Comer and other Republicans on the committee have focused most of their attention to management issues in the current Congress on levels of telework. The committee sometimes changes names to reflect majority party priorities. Image: Katherine Welles/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe key House committee overseeing federal management issues, the Oversight and Accountability Committee, has announced its first hearing of this Congress on the key central management agency, OMB, with rates of telework by federal employees to be a main topic.
The hearing Tuesday (April 30) “will provide general oversight” of OMB, including the management aspects of President Biden’s budget proposal for fiscal 2025, and OMB’s role in federal personnel policy and telework guidance, said a committee announcement.
OMB “carries out the President’s vision, including budget execution and the management of agency performance. Despite repeated requests from the Oversight Committee, OMB has failed to provide data that shows the effectiveness behind many of its policy decisions,” said chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky.
Comer and other Republicans on the committee have focused most of their attention to management issues in the current Congress on levels of telework, including by sending several rounds of letters to the administration asking for data on rates and the impact on productivity and customer service. They have said the responses—if they are made at all—lack the requested level of detail (Democratic leaders of the committee voiced similar dissatisfaction with the responses to their requests for information from agencies during the Trump administration).
Another likely main topic of the hearing will be the dispute over the potential for converting competitive service jobs involved with policy to the excepted service; the budget proposal calls for a change in law to prevent the return of an excepted service Schedule F. When rules to block a new Schedule F—which have less force than a change in law would—recently were finalized, Comer among other Republicans denounced them as making federal employees less accountable.
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