Council Meeting
Held
Host: Ms. Bonita White
Introduction
Ms. Delia L. Johnson, Co-Chair and Director, Office of Civil Rights for International Broadcasting Bureau, opened the meeting with a few remarks and then asked the attendees to give their names, agencies, and positions. She thanked Bonita White, Director, EEO Programs, DHHS, for sponsoring this meeting.
Announcements
Jorge Ponce, Co-Chair, thanked those Council members who attended the Federal Triangle Partnership’s National Women’s History Month Program. He indicated that Professor Anita Faye Hill gave a scholarly and inspiring speech that highlighted the human dimension of EEO. There were over 400 attendees at this program.
Jorge announced the Senate
confirmation of Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke on
Jorge indicated that a group of federal employees and representatives from the White House Initiative on HBCUs had met on March 25, 2009, to strategize on the next steps to be taken after the issuance on February 26, 2009 of the Rothe Development Corporation v. the U.S. Departments of Defense and Air Force by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, San Antonio Division -- in accordance with the mandate of the U.S.Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The decision will have an adverse impact on federal funds allocated to small and disadvantaged businesses and Minority Serving Institutions.
Gazal Modhera from EEOC indicated that former EEOC Chair Naomi C. Earp wanted to thank the Council for its excellent work in keeping the EEO community informed on civil rights issues. She, in her current role as EEOC Commissioner, promised to send her staff regularly to future Council meetings.
MD-715 Report
Christy Compton, from the Department of Transportation and who was expressing her own views (hereinafter, Lead 1), and Wilfredo Sauri, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, gave an update on the progress that their subcommittee had made on improving future MD-715 reports.
Lead 1 was part of the EEOC Team that prepared the initial MD-715 report. She suggested to the Council that future MD-715 reports should be less cumbersome by getting rid of duplicative tables, immeasurable questions from Part G (self-assessment form), and by getting EEOC and OPM to reach agreement on pending issues like the collection of applicant flow data.
Wilfredo would like for EEOC to have different MD-715 requirements for agencies with less than 1,000 employees and those with over 1,000 employees. For example, Wilfredo indicated that it’s easier to get signatures in smaller agencies. Lead 1 suggested that the EEO Director should sign the MD-715 report after certifying that the State of the Agency briefing with the agency head had been completed. However, various Council members indicated that there were vast differences as to who signed the MD-715 reports. Some federal agencies required their agency heads to sign the report, others required an extensive vetting process which culminated in the Chief Financial Officer signing the report, and others allowed the EEO Director to sign it.
Lead 1 suggested to do away with all MD-715 tables ending in -1 (those measuring the representation of EEO groups horizontally). Some Council members indicated that both tables (those ending in -1 and -2 (measuring the representation of EEO groups vertically)) measured different things, and both should be kept.
A Council member from the FCC indicated that EEOC should allow federal agencies to decide on which tables to use. For example, FCC and Navy do not use any tables dealing with the GS pay scale.
A Council member from the Navy Department stated that EEOC already gives federal agencies wide latitude regarding which tables to submit. He suggested that EEOC should formally announce that federal agencies should prepare their MD-715 tables based on the pay system that they use currently (GS, pay-banding, or other systems). After all, the intended goal of the MD-715 tables is to allow EEO officials to brief their agency heads and managers on their workforce demographics and to develop proactive measures to address underrepresentation. Delia Johnson supported this recommendation. Jorge Ponce also agreed with this recommendation, considering that EEOC used the data from the Office of Personnel Management’s Central Personnel Data File to prepare the Annual Report on the Federal Work Force, rather than the data supplied by the agencies.
A Council member from the Treasury Department indicated that they generated additional tables besides those required by MD-715, and they received wider acceptance from their managers. For example, they issued tables to track the grade distribution and the size of awards.
Delia Johnson indicated that the preparation of the MD-715 report was not rocket science. The report should be about your agency, and the data supplied to EEOC should reflect what’s going on at your agency in a way that is useful to your stakeholders.
A Council member from the FDIC stated that EEOC had allowed it to skip certain tables when submitting its MD-715 report, but penalized it in its EEO Program Compliance Assessment (EPCA) scorecard. EEOC should be consistent in the application of its policy decisions.
Lead 1 would like to do away with tables related to the WG workforce for agencies that have less than five percent of these employees.
Jorge recommended that EEOC should do away with the 9 occupational categories and go back to using the PATCOB categories. This would allow EEOC and OPM to speak the same language, PATCOB, when doing statistical analyses, and, thus, remove a barrier that runs counter to the Model EEO Program elements listed in MD-715.
A Council member from the FCC was frustrated at the work that goes into the preparation of the MD-715 tables, considering that EEOC feedback letters contained boiler plate language. She even received a feedback letter that belonged to another federal agency. She speculated that this was one of the reasons why EEOC did not get adequate funding from Congress. A Council member from the FDIC expressed similar concerns with not getting constructive and individualized feedback from EEOC.
A Council member from the FDIC stated that the previous suggestion made by the Chair of the National Council of HEPMs regarding the preparation of MD-715 reports every two to three years was great and would help agencies to implement proactive initiatives that addressed barriers.
A representative from EEOC indicated that EEOC was one of the most underfunded agencies in the federal sector. Jorge Ponce responded that this was precisely the reason as to why the EEOC, to maximize its scarce resources, should work more collaboratively with federal agencies.
Lead 1 pointed out that, based on the EPCA assessments, few federal agencies collected applicant flow data. Therefore, she recommended deleting this item from future EPCA’s until EEOC and OPM brought cloture to their disagreement on this issue.
Lead 1 and Wilfredo will send to Council member shortly draft copies of the MD-715 documents that they have prepared.