The Foreign Service Journal, January 2009

22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 9 There has been almost no new money for additional State positions outside of security jobs since 2004, even though staffing demands have increased dramatically over the past five years. As AFSA President John Naland pointed out in his testimony before a July 2008 Senate Subcommittee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, “Unfunded mandates include 325 positions in Iraq, 150 in Afghanistan, 40 in the office to coordinate reconstruction efforts, 100+ training positions to increase the number of Arabic speakers” — and the 285 GRP positions. “Due to the mismatch between resources and require- ments,” Naland explains in his testimony, “hundreds of Foreign Service positions worldwide are now vacant. As a result, the State Department is reportedly moving to ‘freeze’ (leave unfilled) about 20 percent of the Foreign Service jobs (overseas and domestic) due for reassignment in summer 2009 (excluding fully staffed Iraq and Afghanistan). That is on top of other positions left unfilled in the 2008 assignment cycle. All together, 12 percent of overseas Foreign Service positions are now vacant.” Some of the FSOs who commented to the Journal on global repositioning mentioned that “DRI cuts” — posi- tions created under Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Diplomatic Readiness Initiative that are now being elimi- nated—had minimized the impact of gains from the GRP. But one knowledgeable official explained that, in fact, there were no DRI cuts; rather, many of the new positions created by the DRI were temporary by design, to accom- modate the “bubble” of new hires brought in under the program between 2002 and 2004. Still, it is easy to see how new positions created under DRI would become es- sential to the embassies that received them. The “Iraq Tax” — the shifting of staff and resources to accommodate the requirement to staff Iraq and Afghanistan at 100 percent — represents another signifi- cant cause of staffing shortages for many embassies. The Iraq mission is the largest in the world, and one-year as- signments mean new personnel must rotate in every year. Whatever name we give to the cuts in recent years, the re- ality has been that GRP gains were not always as significant as they appeared on paper. Many posts lost people at the same time that they gained people through the GRP. This was also true with respect to USAID staffing. In some countries, at the same time USAID was making se- rious cuts to staff and programs (in- cluding those under the TD rubric), State was sending newGRP officers to the same posts. As noted in the September 2007 OIG report, “In- spection of the Bureau of Human Resources, Part II”: “The GRP has not yet brought together USAID and [State] department planning.” “For Embassy Phnom Penh, the GRP has been all about pain mitigation,” says FSO Piper Campbell, who works there. That embassy gained one position but lost one public affairs slot and another in the combined polit- ical/economics section. Brazil, a major gaining post under the program, also lost positions, including two public diplo- macy slots, for a net gain of only one position. “We are so busy managing Washington visitors, I feel a great sense of achievement when I get out to talk to some- one — anyone — outside of a visit,” says an FSO serving in Brasilia. “Relations with nongovernmental folks are the first to go. It is an odd paradox that as Brazil is stepping out onto the global stage and our relationship is booming here, we are being told verbally, through budgets and through staffing, that it is not a priority.” Still Doing More with Less “Even with new GRP slots, we’re still grossly under- staffed,” says one Washington-based FSO who served at a losing post. “One new GRP position here and there is not going to make any difference. We need dozens, hundreds of new positions, so we can do the basics of our jobs, much less anything transformational.” “By moving positions around we are not solving the key issue that there simply are not enough to go around,” says FSO Brian McInerney, who’s serving in South Africa. “Hopefully soon our elected leaders will realize this and increase State’s budget so FSOs can be placed everywhere they are needed and we don’t have to take from one place to give to another.” FSO Ralph Falzone, who served in a GRP position in Vietnam, explains that his post “could have absorbed three to four more positions. There was an impact for sure, but everyone is still ultimately doing more with less.” The OIG report on the HR Bureau notes: “The GRP transferred positions but did not always transfer adequate resources. Almost all positions moved in the first two rounds, for example, were in political, economic and pub- F O C U S In a climate of no new money, the GRP was the only game in town.