INTRODUCTION

Ms. Delia L. Johnson, Co-Chair and Director, Office of Civil Rights at the International Broadcasting Bureau, thanked Ms. Era Marshall, Director of Office of Equal Employment and Minority Affairs at the Smithsonian Institution, for hosting the meeting.

MD-715 REPORTS

Jorge Ponce, Co-Chair of the Council, gave a summary on the MD-715 discussion that took place at the October 25, 2005 EEO Directors meeting at EEOC. He indicated that Carlton Hadden, Director of the EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations, stated that his staff was reviewing carefully the feedback generated from the October 7, 2005 meeting, and that he would plan a meeting in January 2006 to discuss the next steps.

Mr. Ponce pointed out that Delia Johnson mentioned that EEOC should review the MD-715 reports for FY 04 that agencies had submitted, even if they were turned in beyond the January 31, 2005 deadline. Gail Demers from EEOC stated that these reports would be reviewed.

Mr. Ponce said that Mr. Hadden mentioned that he was willing to host an early November 2005 meeting (instead of waiting until January 2006) to go over the MD-715 feedback, and the attendees agreed with his suggestion.

Mr. Ponce then stated that it was essential to have an early November 2005 meeting because one of the crucial recommendations made at the October 7, 2005 meeting was to suspend future MD-715 reports to allow EEOC an opportunity to work out some pending issues with OPM. Mr. Hadden clarified that the November 2005 meeting would be to discuss various options that his staff would submit to the EEOC Chair.

At the conclusion of the previous summary, Mr. Ponce asked for feedback from Council members regarding their plans for the next MD-715 reporting cycle.

A Treasury representative indicated that she was waiting to get the feedback from EEOC on their 2004 MD-715 report before embarking on the next one. She said that it made no sense to make the same mistakes that were made in the FY 04 report. In addition, she said that the Office of Human Resources did not have the statistical information in the format required by the MD-715 report. Someone in her Department contacted the National Finance Center (NFC) regarding whether they would adopt the new Race and National Origin (RNO) categories required by the August 30, 2005 memorandum from the OPM Director, and the NFC person indicated that they had no plans to incorporate them unless OPM ordered them to do so in writing. She mentioned that EEOC had scheduled their MD-715 feedback session for November 30^th.

Era Marshall stated that EEOC should not have sent letters to agency heads regarding their MD-715 reports. At a minimum, EEOC should have given EEO Directors an opportunity to review these letters while they were in draft format. Because EEOC did not do this, the Smithsonian letter contained some incorrect statistical information. Moreover, Ms. Marshall objected vehemently to the inclusion in the MD-715 letters of unnecessary information -- like EEOC pointing out that the Smithsonian MD-715 report had some typos. She pointed out that EEOC’s goal should be to work collaboratively with EEO Directors, not to undermine their credibility with the agency heads. Ms. Marshall opined that EEOC should not have sent letters to agency heads this year considering that the FY 04 Report was the first one prepared under MD-715, and that the training that EEOC had provided was minimal.

A NASA representative complained about the MD-715 letter that EEOC had sent to his agency head. He indicated that the tone of the letter was too negative. For example, he described a section of the letter that stated that the NASA EEO staff must have lacked the analytical expertise to collect the awards data requested by the MD-715 report. He explained that information like the previous one served only to have managers question the credibility of the EEO staff and the reliability of the data.

Gerald Lucas, a senior advisor to the Civil Rights Director at the U.S. Department of Commerce, described his work in leading an interagency task force on MD-715. Mr. Lucas met with the EEO Directors or the EEO Managers in charge of preparing the MD-715 reports of eighteen federal agencies, ten of which were at the cabinet level. These civil rights professionals had the following common concerns regarding MD-715: 1) the EEO offices located at headquarters should clear the sub-elements MD-715 reports before sending them to EEOC (otherwise, the statistical data from the sub-elements could differ from the one prepared by headquarters); 2) EEOC should collaborate with OPM to design and get OMB approval for an applicant-flow data form; 3) EEOC should collaborate with OPM on expanding the functionality of the Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) system to serve as a central data repository and reporting instrument to generate the MD-715 statistical tables; 4) EEOC should reexamine its use of the nine new occupational categories, and collaborate with OPM to resolve conflicting issues resulting from the PATCOB reporting requirements; 5) the tracking of "involved management officials" should not be available for EEOC review when there were no findings of discrimination; 6) EEOC should have a seat at the Chief Human Capital Officer’s (CHCO’s) Council, since it had a mandate to lead federal agencies in the strategic management of human capital; 7) EEOC should hold regular meetings at a level comparable to the OPM’s Associate Director of the Division for Human Capital Leadership and Merit System Accountability and the EEOC’s Director of the Office of Federal Operations; and, 8) EEOC should replace the term "barrier," which has legal implications in the processing of discrimination complaints, with something like "triggers" or "impediments."

According to Mr. Lucas, some civil rights professionals did not object to generating an annual EEO policy statement, while others preferred to update it upon the arrival of a new secretary. The Treasury representative stated that EEOC was not operating in the real world by requesting the issuance of multiple policy statements on EEO, harassment, etc. She said that just getting one policy statement signed by the agency head was an arduous task; getting multiple ones cleared was unrealistic. Bonita White mentioned that the Department of Health and Human Services had not issued an EEO policy statement since 1993.

A Department of Transportation representative stated that the Directors of HR and EEO should be present at the meeting scheduled between the EEOC Chair and the agency heads. She stated that EEOC should be a partner and not an adversary. Bonita White, Director, EEO Programs, DHHS, cautioned the group that it might not be a good idea to have the HR Director at these meetings because the General Counsel might get invited as well.

Gail Demers, from EEOC, pointed out that she was disappointed that federal agencies had not conducted more thorough barrier analyses when preparing their FY 04 MD-715 reports. She was also surprised that most federal agencies had not tracked their training data, considering that most had indicated that they were doing so in their MD-714 reports.

Delia Johnson mentioned that a representative from the Department of the Interior reported, at yesterday’s EEO Directors meeting at EEOC, on a software program that the National Business Center (NBS) had developed for FPPS clients to generate the MD-715 tables. While there is a small fee for this program, the bottom line is that you would have to pay much more to join the FPPS payroll system, which could be an expensive and difficult proposition for federal agencies using other payroll systems like the NFC. For those interested in finding out more information on the NBS software program, call Martin Quinlan at 303 969-7228 or e-mail him at martin_j_quinly@nbc.gov. A Department of Housing and Urban Development representative discussed another software program, EEO Tracks that generated the MD-715 statistical tables. Jorge Ponce indicated that if EEOC collaborated more with OPM on generating these MD-715 tables from the EHRI, the statistical information would be more consistent and the financial savings would be significant to federal agencies.

462 REPORTS

Era Marshall stated that EEOC collected too much information for the 462 reports, which are due to EEOC on October 31, 2005. Delia Johnson indicated that the main thrust of this report was to increase the use of ADR. Bonita White pointed out that many of the 462 Report data elements were duplicative of those required by the No FEAR Act.

Delia Johnson said that she was not a strong advocate of ADR. According to her, if agencies had a viable counseling program, the settlement rate of EEO grievances would be the same or higher than through an ADR program. She indicated that some complainants had mentioned to her that they would get confused when asked to choose between the traditional EEO counseling or ADR.