LETTER TO HONORABLE DAVID A. STOCKMAN FROM GEORGE P. SHULTZ

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83M00914R002200160035-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 2008
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: August 26, 1982
• Content Type: LETTER

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THE SECRETARY OF STATE
WASHINGTON
COPIES TO: '82 ?IL ^ ; :t
S August 26, 1982
n
P-2
M
S/S Dear Dave:
S/S-S
TMA I appreciate your letter of August 6 on the Department's
TMB employment ceilings, and share your concern with meeting the
TMC President's commitment to reduce civilian employment by 75,000
M/DGP by 1984.
M/MO
M/COMP As you note in your letter, the Department has taken
RF(RS) significant actions to hold down the level of employment,
including extensive position reductions in FY 1982 and a
reduction in the level of new hires considerably below the
attrition level. At the same time, you noted some actions
which you believe the Department might have taken to further
reduce the level of employment. These included freezing or
slowing down Foreign Service National intake, limiting
part-time and summer employment of U.S. nationals, and
allocating full-time equivalent workyears (FTE) to bureaus.
In examining the issues you raised, I believe that the
Department's national security role must be borne clearly in
mind. The reductions we have had to take, particularly
overseas, not only have affected the Department's operations
directly, but have had an indirect but real adverse effect on
intelligence operations overseas. The Department of State's
overseas operations must be kept in appropriate balance with
those of other principal national security elements of our
diplomatic missions. It is not possible to give a green light
to resources for defense and intelligence operations out of
proportion to this Department's resources without damaging our
overall national security interests. Moreover, as you know,
the ability of the Department of State to discharge its core
functions, political and economic reporting and analysis, have
been eroded by demands for additional support personnel
generated by increases in other agency complements. Such
increases require an ever-higher proportion of the Department's
employees to be engaged in support functions.
The Honorable'"
David A. Stockman,
Director,
Office of Management and Budget.
State Dept. review completed.
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With these considerations in mind, I have reviewed the
actions the Department has taken these past 18 months with
respect to both position and employment controls, and I am
satisfied these actions have been both reasonable and
appropriate. I enclose a more detailed discussion of the
Department's employment situation which I hope you will find
useful.
I urge that you and your staff give serious and sympathetic
consideration to our views and to the unique conditions under
which this Department must operate.
Under Secretary Kennedy and his staff are always available
to discuss any issues that our two agencies may need to resolve.
Sincerely yours,
George P. Shultz
Attachment:
Department of State's
Employment Situation.
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I 'a
Department of State's Employment Situation
As Director Stockman's letter noted, the Department expects
to meet its end-FY 1982 goal of reducing our positions by
1,203. Reduction in hiring for FY 1982 to 451 in fact cuts by
nearly 35 percent what this Department would hire annually to
meet normal requirements.
A number of factors,
however,
have prevented the Department
from
obtaining the full
reduction
necessary to achieve its 1982
FTE
ceiling. First, the
ceilings
set for the Department for
this
initial year under FTE
were
based on estimates of work-
year
consumption without a
system
to report real experience in
FTE
usage. We also believe
that
the 1982 ceiling was set too
low.
`
Second, attrition in 1982 has been less than anticipated
due to lifting the pay cap, the government-wide employment
picture, and decreased hiring opportunities in the private
sector. Indeed, attrition for the first nine months of FY 1982
was 396, or some 27 percent less than attrition for the first
nine months of FY 1981 -- 545. The implications of this trend
only became evident well into the year, thus making it
impossible, to reach the lowered ceiling solely by controlling
intake, even at our substantially reduced level. Foreign
Service intake, which occurs in most part in groups instead of
by individual hires, could not be restricted further without
having an adverse impact on meeting the workload requirements
of our consular function, which junior Foreign Service Officers
staff, and on the attainment of our affirmative action
employment goals. Foreign National employment, which has been
already reduced to lean proportions, could not be cut deeper
without heavy costs for severance pay. To take such actions
would have been neither sound management nor cost effective,
but would have served only to disrupt seriously our overseas
operations.
In view of the increased FTE ceiling which OMB has
authorized for the Department for FY 1983, it would have been
unsound management to force a further dramatic decrease in
employment and positions in this fiscal year just to meet the
end-FY 1982 employment ceiling, only then to promptly initiate
a new accelerated hiring program to again raise employment.to
meet the higher FY 1983 ceiling.
Director Stockman suggested that, despite the fact of peak
summer workload in the passport offices and at our Embassies
abroad, the Department could reduce the need for part-time
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employment and summer hires by reviewing and lengthening
overseas tours of duty. First, it should be noted that the
unpredictability of the Department's need for part=dime
employment and summer hires was dramatically demonstrated this
summer by the unforeseen surge in passport applications (up 15
percent over last year) here in the United States. Moreover,
after careful study we do not believe the length of tours is a
significant factor in the need for summer help. Longer tours
may mean less transfer travel costs and time between
assignments, but higher costs and time away from posts for home
leave, medical purposes, and R&R. We have concluded that
longer tours would probably not reduce time away from post
during the summer to any significant degree.
The Department has in fact reviewed its policies'regarding
tours of duty frequently, and has made changes as circumstances
warranted. In 1975, a major review led to lengthening of the
tours of most mid and senior-level employees at non-hardship
posts. A more recent study, conducted initially in 1978 and
updated in 1980, concluded that while there would be a dollar
savings from extending all mid-level and senior employee tours
by one year, they would be at the expense of significant
negative impacts on morale, strains on families at post and
family ties at home, career development, and equitable sharing
of service at hardship posts. Longer tours would also lead to
a larger number of medical evacuations, increased curtailments,
and underutilization of resources by employees who have "out-
grown" their current jobs. In short, we do not believe longer
tours of duty would add to the efficiency of U.S. Government
operations abroad and might even lessen our effectiveness.
In 1983, the Department will continue its vigorous efforts
to manage full-time, permanent employment within the new
ceiling by reprogramming to meet new hire priority. program
initiatives. However, when this first year's FTE ceiling was
established, there was no system in place that captured the
number of hours part-time employees worked. FTE workyears were
broadly estimated based on the number of part-time employees,
rather than hours worked, which resulted in understating the
requirement. We pointed this out to the OMB staff and
requested an upward adjustment during last fall's review. This
is the first year we have compiled actual paid work hours, and
the record demonstrates a clear need considerably in excess of
what the ceiling allows. The dramatic example of this problem
was this summer's surge in passport applications. Passport
offices have had to hire some 150 more temporary and part-time
people than usual to meet an unanticipated 15 percent increase
in passport workload. It would not be tolerable for Department
operations to absorb this unforeseen part-time workload within
an already understated overall FTE ceiling.
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The Department is currently considering the issue of
apportioning FTE ceiling to its various offices and bureaus,
and will be pleased to discuss with OMB such a system. We must
note, however, that the solutions proposed in Mr. Stockman's
letter call for central management actions and would not have
been advanced by decentralized allocations during the current
fiscal year.
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