if a scandal. the chapter on johnson, i won't speak beyond that, the chapter should be expunged from every library in the country. it focuses on a fellow named edmund ross was passed with the single vote that saved johnson said. and it cost us is about the most heroic moment in history. i actually think that his boat was purchased. and johnson i think was not a heroic moment. >> the trump administration proposed reorganizing several

agencies including the general services administration and the office of personnel management. they testified at a senate hearing about the proposal and chairs this 90 minute hearing. >> good morning and welcome everyone. the title challenges and opportunities proposed to the reorganization. thank you for being here and being a part of the conversation. this provides an opportunity to discuss the proposal to transfer certain functions handled by the office of personnel management to the general services administration and this is one of the many that make up the governmentwide organization plan released on june 21, 2018. the current administration a

good sentiment of the previous administrations that the government was designed and structured the last century updating the government to meet the demands of the 21st century is vital and necessary undertaking. the taxpayers deserve an effective government capable of meeting the 21st century needs and it's imperative that these conversations take into account the dedicated men and women to compromise to be co- comprise the federal workforce. they stressed some of these proposals can be implemented without change while others need congress to act and many of them will need congressional action. today we are examining one proposal for the office of personnel management and it identifies the major organizational units that could be transferred to other agencies. it calls for transferring five of the units outside and notice

the placement of the remaining units would be determined at a later date. those that we transfer to specific offices it proposes realigning three of them and then renaming the general service administration to the government services administration. the three functions for the candidates are human resource management, federal retiree services and management of federal benefits programs. the personal policy manager and chief human resource agency for the federal government. the congres congress charged wiy responsibilities pertaining to the federal workforce including administrative retirement and healthcare services and beneficiaries. the gsa manages federal real estate and aims to provide efficient and effective acquisitions across agencies and supply federal purchasers of products and services from commercial verse. these three services can be transferred into the gsa to improve services to our federal workforce and provide efficiencies from what many many

would equate as a merger. in the beginning of the conversation we need more details on how the proposals can achieve the goals and i hope today we can begin to hear some of the details i wil that will e necessary for congress as consideration and implementation and with that i will recognize the ranking member for remarks. >> thank you for holding the hearing and for joining us today. i think everyone in this room as well as every member of congress from either party would agree we want a more efficient and better federal government system. federafederal government honestt do better. it must be more efficient, effective and do a better job of connecting with its citizens. that's why i'm looking forward to improving federal agencies and i know that is a great idea. the administration and public should always be exploring ways working together to come up with new ideas and structures to execute on those new ideas.

with that in mind i look forward to today's conversation. the administration has proposed some interesting ideas and the governmentwide reorganization proposal. one is the focus of today's hearing. most of the functions are creating a whole new agency. last week they had a chance to explore the full scope of the administration's reorganization proposal and today we vote we vn in the weeds and learn more about one specific proposal, but it will mean and how it will be executed. i'm not afraid of big ideas and congress cannot be reflexively dismissive of a proposal simple because it changes the status quo. with that said, congress also needs more information and more analysis about these reorganization plans. i'm sure the witnesses today are aware of the conversation we had last week, and i think i'm not exaggerating to say that i was somewhat disappointed in the

lack of detail that was provided to us regarding the overall administration proposals particularly as it relates to some of the usda proposals, so i'm hoping that we won't see the same kind of reluctance or inability to provide background or in ... today because this is an important function and i think senator lankford and i know that there has been increasing frustration not only with the public towards this agency, but also internally with other agencies who have to work and expect they are going to get a more rapid response. so i think that the proposal is interesting and something that needs to be explored and we have to work together to see how that would be carried out if they are actually going to see efficiencies. we need information so we can

fulfill our oversight duties and also protect federal workers. federafederal employees are absy critical to the proper functioning of government and we can't have the nation or citizens without a strong federal workforce so i want to thank you and i look forward to your testimony. thank you for coming in. >> they will proceed with testimony from the witnesses. the administrator for the united states general service administration, administrator murphy served from 2005 in 2007 wherein she was appointed the inaugural chief acquisition officer and with the transformation of the agency to the acquisition centers and consolidation of the federal supply service and federal technology service. the previous includes the deployment of the small business administration and nine years in the house of representatives on the house committee on small business and house armed service committee. just as the director of the office of personnel management the position he's held since

march and he had over 25 years experience leading organizations and transforming the private and public sectors. he previously served as the resource management strategy officer. i want to thank both of you not only for stepping up and taking these responsibilities going through the nomination process is not fun to go through the process but also to step up and take the challenge of the reorganization which is a significant event. the status quo is easier so i thank you for stepping into it. it's the custom of the subcommittee to swear in all witnesses so if you don't mind, please stand and raise your right hand. hand. do you swear the testimony you're about to give before the subcommittee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god? let the record reflect that this is answered in the affirmative. affirmative. for your opening statement with a five-minute clock. we will not be sued for

enforcing of that today but we do want to make sure that we get to questions quickly. ladies first, we are glad to be able to receive your testimony now. >> good morning, chairman lankford, ranking member and members of the subcommittee. my name is emily murphy and i am a gsa administrator. thank you for the opportunity to testify on the role in the administrations government reform plan. ..

>> under the plan will expand most substantially to operational functions from opm to gsa to providing functions that is a broad spectrum of human resources products and services to create opportunities for efficiencies and modernization and given the breath of the realization all understand we must be thoughtful to move forward and moreover to better ensure the opm in its first phase we will transition to gsa they have established a working group as a transition coordinator to

experience agency realignment. it is important to share additional background how other functions affect the current mission. established by president truman for the work of the federal government that remain central to the mission complex governmentwide services is what we do every day and in many of those cases the leverage that power to secure better deals for the taxpayer. it excels at providing a wide variety of support for acquisition fleet management and financial management tools and for small agencies we

provided integrated hr and payroll services gsa also serves as an integration body high quality services to improve performance and efficiency throughout the government further supported by the administration priority goal which i co-lead the goal is to address the fact that 40% of federal leaders report they are not happy with support to have that agencywide chief customer ofc. to have a long-standing culture to be customer oriented and would have modern it solutions to centralize that transaction process for gsa that already one the with the core mission to focus on the improvement of human capital the existing capabilities provide the environment to decrease cost

and improve the lifecycle of employee services to the interdependencies. gsa already provides services to opm and other agencies including lead management services. it also has extensive partnerships on the human capital trading services program that gsa and opm give subject matter the reform plan is the path to remake the government to be more responsive and efficient and effective i look forward to work with the federal agencies that we serve to bring about this needed change thank you for the opportunity to be here today i'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

>> members of the subcommittee and the chairman thank you for the opportunity to be here today to better liners needs for the citizens as the director understand the importance of a strategic workforce alignment and how organizations can continue to reorganize the realization of positive results. there has not been comprehensive civil service reform for over 40 years and the way in which certain government functions and programs are organized is not able to federal workers to excel at the delivery of our mission most efficient and effective way possible president drums reorganization proposal is a comprehensive attempt to address these issues particularly by elevating the strategy policy to align transactional services to the new gsa.

this proposal is not a secret plan to fire civil servants but the opportunity to elevate the functions to maximize operational efficiency for human capital services the executive office recommends that process by the federal personnel personnel management is courtney did the main objective is to enable opm to focus on the core strategic mission to serve as the chief resource agency for the federal government this proposal recommends using the policy function the details will be further developed in the later reorganization process. i would follow additional discussions with stakeholders

which is with the realignment that primarily includes those reimbursable services for human capital function can remain at opm to allow a more comprehensive approach for the strategic workforce initiative for the federal government with a renewed focus to better support the centralized coordination of all personnel policies across the federal government which includes employee compensation and workforce supply and demand identification of workforce skills, leadership and talent management and other issues that could also modernize the approach of policies with the core focus on strategy and innovation senior talent and leadership management and employee performance. reorganization is just one tool among the administration is committed to drive

transformational change across the government. they are currently developing the implementation plan to support this proposal. i have been participating in ongoing discussions on the specifics of the implementations of the proposal. i expect to have future conversations with members of congress as we gain more detailed insight what is necessary to move forward i understand there's a lot of questions and its impact would have on the federal workforce i look forward to having a continued conversation about it and i thank you for this opportunity to testify to share the vision of this. one -- proposal welcome any questions you may have. >> we are deferring our questions to the end and now we recognize senators for the question.

>> thank you to the chair and my ranking member and for ms. murphy and mr. pon for your work on behalf of the american people. as i said last week we all share the priority to work toward a more efficient and effective federal government i think this could be a starting point how to reorganize the federal government but the devil is in the details as governor i propose changes to the structure of our states government so i appreciate the challenges that come along with this kind of proposal. so with those recommendations specifically i'm curious to hear where the idea came from? we spoke last week how some of these ideas were top-down and some were bottom-up.

so mr. pon did this come from the agency or the white house or somewhere else? do you thank you for the question senator with the process of the last 18 months executive order for reorganization happened 18 months ago and the agency submitted ideas to omb and through synthesis of this omb prepared the overall proposal to release that to agencies so trading information back and forth in the proposal came out since then emily and i have set a task force to understand which each organization dovetails there is a lot to learn and we are making sure they are working together to make the tough decisions who goes where and how this can happen.

>> administrator murphy talks about calling like one --dash moving those processes into gsa talking about experience in this visa -- regard so what experience does your agency have with those kinds of policies? >> thank you sen. first of all i want to start by saying the transition of retirement or healthcare has not been decided that would be 20 or 2021 budget however we are not really a policy organization so we take the policy directives for the opm i cumin r-uppercase-letter trading solutions contract and then put them into implementation to process the

transaction and find those efficiencies to make that happen it makes it easier for employees to do their job and also for the taxpayers. i look forward to a further conversation with you on that off-line. but also i want to follow-up on something we have discussed we spoke in the past about the federal cybersecurity workforce in my frustration with the difficulty to get clearance how many federal workers we have doing cybersecurity in each agency i know you are working on that and you share my frustration but the delay in the act of information is a real issue as the chairman noted last week the russian attacks on our infrastructure was in attack on our democracy if russia is

willing and able to attack infrastructure they and others will absolutely also attack our federal agencies and we need to ensure we have a cybersecurity workforce in place to mitigate those attacks the broader plan has a targeted workforce across the federal government share your perspective on that proposal and how to those changes impact the ability to have that unified workforce? can i share your concern to make sure we have a robust cybercore in the nation to any threats the actors are getting worse is more complicated in the workforce need to be reasonable going from private and public sector experience to get the necessary workforce that we have.

this is just the federal workforce but we need to make sure there is a entire workforce whether contract and/or federal to make sure there is data available to understand how we can track people on the contractor side and on the federal workforce side also to understand the costs and the type of trading that they have of what we once them to have. we initiated certain types of work force plan to onboard those flexibilities with performance management and to make sure the federal workforce is not just stagnant but getting the training available for best in class because the technology and techniques change every three to six months it isn't a

two-year cycle so we need to look at that cycle and adjusts that is my recommendation because they are accelerating at a much faster pace. thank you for that answer and to touch on this issue there is another idea that my office has been working on there are resources to address those folder abilities but those that are proactively testing those within those agency systems and highlighting them for the agency moving into a red team to do that proactive testing building on the work that is already happening as individual agency level we are determining the best place to house the team of people doing that work given that service

we have given a potential home for the team either in the current form or the expanded form under the organization proposal? >> i would love to see as gsa takes a proactive role to continue those diagnostics we have her own program and we are working with the senator to provide cybersecurity so i do think there is a lot of mission alignment there and i would love to figure out how to make that works. thank you for letting me go over. >> with last week hearing, i would consider a misunderstanding of what she was presenting it was more of a vision i appreciate the fact the administration is thinking outside the box man putting

forward i would say proposal because it is a fleshed out yet they are ideas and concepts. the only question i have for both of you by the way thank you for your service and willingness to work on this where are you in this process of integration and reorganization? are you a quarter of the way through? what is the process moving forward and when is it fleshed out to provide this committee in the administration the details of what you will do? >> i think we are pretty far along with the hrs portion we understand the mission with the synergies that exist and what already exist with gsa. right now we are trying to dive into those support

offices or the general counsel's office to support a comprehensive solution. when it comes to transitioning to retirement or healthcare we are much earlier in the process for that item next and not a single answer. >> i would agree with administrator murphy. we cannot do this all that once. and to take at what authorities we have administratively and what we need to work with congress. hr solutions organization is fee-for-service and the transactional fee-for-service has trading usa learning a lot of the agencies come to this part of opm for services gsa has synergies it is a good

step with an it professional. we have a distributed system as well as the it infrastructure imagine financial management acquisition with the system supported in one agency that would increase our transparency and accountability across all the things we do our systems don't talk to one another they are distributed that the simplification and unification is a back drop for infrastructure that is what we try to achieve together with gsa. >> we both sponsored a bill to give the administration authority to make these changes it is almost identical to the current circumstances

that based on the authorization. but it is that authority, so do you anticipate if given that authority, will wait until the end point when all of these are decided or do you prioritize the integration and reorganization and start to implement one after the other? >> thank you senator for you and senator langford's bill. i have read a bit of it since the 80s we discontinue that but that is what we can take as an omnibus. i think there is room for big things to happen all at once but a lot of things have to happen separately. so potentially there is some flexibility working with congress to make decisions we

would like to both move forward. and any change effort you need to judge the high value and that have very little value. that is what we are doing across the reorganization plan. administrator murphy and i are moving over to gsa with what is important to us we are looking at contracting vehicles in my opinion are no-brainers as opm has an acquisition organization that gsa has a significant organization. >> so you need authority even to do the low hanging fruit which is a no-brainer? twomac i think that we could do administratively but many other things we need to look at and that is what we are sifting through.

>> so i am asking the question do you do this step-by-step am bit by bit? this is low hanging from -- loading fruit do you do this in pieces based on priorities? or do you wait for the whole plan? >> we are taking a phased approach. that is one consideration in future financial budgets we will look at other services opm provides such as healthcare and retirement. >> i agree we are looking at this as a process and hopefully so we can talk to on a regular basis about the next steps and not for that proposal but with 50000

vehicles and to be so happy with an additional 6000 vehicles we are going full stream ahead their with deliberate speed and with a matched more phased approach. >> that is the exact approach to calling everybody's concerns it is a debt by step approach and so obvious with those improvements so at least we make continuous improvements with the manufacturing background. i appreciate that. >> mr. pon opm is independent in the executive branch to set

standards for human resources to be held accountable and those principles and without reorganization plan to eliminate opm. and to ensure that that would be in compliance to the merit-based principles as opposed to politics and i get is a very important question because opm need to play the independent role. opm is going to be to the executive office of the president.

if you have an organization that had once hr at the table to make decisions to be the influencer that is a very good sign and we need to make sure that the opm director continues to have a directive and that legislation that supports that role. >> how are you going to do that? frankly my concern is to make policy for career staff that is truly my concern out of policy and not merit. >> i think we agree on the goal. >> nine the responsibilities where the service functions is the focus of our current

planning. all of the rights of the opm director with this entity. >> and how did they gain independence in -- in the structure? >> i still am a direct report to the president whether i am across the street are not the merit system accountability group reports to me and that organization enforces the merit system accountability approach. and with politics in the function that it will continue to do what it is supposed to do. >> how do you deal with any pressure placed on you to make h * decision based on politics and not merit? . that is the goal that opm has a sore nose to uphold that

office leader of the civil service and defender other principles to make sure it is a robust free from politics organization. >> that is noble. are you can -- aware of any concerns hr does that decisions are made on politics and not merit? the neck i have not had any conversations about threats of the political people. >> the administration released three executive orders that appear to be aimed at weakening the unions. and those that were part of the union to represent the coworkers by provided by law.

and enforce protections against unlawful discrimination sexual harassment and to provide employees with working conditions. due to the severe restrictions that those representatives can use and to address these grievances? >> this proposal with taxpayer-funded union time at 25% we don't say don't do it. we do have cases with over 700 employees on 100% time% time. some of these are nurses and doctors. we are saying we hired you to be doctors and nurses for veterans but that you can use

your time to represent your union we thought that was a reasonable amount of time for any organization in each employee out of 100 gets one hour of representation so the whole veteran this one -- veteran administration has a whole bank of ours to spread across 25% of the time the neck if that is insufficient to meet those concerns of allegations with discrimination or sexual harassment if that 25% of the time is insufficient what allocation are you making and what have you set up to have those grievances to be met? specifically are you requiring if you are not allowing them to do that after work hours?

>> it is exhaustive if you exhaust the whole entire fake but that does not preclude another union member 25% of the time. . . . . sufficiently represent them and the idf and if yo idea of then t

25% mark so it has to go to another bank you could imagine how things will fall through the cracks and that employee will not be represented in the case of harassment so how are you going to do with that? >> i think that it' is a fair concern making sure people understand the case on both sides that you can work with your union representatives to fairly and adequately represent you. 25% of the time is ten hours of work week each and every union member actually has about. it's two or three people in the case of experience working at the agency is there's usually teams of people.

>> welcome, administrator murphy, director. glad you are here. is this you doable family with u today? thanks for your work. as some of the folks are sitting here with you today and worked on the property reform a couple years ago i worked with a number that goes back to when tom coburn was with us and we worked then and now on property reform to make sure the we put our employees to work and they are

in places they feel appreciated and productive. i want to ask given the work that's been done, rob portman who isn't here today but he's done a lot of work on this. can you take a minute or two to give an update on the progress in the administration please? >> i'm so excited about the work that we are doing. >> i'm excited also. my wife says get a life. >> a lot of people say that to me. so, first of all i want to thank you for the work you did in the legislation we got three of the board members named revere this week. we'd already reached out to help them and since i was confirmed

with 2016 and 2017 this month we put it into an interactive map so people could see where the map is to get the best return on the results. the average lease is about six years and 60% are not being renewed in a timely fashion. by focusing on the highest dollar value we have been between january and june of this year. just yesterday i announced we are taking them out in the building with a thousand additional people into the central office building because thewe think that we can accommoe them while getting a quality workspace. at the disposal of the unneeded

property we were able to transfer the department to the federal reserve board they paid $40 million on a property that needs over $100 million of repairs. and i want to thank the senator for his role in the appropriation subcommittee for the money to invest in the repairs so we can continue to protect the property. >> one of the appropriation bills includes money to do more work at saint elizabeth as we try to move our friends from the department of homeland security into this campus how are we doing on that front? >> is a special focus on consolidating. >> we have the 100 million of you are referring to further

consolidation with about $229 million to build the new building on campus and we anticipate the office building will be ready for the secretary of april 1 of next year. >> that's april fools' day. >> yes and i hate that because people think we are trying to pull something over on them. >> that's when we do our best work. the work they did was that building. it's amazing. the original was built by patience at saint elizabeth's and we were able to maintain and keep the historical character while still giving an open concept that meets the secretary's needs. there was a patient incarcerated and you can see where he was.

if you look at the munro building for the coast guard, we were working to further consolidate more individuals to that building so it will be easier. >> i look forward to joining. >> we want you to use it more. if you use amazon, you use the postathepostal service and belir not they make me it came up six

or $7 billion a year and amazon is one of the best customers and fedex because postal service so it's actually quite a good partnership. we try to oversee most and have a great interest in pensions and health care and so forth. i want to mention this and then i will stop and you don't even have to respond further record on postal reform. when i was governor of the worse worst credit rating in the country as a liability to address and you've done a great job in a lot of ways.

you haven't set aside any money for the health care cost for your attention but we looked around at other states and liability didn't do anything and even today if you look to see what the states are doing it in big cities you look at the company's top 100, 4500 very low yet it says they have to fully fund. my wife retired when she turned 65 and books about half that a age.

we have a saying in my family happy wife, happy life. she got a letter from dupont and said she had to sign up for medicare and part a., b. and d.. the. there was an equity problem and at some point in time because he drawn into this discussion as it provides to the marker.

i think you both know how much respect i have for both of you and i want to say that i am always excited when i see you on the agenda because i know we are going to have a substantive discussion and it's going to be helpful to us so i want to tell you how much i appreciate your service and enthusiasm for the task ahead of you. one of the critical questions in any kind of plan is what is the problem you are seeking to solve and how well this organization forever solved that problem lacks you have many oversight hearings on the committee regarding challenges, there's no doubt about it. whether we need to take a look at the overall system, whether jobs usa isn't functioning the way that it needs to function, but somehow just rearranging the chairs in my opinion doesn't

stop some of the problems that need to be solved with the opm. how will this be solved by the relocation, and i really see it as more of a merger as opposed to not an accusation that instead being acquired. the way that you described to senator harris, it is and integrating alisn'tintegrating e authorities of the director of opm within the head of the gsa said this is kind of annabella. how is that going to solve the problems we have recognized over a long period need to be solved? >> throughout my career in the federal government, we wanted to make sure things were minimized and mission delivery is maximized at the agencies.

this is an effort to continue that. i did mention the systems that we have initially 15 years ago we consolidated 22 systems into four and got a lot of efficiency for the taxpayers. administrator murphy actually owns part of the program to consolidate those shared service centers now and they are adding time and attendance as well as other functions. with hr solutions actually develops a lot of infrastructure usa jobs, learning and staffing which 80 to 90% of the agencies use some form or fashion of this type of solutions. >> and you are saying they are already over at gsa? >> they are in the solutions.

those are potentially going over to add synergy to the overall offering that they would have been a consolidated a solving standardizing, simplifying and unifying a lot of the tools so that it's not a thousand flowers bloom and the data is everywhere and that information doesn't interact up a level. there is no interoperability or standardization across different types of tools. i will give you a concrete example. performance management systems. we don't have one or two. we have hundreds of them. >> why does it have to go over there in order for you to solve the problem? >> i think it is operational efficiency. one part does the policy end of things and the other part of the spectrum we provide services to

the agencies. general service organization does services for the it acquisition and i think finance and hr are the next steps to that.so it's kind of a one-stop. >> it is for the administrative services for the federal government. >> and he would see retention in your operation to be the public policy making that innovation. >> governmentwide policy management of personnel but staying out of the fee-for-service type of business that they are currently engaged in. >> losing control over the implementation of the policy isn't something you worry about? >> i'm just thinking the future

administrative structures i think both of you could make this work. i have no doubt about that and you could make it work for the retired his and employees you both represent. i'm just looking into the future saying when you don't have this relationship and collaboration, where are the tension points going to be as you look at creating policy for federal employees that then have to be implemented and embedded within the general service. >> it's been a customer and i welcome emily's comments on the relationship even before i got here. >> they already do the performance management system work. we implement it and then provided back to them they

provide payroll services and time and attendance. >> so then explain to me why the two agencies need to be in an umbrella. why can't we just make it a policymaking branch for public employees that give you the implementation back to behind the counter operation for management? >> that's the intention of the plan to step in that direction. it was set up to be a mission support agency and if we can do a better job in serving other customers as they come to us with mission requirements it's our job to find how to effectively and efficiently implement those. >> i will turn this over to senator langford. i'm trying to understand, i understand what you're saying that i'm trying to understand in the context of reorganization,

and i think some of the issues that senator raised could be as you said book we are going to have a revised outlook sent overall policymaking recruitment on who does the studies that become the employment agency kind of arching and we are going to sell you how we are going to manage that. but why do you need to co- locate? >> this part is the service part of it. it's not only that party are talking about right now in future budget years we are considering the federal benefits and also retirement. other than that, the enforcement policies still stay within this organization if so has all of those responsibilities congress has given. >> if i can give an example of how things will have to

efficiency, within right now there's a group that is policy and we provide space and help consolidate his base to help with the work and the systems allow this so the groups work closely with each other to deliver a better solution. >> you think you can do this without congressional approval? >> we can do the translation delays could transition but we are still looking at it and i don't have to speak definitively on hundred% because i will get in trouble with my lawyers but it's my understanding we think we can make this happen. >> i think we can do this administratively. there are some things or lawyers are taking a look at, certain authorities, as if the authorities.

it's the responsibility to post all the shops across the federal government. before people came to the basement and went through the reams of paper. >> this is what i don't want to have happen. i get mad at usa jobs. so i call you and say this has to get fixed. you can't be waiting. you can't do it this way. i called jeff and jeff says emily isn't doing her job. right now i'm going to call and blame you for so i just want to make sure that we don't eliminate accountability in this kind of bifurcated responsibility. >> a good example is the federal business opportunities website for the equivalent of usa jobs. when there's a problem with it, i'm the one that gets a call.

>> you are going to regret saying that. [laughter] we are taking a look at the whole system into the delivery of it and we need to make sure that they are hiring agencies. this is like basic hr versus these key word searches and getting all these things stacked we need to get back to the basics of how resource people. that's important to our organization and sometimes i've heard the names. >> this is a committee that couldn't agree more.

>> we do appreciate this because it does have to get fixed. >> we will talk about that in a moment. >> thank you very much, chairman. i want to follow-up with you on the official time proposal that you are addressing. this would limit workers to spend 25% of the time on official plane, the same amount needs to be done regardless of how many people are doing it that means you might end up with four people working 25% of the time instead of one person and 100% to get the work done. why is for people doing the work more effective than one person full-time?

>> i think that there is a balance between what you do for the union and what you do for your government, would we hire people to do. i would say many of us believe making sure that their voices are heard serves the government and the people of the united states, so i wouldn't distinguish making sure people are being heard from the sinister government. does that make sense? >> i understand what you're saying. our proposal is to make sure we have representation, 25% of the time and we have a bank of ours that helps the union managed the time allotted to them but we also want to make sure they do the jobs. >> i've practiced for two decades and they represented a hospital in the course of doing

so. my son went through 20 hours of surgery about 15 years ago, two days of surgery, 20 hours. i wouldn't want multiple surgeons coming in and doing that surgery and then my time is up for the next person. i count on them coming together to deploy their time and all the other professionals who were there in a way that got the job done and i think it is concerning the administration is acting as if the representation is somehow work just anybody doesn't comes in with their 25%. this takes professional effort, and nobody but doctors and nurses know how important the nurse to patient ratio is on the floor of the hospital and that's why we have doctors and nurses engaging in this representation

because they know what it is to be a doctor or a massive to be a system and so i just am concerned that the way the administration is speaking about this proposal reflects a lack of respect for the importance of representing employees to take care of the veterans and one might think the administration is trying to do the effectiveness of employee representatives and that concerns me greatly. thank you mr. chair. >> i understand your concern. i do believe the employee representatives need to adequately represent their organizations and employees. it is concerning to me that we have had a tip through 100% of

the time having representation to this 25% of the time i understand your concern about the limitation as 25% of the time that it may have potential impacts on a case-by-case basis. >> it could seem pretty arbitrary but i look forward to discussing this further. thank you for your indulgence. >> with me ask you a question coming back to th what the senar was talking about as well. how does the moving the service is over improve customer service? >> when you look at the alignment of the services with the work that they are already doing for example if you are coming to either gsa or os x to use the human capital training service contract it is unclear iif you were supposed to go by bringing the two groups together to get also means they can use

to acquisition professionals to provide greater service and likewise that are doing consulting customer experience work and there's a group that does this work already bringing them together with the leverage to provide a better solution by having the work we do on the telework and the individuals who are consulting combined with individuals to do the it management you're going to get a better solution by having everyone work together. at the end of the day my goal is that i'm supposed to deliver 2 billion in savings as well as improving customer satisfaction. the yukon with the low hanging fruit proposals and then

administrator murphy gave a newsflash saying that phase two is still in conversation. so tell us a little bit about that and what we have the same type moving that over as you are examining it now and if there is any one area if the retirement system. that area more than anything else when it comes to the retirement system sai so does tt improve the customer service or is it still being that i'm not

having them inherit some of the problems that they've been dealing with for decades. i want to make sure on my watch remove to a digital environment and that will take at least a year or two. >> let me clarify that. the goal on that piece of it is to try to fix the system and then transfer it rather then transfer it and having somebody

else. why is that better? >> i'm familiar with the payroll systems usa jobs i know that is the silverpoint for senator heitkamp but before that we didn't have any of the systems. we didn't have digital systems. you want to make sure you charge people that have experienced in doing that. we have a track record of doing that on my watch and i want to make sure that happens. >> set up some timelines and let's take that piece of it. at what point will we move to a current of today's retirees so that you get to retire as shocking as that may seem and then talk me through the timelines of the transition. >> the first step is to electronic data record that's going to pull in the enterprise resource integration which is an official personnel file as well

as other data that resides in the resource integration. that data will represent a whole entire representation of employees that will feed into all of the systems we are talking about whether it is health benefits, retirement, transfers, promotions. the records are very paper-based so we are starting with that and about a year or year and a half we will hav have been demonstrad capabilitthem demonstratethe cam there we will t will test out te capabilities and parallel building up a test cases for transferring an employee from active to a retired employee in about a year and a half or two. >> and that is all done by a single office distributed agent he was in actions on how to do it in other words going through the case of does this become a team of folks trying to type it

in order as each agency of the responsibility to say the system wsave thesystem we are going toe data into the system? >> there are multiple forms per instance of payroll information and the retirement system itself requires 188 data elements to process retirement. we are going towards the standardization so that each agency can feed into a standard way that information and not have the forms that are burying that people have to type in into the system so we are digitizing. >> but you are establishing the structure. >> the agency with the payroll provider which emily has. >> it's definitely going to be something we do in partnership because of the work with shared

services by putting out new solutions in that area may be able to expedite and help those agencies. >> so they are establishing the data for every agency or does each agency has the responsibility thave theresponso input their own data so we have a much larger group handling this because this will be an enormous task if you have a small team that's going to take forever versus the distributed nationwide. >> the current systems they are talking about are barely payroll, time and attendance. there are consolidated organizations that provide them and i'm looking with emily's organization to make sure they have standards they are going to words feeding data systems wherever they make resizing we are consolidating that to make

sure there is a common ease of scale and that's where we are working together on a shared server side. >> i try to work on this bountifully a manageable number that will make it easier for the systems to capture the data and come up with a better solution. the same with table we can get from fife paper providers to a software solution service to make it easier o on us to get a cup valued entry work in system transformational work there is going to be more than enough work to go around it' but it's g to be an opportunity to use it as a chance to modernize. >> said a good story about this is that we are moving away from forms and more towards data and it can actually be sucked up into what they call the cloud, and then it can be repurposed into the systems for

transactional systems. we have outdated systems] are sometimes at the end of life mainframes and we are moving away from the technology across the government so that the data can be repurposed for many different reasons. that's why the data record is so important to us so we can pull the data from wherever it is" 188 elements or retirement systems whether they are at the agency with a service provider that we require each and every one of the entities to provide about 188 standard data elements. >> let's stay on it because one of the concerns we have you recognized in your reorganization plan talked about the challenges that they've experienced with background

investigations and problems. let's all agree it's not like it is in the cloud. do you have data storage? >> they have a center of excellence on the data storage we've been working on a scorecard to make sure our services are consolidating to use the optimization to make the transition themselves to provide better expertise. we are making sure to design the right system for them, but they have a lot of expertise when it comes to data storage and retrieval and we have a lot of contractors so is the way we are

doing things isn't going to help we find them find a solution to work with their requirements. we don't assume that there's a one-size-fits-all. >> so there are some synergies by migrating the data storage and analysis to that place that you become more like the person responsible for maintenance. >> we wil >> weevil stole from a policy standpoint be responsible for maintaining the records. the government service agency will be our service provider for the data it systems. >> ldc cybersecurity improved with this system? obviously we are all concerned still. we don't know. i mean i think we are going to be suffering consequences in years to come.

assuming only so many people are going to take steps to protect whatever number they have said this is a ticking timebomb. let's not assume the sky didn't fall on some public employees had right after it happened. let's just assume people are sitting on some of this data ready to utilize it at their leisure. so how will this system improves cybersecurity? >> in particular to that investigative data, it is planned to go into the dod through the national background investigations. we are working to become the provider the back office infrastructure working on this move transition to a deity.

>> helhow do we prevent this ine future? you say you are going to migrate background checks isn't that what you told me? so assuming they are more secure than what you had in the past. >> we actually doubled down on more. government reports have said that it is on the top three of protecting their systems. despite that i want to make sure we have the best and brightest defending the systems. i come from a background of the department of energy that is one of the most attacked organizations and the governme government. we need help in terms of eating sure we have the right people to defend our cybersecurity infrastructure and i believe that we have placed a love of our resources in that part of

our organization to get the right people and technology and the red contractors to help test, penetration test systems. we do penetration tests with the security agencies so they are active partners to make sure that our infrastructure is secure. >> now you're telling me you are sending a piece of this to the dod. trying to figure out why you are not responsible if you've got the center of excellence for data storage and you are responsible for contracting with many of these agencies why aren't we looking to you to be the center of excellence for cybersecurity or federal data? spinet to distinguish between the background peacekeeper talking about. the national defense authorization act a few years ago actually directed the

transferred department of defense. but it's actually the largest customers we do partner with them on cybersecurity and almost every agency and providing some assistance. i think this is fascinating and this will be one of those introductory meetings. i just again do not want to be in that spot where the responsible buresponsibility jud along and where i would be completely capable you are collaborating in this grand b. finger-pointing i don't know what that is kind o is kind of e in five years or eight years and so we have to design them up based on the personalities of those in front of us but on the lines of delineation of responsibility so that we better

understand. this is an area that i think needs reform. anyone who has examined this coming and we'v,and we've talken my office and in this hearing room. i look forward to continuing to work with you all to understand what it is you want to do in helping you advance some of these economies of scale so that we can in fact get a better backbone for the personal systems and hiring systems so thank you so much for your appearance today and for this great discussion. >> the final question when do we get a timeline? i'm sure that your task forces are working together by this and we need this done i in by this month we need this done in congress to pass legislation that we may need to have enacted. when do we get the timeline that they are working together to

create? spinet for each phase we will make sure that we set out a timeline for each and every one that we are talking about so that we at least have for each section a timeframe in which to produce deliverables on the project plans and business cases for the cost-benefit analysis that's where our team and task forces actually mapping out so there will be a smooth transition. what i think you will see after the task force has tackled this part you will see an implementation we are sharing with this body as well as other key stakeholders that we need to make sure our task force is giving us the information. we are learning about each other's organizations right now on with contracting vehicles with the debate to be th could e most effective and what organizations need t to support these different activities but i think a reasonable timeframe

would be probably in the three to four months to work with your stuff and briestaff and reviewis would be on this plan. >> our goal is early this summer or fall. can we set a data on that on october 1 or november, when do we get a timeline? spinet i hate making commitments i can't guarantee. i don't want to explain why it was october 2 rather than the first. can we have regular briefings so you know where we are? spinet sure. that's fine. what i want to know is a couple things, one thing that you are working together and this is a hard process that is in the practice round for harder things that may be coming. but we want to be able to be engaged so we can do oversight. have you thought about where does this go or what happens next in the secon this second pe will be some data sitting out

there setting up apiece of legie needed. it's to your advantage not to ask about a week before. you might have noticed it takes longer than a week to move a piece of legislation so that if there is a discovery and they come back and say we need legislation about this issue at this point to accomplish that we need as early as possible so we don't get to the last day and say we are ready to flip the switch, so we need to know what our connection plan is. >> we appreciate both senators working together making sure this is an issue that we address and it is refreshing to see your committee's eyes are on us making sure we can do some things to affect the obligations of the government in a deliberate fashion. >> i'm excited about this opportunity to see us working together to deliver a better

service for our employees. >> i think both of you for being here. the record will remain open for 15 days until the close of business. thank you both again. the hearing is adjourned. >> [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

ronald reagan and donald trump are about 180 degrees apart from each other, and yet here we are in this space. how did you navigate that?

because we are both reagan conservatives in that regard. was it a little bit of a you know, how did you do this? >> there is no question, he is not traditional in terms of how he speaks. but he also connects to people in a way that most politicians never have come and he talks very bluntly in his own style. but i don't think that he would have won the presidency or nomination if it were not for that style. there's always a balance with elected officials which is they say all the right things but they don't necessarily get anything done. in the case of trump, you get all these things done and people say i didn't like this or how he interacted. i'm a results oriented person and i look at how people are getting better, are they making more come is the country safer. i think most people would generally agree if we can get

the right things done for the country, then that is a better place instead of just talking about the right things to get done. >> "after words" 9 a.m. eastern on c-span2 book tv. speaking at a state department conference on religious freedom, secretary of state mike pompeo talked about initiatives to protect religious minorities around the world. he is joined by sam brownback, the ambassador at large for international freedom. this is 20 minutes. >> good afternoon, everyone. this is the earliest days president of trump has directed his administ