Congress Archives

The Obama administration plans to continue building on initiatives started in 2011 to strengthen the federal IT workforce.

The president's fiscal 2013 budget proposal, released Monday, noted success on IT workforce initiatives launched within the last year and plans to continue and build on them in fiscal 2013. Those initiatives include creating a new job title and specialized position description for IT program managers within the IT specialist job series "as part of ensuring that the largest most complex IT investments in the government are managed by experienced, talented individuals," the budget states.

The administration also touted the Presidential Technology Fellows Program, which launched in September as part of the administration's 25-point plan to reform federal IT management. In October, Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel said that the program had already received more than 5,000 applications.

The administration also stated plans to help close the productivity gap between the private sector and government, in part by equipping feds with the modern tools and technologies needed to serve citizens effectively. These initiatives will include developing smart telework policies that give employees increased flexibility. The strategy also will enable agencies to think strategically about how they buy, manage and use mobile devices and collaboration tools cost-effectively and securely, the budget states.

"Overall, the government needs to shift away from a paper-based mindset and focus on delivering information efficiently and effectively using digital tools," the budget states.

With many federal agencies tightening their budget belts, many federal employees are worried about the potential for layoffs, hiring freezes and cuts to federal pay and benefits. But President Obama's fiscal 2013 budget proposal, released Monday, calls for a slight increase in full-time federal employees.

The budget estimates an overall increase of 2,000 workers next year, which would make 2013 the fourth straight year that federal civilian employment has topped 2.1 million employees. Even with the slight increase, however, the budget estimates 18,000 fewer workers in 2013 than 2010.

Not surprisingly, agencies like the Defense Department would face cuts to their full-time workforce. Defense would have an estimated 7,000 fewer workers in 2013 than in 2012, bringing the total number of Defense employees down to 757,000.

The Agriculture, Health and Human Services and Education departments and the Social Security Administration also could see slight decreases in the amount of full-time workers, according to the budget proposal.

Still, other agencies would see slight increases in full-time employment. The most notable increase would come at the Veterans Affairs Department, which would add an estimated 5,000 new employees. The Treasury, Justice and Homeland Security departments also would add workers, while the Transportation and Interior departments would keep roughly the same number of workers.

What are your thoughts on the 2013 workforce projections? Given Obama's commitment to improve the efficiency of the government workforce going forward, should the hiring of additional IT workers play a role?

Federal cybersecurity workers might not be far from being able to access top-notch training directly from their computer desktops.

Robert Hollingsworth, director of the security engineering and computer security training division at the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security Training Center, told Wired Workplace on Thursday that State and the Homeland Security Department have begun training federal cyber pros using virtual worlds, where each user has an avatar and is walked through different cyber scenarios.

The virtual worlds courses are part of the Federal Cybersecurity Training Event, or FedCTE, a joint program between State and DHS. The program started in 2008, after the Obama administration's Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative identified a need for addressing cybersecurity training and education within the federal workforce. FedCTE courses also were developed using the specific cybersecurity roles identified by the National Initiative on Cybersecurity Education, Hollingsworth said.

Thus far, the virtual worlds program has trained more than 243 students from 68 agencies on cybersecurity topics like cyber protection, response and mitigation, Hollingsworth said. "The demand is going through the roof," he said. "It's a way for these remote programs to address these cybersecurity areas and be continually modified as vulnerabilities are discovered and new security practices are identified. Even previously trained people can address new concerns in a timely fashion."

Still, Hollingsworth noted that one challenge for government is simply defining the roles, requirements and job tasks needed for federal cybersecurity work. But a goal of the virtual training is to help overcome that hurdle, he added. "We're finding there are a lot of roles and responsibilities that may be unique to a department, and we can go in and customize those portions and touch those individual job descriptions and tweak it," he said. "That would be too hard to do in a real classroom every time, but it's not too hard to adjust these virtual modules."

Going forward, Hollingsworth said the program will continue to expand to include more cybersecurity workers, particularly as it gets more popular through word of mouth. "It's in the ground floor now, but we feel it's going to be mainstreamed and that this form of training will become more of a normal activity for federal security workers," he said. "It will be on their desktops at some point and they can train as needed. It's another tool in their toolbox."

Next month marks Telework Exchange's annual Telework Week event, and many agencies are planning to use the event to test their business continuity plans.

Cindy Auten, general manager of Telework Exchange, told Wired Workplace on Friday that more than 9,000 federal employees have pledged to telework during the annual Telework Week, which runs March 5-9.

"Agencies are really getting behind this program to test their business continuity and really understand why it's important to do drills using Telework Week to get more people involved," Auten said. "And I think that this will be a good test for agencies to see how prepared they are without having the next Snowmageddon."

Last year, the Telework Week program had nearly 40,000 pledges, with more than 86 percent of those pledges coming from federal workers. Those workers collectively saved $2.7 million in commuting costs and saved employees an average two hours from their commutes for each day teleworked, according to Telework Exchange estimates.

Auten said a report on the results of this year's Telework Week would be released at the organization's town hall meeting in May. "It will be interesting to compare year over year and see how well agencies have done and how prepared they were," she said. "I think we will see some really good movement between the two years."

Still, Auten said one major challenge for agencies going forward -- particularly for those agencies that recently kicked off their telework programs as a result of the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act -- is quantifying telework's return on investment. Some agencies like the Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security departments -- which were called out in a recent letter to Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry for having high numbers of positions deemed ineligible for telework - may have a difficult time beginning to track and provide accurate data, she said.

"Capturing the data is really important and not just necessarily whose teleworking and the frequency but also how telework is coming back to meet the agency mission," Auten said. "Agencies have to quantify the savings, and developing that telework ROI model is going to be very critical."

Going forward, Auten said a major trend for 2012 will be a move to enterprisewide tech solutions for both teleworkers and non-teleworkers, which is part of Federal CIO Steven Van Roekel's new mobility strategy to make agencies more agile and flexible. "The goal is for one enterprisewide solution that can enable the mobile workforce," she said. "So if you use collaborative tools for teleworkers, the people in the office are using the same tools."

Have you made your pledge for this year's Telework Week? If not, click here.

The legislation passed by the House on Wednesday that would extend the current two-year pay freeze for federal workers through 2013 is premised on a selective understanding of federal pay data.

The bill (H.R. 3835), introduced by Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., would extend the salary freeze for federal employees and members of Congress, eliminating cost of living adjustments until the end of 2013.

House Republicans defended the measure on the House floor, citing a recent Congressional Budget Office report that found federal workers made 16 percent more in average pay and benefits than private sector employees. But the CBO also found that those with professional and doctorate-level degrees actually earn about 23 percent less than those with the same degrees in the private sector.

More specifically, federal IT workers also fall behind their private sector counterparts on pay. A survey released last week by IT jobs website Dice.com found that salaries for government IT workers were slightly below the national average. Salaries for government tech workers averaged $79,605 in 2011, while the average salary for tech workers in all industries was $81,327, Dice found.

Federal unions voiced their opposition to the bill, noting that extending the pay freeze could have a significant impact on federal recruitment and retention.

"At a time when our nation faces threats both foreign and domestic, military and monetary, we cannot afford a second rate federal workforce defending our borders, supporting our troops overseas and ensuring the safety of our food supply," said William Dougan, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees. "We cannot afford to undermine pay and retirement benefits for middle class workers with increasingly precarious economic situations."

A major hurdle for federal agencies in implementing a 2010 telework law is simply making the determination on what roles and jobs can be completed while working remotely, according to a recent survey by the Congressional Research Service.

The survey, which was requested by Reps. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and John Sarbanes, D-Md., found that even while some agencies have a high percentage of desk jobs, many have a fairly prohibitive telework eligibility and low rates of telework participation. The Veterans Affairs Department, for example, has classified 87.5 percent of employees as ineligible to telework, and failed to provide CRS any detailed information to justify having such high rates of ineligibility. The Homeland Security Department also has classified 70 percent of employees as ineligible for remote work, with an average of just 0.016 percent of employees teleworking during the average pay period, CRS found.

"This abysmal telework performance in inexplicable in light of the large number of DHS office positions and could prove to be a threat to national security if DHS is unable to implement a continuity of operations plan because its employees are unaccustomed to telework," Connolly and Sarbanes stated in a letter to OPM Director John Berry.

Under the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act, agencies were required to establish a policy on working outside the office, identify eligible employees and inform them of the option. The law also required agencies to name an official to manage telework programs, and incorporate the policy into plans for continuing essential services during natural disasters or other emergencies.

Meanwhile, other agencies, like the Health and Human Services and Education departments, have classified a high percentage of employees as eligible to telework, but only a small percentage of total work hours are completed remotely, CRS noted. "This suggests that while some agencies are doing good work to improve eligibility, many also need to ensure that telework is routine," the letter states.

Still, some agencies stood out as leaders on federal telework, most notably the Agriculture Department, the Patent and Trademark Office and the General Services Administration, CRS found. USDA has high telework participation, despite the fact that many employees spend a lot of time in the field, and PTO employees completed 40 percent of all work hours under a telework arrangement, the survey found.

Agencies also reported difficulty in quantifying energy and real estate cost savings from telework, and CRS recommended looking to agencies like PTO and GSA for methods of quantifying cost savings. "Considering that PTO has saved $4.36 million in real estate costs by avoiding construction of individual offices for 3,464 employees, savings governmentwide could be substantial and should be quantified," the letter states.

The Transportation, Justice and Housing and Urban Development departments did not respond to CRS's survey.

Federal employees with professional or doctorate degrees earn about 23 percent less than those with the same degrees in the private sector, according to a new report by the Congressional Budget Office.

The report, released Monday, found that overall, federal employees are paid an average of 16 percent more in pay and benefits than their private sector counterparts. Federal employees with a high school diploma, for example, earned 21 percent more than private sector employees with similar education levels, while federal workers with a bachelors degree earned about the same as those in the private sector. Federal workers in those two groups also enjoyed better benefits than those in the private sector, with benefits 72 percent higher for federal employees with a high school diploma and 46 percent higher for federal employees with a bachelor's degree.

But federal workers with professional, masters or doctorate-level degrees earned an average of about 23 percent less than their private sector counterparts, the study found. Average benefits for professional and doctorate-level employees were about the same in the two sectors.

CBO used data for 2005 through 2010 reported by a sample of households and employers to estimate differences between the cost of wages and benefits for federal employees and the cost of wages and benefits for similar private-sector employees.

CBO's study also noted that studies of federal pay like one by the American Enterprise Institute, which claimed that federal workers earn 61 percent more in pay, benefits and extra job security than their private counterparts, "overstates the differences between the cost of employing federal workers and similar private sector workers because the dispersion of wages (the range from low to high wages) differs between those two groups."

Meanwhile, the most common occupations within the Defense Department and the government at large were information technology workers as well as program analysts, program administrators and criminal investigators.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, agreed with the conclusion that highly-educated workers earn significantly less than their private counterparts, but cautioned against accepting other segments of the CBO report. "CBO is clearly the expert on Congressional budget scoring, but pay comparisons are not its principal expertise; that is the expertise of the Bureau of Labor Statistics," she said, noting that BLS data have shown a consistent pay gap of 26 percent in favor of the private sector when comparing similar public and private sector jobs.

Kelley also questioned the other segments of the study, and whether Congress would want to cut the salaries of the lowest paid workers by the amounts the report claims are overpaid. "That would mean cutting the salary of a clerk earning $20,000 a year by 20 percent down to $16,000 while increasing the salary of a highly-paid manager making $200,000 by 20 percent to $240,000," she said.

What are your thoughts on the study, as it compares to other studies on federal pay, including BLS data and the report by the American Enterprise Institute?

Are you eager to share your thoughts about your boss, your pay and benefits, telework or the use of technology and collaboration tools, with your agency leadership?

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry announced Friday that the 2012 Federal Employee Viewpoint survey will, for the first time, be open to all permanent, full and part-time employees. This means more than 1.8 million federal employees will be invited to give their opinions, more than triple the number of employees surveyed in 2011.

"While a governmentwide census will not be conducted every year, having large numbers of respondents will allow agencies the opportunity to analyze results and develop action plans at lower levels in the organization this year."

The annual survey assesses governmentwide worker satisfaction and includes results based on individual agencies, demographics and private sector comparisons. The data also are analyzed by the Partnership for Public Services in their "Best Places to Work in the Federal Government" report.

Administration of the next employee survey is scheduled to begin in April, and Berry encouraged agency chief human capital officers to champion the 2012 survey to "ensure that your employees feel their voices are heard and their opinions will drive continuing improvement in the culture in their agency."

Salaries for government IT workers were slightly below the national average in 2011, giving agencies less of a competitive edge when it comes to recruiting top notch IT skills, according to a new survey by Dice.

Dice's 2011-2012 salary survey found that salaries for government tech workers averaged $79,605 in 2011, slightly below the average salary for tech workers in all industries, which came in at $81,327.

Government and private sector IT professionals in the aerospace and defense industries, however, fared far better than average when it came to pay in 2011. Those workers earned an average of $88,232 in 2011, the survey found.

"Defense spending is down from where it's been in previous years, but it's still enormous," said Tom Silver, senior vice president of Dice, on Wednesday. "But there may be a perceived risk of working in a government position that perhaps wasn't there before."

Meanwhile, tech jobs in all sectors in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore metro area are also down significantly, Silver said. For example, jobs in the area were up 50 percent in 2010, but in 2011, jobs were actually down by 17 percent, he said. But the area still is the second biggest tech job market in the nation with more than 7,500 jobs posted last year, Silver added.

With government IT salaries below the national average, Silver stressed that government must focus on career development in order to recruit and retain critical IT skills going forward. "I think the government has to position itself in a place that provides an environment for tech workers to grow, develop and evolve their skills around the latest and greatest technology," he said. "Tech workers today are concerned about any job they take, not only about what they will be working on today, but what will keep their skills up to date going forward."

Despite tight budgets, Silver argued that federal IT workers, particularly those with in-demand skills, have a bright future. "Although there are things that are changing from what a government job used to be, as a skilled tech worker, you're still in a pretty good spot," Silver said. "Budgets are still enormous, even if they're down from where they've been, and I think that's what tech workers should focus on."

Technology professionals on average earned salary increases of more than 2 percent in 2011, their largest annual salary growth since 2008, according to a new survey by Dice.com.

Dice's 2011-2012 annual salary survey of more than 18,000 IT professionals found that after two years of wages remaining nearly flat, tech professionals finally saw average increases of more than 2 percent, boosting their average annual salary to $81,327 from $79,384 in 2010.

Tech professionals in the private sector also saw a considerable jump in the size of average bonuses, which were up eight percent to $8,769 in 2011. The number of tech professionals receiving bonuses last year also increased to 32 percent, compared with 29 percent in 2010 and 24 percent in 2009. The industries most likely to pay out bonuses were telecom, hardware, banking, utilities/energy and software, the survey found.

These increases come as all federal workers are under a two-year freeze on across-the-board pay increases. The two-year pay freeze does not apply to performance awards and bonuses, promotions, within-grade increases, quality step increases and other forms of incentive pay for federal workers.

Still, despite the average rise in overall pay, entry-level salaries continue to push downward, Dice found. Professionals who generally saw their wages increase were those with 11 or more years of experience in their field.

Technology professionals in Silicon Valley continue to be the most well-paid, with annual salaries topping six figures for the first time since Dice began the survey a decade ago. Tech workers in Silicon Valley brought home an average annual salary of $104,195 in 2011, up 5 percent over last year. Thirty-eight percent of tech professionals in the valley also received bonuses averaging $12,450.

Average salaries in the Washington D.C./Baltimore area also increased 6 percent in 2011, to $94,317. Other areas seeing growth in tech salaries were Austin ($89,419), Portland ($82,055) and Houston ($89,307).

"Conventional wisdom says that as Silicon Valley goes, so goes the tech world," said Tom Silver, "Nationally, we're seeing stiffer competition and higher salaries for tech pros with the right skill sets and the right experience level."

How do your skills, salary and other incentives stack up? Do the survey results make you more satisfied with your government IT job, or do they make you want to jump ship for the private sector?