Tag Archive: department


Make Way for Microtasking

Filed Under: Insurance News
Apr.13, 2012

The State Department’s workforce grew a whole lot larger last fall when it launched a new platform that farms out small tasks to American college students.

State’s Virtual Student Foreign Service Program launched a pilot microvolunteering platform that allows State employees to post unclassified, short tasks that can be performed by eager student volunteers.

The platform, which uses Sparked — a task distribution and collaboration platform developed by San Francisco-based The Extraordinaries Inc. — allows State Department workers to post tasks that require anywhere from 20 minutes to a couple of hours to complete. Any American college student with a dot-edu email address can sign up and agree to complete a task that interests them, Bridget Roddy, program manager for the VSFS program, told Wired Workplace on Thursday.

“We offer virtual internships to college students, but because there was such a high demand for opportunities to engage with the State Department, we thought about how else we could engage college students to help us with the work we do,” she said.

Aside from a line-item on their resume, students are motivated to participate in part because of the opportunity to receive one of up to two awards of excellence from State employees on each particular task, Roddy said. Students also are able to create teams representing their college or university, so many students simply want to see their school do well, she added.

State also is working to determine how to quantify the tasks students perform as microvolunteers and officials are weighing whether a certain level of contribution could transfer into course credit, Roddy said.

Thus far, jobs completed by students range from creating a welcome brochure for new employees in Guyana to researching tax rates in the European Union to creating pie charts and graphs for presentations, Roddy said.

The State Department plans to launch the full-scale version of the microvolunteering platform within the next few months, meaning it would open up to all American college students, whether graduate, undergraduate, Ph.D., full-time or part-time, Roddy said.

“We’re relying on social media and word of mouth to spread the message of opportunity to American college students,” she said. “It’s about making sure our students are aware and eager about engaging on the website and about making sure our employees understand how to do this kind of chunking of projects.”

Introducing virtual internships and microtasking to the State Department workforce has required a bit of a culture shift, so the department has relied on presentations and webinars to educate employees on how to use the website and how it can change the work they do, Roddy said. “Anytime you introduce a new technology, especially into a government organization, it takes time,” she said. “There definitely is a culture shift. We have to show how the technology is valuable, how people can use it to change the culture and make people comfortable using the technology.”

Pending continued success with the microvolunteering initiative within VSFS, however, Roddy said the hope is to incorporate microtasking internally among State Department employees. “We have such a diverse workforce,” she said. “By allowing employees to devote 5 percent of their workweek to other projects, they will feel empowered and develop skills they might not have otherwise been able to develop in their current position.”

The program also is sparking interest from other agencies. In fact, the General Services Administration called the State Department on Thursday to discuss the idea of microtasking and whether it could be appropriate for GSA and the federal government at large, Roddy said.

“The question is, how can we apply this sort of model to how we work, whether it’s working with external audiences or with internal employees,” she said. “We’re happy to share what we’ve learned and how we move forward with other agencies who are interested in adopting this type of model.”

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IG: Customs shelling out millions in workers’ comp

Filed Under: Insurance News
Apr.11, 2012

The Customs and Border Protection agency racked up more than $62 million in workers’ compensation payments in 2010, due partly to inadequate oversight, according to the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general.

CBP’s poor management of compensation case files, incomplete reviews of bills and Labor Department reports, and missing documentation from claimants call into question the accuracy of millions of dollars in workers’ comp claims during the past five years, the IG concluded in a new report.

“We attribute these deficiencies to CBP’s organizational structure, which may not be suited to effectively manage the number of [Federal Employees’ Compensation Act] cases, and to the lack of policies and procedures that would ensure effective case management,” the IG report said.

FECA provides compensation for wage loss and medical care for those injured or killed on the job, helps employees return to work, and pays benefits to survivors. It covers 2.7 million federal employees and postal workers, and paid out $1.9 billion in wage-loss compensation, impairment and death benefits, and $898 million in medical and rehabilitation services and supplies during the 2010 chargeback year, which ended on June 30, 2010. The funds come from the Employees’ Compensation Fund, and most agencies repay the money through chargeback bills from Labor.

The IG cited specific cases in which CBP failed to properly oversee its workers’ comp program, at taxpayers’ expense. For example, in the agency’s 2009 chargeback bill, there were 110 instances in which the claimants’ Social Security numbers did not match CBP’s records. In addition, one claimant received workers’ compensation totaling $45,581 over two years — after the employee returned to work.

CBP lacked a uniform system for managing cases, using paper and electronic files in documentation, and housing the information in various locations. In its response to the IG report, the agency said it is moving completely to a Web-based system by 2014, and has filed claims electronically in its eComp system since 2009. CBP officials agreed with all the IG’s recommendations for improving oversight of the workers’ comp program.

The agency also has beefed up its review system, James Tomsheck, CBP’s assistant commissioner in the Office of Internal Affairs, said in response to the report. CBP has recouped $3.4 million from other DHS agencies for erroneous 2009 workers’ comp charges and has corrected mistakes related to Social Security numbers, he added. The agency also is developing a plan, to be completed this month, to review all disability cases where medical evidence indicates that employees could return to work. In 15 of 140 case files the IG reviewed, medical reports showed that the employees’ doctors had cleared them to return to work, yet CBP paid those employees $951,195 in workers’ comp.

The IG recommended CBP conduct a workload analysis to ensure it has sufficient staff to effectively manage FECA cases. A 2007 change in policy resulted in 14 injury compensation specialists responsible for managing 11,299 compensation cases on the 2010 chargeback bill — an average of 802 cases per specialist. CBP plans to complete an assessment this summer of its workload and staff to improve claims processing.

Many agencies have struggled with effectively managing the federal workers’ compensation program. Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office released a report concluding that the program remains vulnerable to fraud, mostly due to limited access to data.

Under FECA, employees disabled on the job can receive 66 2/3 percent — or 75 percent for those with dependents — of their basic salary tax-free, plus medical-related expenses. The 66 2/3 percent rate is comparable to most state systems, but many federal recipients, including those past retirement age, receive the 75 percent compensation rate. Claimants cannot receive FECA benefits and certain other federal disability or retirement benefits at the same time; they must have benefits reduced to eliminate any duplicate payments. There is no age limit for receiving FECA benefits.

Many have criticized FECA, saying it is too generous and should be reformed so that employees receive lower benefits and return to work faster. The 1916 law has not been amended since 1974.

The House in November 2011 passed legislation that aims to provide greater support for some feds injured on the job and to make the workers’ compensation program more accountable. On the Senate side, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved a postal reform bill — also in November — that includes provisions related to FECA. One measure, taken from legislation that Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, introduced in February, would convert employees on workers’ compensation to the appropriate retirement system when they reach retirement age. It also would set the maximum compensation rate at 66 2/3 percent in most instances.

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IG: Customs shelling out millions in workers’ comp

Filed Under: Insurance News
Apr.11, 2012

The Customs and Border Protection agency racked up more than $62 million in workers’ compensation payments in 2010, due partly to inadequate oversight, according to the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general.

CBP’s poor management of compensation case files, incomplete reviews of bills and Labor Department reports, and missing documentation from claimants call into question the accuracy of millions of dollars in workers’ comp claims during the past five years, the IG concluded in a new report.

“We attribute these deficiencies to CBP’s organizational structure, which may not be suited to effectively manage the number of [Federal Employees’ Compensation Act] cases, and to the lack of policies and procedures that would ensure effective case management,” the IG report said.

FECA provides compensation for wage loss and medical care for those injured or killed on the job, helps employees return to work, and pays benefits to survivors. It covers 2.7 million federal employees and postal workers, and paid out $1.9 billion in wage-loss compensation, impairment and death benefits, and $898 million in medical and rehabilitation services and supplies during the 2010 chargeback year, which ended on June 30, 2010. The funds come from the Employees’ Compensation Fund, and most agencies repay the money through chargeback bills from Labor.

The IG cited specific cases in which CBP failed to properly oversee its workers’ comp program, at taxpayers’ expense. For example, in the agency’s 2009 chargeback bill, there were 110 instances in which the claimants’ Social Security numbers did not match CBP’s records. In addition, one claimant received workers’ compensation totaling $45,581 over two years — after the employee returned to work.

CBP lacked a uniform system for managing cases, using paper and electronic files in documentation, and housing the information in various locations. In its response to the IG report, the agency said it is moving completely to a Web-based system by 2014, and has filed claims electronically in its eComp system since 2009. CBP officials agreed with all the IG’s recommendations for improving oversight of the workers’ comp program.

The agency also has beefed up its review system, James Tomsheck, CBP’s assistant commissioner in the Office of Internal Affairs, said in response to the report. CBP has recouped $3.4 million from other DHS agencies for erroneous 2009 workers’ comp charges and has corrected mistakes related to Social Security numbers, he added. The agency also is developing a plan, to be completed this month, to review all disability cases where medical evidence indicates that employees could return to work. In 15 of 140 case files the IG reviewed, medical reports showed that the employees’ doctors had cleared them to return to work, yet CBP paid those employees $951,195 in workers’ comp.

The IG recommended CBP conduct a workload analysis to ensure it has sufficient staff to effectively manage FECA cases. A 2007 change in policy resulted in 14 injury compensation specialists responsible for managing 11,299 compensation cases on the 2010 chargeback bill — an average of 802 cases per specialist. CBP plans to complete an assessment this summer of its workload and staff to improve claims processing.

Many agencies have struggled with effectively managing the federal workers’ compensation program. Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office released a report concluding that the program remains vulnerable to fraud, mostly due to limited access to data.

Under FECA, employees disabled on the job can receive 66 2/3 percent — or 75 percent for those with dependents — of their basic salary tax-free, plus medical-related expenses. The 66 2/3 percent rate is comparable to most state systems, but many federal recipients, including those past retirement age, receive the 75 percent compensation rate. Claimants cannot receive FECA benefits and certain other federal disability or retirement benefits at the same time; they must have benefits reduced to eliminate any duplicate payments. There is no age limit for receiving FECA benefits.

Many have criticized FECA, saying it is too generous and should be reformed so that employees receive lower benefits and return to work faster. The 1916 law has not been amended since 1974.

The House in November 2011 passed legislation that aims to provide greater support for some feds injured on the job and to make the workers’ compensation program more accountable. On the Senate side, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved a postal reform bill — also in November — that includes provisions related to FECA. One measure, taken from legislation that Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, introduced in February, would convert employees on workers’ compensation to the appropriate retirement system when they reach retirement age. It also would set the maximum compensation rate at 66 2/3 percent in most instances.

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How the public printer is doing more with less

Filed Under: Insurance News
Apr.10, 2012

Acting Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks described as “transformational” the changes she has helped orchestrate at the Government Printing Office, offering the results as “one of many case studies in government operations in an environment of fiscal constraints, intense congressional oversight and justified public scrutiny.”

She detailed the downsizing and reprioritizing required during the current period of austerity as well as GPO’s longer term move from print to digital communications, speaking to a unit of the Association of Government Accountants on Tuesday.

Vance-Cooks, a former health care information technology executive who in January became the first female GPO leader, described its “unique organization and financial structure,” noting the agency, established in 1861, is a “mixture of blue-collar and white-collar workers” and is heavily unionized.

Its three funding sources are congressional appropriations for its own printing needs (the most well-known being the Congressional Record), a separate appropriation for salaries and overhead, and a revolving fund of earnings it brings in from entrepreneurial ventures. Those ventures include production of passport covers with computer chips for reading biometrics, agency smart cards, and general secure credentials such as those used in the Homeland Security Department’s Trusted Traveler program and to manage crowds at Obama’s presidential inauguration and 2012 Super Bowl.

In 2011, Vance-Cooks said the agency “hit a major problem, and was obviously at a crossroads, with declining revenues, rising costs and a shrinking market.” The chief financial officer said if nothing was done, GPO would have to ask Congress for a bailout by 2013.

With the public reading more online and buying fewer printed publications, revenues since 2007 had dropped by 13 percent, she said, while overhead rose by 50 percent. Congress’ session-ending 2011 continuing resolution had a severe impact — “printing is the first to go,” she said. GPO appropriations were cut by 8 percent in 2011 and 6 percent in 2012.

To “do more with less,” she said, the agency embarked on a four-pronged effort to take the existing mission of keeping the American people informed about their three branches of government and make it more specific, creating a digital platform for one-stop shopping.

GPO developed a strategic plan to serve as roadmap from 2011 to 2015, sought to bring costs under control (especially overhead), identified strategic capital investments to support its transformation, and stabilized revenues by improving customer relations and finding new market niches.

The key, Vance-Cooks stressed, was communicating to the workforce, to union leaders and management directly to make them active participants. “You can’t communicate too much with employees,” she said, citing use of an intranet, the Internet, newsletters, town hall meetings and even television monitors in elevators.

“Hard, but necessary decisions” followed, she said. Working with Congress — GPO’s most central customer — it was agreed that fewer printed copies of the Congressional Record and the Federal Register were needed given the popularity of the online versions. The print order came down by 18 percent, saving $300,000 annually, plus another $400,000 saved through cuts in printing other congressional documents, she said.

Internally, changes included holding the line on salary increases consistent with the governmentwide pay freeze; restricting inside and external hiring by requiring each recommended hire to go through executive review; and requiring all travel be justified in writing and subject to budget conditions and executive review.

“This was considered bureaucratic, but it’s highly effective,” Vance-Cooks said. GPO also restricted overtime, canceled recruitment bonuses and student loan aid; and did away with performance rewards, instead introducing “on-the-spot rewards of nominal amounts.” Managers also slashed training, put new controls on contractors and restricted credit card use.

Finally, employees were offered voluntary buyouts with the goal of trimming 15 percent of the workforce. This took careful planning, she said, and each business unit “had to prepare for individuals walking out the door” by coming up with a strategy — presented orally to groups– that would avoid a decline in service levels. “The buyouts were successful. Employees bought into it and the union and management agreed,” she said.

By Jan. 12, Vance-Cooks said, GPO had achieved 95 percent of its goal, and it is further along today. The head count of 1,900 employees is GPO’s lowest this century (it was as high as 8,000 in the past).

For the future, GPO’s transformation produced a task force on long-term strategic investments such as new markets (within the government) for certified security credentials and a task force that has implemented a crackdown on delinquent payments for services provided to other agencies. Everything has to enhance value for the customer, she said. “The days of ‘I wish we could have it,’ ‘Would be nice to have,’ are gone,” she added.

The revamped GPO has emerged with a workforce “with changed skill sets,” Vance-Cooks said, noting her fiscal 2013 budget request is for level funding. “We are now well-positioned to be effective, efficient and relevant” as the agency transforms, she said. “That’s doing more with less.”

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Were You Born to Boost Morale?

Filed Under: Insurance News
Apr.03, 2012

News about low morale at the Homeland Security Department is alarming, given the significant role DHS plays in the safety of the United States. How can we handle emergencies if Federal Emergency Management Agency employees don’t want to come to work? How capable are Transportation Security Administration agents at scanning airport cargo when they’d really rather scan Monster.com for their next job?

In the Office of Personnel Management’s most recent Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, DHS employees’ reported a lack of agreement with the statements “My talents are used well in the workplace” and “I am given a real opportunity to improve my skills in my organization” — answers the Government Accountability Office on March 22 described to a congressional subcommittee as “impact items.”

The survey responses clearly call for better management.

After conducting millions of surveys and interviews, Gallup has identified the single most important predictor of an employee’s engagement is his or her answer to the question “Does your manager care about your development?” If the responses are strongly positive, then disengagement does not exist.

Asked at the March 22 hearing to offer solutions to address the low morale at DHS and the need for better management, Max Stier, president and chief executive officer of the Partnership for Public Service, Catherine Emerson, chief human capital officer at DHS, and others recommended that DHS develop its leaders and improve its communications. These interventions could improve survey responses a bit, but they won’t solve the systemic problems rooted in poor management.

The long-term solution to low morale goes well beyond communication and training. It involves overhauling the hiring and selection of managers. Gallup researchers have discovered that there is actually a silver bullet: Simply name the right manager. Nothing fixes a manager who has little talent for the task at hand.

Government agencies must do what world-class companies have been doing successfully for years: Hire and select for the talents and strengths specific to supervisors, rather than promoting people based exclusively on experience or longevity within the organization.

We all know too well that managers can be technically competent but have no inherent knack for the details of managing, such as hiring, setting expectations, motivating and developing others. This underscores the differences between knowledge and skills, which can be acquired, and talents, which are innate and can be developed into strengths. DHS should evaluate every aspect of its selection processes and incorporate innate talents as a major driver of whether a person is a good fit for management.

And DHS must start from the beginning, by evaluating position descriptions and job postings for the innate talents that a job demands. DHS should identify the talents of its current managers to see where there are mismatches and reorganize the managers and the positions accordingly. From there, the job certification and interview processes should be grounded in the vocabulary of strengths and talents as much as they are in qualifications. This strategy would ensure the long-term viability of DHS management and improve employee engagement better than focusing primarily on leadership development.

The truth is, lousy managers beget miserable employees. So while training may marginally improve engagement, until DHS (and the federal government as a whole) overhauls selection and hiring of managers and supervisors, it will continue to produce hundreds of thousands of disengaged employees.

Jim Clifton is chairman and chief executive officer at Gallup, and Stephen Ander, Gallup senior consultant, is former special adviser to the director of the Secret Service.

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Muffins, Coins and Bicycles

Filed Under: Life Insurance
Apr.02, 2012

ARCHIVES

Remember the scandal last year over the reports of the $16 muffin at a Justice Department conference? (Even though it turned out it wasn’t really a $16 muffin.) 

In the wake of the spate of stories about muffins and federal conference spending in general, the White House moved swiftly to order agencies to review their conference policies and practices. I wonder if that led to today’s revelation that  the General Services Administration had organized an event that involved spending $3,200 for a mind reader; $6,300 on a commemorative coin set in velvet boxes and $75,000 on a training exercise to build a bicycle.

At any rate, it’s clear that the White House has a zero-tolerance policy for spending on conferences that could result in embarassing anecdotes like this. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop another another headline-grabbing tale from emerging.

It’ll be interesting to see if the White House will take further steps to curb conference spending, especially for the remainder of thhis election year. Right about now, the Obama administration probably just wants to get to November without another story alleging that bureaucrats are spending lavishly on event entertainment at a time of a national budget crisis. 

Tom Shoop is vice president and editor in chief at Government Executive Media Group, where he oversees both print and online editorial operations. He started as associate editor of Government Executive magazine in 1989; launched the company’s flagship website, GovExec.com, in 1996; and was named editor in chief in 2007.

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USDA ‘playing chicken with safety,’ protesters charge

Filed Under: Insurance News
Apr.02, 2012

Poultry inspectors, union representatives and a few men in chicken costumes on Monday protested the U.S. Agriculture Department’s proposed changes to the poultry inspection process.

USDA wants to expand a pilot program that replaces some federal poultry inspectors with inspectors employed by the processing plants themselves.

The program has been in place at 20 chicken and five turkey slaughterhouses in the Southwest and Southeastern United States since the late 1990s. USDA now wants to expand the program to include about 200 facilities.

The program hastens the chicken inspection process. Currently, inspectors from the department’s Food Safety Inspection Service examine about 35 birds per minute. Under the pilot program, inspectors examine 175 birds per minute, USDA said. The program’s expansion also could result in the loss of up to 1,000 federal inspector jobs.

But protesters outside USDA headquarters on Monday, including labor union members and watchdog groups, chose to protest the change for consumer safety reasons, holding signs that read “Speed Kills,” “Chicken Inspection Isn’t a Speed Sport” and “Don’t Play Chicken With Safety” to express concerns about the pilot program.

Under the change, a federal inspector remains part of the process, but only at the end of the line. That inspector is permitted to take only 80 carcasses from hundreds of thousands off the line per shift.

Typically, federal inspectors have received about three years of training to examine the insides of chickens for fecal matter, disease or other forms of contamination that can lead to food-borne illnesses. Some fear private inspectors would not receive adequate training.

Tony Corbo, legislative representative for the consumer rights group Food and Water Watch, said the new process rushes critical controls.

“Whether you’re trained or not, you’re not going to be able to catch stuff,” Carbo told Government Executive.

USDA has argued the change would be good for both consumers and taxpayers. According to congressional testimony given in March by Undersecretary for Food Safety Elisabeth Hagen, the project would save taxpayers more than $90 million during its first three years of expansion and could lower production costs by $256 million annually.

Streamlining the inspection process could help prevent food-borne illness by addressing contamination before carcasses are placed into chillers, Agriculture has argued. The change could prevent more than 5,000 food-borne illnesses a year, the department estimated.

USDA said earlier this year in the Federal Register that the current poultry inspection system is outdated, arguing it was developed when “visually detectable animal disease were more prevalent and considered to be more of a concern than they are today.”

Allowing private poultry inspectors to check and discard carcasses earlier in the slaughter and production process could allow plants greater flexibility to develop their own procedures for condemning contaminated carcasses, the proposal claimed.

The nonprofit Government Accountability Project said it is slated to release a report this week concluding that although private inspectors would be examining carcasses earlier in the processes, the speed of the new process makes it difficult to look inside the bird, where leftover fecal matter and other contaminants often are found, said Felicia Nestor, an attorney who worked with the watchdog group to investigate the pilot program.

Phillys Mckelvey, a retired USDA poultry inspector who worked on the first pilot project in Guntersville, Ala., said she believes companies involved in the pilot did their best. The plant in Guntersville required specific training for its inspectors, but she is concerned training may not be kept up if the pilot becomes policy.

“If this goes nationwide, it’s going to be a total nightmare,” she told Government Executive at Monday’s protest.

When Mckelvey began her career 44 years ago as an inspector’s helper, inspectors “looked inside every bird, inside and outside, from every side,” she said. “All they do on the pilot is they sit and watch the birds go flying by.”

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Conference with clowns and mind readers costs top GSA officials their jobs

Filed Under: Insurance News
Apr.02, 2012

Top officials of the General Services Administration left the agency on Monday as the GSA inspector general’s office readied a “scathing” report on wasteful spending at a Las Vegas training conference in 2010, The Washington Post reported Monday afternoon.

Martha Johnson submitted her resignation, and Public Buildings Service Commissioner Robert Peck and senior counselor Stephen Leeds were terminated. A fourth manager was put on administrative leave, according to the news report.

Organizers spent $835,000 for a conference for 300 employees held at a luxury hotel, the Post said, including $147,000 in airfare and lodging for six planning trips. The tally also included $3,200 for a mind reader; $6,300 on a commemorative coin set in velvet boxes and $75,000 on a training exercise to build a bicycle.

White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew said President Obama was outraged by the “excessive spending, questionable dealings with contractors, and disregard for taxpayer dollars and called for all those responsible to be held fully accountable.”

GSA did not return respond to inquiries by publication time.

Dan Tangherlini, an assistant secretary in the Treasury Department and former city administrator for the District of Columbia, will take over for Johnson, the Post reported.

For nearly a year, the White House has been pursuing a “Campaign to Cut Waste” that applies governmentwide and that is enforced by Cabinet secretaries. In September 2011, the Obama administration specifically ordered all federal agencies to review conference spending, in the wake of a report on potentially excessive spending on a Justice Department event.

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Can lawmakers hold Cabinet salaries hostage?

Filed Under: Insurance News
Apr.02, 2012

The debate over a Cabinet secretary’s pay raise has escalated into a congressional ethics showdown.

In May 2011, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., announced he intended to block legislation that would give Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar a $19,600 salary increase, until Salazar agreed to authorize more permits for exploratory oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The pay increase would put Salazar on par with other Cabinet secretaries. Now the Senate Select Committee on Ethics has weighed in on the matter, electing not to charge Vitter with a rules violation for his actions, but noting it will not sanction such behavior in the future.

In a letter sent to Vitter Thursday and made public on Friday, Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and ranking member Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., said there was no Senate guidance that clearly prohibited senators from placing holds on Cabinet secretaries’ salary bumps until they meet certain demands . Later that day Boxer and Isakson issued new guidance stating such actions would now be viewed as improper conduct.

“While the committee found that there was no substantial credible evidence that you violated the law or Senate rules, it did conclude that it is inappropriate to condition support for a secretary’s personal salary increase directly on his or her performance of a specific official act,” Boxer and Isakson wrote in the letter to Vitter.

Cabinet secretaries currently earn $199,700, but because he left the Senate for the job in 2009 under the appointment of President Obama, Salazar’s pay has been limited to 2005 levels, the year he became a senator, the Associated Press reported. The Constitution forbids members of Congress from appointment to a U.S. office where compensation was increased during the lawmaker’s term.

The Ethics Committee’s letters come in response to a June 2011 complaint about Vitter’s actions filed by government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Vitter said in May 2011 that he wanted Salazar to authorize six new deep-water drilling permits per month, raising the number of permits back to the level before the drilling moratorium imposed in the wake of BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.

In a statement Friday, Vitter said Salazar “has completely failed us on energy policy.” The senator said he will continue to block the raise as long as Salazar does not acquiesce to his desired rate of granting oil-drilling permits. “And I’ll absolutely place a hold on any raise for him in the future,” Vitter added.

When he originally blocked Salazar’s pay increase in May 2011, Vitter said in a statement that his actions were “just my way of keeping the ‘boot on the neck’ of Interior until they get the job done.”

On Friday CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said in a statement, “So now senators need guidance to know extortion and bribery violate Senate rules? If the Ethics Committee hasn’t issued specific advance guidance, senators can’t be held accountable for outrageous conduct? How about if the Ethics Committee just issues this blanket guidance: Criminal conduct violates the rules.”

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Missouri Democrat isn’t buying the need for more base closures

Filed Under: Insurance News
Mar.22, 2012

The chairwoman of a key Senate panel said Thursday that she would not approve the Obama administration’s request for a second round of military base closures.

The Base Closure and Realignment Commission process has had a negative impact on communities during previous rounds, including those in Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill’s home state of Missouri.

“I will not support a process that is callous or casual, or one that is rushed before we fully comprehend whether the traumatic task is clearly in the best interests of the American taxpayer and our national security,” McCaskill, chairwoman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, said during a hearing this week, as reported by The Washington Post.

Defense Department officials told House lawmakers earlier this month that the Pentagon can proceed with base closures without lawmakers’ approval, but through a process more detrimental to local communities. The Obama BRAC proposal already is unpopular with lawmakers.

Dorothy Ryan, deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations and environment, told a panel of skeptical House Armed Services Committee members that base closures in the 1990s better represent the savings potential of BRAC than the most recent round in 2005.

The 1988 and 1991 closures, however, were harder than necessary on the affected communities, she added. The policy at the time made the process of rebuilding disposed-of property “slow, bureaucratic and penny-pinching,” she said.

The Pentagon must go back to that process if Congress does not approve a new round under the more community-friendly 2005 rules, according to Ryan.

“One reason we want to avoid that approach is that, if [Defense] acts outside of the BRAC process, the department is severely constrained in what it can do to help local communities,” Ryan said.

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