Monthly Archives: October 2024

Placing highly capable people in positions of authority across the federal government is the most critical factor in its success and essential to its ability to regain the public’s trust. 

However, while there is a broadly accepted understanding of what it means to work in public service—referring to the people who serve our nation as federal, state, county, local and tribal government employees—there isn’t the same clarity around what it means to be a public service leader. 

Recently, my organization, the Partnership for Public Service, issued three recommendations to address this challenge, part of a five-point reform agenda designed to eliminate the most serious obstacles our government faces to meeting the needs of a diverse public. 

Among those obstacles, the lack of a shared standard that holds all political and career leaders accountable for meeting the unique responsibilities of public service—serving the people and acting as stewards of taxpayer dollars—stands out. 

Unlike organizations within the private sector and the military, the executive branch does not have a systematic, deliberate approach to developing and supporting federal leaders. 

The result is that these leaders—some of whom have tens of thousands of employees in their chain of command—are frequently moved into positions for their expertise on the issues rather than for their fundamental knowledge on how to lead and manage healthy organizations. 

At the same time, the government has not updated its methods for hiring and recruiting members of Senior Executive Service, the highest level of career employees who work alongside political appointees, in decades. This lag discourages top people across sectors from applying for these important roles. 

A slow Senate confirmation process for political appointees also makes it difficult for a new president to get a full leadership team in place quickly. 

Presidents currently need to make about 4,000 political appointments, including more than 1,300 who must receive Senate confirmation, representing an increase of more than 70% between 1960 and 2020. Due the sheer number of appointees and other factors, it now takes the Senate nearly four times longer to confirm a nominee than it did during President Ronald Reagan’s administration. 

These trends have led to more top-level vacancies, which slow decision making, undermine long-term strategic planning and modernization efforts, and weaken employee morale.

According to the 2023 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® rankings, which measure how civil servants view their jobs and workplaces, employees rated their senior leaders at just 57.3 out of 100, revealing significant dissatisfaction with individuals in key positions.

Our reform agenda outlines three actions Congress, agencies and the incoming administration should urgently take to reverse these trends and fix the government’s leadership crisis. These include:

• Standardizing leadership framework and expectations: All federal executives and managers should meet a standard for leadership that holds them accountable for running healthy and high-performing agencies. The government should adopt a framework, similar to the one developed by my organization, the Partnership for Public Service, that requires leaders to demonstrate skills essential to effective federal service, including the foundational value of being a steward of the public good.

• Improving the hiring process for senior executives: The government must improve the way it recruits, identifies and hires people to be federal leaders, including ensuring they have a diversity of experience within the public, private or nonprofit sectors. Additionally, agencies need to develop employees earlier in their careers to help them gain skills to move up the leadership ranks in their agencies.

• Reducing the number of political appointees subject to Senate confirmation and streamline the confirmation process: The Senate should consider converting some political jobs to career positions, and it needs to make it easier for agencies to fill critical leadership vacancies while preserving its role in reviewing nominees’ qualifications. In addition, Congress should update the Federal Vacancies Reform Act to clarify who may serve temporarily in a position until a political appointee steps into a role.

No matter one’s political persuasion or the politics of the day, greater emphasis and investment must be directed at developing highly competent leaders—the individuals responsible for keeping us safe in a dangerous world. At a time of declining faith in American institutions, leaders who fulfill these fundamental responsibilities will help make our government more trusted and trustworthy. 

Jenny Mattingley is the vice president for government affairs at the nonpartisan, nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, an organization dedicated to building a better government and a stronger democracy. 

The U.S. Secret Service must reboot its leadership and shake up its operations to reinvigorate a complacent workforce, a panel President Biden commissioned in the wake of a nearly successful assassination attempt on former President Trump earlier this year found, suggesting the agency’s issues ran far deeper than simply insufficient staff. 

The investigators found issues with the decision making at Trump’s July rally in Butler, Pa., during which Thomas Matthew Crooks fired eight shots from a nearby roof that killed one rally attendee and injured three people, including Trump, as well as problems much more deeply rooted within Secret Service. The agency should reconfigure its organization, narrow its focus and take a slew of steps to help its employees problem solve more effectively, the group said. 

Homeland Security Department Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said he was grateful for the report and promised to “fully consider” it when implementing changes to reform Secret Service. 

“These actions will be responsive not only to the security failures that led to the July 13, 2024 assassination attempt but, importantly, to what the Independent Review Panel describes as systemic and foundational issues that underlie those failures,” Mayorkas said. 

While many inside and outside Secret Service have raised concerns about inadequate resources and staffing, the panelists did not identify workforce issues as driving its recent failures. Instead, their report focused primarily on operational decision making, leadership failures and longstanding structural issues within the agency. They suggested issues existed within the workforce, however, and some of those could be addressed with more staffing. 

If conversations focused solely on budget and resources, they cautioned, the lessons from the Butler event would not be learned. 

Within the workforce, the panel found, the notion that USSS must “do more with less” is pervasive. Such an outlook creates “inevitable corrosive effects on protective decision-making over time,” the group said. Rather than focusing solely on how to ensure they meet their “zero-fail” mission, employees are looking for ways to cut corners.

A form on which USSS personnel made their staffing request directed employees to “minimize required manpower,” for example, which the panel said exacerbated the perception that agents must do more with less. The thinking has led to “corrosive cultural attitudes” within the USSS workforce. 

Adding staff would help diminish that perception, the panel said, and the downstream effects it creates. Secret Service is currently looking for ways to add staff and officials told the panel it will engage in more hiring if its budget increases. The panel warned the agency must deploy new staff thoughtfully while also allocating existing employees more rationally or it will not realize the benefits of its resources. It also suggested USSS utilize resources elsewhere within DHS, such as Homeland Security Investigations personnel and Transportation Security Administration agents. 

The panel was comprised of Mark Filip, a former George W. Bush administration Justice Department official; David Mitchell, a former police superintendent in Maryland and Homeland Security Department official; Janet Napolitano, who led DHS under President Obama; and Frances Fragon Townsend, an advisor under President Bush.  

It made clear a hiring surge would not directly mitigate the issues that caused the failures in Butler. Similar to a bipartisan report issued last month by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the panel cited USSS for not clearly identifying who was in charge in Butler, not adequately ensuring communication and coordination between the agency and other law enforcement entities and failing to deploy agents with requisite experience. The group also flagged Secret Service personnel for demonstrating a “troubling lack of critical thinking.” 

Examples included not recognizing the building Crooks shot from as a concern, refusing to stray from normal procedures regarding a former president even though Trump had effectively secured the Republican nomination (and, as the panel said, is someone who “generates strong emotions in many people”), failing to streamline communications and being unable to properly recognize Crooks as a threat.  

Since the event, the panelists found, Secret Service personnel still have not fully processed or come to understand their shortcomings. 

“The panel has observed that many of the Secret Service personnel involved in the events of July 13 appear to have done little in the way of self-reflection in terms of identifying areas of missteps, omissions or opportunities for improvement,” it said.

Many of the decisions USSS personnel made in Butler were “hard to understand,” the panel said, such as declining to include the building from which Crooks took his shots in the inner perimeter within the agency’s direct jurisdiction. Even after making such a decision, it added, the agency could and should have secured the building using existing personnel. 

The lack of critical thinking could have derived from several issues, the investigators said, including complacency, burnout, inadequate training, resource pressure and incompetence. 

“One of the most fundamental challenges facing the Secret Service,” the panel said, “is that new leadership will need to inspire agents, regardless of fatigue or claimed burnout, to aspire to be elite and flawless.”

The panel also faulted USSS for failing to conduct after-action analyses of events, random audits of its performance or various exercises to improve performance. The agency is overly protective and insular with regard to its practices, the group said. 

Secret Service should also invest more heavily and regularly in training, noting the agency lacks facilities dedicated to training and lags behind other federal law enforcement in training operations. The panel recommended creating a leadership training center and making additional investments. 

The former federal officials said going forward USSS should integrate its communications, ensure an on-site leader briefs the head of protectee’s detail upon that person’s arrival on site, procure and deploy overhead technology at outdoor events and establish a clearer chain of command at protected events. 

It also made more structural recommendations, including reorganizing the agency around its core mission of protecting important figures and installing new leadership from outside the agency. USSS should “consider what current responsibilities the Service needs to shed or discharge so that it can provide its protective mission with all resources required to fulfill that responsibility,” the panel said, adding other investigative missions “may materially distract” from its core functions. 

Secret Service should also establish a continuous auditing center and take a risk-based approach to its security plans, rather than structuring them strictly based on the title of the protectee. 

The panel urged the agency to “faithfully and expeditiously” implement its recommendations. 

USSS has stressed that it quickly took action to ramp up its security efforts through the election. While it weighs longer-term changes, Mayorkas expressed confidence the agency is up to the task in the immediate future. 

“I have the utmost confidence in the men and women of the U.S. Secret Service,” the secretary said. “We are operating in a heightened and dynamic threat environment, and it is their talent, unwavering dedication and tireless service that ensures the safety and security of their protectees and our nation.”

Last month, a second would-be assassin was located by Secret Service on a golf course where Trump was playing. Prosecutors are seeking to charge Ryan Routh, the alleged gunman, of an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate.

While the Secret Service has not cited insufficient resources as a cause for its failures, a top official recently said it has “long been the case” that his agency is stretched too thin. The stopgap funding currently funding the government provided USSS with a $231 million funding surge through Dec. 20. 

The FBI on Thursday arrested an Alabama man alleged to have hacked into the Security Exchange Commission’s X social media account, where he posted a fake message from agency chairman Gary Gensler, and caused Bitcoin to spike around $1,000.

Eric Council Jr. “conspired with others to take unauthorized control of the @SECGov X account” by taking over a phone number affiliated with the account and falsely proclaiming the agency had approved Bitcoin exchange-traded funds for listing on stock exchanges, the Justice Department said in a release.

An indictment unsealed Thursday says Council worked with other unnamed co-conspirators and used a technique called SIM swapping — in which a hacker tricks a phone provider to hand over control of an account’s phone number — to authorize access into the financial enforcement agency’s X account and post the sham announcement on Jan. 9.

Using a fake ID, Council acquired a SIM card associated with the victim’s phone number at a mobile provider store in Huntsville, Alabama. He then bought a new iPhone with cash and, along with the SIM card, obtained access codes to the @SECGov X account, DOJ alleges.

Council shared these codes with his co-conspirators, who accessed the account and posted a fraudulent tweet from the SEC Chairman, falsely stating that BTC ETFs had been approved, the changes say. As compensation for the SIM swap, Council was paid in Bitcoin, and, shortly afterward, he returned the iPhone for cash in Birmingham, Alabama.

He also searched online for terms like “SECGOV hack,” “telegram sim swap,” “how can I know for sure if I am being investigated by the FBI” and “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”

“Today’s arrest demonstrates our commitment to holding bad actors accountable for undermining the integrity of the financial markets,” SEC Inspector General Deborah Jeffrey said in a statement.

Most federal employees and annuitants know that they are eligible for Medicare benefits at age 65. However, what isn’t fully understood is how and when to enroll in one or more parts of Medicare. Here are some things that you need to know when you are approaching Medicare eligibility: 

#1 Initial Enrollment Period: If you are not receiving Social Security or RRB as you approach age 65, you may enroll in Medicare starting three months before your 65th birthday month and up to three months after. This is your IEP.   

#2 Medicare Part A: Hospital Insurance can begin as early as age 65. It doesn’t matter if you are covered by other health insurance or whether you are working or retired. There is no premium for Part A if you receive or are eligible to receive benefits from Social Security (or the Railroad Retirement Board-RRB) or your spouse (living or deceased, including a divorced spouse) receives or is eligible to receive Social Security (or RRB benefits). While you are covered by Federal Employees Health Benefits or the Postal Service Health Benefits program as a current employee, Medicare will pay second to your employer coverage based on current employment. This also applies to your Medicare eligible spouse if they are covered by your current employment health coverage. You may also qualify for Medicare if you are the dependent parent of a fully insured deceased child. For those individuals who are receiving Social Security retirement benefits, Medicare enrollment is automatic. If you are 65 or older and do not receive Social Security retirement benefits, you may delay enrollment in all parts of Medicare if you wish to continue to contribute to a Health Savings Account with a High Deductible Health Plan. 

#3 Medicare Part B: Outpatient coverage or “doctor’s insurance.” You can only sign up for Part B during designated enrollment periods. If you don’t enroll in Part B when you’re first eligible, you may have to pay a permanent late enrollment penalty. If you’re already getting benefits from Social Security or the RRB, you’ll automatically be enrolled in both Part A and Part B starting the 1st day of the month you turn 65. If your birthday is on the 1st day of the month, Part A and Part B will start the 1st day of the prior month. If you’re under 65 and have a disability, you’ll automatically get Part A and Part B after you get disability benefits from Social Security for 24 months. Also, you’ll automatically get Part A and Part B after you get certain disability benefits from the RRB. If you have ALS, you’ll get Part A and Part B automatically the month your SSDI benefits begin. 

#4 Premiums for Medicare Part A and Part B: Medicare Part A is financed primarily through payroll taxes, which are paid by both employees (1.45% of earnings) and employers (matching 1.45%). The self-employed pay both shares of the tax, 2.9% of net earnings from self-employment. Because you’ve paid this tax, there is no premium for Medicare Part A. People aged 65 or older, who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States are eligible for Medicare Part A at no cost at age 65.   

Medicare Part B is primarily financed through premiums that are deducted from Social Security retirement benefits or through other methods, if not receiving or eligible for Social Security retirement. Other ways to pay for Part B are outlined here: https://www.medicare.gov/basics/costs/pay-premiums 

The standard Medicare Part B premium is projected to increase to $185 per month in 2025, up from $174.70 in 2024. Some beneficiaries may pay higher premium rates based on their income. In 2024, if you file an individual tax return and your Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) in 2022 was more than $103,000, you will pay an additional amount known as the Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA).  If you file a joint tax return, you will be affected by IRMAA if your MAGI is over $206,000. The 2025 rates will be announced later this year. 

If you’re not sure if you’re enrolled in Medicare Part A or Part B (yes, there are those who don’t know if they signed up at 65 or not), look in your wallet to see if you have the red, white, and blue Medicare card.   You can call the Social Security Administration at 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778) to check your enrollment status. You can also visit your local Social Security office and maybe the easiest way, is to log into your MyMedicare.gov account to check your status. You can also log into your My Social Security account. 

#5 General Enrollment Period (GEP) for Part B If you don’t enroll in Medicare Part B during your IEP, you have another chance each year to sign up during a GEP from January 1 through March 31. Your coverage starts the 1st day of the month after you sign up. However, you may have to pay a late enrollment penalty for as long as you have Part B coverage. Your monthly premium will go up 10% for each 12-month period you were eligible for Part B, but didn’t sign up for it. 

#6 Special Enrollment Period is available if you’re covered under an employer group health plan and the coverage is through current employment.  If you are covered by “current employment” health coverage, either from your own or your spouse’s current employment, you may sign up for Medicare Part B during your SEP. This means that you may delay enrolling in Medicare Part B without having to wait for a GEP and paying the penalty for late enrollment.  The SEP rules allow you to enroll in Medicare Part B any time while you or your spouse have a group health plan based on current employment or enroll in Medicare Part B during the 8-month period that begins the month after the employment ends or the group health coverage ends, whichever happens first. 

You can’t enroll using an SEP until your IEP is over. When you enroll in Medicare Part B while you’re still in the group health plan, or during the 1st full month when you are no longer in the plan with current employment, your coverage begins either on the 1st day of the month you enroll or, by your choice, on the 1st day of any of the following 3 months.  If you enroll during any of the remaining 7 months of the SEP, your Medicare Part B coverage begins on the 1st day of the following month. If you don’t enroll by the end of the 8-month period, you’ll have to wait until the next GEP, which begins January 1 of the next year.  

#7 Coordination of Medicare with FEHB/PSHB.  Under the new PSHB, if you are under age 64 on January 1, 2025, you must enroll in Medicare Parts A and B when you are retired and 65 to continue coverage under PSHB.  Otherwise, enrollment in Medicare is optional for FEHB and PSHB (for current postal retirees and postal employees who are 64 or older on January 1, 2025) enrollees.  Most annuitants enroll in Original Medicare (Parts A and B).  Once retired, Medicare becomes the primary payer and your FEHB/PSHB pay as secondary payer.  There are FEHB/PSHB plans with low rates that complement Medicare by waiving cost sharing (deductible, copays, and coinsurance) when Medicare is the primary payer.  Also look for plans that provide a rebate or reduction in your Part B premium.  After age 65, it may be important to have low prescription copays as well as generous coverage for physical, occupational or speech therapy benefits; durable medical equipment; coverage for hearing aids; and skilled nursing care.   

#9 Medicare Advantage, Part C Many plans provide a Medicare Advantage option that may provide additional benefits such as gym membership, meal delivery after a hospital stay, dental, vision, transportation to non-emergency medical appointments and more.  You can generally see any health care provider that participates in Medicare and accepts the plan. Accepting the plan means the doctor is willing to treat you and bill the Medicare Advantage provider.  Your FEHB/PSHB may be able to contact your doctor on your behalf to explain how the plan works. If your doctor or hospital refuses to directly bill the Medicare Advantage plan, they may ask that you pay the full allowable amount. In that case, you can pay the doctor and then submit your claim to the plan. You will be reimbursed for the cost of the claim, less your copay.  Contact the Plan for additional information regarding how you will receive care.  These Part C Medicare Advantage plans available through your FEHB/PSHB plan are not the same as those advertised on TV or those on the plan finder at medicare.gov.   

#10 Medicare Part D, Prescription Drug coverage If Medicare Part A and/or B is primary, and you’re enrolled in an FEHB/PSHB plan offering Medicare Part D, your prescription drug coverage will automatically become a Medicare Part D plan.  This could result in savings on your prescription costs. Your drugs will still be covered, but copays and coinsurance can be lower and out of pocket expenses on medications are capped at $2,000 / year (some currently have this limit, but all plans are included starting in 2026). If available, once you reach the $2,000 max for prescription drugs, you will pay $0 for prescription drugs. This $2,000 will also apply to the medical plan’s total calendar year out-of-pocket maximum. There are some downsides to adding this coverage to your FEHB plan.  One negative is if you are a higher income enrollee.  There is an IRMAA surcharge for higher income retirees (like Part B IRMAA, but different rates).  With Medicare Part D coverage, you may not use a manufacturer’s discount coupon. PSHB enrollees who are eligible for Medicare Part D must enroll in a Medicare Part D plan. This includes annuitants who are newly eligible for Medicare and their covered family members.

A new bill plans to upgrade the Veterans Affairs Department’s Patient Advocacy Program into an independent office that both supports veterans and recommends which policies could improve the department’s care operations.   

The National Veterans’ Advocate Act (HR 9996) — sponsored by Rep. Rudy Yakym, R-Ind.— would stand up a new VA Office of the National Veterans’ Advocate, carved out from the Veterans Health Administration’s Office of Patient Advocacy, and give it the power to report directly to Congress its assessments of where the quality of veterans’ health care and benefits could be made better, as well as more cost-efficient.

“Unfortunately, in a system as large and complex as the VA it can be difficult navigating all the bureaucratic layers, let alone find solutions to make sure the VA runs better to begin with. This often leaves veterans without timely access to the quality care they need and have earned,” said Yakym in a statement. 

“By establishing an independent office within the VA devoted to coming up with ways to improve it, we can make the agency more efficient, prevent veterans’ healthcare crises before they emerge and, ultimately, better serve the men and women who served our nation in uniform.”

Under the proposal, the new office would be independent of the VA secretary, have its own appropriations and would not share its quarterly findings with the department until after it submitted them to the relevant congressional committees, modeled after collaboration between the Office of the National Taxpayer Advocate and the IRS.

Currently, the Office of Patient Advocacy provides patient advocates at VA medical facilities to respond to veterans’ feedback and concerns and work with department personnel to help find solutions. 

The office would retain those roles under Yakym’s bill, alongside the new office’s expanded mission. The legislation also proposes appropriating $25 million a year to fund the office through fiscal 2025-2029. 

The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.