The Foreign Service Journal, October 2015

52 OCTOBER 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AFSA NEWS Foreign Service Limited Appointments and USAID Priorities The topic of Foreign Service Limited appointments often evokes strong emotional responses among career For- eign Service officers, to the point that some of our USAID FSL colleagues sense ani- mosity directed toward them because of the mechanism by which they were hired. While the American Foreign Service Asso- ciation does have concerns regarding the FSL hiring mechanism, under no circumstances should these concerns be channeled into ill will toward FSL col- leagues, many of whom serve alongside FSOs in some of the agency’s most challeng- ing and dangerous environ- ments. Rather, AFSA’s main concern has to do with the following: Despite being the lead U.S. government agency working to bolster national security by ending extreme global poverty and enabling resilient, democratic soci- eties, USAID has for far too long had to resort to bureaucratic workarounds to compensate for staffing and resource shortages in fulfill- ing that mission. A Hiring System Gone Awry The use of program- funded FSL appointments to meet critical staffing needs has its roots in the creation of a well-intentioned but now out-of-control hiring system. The reduction-in- force and hiring freezes of the mid-1990s left USAID with roughly 950 FSOs worldwide. The numbers had so dwindled that when, in the early 2000s, the urgent call came for hundreds of FSOs to staff the new Critical Priority Country posts of Iraq and Afghanistan, USAID was woefully unprepared to meet the demand. Consequently, Sections 303 and 309 in the Foreign Service Act of 1980—which give the Secretary authority to make limited appoint- ments to the Service—were used as the legal basis for hiring FSLs using operat- ing expense (OE) funds, resources used for U.S. direct hires. This quick fix soon proved untenable, as there were insufficient OE funds to sup- port it. In a move proving that necessity is the mother of invention, USAID sought and gained authority in the 2004 foreign operations appro- priations act to use program funds when hiring FSLs. Without this added flexibility, USAID could not have staffed the CPCs; Afghanistan alone had more than 300 positions. USAID had already been “creatively” using program funds to hire Personal Service Contractors to fill staffing gaps, but PSCs are contractors rather than direct-hire, U.S. government employess. As such, they are limited in their ability to supervise and perform inherently governmental USAID VP VOICE | BY SHARON WAYNE AFSA NEWS Views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the AFSA USAID VP. Contact: swayne@usaid.gov or (202) 712-1631 functions. The FSL hir- ing mechanism solved the contractor dilemma, as FSLs are direct-hire employees of the U.S. government and therefore able to supervise and evaluate FSOs. However, FSL appoint- ments are temporary and not competed. Thus, those occu- pying them are ineligible for promotion and conversion to the Foreign Service (unless under a Civil Service-to- Foreign Service conversion), do not participate in the major bidding cycles, can- not be part of an evaluation appraisal committee and, in some cases, occupy coveted NSDD-38 slots overseas. A Source of Burnout and Distrust Over time, the dynam- ics caused by USAID’s FSL system have exposed the agency to prolonged stress that is leading to burnout and distrust among its own staff. This “temporary” pro- gram-funded hiring has allowed USAID to continue to “get by.” In 2009, USAID was given the authority to extend FSL appointments up to four years beyond their initial five-year terms. If this continues, USAID will not be able to meet the challenges of an increasingly complex global environment. The real issue, of understaffing due to insufficient funds, must be addressed. To understand the extent to which the use of FSL authority has strayed, consider the FSL employ- ment statistics provided by USAID’s Office of Human Capital and Talent Manage- ment (see chart). As of March 2014, USAID FSO and FSL positions totaled 2,083, with FSL posi- tions accounting for nearly 16 percent of them. Of the 333 FSL positions, 213 or roughly 64 percent were based in Washington, D.C. Only 86 FSL positions, or about 26 percent, were at CPC posts. A year later, as of June 2015, FSL positions had held steady at about 16 percent of the total combined FSO and FSL slots. Of interest, however, was the fact that of the 329 FSL positions, Washington slots grew to 221, or 67 percent. FSL appointments at CPC posts decreased from 86 to 65, or approximately 20 percent. In addition, program-funded USAID has for far too long had to resort to bureaucratic workarounds to compensate for staffing and resource shortages.