Technology, workforce advances key for OMB

The White House came close to deciding not to propose a federal pay raise in the fiscal 2011 budget.

There were several reasons why employees could have gone without a pay raise - the economic downturn, the growing federal deficit and subsequent discretionary spending freeze at non-defense and homeland security agencies to name a few.

But Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag says in the end there were more reasons to request a raise than not to.

"In regard to workforce as a whole, for example that will include the military, there we thought an increase was warranted," says Orszag during a breakfast discussion at the National Press Club in Washington sponsored by Government Executive magazine. "As you know because inflation is low, the nominal pay increase will be quite modest."

The other reason for the proposed 1.4 percent raise in 2011 has to do with workforce itself.

"The federal government doesn't work without the people of the federal government working well," he says.

To get the people working well, the administration is focusing on several key areas. But the top two easily are workforce processes and technology.

Under the workforce effort, Orszag highlighted the work the Office of Personnel Management is doing to reduce the time it takes hire someone in the government. He says on average it takes 150 days for agencies to bring on a new employee and that is just too long.

"As we face the coming retirement of a significant share of the federal workforce, we [need to] have an easier time recruiting the next generation," he says. "There is a series of other steps we are taking…to try to improve the performance of the federal workforce."

Alan Balutis, a former Commerce Department chief information officer and now the director and distinguished fellow for Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group, says the fact OMB and OPM director John Berry are working so closely together shows just how serious the administration is to make change to the federal HR processes.

"That is unusual and needed if the HR reforms are going to fly," says Balutis, who attended Orszag's speech. "John likes to say [OPM] should be called the Office of Personnel Recommendations since they have no management clout. OMB gives them that."

Orszag reiterated the administration's often made claims that the government is behind in technology, especially when it comes to mission systems. He points to the Patent and Trademark Office's need to take an electronic patent application, print it out and rescan it into a different system to process it.

"There are significant gaps that I think we can do a better job together of filling," he says. "In many situations we cannot get the programs to run better without an IT backbone."

Orszag calls the workforce and technology foundational elements of improving how the government operates.

"If we succeed in significantly transforming the IT backbone of the government and if we succeed in working with John Berry in significantly improving not only the hiring part, but the other components of the human capital agenda, those are two huge, lasting fundamental changes that will make the federal government work better for decades to come," he says.

During his speech, he also addressed the short and long term economic outlook for the country, how the administration is improving education opportunities and made his pitch to reform healthcare.

But Orszag says all these efforts come back to one thing.

"We need your help because without the federal government functioning efficiently and effectively, rebuilding trust with the American public, we're not going to be able to do what we need to do as a country," he says.

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