officials  also told us that, in practice, FEMA grants Reservists the right to appeal a  reprimand or termination to their second-level supervisor. However, these  actions are not documented in the Reservist Program Manual.
Without documented Reservist disciplinary options and appeals policies,  supervisors and Reservist employees may not be aware of all aspects of  the disciplinary and appeals process. Thus, in our July 2017 report, we  recommended that FEMA document Reservist disciplinary options and  appeals that are currently in practice at the agency. DHS concurred and  stated that FEMA will update its Reservist program directive to include  procedures for disciplinary actions and appeals currently in practice at the  agency. DHS estimated that this effort would be completed by December  31, 2017. This action, if fully implemented, should address the intent of  the recommendation.
We also reported in our July 2017 report that FEMA does not  communicate the range of offenses and penalties to its entire workforce.  Namely, FEMA revised its employee disciplinary manual for Title 5  employees in 2015, and in doing so, eliminated the agency’s table of  offenses and penalties. Tables of offenses and penalties are used by  agencies to provide guidance on the range of penalties available when  formal discipline is taken. They also provide awareness and inform  employees of the penalties which may be imposed for misconduct. Since  revising the manual and removing the table, FEMA no longer  communicates possible punishable offenses to its entire workforce.  Instead, information is now communicated to supervisors and employees  on an individual basis. Specifically, LER specialists currently use a  “comparators” spreadsheet with historical data on previous misconduct  cases to determine a range of disciplinary or adverse actions for each  specific misconduct case. The information used to determine the range of  penalties is shared with the supervisor on a case-by-case basis; however,  LER specialists noted that due to privacy protections they are the only  FEMA officials who have access to the comparators spreadsheet.
Because information about offenses and penalties is not universally  shared with supervisors and employees, FEMA management is limited in  its ability to set expectations about appropriate conduct in the workplace  and to communicate consequences of inappropriate conduct. We  recommended that FEMA communicate the range of penalties for specific  misconduct offenses to all employees and supervisors. DHS concurred  and stated that FEMA is currently drafting a table of offenses and  penalties and will take steps to communicate those penalties to  employees throughout the agency once the table is finalized. DHS  estimated that this effort would be completed by December 31, 2017. This  action, if fully implemented, should address the intent of the  recommendation.
section_title: FEMA Records Data on Employee Misconduct Cases and Their Outcomes, but Could Improve the Quality and Usefulness of These Data to Identify and Address Trends
subsections: section_title: Multiple FEMA Offices Collect Misconduct Data; FEMA OCSO Recorded Approximately 600 Misconduct Complaints from January 2014 through September 30, 2016
paragraphs: The three offices on the AID Committee involved in investigating and  adjudicating employee misconduct complaints each maintain separate  case tracking spreadsheets with data on employee misconduct to  facilitate their respective roles in the misconduct review process. We  analyzed data provided by OCSO in its case tracking spreadsheet and  found that there were 595 complaints from January 2014 through  September 30, 2016. The complaints involved alleged offenses of  employee misconduct which may or may not have been substantiated  over the course of an investigation.
Based on our analysis, the 595 complaints contained approximately 799  alleged offenses from January 2014 through September 30, 2016. As  shown in figure 1 below, the most common type of alleged offenses were  integrity and ethics violations (278), inappropriate comments and conduct  (140), and misuse of government property or funds (119). For example,  one complaint categorized as integrity and ethics involved allegations that  a FEMA employee at a Joint Field Office was accepting illegal gifts from a  FEMA contractor and a state contractor. Another complaint categorized  as inappropriate comments and conduct involved allegations that a FEMA  employee’s supervisor and other employees had bullied and cursed at  them, creating an unhealthy work environment. Finally, a complaint  categorized as misuse of government property or funds involved  allegations that a former FEMA employee was terminated but did not  return a FEMA-owned laptop.
section_title: Aspects of FEMA’s Data Limit Their Usefulness for Identifying and Addressing Trends in Employee Misconduct
paragraphs: OCSO, LER, and PLB collect data on employee misconduct and  outcomes, but limited standardization of fields and entries within fields,  limited use of unique case identifiers, and a lack of documented guidance  on data entry restricts their usefulness for identifying and addressing  trends in employee misconduct. FEMA employee misconduct data are not  readily accessible and cannot be verified as accurate and complete on a  timely basis. These limitations restrict management’s ability to process  the data into quality information that can be used to identify and address  trends in employee misconduct. For example, an OCSO official stated  that senior OCSO officials recently requested employee misconduct  information based on employee type, such as the number of Reservists.  However, the data are largely captured in narrative fields, making it  difficult to extract without manual review.
In our July 2017 report we recommended that FEMA improve the quality  and usefulness of the misconduct data it collects by implementing quality  control measures, such as adding additional drop-down fields with  standardized entries, adding unique case identifier fields, developing  documented guidance for data entry, or considering the adoption of  database software. In addition, we recommended that FEMA conduct  routine reporting on employee misconduct trends once the quality of the  data is improved. DHS concurred and stated that FEMA is working with  the DHS OIG to develop a new case management system. The system  will use drop-down fields with standardized entries and provide tools for  trend analysis. Once the new system is implemented, DHS stated that  FEMA will be able to routinely identify and address emerging trends of  misconduct. DHS estimated that these efforts would be completed by  March 31, 2018. These actions, if fully implemented, should address the  intent of the recommendations.
section_title: FEMA Shares Misconduct Case Information Internally and with DHS OIG, but Does Not Accurately Track DHS OIG Referred Misconduct Complaints
subsections: section_title: FEMA Offices Meet Regularly to Discuss Misconduct Allegations and Ongoing Investigations and Send Monthly Status Updates to DHS OIG
paragraphs: Officials from OCSO, LER, and PLB conduct weekly AID Committee  meetings to coordinate information on misconduct allegations and  investigations. The committee reviews allegations, refers cases for  investigation or inquiry, and discusses the status of investigations. In  addition to the weekly AID Committee meetings, LER and PLB officials  stated that they meet on a regular basis to discuss disciplinary and  adverse actions and ensure that any penalties are consistent and  defensible in court. Employee misconduct information is also shared  directly with FEMA’s Chief Security Officer and Chief Counsel. Within  FEMA, these regular meetings and status reports provide officials from  key personnel management offices opportunities to communicate and  share information about employee misconduct. FEMA also provides DHS  OIG with information on employee misconduct cases on a regular basis  through monthly reports on open investigations.
section_title: FEMA’s Procedures for Tracking DHS OIG Referred Cases Need Improvement
paragraphs: We found that OCSO has not established effective procedures to ensure  that all cases referred to FEMA by DHS OIG are accounted for and  subsequently reviewed and addressed. As discussed earlier, OCSO  sends a monthly report of open investigations to DHS OIG. However,  while these reports provide awareness of specific investigations,  according to OCSO officials, neither office reconciles the reports to a list  of referred cases to ensure that all cases are addressed. We reviewed a  non-generalizable random sample of 20 fiscal year 2016 employee  misconduct complaints DHS OIG referred to FEMA for review and found  that FEMA missed 6 of the 20 complaints during the referral process and  had not reviewed them at the time of our inquiry. As a result of our review,  FEMA subsequently took action to review the complaints. The AID  Committee recommended that OCSO open inquiries in 3 of the 6 cases to  determine whether the allegations were against FEMA employees,  assigned 2 cases to LER for further review, and closed 1 case for lack of  information. According to an OCSO official, OCSO subsequently  determined that none of the allegations in the 3 cases they opened  involved FEMA employees and the cases were closed. The remaining 2  cases were open as of April 2017.
The results from our sample cannot be generalized to the entire  population of referrals from DHS OIG to FEMA; however, they raise  questions as to whether there could be additional instances of misconduct  complaints that FEMA has not reviewed or addressed. Therefore, in our  July 2017 report we recommended that FEMA develop reconciliation  procedures to consistently track referred cases. DHS concurred and  stated that once the new case management system described above is  established and fully operational, FEMA will be able to upload all DHS  OIG referrals into a single, agency-wide database. Additionally, FEMA will  work with DHS OIG to establish processes and procedures that will  improve reconciliation of case data. DHS estimated that these efforts  would be completed by March 31, 2018. These actions, if fully  implemented, should address the intent of the recommendation.
Chairman Perry, Ranking Member Correa, Members of the  Subcommittee, this concludes my prepared testimony. I would be pleased  to answer any questions that you may have at this time.
section_title: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: If you or your staff members have any questions concerning this  testimony, please contact me at 404-679-1875 or CurrieC@gao.gov.  Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public  Affairs may be found on the last page of this statement. Other individuals  who made key contributions to this testimony include Sarah Turpin,  Kristiana Moore, Steven Komadina, and Ben Atwater.
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