Minutes from the 30 October 2001 Council Meeting

The meeting was held at the Smithsonian’s S. Dillon Ripley Building and hosted by Era Marshall.

Mr. Jorge Ponce welcomed everyone and made a few introductory remarks. Ms. Delia Johnson introduced Mr. Carlton Hadden, Director, EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations (OFO).

Mr. Hadden announced an upcoming meeting to be held at EEOC Headquarters on Friday, November 2, 2001, from 9:30 am to 11:30 am. The meeting is an opportunity for EEOC to convey some new initiatives that EEOC is undertaking and to ask questions from EEO Professionals. Chairwoman Cari Dominguez will be present for the meeting. Mr. Hadden invited all to attend.

Mr. Hadden then turned the presentation over to Ms. Jackie Bradley, Acting Director, Field Operations, EEOC. Ms. Bradley is filling in for Liz Thorton, who is out for medical reasons. Ms. Bradley stated that EEOC is currently working on a handbook for Administrative Judge’s. One option EEOC is considering is to have AJ’s go to the customer/agency rather than the parties going to the AJ. This concept would be beneficial in rural and suburban areas, but does not apply to the Washington, DC area.

Ms. Bradley then turned the presentation over to Mr. Dexter Brooks, Attorney Advisor to the Office of Federal Operations, EEOC. Mr. Brooks works on Training and Outreach to educate the EEO community. His office has established four EEO courses for EEO Investigators, Managers and Specialists. To date, they have trained 900 EEO counselors and 400 investigators. EEOC plans to expand course offering and scope to meet the needs of the EEO community. Mr. Brook’s office worked with the EPA to develop a two-day course for their managers and supervisors. They will train approximately 1600 managers and supervisors. When Mr. Ponce asked for the cost to EPA of this course, Mr. Dexter said that it ranged from $2500-$3500 per session. The course covered such topics as Reasonable Accommodations, Harassment, Liability, Retaliation and an overview of EEO. They can work with other agencies to tailor training to your specific agency. They will be cost involved and will vary depending on what is involved in putting together the agency specific training. There will be Final Agency Decision training coming up.

Mr.Brook’s office is a self sufficient, growing small business. Mr. Brooks welcomes any questions and can be reached at (202) 663-4511 or via e-mail at dexter.brooks@eeoc.gov.

Mr. Hadden stated that EEOC-OFO’s caseload dropped from 11,000 to 7,000 during the last year. He would like to help us do our jobs better. Some ideas that he has, would be to offer a two-to-three day course for EEO Managers; focusing on how we do our jobs and co-sponsored with the Council.

Mr. Hadden requested that attendees let him know of any problems they are encountering such as current mail problems. Mr. Hadden suggested they we use UPS, FEDEX or messengers to process mail to EEOC. Mr. Hadden offered to answer questions from the attendees. Mr. Hadden encouraged attendees to call Ms. Bradley, Mr. Brooks or himself if there were any unique question they may be able to answer. Also, visit the EEOC website at www.eeoc.gov.

Several Council members from NASA raised some questions about the lack of consistency in AJ’s decisions emanating from the different EEOC regions. For example, one NASA person noted that his Agency had been sanctioned for failing to complete the investigation of a complaint within 180 days after a Complainant had requested a hearing.  However, NASA's decision not to complete/initiate the investigation was made after the Complainant filed a subsequent complaint.  NASA believed that it was following the regulations, which stated that an agency had no jurisdiction over a complaint after a request for a hearing had been made. In another case involving similar facts, NASA was advised by another EEOC office to simply submit the subsequent complaint to the EEOC's office for a determination on the appropriate steps to be taken.  NASA was not subjected to a sanction. The EEOC representatives provided several possible reasons for the inconsistent actions by various EEOC offices, including the fact that new regulations were involved (the regulations became effective on November 9, 1999), that EEOC AJ’s do not report to the EEOC's Headquarters office but rather to the director of the particular region, etc.

A Council member from the Treasury Department explained that an AJ had ordered them to mediate a complaint. When asked if this was going to be an EEOC practice in the future, Ms. Bradley said that EEOC’s Legal Counsel had been contacted on this issue and that it had approved it.

Jorge Ponce told Mr. Hadden that he could provide him with a long of list of challenges that Council members wanted the EEOC to address. However, Mr. Ponce said he would limit himself to one—the enforcement by EEOC of 29 CFR 1614.102(b)(4) that stipulates that EEO Directors shall be under the immediate supervision of agency heads. Mr. Ponce said that while this issue had been around for many years, the majority of Council members opined it was the most effective way to enhance the efficiency of EEO offices in the federal sector. Mr. Ponce said that this was the perfect opportunity to resurrect this issue, considering that EEOC had a new Chairwoman. Mr. Hadden considered this as a worthwhile initiative. He, however, recognized that it was part of larger issue involving, for example, defining
the appropriate roles of EEO offices and the agencies legal offices in regard to the investigation of complaints.  Mr. Ponce strongly disagreed with Mr. Hadden on the latter point, and stated that the proper roles of EEO offices and agencies legal offices had already been explained in Chapter 1 of EEOC’s Management Directive 110.

Mr. Alan Shaeffer from Cognos Corporation briefed the attendees on the Cognos reporting solution that can help develop profiles and organize statistical data for EEO reports—especially affirmative employment reports.

Ms. Monica Staaterman also from Cognos provided a visual demonstration on various query and reporting tools available to compile data/statistics for EEO reporting. The Cognos solution makes sharing answers and insights across the organization effortless so people can make informed decisions, turn strategy into action, and optimize business performance.

Ms. Staaterman stated that the solution could access most major databases. In order to set up this system, one would have to be IT proficient, however the reporting solution is developed for non-technical business users. The cost involved could be $100 - $1000 per user, depending on the deployment of the application. For additional information about Cognos, you may go to its webpage at http://www.cognos.com, or call them in Vienna, Virginia, at 703-288-2100.