of long-range models for estimating Medicare. We anticipate a continuing high level of interest in estimating Medicare proposals over both the short and the long terms. Other important policy work that will be completed in 2001 includes an analysis of the effect of estate and gift taxes on charitable giving; a primer on Social Security; an analysis of the California electricity crisis; and a study of military operations and maintenance accounts. Also important to our work this year and next will be our access to new data on income, Social Security, and Medicare. That data will enhance our long-term modeling efforts but will also put demands on our staff and ADP resources as we integrate, process, and safeguard these new resources. Internal Management Strategy, Progress, and Priorities for 2001 and 2002 In addition to focusing directly on its mission, CBO, like any effective and highly successful organization, must devote resources to attracting talented people, developing their skills, and properly equipping them. It must also organize its key work processes to be as efficient as possible. Enhancing Recruitment and Retention. During the next two years, we will expand on the initiatives undertaken last year to identify, hire, and retain a highly talented and diverse workforce by strengthening our recruitment efforts, investing more in training and staff development, and reconfiguring our space so that it better meets the needs of our staff. Strengthen Recruitment Strategy - Our goal has been to focus our efforts on In 1998 the agency experienced an unusual number of vacancies and was unable to quickly replace the individuals who left. Consequently, staffing dropped from 227 full-time-equivalent positions in 1997 to 205 in December 1998. We recovered somewhat in 1999, but still ended the year far short of our staffing needs. We met our mandates, but the shortfall created a hardship for our staff, and it meant that our ability to produce nonstatutory cost estimates and major studies suffered. Early in fiscal year 2000, a CBO task force made significant recommendations on how to build a better recruitment program. As a result, we created a recruitment program that allowed us to fill vacancies more quickly and to reach our fiscal year 2000 staffing objective of 225 staff years. Our program included: 1 1 1 raising offering salaries for new Ph.D. and Master's candidates simplifying our application process and drastically shortening creating a high-quality recruitment brochure for our college developing new systems to track recruitment contacts and job more aggressively advertising critical vacancies and beginning We also expanded the number of schools where we recruit and began sending recruitment materials to more institutions with relevant programs in economics and public policy, and to a wider variety of schools with diverse student populations. In fiscal years 2001 and 2002, we will further expand our campus visits to include more schools with diverse student populations, provide additional training to staff on effective recruitment techniques, complete our automation efforts, and implement an expanded training and orientation program for new employees. Furthermore, to help retain high-performing employees and to be more competitive in recruiting, we are providing larger merit pay increases to entrylevel employees and continuing what we believe is a very successful awards program for outstanding performers. The awards program benefitted roughly a third of our permanent employees in fiscal year 2000. Improve CBO's Training Programs - Our goal is to improve management and job skills by investing in our people through training, education, and professional development. CBO has always invested in the job skills of its employees, but the amount spent on job training and professional development has been far less than that of other high-impact organizations, and much less than recommended by management and training experts. CBO spent less than 0.5 percent of its personnel costs on training in 1999, compared with the 2 to 4 percent typical of high-performing private firms that the agency competes with for staff. In fiscal year 2000, we increased training expenditures by nearly 30 percent (to a level still far short of private-sector standards) while eliminating less costeffective training. We also undertook a more deliberate assessment of needed training and began training managers in leadership and communications skills. To date, we have provided such leadership training to one-third of our managers. During the remainder of 2001 and in 2002, we will maintain the higher level of spending on training, education, and professional development and intend to provide management training to the remainder of our senior staff. Modernize and Revitalize the Working Environment - Our goal is to reconfigure and, where necessary, renovate offices to better use our space and to provide a quality work environment for new employees and those currently in inadequate space: Most of CBO's space was configured shortly after the agency's creation 25 years ago-in a building designed primarily for file storage, not human occupancy. At that time, there were few desktop computers, many more support staff, less specialization, and a less competitive employment marketplace. Consequently, a significant percentage of our space was configured for clerical staff, and many analysts had work space that was in passageways or was otherwise undesirable. These work spaces adapted poorly to computer technology; and conference space, which is critical to the collaborative nature of our work, was in short supply. During fiscal year 2000, in cooperation with staff of the Architect of the Capitol, we developed a range of strategies to address our space problems, and we began to make modest investments in our facilities. By June, we will have completed the reconfiguration of roughly a dozen small office suites and other areas constituting roughly 20 percent of our usable floor space. The result will be about 50 offices renovated, with a net gain of 18 private offices and three additional conference areas. We also reduced the amount of wasted space and greatly reduced the amount of space devoted to storage. STANFORD LIBRARIE Because we will still have a significant number of employees in substandard Communications Priorities. The vibe of CBO's work to the Congress and the public derives from the quality, readability, and availability of its products. While the demand for CBO's printed products resets strong, the use of the electronic versions of the products on the agency's Web sae is growing sigmficantly year to year. We plan to improve bocz CBO's Web Site - Our goals are to rescend to the growing demand for During fiscal year 2000, the content of CBC's Web site expanded by a third, During the remainder of 2001 and ineo 2002, we plan a major redesign of our CHO's Publications and Production Processes - Our goals are to produce As usage of CBO's Web site has increased, we have been able to print fewer copies of reports and reduce inventory costs. For example, printing costs for our three major mandated reports were about one-quarter lower last year than the year before and about half as much as two years earlier. New reproduction technology has improved the quality and timeliness of reports and testimony produced in-house, while lowering our costs. Consequently, for several reports last year, the initial copies produced in-house to meet tight Congressional deadlines were of much higher quality and resembled the final copies from commercial printers. We have improved some of our processes for graphics and now do most of the design and production work in-house. During 2001, we will continue to modernize the appearance of our publications and achieve a consistent and professional look. We will also improve the production underlying our publications by centralizing the work and streamlining processes. Similarly, by revising additional graphics processes, we will produce more finished graphics in-house, saving additional time and money. Technology and Process Redesign. As noted earlier, highly effective organizations must build a skilled staff and then provide them with the technology and work processes necessary to support them. In exit interviews and focus groups with current staff, technology emerges as an area where CBO excels compared to other places people have worked. It is also critical to our ability to do the highly complex analyses that underlie much of CBO's work. Maintain Our Technological Edge - Our goal is to continue to provide the best technology systems economically available to support the agency's mission while constantly improving the performance of those systems and employee satisfaction. During fiscal year 2000 and the first half of 2001, we upgraded most desktop computers and for the first time achieved an ideal hardware/software configuration for every employee. We also improved our network communications, strengthened network security with a firewall and other changes, added nearly a terabyte of needed data storage, and strengthened system reliability with more redundancy and better disaster recovery capability. We also moved our mission-critical server room to the 6th floor of the Ford House Office Building, which has emergency power and air conditioning and a higher level of physical security. |
