- Thank you for
inviting us to speak for HUD’s career bargaining unit employees. I also wish to thank my fellow
panelists: we appreciate the Deputy
Secretary’s willingness to meet with us regularly to discuss employee concerns;
and we thank Mr. Czerwinski and other GAO investigators for focusing on how HUD
can be better.
- My written
testimony is a detailed look at HUD’s Human Capital management issues and its
oversight of contractors. My oral testimony
though is more pointed.
- Employees have
been concerned for a long time with our designation by GAO as high risk. But even without this designation, we would
be concerned for the long-term viability of HUD programs.
- We believe
that no administration can resolve these issues without the sustained support
of Congress.
- HUD programs
are largely bricks and mortar—long-term investments. This is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the
challenges facing HUD. The programs
Congress creates have a life span greater than the average employee’s
career. Section 202 developments built
today will still be operating with HUD mortgages in 2040. Furthermore, the nature of development is
such that problems are likely to arise either at the very beginning of a
development’s life span, or at the end.
- Therefore,
staff continuity, the sharing of institutional memory, is crucial to effective
problem solving.
- All American
employers are facing the loss of staff with the impending retirement of the
Baby Boom generation. But for HUD, this
problem will be a crisis.
- Currently, HUD
only fills vacancies after they occur, frequently months or even years after a
seasoned employee has left. In our
written testimony, we recommend no reduction in HUD’s staffing ceiling. But the truth is, if 4500 HUD employees are
eligible to retire in the next five years, we need to hire 2000 employees
within the next two years. Hiring this
staff now will permit mentoring and a transfer of knowledge. We cannot replace journey level staff with entry-level
staff.
- This is a task
no administration can accomplish without Congressional support.
- As stewards of
the public trust, we do not want to hear “it can’t be done,” or “we have
deficit budgets.” It can be done. The money is already being spent—spent on
contractors. With the knowledge, and
sometimes the express approval of Congress, HUD spends more on contractors than
it would cost to hire HUD employees.
The Section 8 Contract Administration contracts alone would cover 2500
additional staff. These contracts
replace the need for less than half that number of staff. And this is only one example of the many
wasteful contracts.
- We need you to
stop working with HUD to play smoke and mirrors with the budget.
- Our written
testimony includes recommendations that would assist recruitment and
retention—use of retention programs such as a loan-forgiveness program and
child care subsidy; extend permanent positions to its interns; reform its
overly bureaucratic human resources department—but these are all band aids. They will make HUD a better place to work
for the workers that remain.
- But we need
more than band-aids. We need whole
blood; we need staff, and we need them now.
- Congress can
make the difference between the long-term successes of the programs it
authorizes, or it can assist in their failure.
- Thank you.