IEC Journal

HUD Secretary Out?

The Wall Street Journal is predicting that HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson will resign soon, as allegations of favoritism in contract awards make it too difficult for him to work with Congress.

April 1 Update: The Los Angeles Times confirms Jackson's resignation, quoting his explanation: "There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters. Now is such a time for me."

GAO Report on Contractors in Workplace

A Government Executive article examines a new GAO report on the increasingly blurry line between contractors and civil service employees and possible responses:

"Every day, contractors work side by side with federal employees, and yet the government might not even know when the self-interests of contractors are pitted against the interests of the American taxpayer," Lieberman said. "Given the government's increased reliance on outside contractors, we need an immediate overhaul of federal ethics policies to ensure that conflicts of interest don't impair the impartiality of contractors or their employees."

On Wednesday, the Civilian Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulation Council, which recommend changes to the FAR, announced that they were considering new contractor conflict-of-interest clauses. The notice in the Federal Register said the councils want to determine whether the regulation's current guidance "adequately addresses the current needs of the acquisition community."

A Washington Post story on the GAO report is available.

Thanks to Mark Stone for links to the Federal Register notices, summarized as follows:

• Employee PCI: The Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council (the Councils) are interested in determining if, when, and how service contractor employees’ personal conflicts of interest (PCI) need to be addressed and whether greater disclosure of contractor practices, specific prohibitions, or reliance on specified principles would be most effective and efficient in promoting ethical behavior.
• Organizational Conflicts of Interest:   The Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council (the Councils) are seeking information that will assist in determining whether the Federal Acquisition Regulation System’s current guidance on organizational conflicts of interest (OCIs) adequately addresses the current needs of the acquisition community or whether providing standard provisions and/or clauses, or a set of such standard provisions and clauses, might be beneficial.

The Measurable Gets Managed

Thanks to Tom Shoop at Government Executive's Fedblog for the pointer to a thought-provoking paper by Eric Biber, an acting law professor at U.S. Berkeley. Biber's thesis is that "Agencies will systematically underperform on goals that are hard to measure and that conflict with the achievement of other more measurable goals. The lack of information about these hard-to-measure goals means that there will be fewer rewards to agencies for any success on those goals." This is not exactly a new idea. "What gets measured gets managed" is a cliche in leadership training. However, the idea could help us better understand ethics program objectives.

It's easy to count how many employees file financial disclosure forms, so OGE, and implementing agencies, tend to emphasize those. Similarly, it's easy to measure how many employees receive mandatory ethics training (in fact, the ease of counting is one of the attractions of the more sophisticated forms of online training).

What are the more difficult to measure parts of our jobs that deserve more emphasis?

Admiral Investigated for False Statements

USA Today reports on the firing of a Navy admiral. As is often the case, the consequences of the coverup proved worse than the underlying offense:

[The Admiral's superior] "emphasized" to CNN that Stufflebeem, a former commander of the 6th Fleet, was being punished for the "false and misleading" information he gave to investigators, and not the underlying allegations about an "inappropriate relationship."

April 3, 2008 Meeting

Our speaker at our Thursday, April 3, meeting will be Frederick ("Rick") Joyce, chair of the Communications Group of Venable LLP.  Rick's topic will be "Electronic Privacy Issues in the Government Workplace."  Rick will provide information on the constitutional foundation for electronic privacy laws, the various privacy laws, and the various challenges agencies face because of the numerous electronic devices employees use both in and out of the workplace.

Rick Joyce has represented some of the world's largest Internet backbone service providers, interexchange carriers, wireless messaging, cellular and PCS operators, satellite providers, and other telecommunications companies in a variety of commercial transactions, certifications, ratemakings and other regulatory proceedings before state and Federal agencies, courts, and legislative bodies.  He has written extensively and testified before Congress on these issues and is a frequent lecturer on telecommunications law, including at the last OGE ethics conference.  Rick graduated magna cum laude with a BA from George Washington University and received his JD from Georgetown University Law Center.   For those who feel like brushing up on this topic prior to next week, Rick has recently authored the following articles:

“Liability for All, Privacy for None: The Conundrum of Protecting Privacy Rights in a Pervasively Electronic World,"

Valparaiso

University

Law Review, Vol. 41, Number 4, 2007.

"The NSA's Surveillance Program and Your Business: Why You Should Care About Hepting v. AT&T" BNA's Privacy & Security Law Report, August 21, 2006.

Our April 3rd meeting will take place from 12:15-1:30 in the OTS auditorium,

1700 G Street, N.W.

(the corner of 17th and G Streets).  Individuals who are on the IEC roster need not pre-register for this meeting.  Ethics officials who are not on our roster but who wish to attend our April meeting can pre-register by contacting Patrick Carney not later than Monday, March 31st. Those who are neither on the IEC roster nor pre-registered can still be admitted to our meeting site by showing a Government ID to OTS Security personnel and signing in.

Treasury Recruiting GS 13/15 Lawyer

The Department of Treasury is recruiting a lawyer to work on "Departmental administration, litigation, regulatory matters, and ethics matters." Closing date is April 11.

OGE Updates Reporting Thresholds

Thanks to Mark Stone for the alert that OGE has published a Federal Register posting changing the reporting thresholds for gifts, reimbursements and travel expenses on the SF 278 and OGE Form 450, and the ceiling on non-sponsor gifts under the widely attended gathering rule (from $305 to $335). Mark notes the need to keep track of these changes, since the financial disclosure forms will not reflect these new dollar amounts until they are updated.

Computer Use Can Lead to Firing

U.S. News & World Report has an article on five ways using an office computer could lead to an employee's being fired, including viewing inappropriate web sites, playing games, blogging, posting photos on your social network site and writing inappropriate or offensive emails. Thanks to Government Executive's Tech Insider blog for the link.

OGE Training on SF 278

OGE will conduct its SF 278 review course in late April and Early May. Details are available at the OGE web site. Here's the course description:

This course focuses on the knowledge and skills new reviewers need to complete a review of the Executive Branch Public Financial Disclosure Report (SF 278).  The course examines how to review the reports for technical accuracy and identify potential financial conflicts of interest.  The course also addresses how to determine the best action to resolve various types of financial conflicts. 

The intended audience is: "Ethics officials and other agency personnel who review and assess employees’ public financial disclosure reports and are new to the review process."

FDR Conference Registration

The Federal Dispute Resolution Conference offers an early registration discount through March 31. This year's conference will be in Orlando from August 3-7.