Notes on Task Force’s Meeting

With the

Council of Federal EEO & Civil Rights Executives

February 28, 2000, 9 to 11:30 am

US Consumer Product Safety Commission

4330 East West Highway, Suite 714

Bethesda, MD 20814

Notes written by Madeline Caliendo

Background: The Council, on short notice, invited the task Force to provide an update at its regularly scheduled meeting on 2/28. The Council is compromised of executives in the Federal EEO and Civil Rights community government-wide. The Council is represented on the SLC by its president, Luther Santiful, Department of the Army.

Who Attended: Madeline Caliendo and William Lewis represented the Task Force. Eight Council members attended the meeting, including: Luther Santiful from Army, Jorge Ponce (Council’s Vice-Chair), Delia Johnson from the International Broadcasting Bureau, Felipa Coleman from the US Consumer product Safety Commission, Carmen Duncan from the Department of the Army, and executives from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Commerce.

Task Force Presentation: Madeline provided an update and overview of where the Task Force is in its work, and discussed in general terms the work/research being conducted by each of the four teams. Madeline encouraged the executives to share information from their agencies that would assist the work of the four teams, and distributed a contact sheet with the names and contact information for the four Team Leaders. William followed with a detailed presentation on the work of the Best Practices Team.

Council’s Reaction: The Council was interested in and supportive of the work of the Task Force. The members present were engaged in the presentations and openly shared their views. Luther Santiful said he provided information to Tom Trimble on the Best Practices Team and was waiting for follow-up/feedback on that information. Ponce and Santiful, however, expressed some hostility towards the EEOC. Specifically, those individuals seem to believe that the EEOC did not give due credit to the Council’s comments that were provided during the notice and comment period for the new 1614 regulation—particularly with regard to the Administrative Judge’s final decision authority.

Interactive Information Gathering: Madeline and William followed the update/presentations with an interactive information gathering exercise similar to that used at the SLC meeting on 2/24. The following questions were presented—and information provided by the Council members.

• The importance of training for EEO counselors. Also it is important that counselors act professionally and help to instill credibility to the process.
• Have EEOC more involved with the internal processes in agencies’ EEO offices (for example, at Department of Agriculture the "children sub-agencies" have virtually no authority—all power is centered in the politically appointed post at the department level) This is unworkable. EEOC should require that EEO Offices not be offices headed by political appointees.
• EEO offices should be more involved in developing the work statements for contractors. EEO Office should be able to call contract counselor/investigator to focus activities, as necessary.
• EEOC should support increasing the budgets for EEO offices at the agency level. If not properly funded, the job can’t get done right.

 Q: What areas of "EEO climate" need attention?

• All employee issues
• Development
• Organization’s pulse
• EEOC enforcement and technical assistance
• Human relations climate
• Should represent everyone

• Effective EEO policies and practices that come from the agency head.
• Employee feedback
• Employee satisfaction

• EEO Survey Model (DOD’s DEOMI)

• EEO Surveys should be part of all program evaluations conducted by agencies.

• HR surveys
• IG surveys
• Agency overall surveys