The Need for Accountability at All Levels
The prompt for this round of the FEDforum is Accountability & Transparency: What does it mean to your organization?. This week, hear from the Federal Managers Association (FMA).
The mission of the Federal Managers Association is advocating excellence in public service. That mission is what guides and shapes our work.
When talking about accountability, first and foremost, FMA takes pride in being accountable to our members. We want to hear their concerns and listen to what issues are impacting their agencies, their workplace, their careers, their healthcare and retirement, and to address those issues with Congress and the Administration as best we can.
That is what shapes our issue briefs every year – from fighting to achieve the best compensation for their hard work and ensuring the benefits they were promised and earned throughout their careers are not taken away, to pursuing investments in the workforce and providing tools to empower FMA members in their workplace. Since any manager, supervisor or executive is eligible to join FMA, a win for FMA members is usually a win for the federal workforce, writ large. Accountability to our members often helps recruitment, retention, and morale across the federal government.
Here is a brief example of that: In 2012 an FMA member saw a need when some of her employees, disabled veterans, were quickly using all of their leave and going into the hole or leave without pay in order to attend appointments for their service-connected disabilities. That FMA member, 2016 FMA Manager of the Year Sue Thatch, brought the issue to our attention. By being accountable to Sue and in pursuit of our mission of excellence, we successfully worked to get legislation, the Wounded Warriors Federal Leave Act, passed and signed into law.
Today, accountability to our members means we are working to address salary compression and the impacts of pay caps, protecting due process for all civil servants, hiring reform to ensure the best and brightest bring their talents to the federal workforce, shipyard modernization, and many other issues.
All federal employees, including FMA members take an oath of office, as public servants, bound to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Representatives, Senators, political appointees, judges, and the uniformed military take the same oath. Naturally, that is paramount on our minds at FMA. Jeff Neal, a human resources expert who served as chief human capital officer for the Department of Homeland Security, did a deep dive on that oath, and we largely agree with his thoughts. He wrote, “One purpose of the Oath of Office is to remind federal workers that they do not swear allegiance to a supervisor, an agency, a political appointee, or even to the President. The oath is to support and defend the U.S. Constitution and faithfully execute your duties. The intent is to protect the public from a government that might fall victim to political whims and to provide a North Star – the Constitution – as a source of direction.”
Neal addressed accountability in that same article. “Federal workers are accountable to the people, not to politicians . . . Federal workers should do their jobs, obey the law, and carry out their oath to support and defend the Constitution. That is what most of the American people expect and deserve from their public servants. We agree.
Corporately, FMA views transparency as accessibility to our members to our goals, and the status of our pursuit of those goals. We want to be good stewards of their dues, being straightforward and up-front about how their resources are used. FMA members elect an Executive Board to represent their interests and make decisions on behalf of the association. We share information with chapter leaders and all members, and solicit their input, expertise, and insights as we perform our work communicating with decision makers.
For us, any discussion of accountability conjures images of America’s 33rd president, Harry S. Truman. His popularization of the phrase, “the buck stops here,” the idea of making decisions and taking responsibility for outcomes, is refreshing and something we can all aspire to.
Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power and duty to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” The shared responsibility for governing is on every elected official’s shoulders, including providing the resources to federal agencies to allow them to do their jobs on behalf of the American people. As we near the end of Fiscal Year 2023, we are once again reminded of that responsibility.
Last week, Government Executive reported bipartisan leadership in the House and the Senate are planning to pass a continuing resolution in September to fund the federal government into December 2023 and prevent a government shutdown. While we view a CR as preferable to a shutdown, the continued budget uncertainty impedes efficiency and costs the government and American taxpayers billions of dollars. In an article about accountability, we would be remiss if we didn’t respectfully urge lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to work together and find solutions, providing for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, for the good of all Americans.
The column from the Federal Managers Association (FMA) is part of the FEDforum, an initiative to unite voices across the federal community. The FEDforum is a space for federal employee groups to share their organizations’ initiatives and activities with the FEDmanager audience.
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