The Foreign Service Journal, April 2004

One basic goal of DRI is to return to the one-to-one match between people and positions at each grade level that existed before underhiring began in 1993. This goal will be achieved soon at the FS-3 level for generalists, and will also be achieved within the next decade at the FS-2 and FS-1 levels as well (senior generalists are not in deficit). A similar process is well under way to match spe- cialist positions and people; already, that match has been achieved at multiple levels of the office and information management pyramid such that there are no longer unfilled OMS and IMS positions at the entry level and lower mid-level ranks. The Civil Service Component Often overlooked is the fact that DRI has an impor- tant Civil Service component as well. We already have created and filled 165 new CS positions under DRI. By the end of FY 2004, that number will exceed 200. Additionally, the ongoing emphasis on better resource management has improved hiring practices across the Civil Service at State. At the start of DRI, State had over 600 vacant Civil Service positions. The number has been reduced to about 200 under DRI; this gap is closing as we hire and as other Civil Service employees return to Washington from overseas excursion tours, now that Foreign Service personnel are filling those slots. “Surging” with Help from DRI While we launched DRI with a deliberate eye to improving our response capacities, we were unaware, of course, that 9/11 would follow shortly. Or that new missions in Afghanistan and Iraq and new homeland security challenges would follow 9/11. While staffing these missions and programs remains a challenge, it clearly could not have been done before DRI without major negative effects on other priorities. Indeed, Embassy Kabul started up thanks to 25 “DRI posi- tions.” Expanded programs for high-risk visa screening absorbed over 50 new positions. Our critical presence in Iraq, especially after we open our new Baghdad embassy F O C U S A P R I L 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 25