Another Push for Working for America Act

The budget also repeats the administration’s prior criticisms of many federal personnel practices and urges enactment of its Working for America Act, which would revamp many of those practices, largely along the lines of changes planned at the Defense and Homeland Security departments. “Designed in the late 1940s for a largely bureaucratic organization, the current personnel system is no longer appropriate for today’s mostly professional workforce that performs a wide range of roles, at different proficiency levels. The current system does not sufficiently recognize employees for their work or hold managers accountable for how well they manage employees,” the budget says. “The administration will work with the Congress to enact this important legislation to allow federal employees to be thought of and treated as the professional public servants they are, and to enable the government to make better use of its human capital resources to produce results for the American people.” The legislation has not been introduced in Congress.