The Foreign Service Journal, December 2007

entry-level officers. A buyout program in the mid-1990s further compounded the reduction in the Service by drawing down senior ranks. At the same time, during the 1990s the Department of State opened 22 new embassies. Assuming an average of 60 FS employees per embassy, that’s about 1,320 new positions. The 1990s also saw a substantial workload increase as a result of the accelerating pace of globaliza- tion. In the consular field alone, for instance, the work- load increased during the decade by at least 30 percent, creating a demand for approximately 300 more officers. Beyond supporting this expansion, the Foreign Service was also carrying large, accrued deficits of time for training (only 50 percent of the officers occupying language-designated positions were getting the necessary language training as of 1997) and for the use of mandato- ry home leave. By my estimate, the personnel needed to cover the training and leave deficits alone totaled approx- imately another 900 positions. By 2000, then, the actual shortfall for Foreign Service staffing was not 700 positions — the number commonly accepted at the time as the deficit and the target for the subsequent Diplomatic Readiness Initiative. Because of the additional, cumulative deficits that were never addressed, such as those cited in the previous paragraph, it was actually more like 2,000 to 3,500 positions. Although the Foreign Service was marginally capable of fulfilling the elemental functions of its mission, it lacked the resources necessary to effectively respond to more challenging demands. Now seven years have passed, and the Foreign Service is still struggling to fill all of its positions and meet its commitments overseas. Dire in 2000, the staffing situa- tion has only marginally improved since then. The Diplomatic Readiness Initiative that began in 2001 hired 1,158 people above attrition, yet the entrenched, histori- cal staffing shortfalls have persisted. And they have been aggravated by increases in staffing demands and changes in staffing demographics. Policy Demands, Demographics Undercut DRI Gains One source of increased demands on staffing has been the DRI itself, inasmuch as the program introduced new Servicewide leadership and management training requirements. Apart from DRI initiatives, other FS training programs have been added or expanded since 2000. This training comes at a cost: time. A week of training for 11,000 Foreign Service employees costs 440,000 hours, or the equivalent of about 212 full-time- equivalent positions. Nor has the upward trend in work- loads slowed since 2000. Consular workloads have con- tinued to increase with the implementation of post-9/11 procedural changes and the growth of travel by both Americans and visitors to the United States. New embassies in Baghdad, Kabul and Tripoli have placed added demands on staffing resources. It is not just the increase in workloads that is affecting the Service. Like much of the federal government, the Foreign Service is an aging work force. Baby boomers are poised to retire in unprecedented numbers, poten- tially swelling staffing deficits. Moreover, health and family commitments play larger roles in older employees’ decisions to serve overseas, making it more likely that they will serve fewer tours abroad. Other factors are also eroding the personnel base. Individuals retiring under the Federal Employees Retirement System, which went into effect in 1987, face losing accumulated sick leave. Under the Civil Service Retirement System, retiring employees could convert unused sick leave for cash; under FERS, sick leave is “use it or lose it” upon retirement. Not surprisingly, the trend has been for employees to increase the use of sick leave in the years before retirement rather then forfeit it. Even a slight tick upward in its use can add another couple of percentage points to the personnel deficiency. And in the department’s Foreign Service employment pool of 11,000, each percentage point is worth 110 positions. More significantly, a deficit of several thousand Foreign Service employees is not something that can be cheaply or quickly corrected. The DRI effort severely strained the department’s recruitment, training and assignment capacities. Developing a trained, profession- al force takes time— an average of 10 years of experience and training to reach mid-level proficiency. Even if the hiring of entry-level officers were doubled or tripled tomorrow, it will take as long as it takes the average Foreign Service officer to advance to senior ranks — between 20 and 30 years — to raise staffing by a third at all levels of the Foreign Service. Political realities make increasing the numbers of the Foreign Service in the near term highly unlikely. So if the will and the money are not there to build a Foreign Service that is matched to its mission, what other options F O C U S 34 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 7