OPM: The most abusive regulator in all Government

"Rather than shrinking the size of government, creating efficiencies and reducing costs, OPM [Office of Personnel Management] has taken the opposite tack. As its "fee for service" business has mushroomed, OPM's workforce has exploded by 2,278 employees, and 72 percent of its payroll is funded solely by the intragovernmental agency transfers, as reported directly from OPM's published and forecasted budgets."

It's just the facts. The Office of Personnel Management's conflict of interest in the recruitment of federal employees and oversight of federal recruitment agencies is "as arrogant as it is flawed." OPM routinely uses its official role as the Co-Chair of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council to promote its products and services while specifically prohibiting private companies from doing so.

Read more about OPM's corrupt practices here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-e-brooks-rix/conflict-of-interest-and-_b_838782.html

 

Hey, now wait a minute, Linda, you seem really nice and all, but listen, I recently retired as an exec from the US Office of Personnel Management and I'm not sure you fully appreciate what we were up against at OPM (aka, Other Peoples' Money - don't know why we always thought that was so funny.) Anyway, I don't think you appreciate that, because OPM's accounting system, installed about 15 years ago, never operated properly, despite costing 10 times more to implement and operate than estimated, and many orders of magnitude more expensive than what any other agency got stuck paying, on top of that, the darned thing can't account for literally $100M's in missing funds; so how can you sit there and blame OPM for having to pore $B's into the revolving fund, to cover this up? Unless you have a better idea on how we could keep this all hidden, you may want to be just a little less critical, miss smarty pants. And don't think I don't know what you're thinking: you're probably musing why an agency, that can't even implement and operate a low tech accounting system, should be entrusted to develop and implement far more complex IT systems like recruiting and retirement and stuff. But again, that’s why we had to keep those $B's rolling into the revolving fund, to keep the whole thing propped up. I gotta tell you, this wasn't easy, but thankfully we didn't have to follow any of those annoying appropriation laws, like the Economy Act, requiring agencies (not us, of course) to actually expend inter-agency approps in the fiscal year Congress actually intended; man, I don't know how those other agencies do it, actually executing appropriations in the fiscal year mandated by law because that must be really, really har... hey, wait a minute! No wonder those agencies gave us all their money, they’re blowing off Congress, too, just like us! Well, as long as they keep buying OPM's services, I'm sure no one at 1700 E. St will tattle.

But listen, I used to feel bad about myself as a gov'ment employee; I mean, all that waste, and lost opportunity cost from not doing what we were paid to do and stuff; but it doesn't do any good, all your piling on like this. I mean, no wonder OPM, despite the fact that they are OPM for crying out load, had one of the employee worst climate assessment results of any of 299 agencies (gosh, that seems like a lot of government when I say it like that: 299 agencies.) But OK, so were were a little naughty: like, we used to sit around and brainstorm how we could come up with more stuff the agencies would have to do, and then we'd dream up ways we would charge the heck out of them for “solutions” to meet these 'valuable' mandates. OK, have to admit, I did feel a little guilty; because we’d audit the crap out of those uppity agencies that refused to buy our stuff; oh man, we’d give them such bad audit reports and say bad things about them to OMB. But I really don't feel that bad about it, because some of them were really mean to us; they would say really bad things about us behind our backs. Actually, they would say it to our faces, too, so we’d have to teach them to play ball. But before you go getting all judgmental, at least we weren't as bad as some of these agencies, I mean, some of these guys wasted $100M's on "stimulus" projects - like developing software from scratch that is already available as COTS; crap didn't work either. And how 'bout the fact that all these contractors (and feds) who worked on these projects actually are worse off now, having worked on these projects, because now they been trained to do stuff that isn't even marketable! Now that's really bad, 'cause the damage goes so far beyond just wasting a few $100B's here and there; these people actually have negative job skills, thanks to the way the Stimulus money was mismanaged. So, before, you go around criticizing OPM, you should stop and consider that they we could have been a lot worse. I mean, considering we had a former zoo keeper for a HUMAN Resource Director (man, the irony always kills me) I think we could have been a lot worse. So, I not only expect an apology, Linda, I think a little thank you is in order.

And may I remind you, when you see what OPM IS actually accomplishing, just be glad you're not getting all the government your paying for.