The Foreign Service Journal, February 2006

and she’s very effective,” Fore says, noting that the two meet one-on-one every week. Rice’s first year at State witnessed management suc- cesses in several spheres: financial systems, passport and visa processing, embassy construction and security upgrades, training, diversity hiring, and collaboration between State and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Since taking office in August, Fore has laid out six management priorities: • Improving training opportunities for employees; • Boosting the quality of life for employees and family; • Using technology to disseminate knowledge faster and more effectively; • Rightsizing of overseas missions; • Meeting goals set out in the president’s management agenda; and • Ensuring that America has open, but secure, bor- ders. Unfortunately, budget cuts now stand in the way. “We had across-the-board rescissions” in Fiscal Year 2006, Fore notes; the total appropriated for the Department of State and other international agencies was $9.7 billion, 10 percent less than they received in 2005. State itself received $275 million less than requested. Rice had sought funds for 221 new positions to meet core staffing and training requirements, and $249 million for further investments in information technology, but Fore acknowl- edged that those investments are now in doubt. Despite the austere budget climate, Rice has reiterat- ed her commitment to maintaining the victories Powell achieved in launching the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative and boosting State’s information technology investments. As she noted back in June, the department “can’t afford to go back to the 1990s when we were missing whole classes of people. ... I realize how important the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative is. And we will try to continue it at a pace that meets at least the need to continue to bring fresh blood into the Service and to make sure that people are well trained and well taken care of.” As of press time, though, Fore says no firm decisions had been made about how the cuts would affect ongoing hiring and technology initiatives. “It will mean we will have to look at forestalling some of our programs and some new initiatives,” she says. “With reduced resources, I think it’s perfectly possible that in some areas we may not be able to refresh our hardware. We were on a four-year replacement cycle. It may have to slip. ... I know people are concerned on the technology side. We are, too.” As for hiring, Fore could only commit to “not dropping below attrition.” Nor has progress been smooth with the State Messaging and Archiving Retrieval Toolset (known as “SMART messaging”), which aims to upgrade the cable communications system. “We have been a bit delayed,” Fore admits, but says the department anticipates addi- tional pilots and rollouts in the second and third quarters of 2006. However, at least one consultant working on the project, who asked not to be identified, predicts that the entire initiative will have to be scrapped as unworkable. Fore also points out that Foreign Service Director General Robert Pearson and Acting Foreign Service Institute Director Barry Wells have championed career development, training and operational readiness plans. Last fall, Rice attended a Foreign Service Institute course on democracy building, the first designed specifi- cally to further her hallmark transformational diplomacy initiative. Fore says that other courses in the eradication of disease and promotion of the rule of law and human rights are now in the works at FSI. And in a recent cable Fore set out other goals, including boosting by 50 percent FasTrac course completions by the end of 2006 and increasing course offerings by 25 percent during the same time frame. “We are hoping to shift the center of gravity of our courses from having them here in Washington to using distance learning, so these courses will come to you at your desktop,” Fore says. To improve the quality of life for State Department employees, Fore says that the administration aims to expand telework opportunities by 25 percent and child- care capacity by 50 percent this year. Overseas, she says, the department will increase the amount of training and employment opportunities for spouses who want a job by 10 percent in 2006. “We have an enormously skilled eli- gible family member corps, and we should utilize it,” Fore says. For children of Foreign Service officers overseas with special needs, she says the department hopes to increase the number of schools capable of meeting those needs from 116 to 120 this year. Terri Williams, president of Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide, has nothing but praise for the Rice team’s work on quality-of-life issues. Referencing Powell’s attention to the issue, she says, “As near as I can see, it’s continued [under Rice]. It seems to get better and better.” F O C U S 24 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 6