Day 1: Thursday, Feb. 2

More than 600 people were in attendance Thursday morning as AGA kicked off its Fourth Annual National Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. The record-setting attendance was a testament to the outstanding technical program, which began with a presentation from U.S. Department of Labor Inspector General Gordon S. Heddell. He equated the department’s efforts to “Get to Green” on the President’s Management Agenda with the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team’s equally daunting efforts to win the gold medal in Lake Placid.

Like the miraculous achievements of the U.S. hockey team that year, Labor also succeeds through strong leadership and teamwork at all levels. “At Labor, everyone owns success,” Heddell said, noting that leaders at Labor are “fanatics” about good management. Communication is also key, he said. He pointed to the department’s success in implementing a managerial cost accounting system as illustrative of the cooperative relationship between the inspector general’s office and the department as a whole.

And while Labor has achieved a green rating on all five government-wide components of the President’s Management Agenda, success is not a destination, but a journey, Heddell said. Continuous improvement is the department’s goal. “There are no free rides.”

Speakers also heard from three panelists who discussed intergovernmental cooperation: Robert L. Childree, comptroller, state of Alabama; Thomas N. Cooley, the National Science Foundation’s CFO; and Matthew A. Jadacki, CGFM, CPA, assistant inspector general of Katrina Operations, Department of Homeland Security.

Childree said it takes three things to change government: a crisis, leadership and vision and money. “Until there’s a crisis, you don’t have leadership and vision, and you don’t have the money.” Using the experience of Hurricane Ivan, Alabama was able to take steps quickly when Katrina headed for shore, such as placing the military on active duty before it hit. The three speakers emphasized the need for ongoing, open communication, common goals and strong leadership. “Leadership can never be underestimated,” Childree said.

The focus on the federal inspectors general continued with a lively panel discussion with Phyllis K. Fong, inspector general at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Johnnie E. Frazier, inspector general at the U.S. Department of Commerce. They covered the subject of “Preparing Tomorrow’s OIG Accountability Professionals.”

Frazier said that the IG offices of today are made up of much more than accountants, auditors and inspectors. They include environmentalists, scientists, mathematicians and a host of other disciplines. “The challenges facing government are not just financial or criminal,” Frazier said. In a post-September 11 world, we need people who can confront the new challenges. “We need to be certain we have the right people to deal in this environment.”

Fong said that IG offices are taking a “soup to nuts” approach to training. The IG’s have a number of training programs available to them, including the IG Audit Training Institute, the IG Criminal Investigative Academy and the IG Management Institute.

“Training allows the IG employees to exchange best practices knowledge across the community,” Fong said.

In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, President Bush let the inspectors general know that he was counting on them to make a difference. “Those of us in the IG community took that to heart,” Frazier said.

Fong noted that legislation passed in 2004 gave IGs critical law enforcement capabilities that they’d never had before and allow them to take action without first being deputized as a federal marshal. This allows for speedier action, she said.

Much of the IG community’s work is initiated by requests from Congress, Fong said. “They are very interested in seeing that we have the tools we need,” she said.

Frazier noted that there are few things the IGs value more than their independence and their reputations for integrity. He said the community, made up of 12,000 individuals, works hard to ensure that each person knows they will be held to high standards.

“We’re changing with the times,” he said. “We are putting the right people in the right places and we’re taking care of the people we have.”

Christopher B. Burnham, Under-Secretary-General for Management, United Nations, was the Thursday luncheon speaker. Burnham has had a career that has taken him to every level of government. He has worked for the State of Connecticut, the U.S. Department of State and now the United Nations. He commented on some of the similar challenges he has confronted in all three positions—namely, outdated systems. He entertained his audience by recounting his experience with finding Wang computers at each stop along his career. When he went to work for the State of Connecticut in 1995, he found Wang computers, even though the company went out of business in 1988. He encountered the same thing when he arrived at the State Department—an agency with a $10 billion annual budget and $20 billion in foreign aid to oversee. “We spent three years migrating to a real-time system,” he said.

Burnham’s overriding message was that the work of all accountability professionals begins and ends with ethics. He said he isn’t sure why his generation seems to be more ethically challenged than his parents’ generation was. These issues have led to the creation of ethics offices in almost every area of government, including the United Nations.

Burnham has also led the creation of whistleblower protection legislation at the U.N., a policy that has been called a gold standard. “I will not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do,” he said, quoting the policy. “We can’t modernize the U.N. unless it is done on a firm foundation of ethics.”

He credited AGA with leading the charge through its Certificate of Excellence in Accountability Reporting (CEAR) Program. “In my mind, AGA is driving this process by holding us to performance reporting standards,” Burnham said. And the department is raising the bar as well by setting up an independent audit advisory committee to ensure the department acts upon weaknesses outlined in the audit.

William C. Thompson Jr., comptroller for the City of New York, outlined the recent history of New York’s financial crises, notably its brush with bankruptcy in 1975 and the serious recession after the World Trade Center attack in 1991. From 2001 to 2004, the city lost 250,000 jobs. In 2003, the city faced a $6.7 billion budget deficit. However, after the experience of the 1970s, city officials knew what they were up against.

Today, NYC’s oversight and monitoring systems are considered a model for the rest of the country. In fact, Thompson said, NYC’s finances may be the most heavily scrutinized of any municipality in the world. The city enjoys a $3.6 billion surplus. Reforms, prompted by the 1970s fiscal crisis, made the city stronger, Thompson said.

Kathleen Grimm, deputy chancellor of the Finance and Administration Office of the New York City Department of Education, discussed major reforms in 2002 that changed management of the department from 40 independent districts overseeing 1,200 schools to 10 regional centers for instruction supporting 1,400 schools. Six regional operation centers support the school principals. Training and professional development is being offered through a Regional Operation Center Academy. Reform also included numerous performance measures to ensure that the ROCs are responsive to what the principals need to do their jobs. Student achievement has improved, management is more focused, and efforts are being made to integrate the Department of Education’s financial systems with those of the city. She concluded by saying, however, “We’re not declaring victory yet, we’ve got a lot more work to do.”

By: Christina M. Camara and Marie S. Force