Transcripts For CSPAN3 House Foreign Affairs Hearing On State Dept. Foreign Aid 20240714

Operations budget for the state department and the u. S. Agency for International Development. Committee members asked about the high number of personnel vacancies within the department and hiring from a diverse pool of candidates. This is about an hour and a half. The subcommittee will come to order. We meet today to discuss the state department and u. S. I. D. Fy 2020 operations budget. Without objection, all members may have five days to submit statements, questions, extraneous materials for the record, subject to the length limitations in the rules. Ill now make my opening statement, and then turn it over to the Ranking Member for his opening statement. Ive noticed that the republicans are a little bit faster getting over here after votes. I want to thank the Ranking Member mr. Zeldin members of the subcommittee and our witnesses for joining us for todays hearing for the fiscal year 2020 operations budget, also want to thank the witnesses for being accommodating knowing that our vote schedules interfered with our original appearance schedule, and thank you for accommodating us today. The topics covered in this hearing and ive said this previously, arent necessarily whats going to make cable news every night, but theyre of incredible importance from when we think at how best we can serve the United States of america, our interests around the world and our Foreign Policy and the foundation of any real Successful Organization always starts with the right people and making sure theyre equipped with the right resources and ability to do their job effectively, and as ive said multiple times previously and want to reiterate, we are proud of the men and women around the world that service in our diplomatic core, at our embassies, in our development, work around the world, and these are patriotic americans, and you know, i once again want to just reiterate the work that they do and how important it is to american Foreign Policy and american strength. The last few months as the subcommittee chairman, ive had the pleasure of meeting with many individuals, both in the current administration, but also in prior administrations, both republicans and democrats who care about the work of state department and usaid deeply and ambassador perez want to thank you for also taking the time to meet with us, but also ambassador green and others from usaid. We really do agree that, you know when were thinking about our operational effectiveness, we want to make sure were appropriately resourcing both state and usaid, and giving them the tools, and when we think about that, you know, an administrations budget is a reflection of those priorities and you know, i do have some concerns about the fiscal year 2020 budget requests which includes the 8 cut in diplomatic programs, and an 18 cut to the Embassy Security account. That said, as we, you know, think about the world that were in, our Foreign Policy, our aid and Development Work really did service very well in the postworld war ii and cold war world, but we also know that were in a new world in the 21st century, and as we think about budget priorities, we think about personnel, as we think about programming efficiencies and expertise, we really do have to, you know, make sure were giving those men and women the tools and skills to succeed in the 21st century, and we know those challenges are vast from large demographic shifts to fragile state in sub saharan africa, to the threat of pandemics this is an increasingly complex landscape whereas during the cold war we could focus on traditional countries and global powers, we know now we have other emerging threats and nonstate actors that we have to be conscious of and nimble in addressing. We also know in the era of Cyber Security, et cetera, we have to equip the workers at the state department and usaid with the right i. T. Systems to ensure that theyve got appropriate data flows and protection of that information. And you know, one thing that, you know, as we do some of the questioning and i know ambassador perez weve talked about this, i have had concerns about the persistent vacancies for the career state employees that have been identified in multiple gao reports, not just in this administration but in prior administrations as well, and we know that those persistent vacancies certainly put challenge and stress on the existing work force that leads to lower morale and less efficient productivity. Ive talked to secretary pompeo about that as well. That, you know, in my questioning about something thats certainly something well want to talk about. And then weve also talked about how we have to recruit and retain the best and the brightest. I know the secretary when he was in front of the full committee talked about his efforts to go out there and make a career in diplomacy or development, you know, a sought after field to sell that to campuses, et cetera, and i think thats, you know, certainly incredibly important, and i know hes come out with the new ethos at the state department, ambassador perez, i think youre in charge of executing on that ethos, so we can certainly talk about that a little bit as well. But i also want to make sure this is a partnership. You know, congress in its oversight capacity is a partner with the administration making sure that, you know, as were authorizing an appropriating funds that were giving the full attention to the personnel, the full resources to those folks, and those resources are getting out to those individuals in the most efficient manner, so certainly thats something that weve talked about and mr. Zelle and i have talked about as well, how we can make sure those folks were sending out there to do the mission of the United States of america are equipped to be successful. With that i always look forward to working with the Ranking Member zeldin and our democratic and republican subcommittee members and the witnesses to ensure the American People are served by a u. S. Diplomatic and Development Core i now recognize Ranking Member zeldin for five minutes to deliver his opening statement. Thank you mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of our witnesses for being here, especially our men and women who work at the state department and usaid. The ranks are filled with great americans who take their job very seriously. They carry out their roles very professionally, and they make america proud. Todays hearing is an important opportunity for this committee to examine the fy 2020 budget for the state department and usaid. Its important for these agencies to have the support they need from congress as well as the oversight appropriate to fulfill our constitutional article one responsibilities. And bipartisan fashion, this committee should always work to ensure transparency and accountability at these important u. S. Agencies regardless of whoever is the president at any given time. The secretary, or administrator and regardless of political affiliation. At the end of the day, what is most important is that the state department and usaid are as effectively and as efficiently as possible fulfilling their Critical Missions at home and around the globe. An integral part of forwarding the state department and usaids Important Mission is ensuring they have the Financial Resources and qualified Human Resources they need. The state department has had tremendous Foreign Policy accomplishments in pursuit of a stronger and more effective Foreign Policy without apology for american exceptionalism, Standing Shoulder to shoulder with allies like israel and pushing back on a iranian aggression and more. We are encouraged by the state departments efforts to review and eliminate or fill many special envoy positions. Im encouraged to see a great incoming class of Foreign Service officers to fill existing vacancies that are critical to fill. While i want to commend the department wherever and wherever it exceptionally fulfills its mission, there will always be more to address from budgeting to personnel and foreign aid transparency. We would like to see the most efficient and effective Hr Management for state department urkssaid employees, transparency of foreign efficiency programs, including large unobligated balances. When it comes to the hiring and firing of state department employees, it is also a priority of this committee to address any mismanagement allegations ever ensuring fairness in the process and sufficient whistleblower protections. Last year a report by the Government Accountability office found that there is an approximately 31 billion slush fund sitting at the state department. While i understand the need for a rainy day fund, moving around billions of dollars from one year to the next between different accounts makes it difficult for congress to conduct proper oversight over funding. This is evidenced by the fact that in the past this money has wrongly been used to negotiate with terrorists and facilitate hostage payments. Under the last administration, 1. 7 billion in cash was delivered to the iranians as a ransom payment for the release of american prisoners. The clandestine transaction, congress had no notice or oversight over. State usaid and others must be as forthcoming as possible producing transparent budgets that reflect the real needs of the department and most importantly the real needs of the American People. We must employ accurate oversight and accountability internally in the state department as well as over the foreign assistance programs that advance our nations values around the globe. I thank you all for being here today. I look forward to your statements. While well have some tough questions at time, im sure none that youll be incapable of answering, the message we wouldnt want lost for all the men and women in your ranks is how much we appreciate their service and what they do to keep america safe, to be a leader around the entire globe, having visited many of your men and women who are overseas, while we often talk about men and women who are in uniform, we thank them for their service, the sacrifice away from their families. At times it could be for three months, four months. At times you might be deployed for 21 months. We have a lot of state department, usaid officials who will tell you about many years, multiple tours in different cities away from their families, so while we appreciate that person in uniform who might be on their tenth deployment and our heart is with them and their families at home what should not be lost are the amount of people in your ranks who are thousands of miles away from home oftentimes maybe for an entire career. So wherever they are watching us, were asking these questions and hearing your statements with hopefully their best interests in mind always to ensure that they have the resources that they need, the support that they need in order to be more successful with their mission. With that i yield back. Thank you. Im prosthesised leased to welc witnesses to todays hearing. Were joined by four. From the state department were joined by ambassador carol perez who serves as director general of the foreign citizen as well as its director of Human Resources and mr. Douglas pitkin serves as the director of Bureau Budget and planning. From usaid we have mr. Frederick nutt is the assistant administrator for the bureau of management and mr. Bob levitt is usaids chief Human Capital officer. Ill ask the witnesses to limit their testimony to five minutes and without objection your prepared written statements will be made a part of the record. Thank you so much again for being here, and for accommodating us. I now ask that ambassador perez deliver her opening remarks. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman, Ranking Member zeldin and distinguished members of the subcommittee for inviting me to discuss the fiscal 2020 budget request. As secretary pompeo noted when he testified before the committee at the end of march, we have a remarkable work force and doing a very Important Mission at a time of growing global complexity and competition, a Strong Department is critical to our success as a nation. That is why over the past year secretary pompeo has prioritized putting the team back on the field. Under his leadership we have welcomed 827 Foreign Service employees, and we have set our Foreign Service and Civil Service target Staffing Levels at 454 employees aboth employee december 31st, 2017 on boarding staff levels specified in the congressional fiscal 18 appropriations. Weve stepped up Employee Engagement and communication and taken steps to expand training and professional development, fill vacancies and reward the work being done by our employees. As director general of the Foreign Service and director of Human Resources i will focus my remarks on the 2. 8 billion of that request for Human Resources and the departments global work force. Our people, Foreign Service, Civil Service, family members, locally em employed staff are our greatest resource and they deserve our full support. These women and men work at home and abroad in service to the country. Our american personnel swear an oath to protect and defend the constitution, often at great sacrifice to themselves and their families. Our locally employed staff sometimes incur great risks working for the United States. Will support salaries for our approximately 25,000 domestic and overseas american employees. Our almost 14,000 Foreign Service employees, both our officers and specialists are a deployed force doing everything from opening markets if for American Companies to helping american citizens overseas. Our 11,000 Civil Service personnel are the departments continuity and subject matter experts, based mostly in washington but also at our passpo passport, security and Foreign Mission offices across the country. Our eligible family members are a vital source of talent in our embassies overseas. Leveraging their skills is good for morale and a force multiplier in carrying out the departments mission. I noted earlier the progress weve made in Foreign Service hiring and staffing. On the Civil Service side we are on track to return to hiring levels significantly above december of 2017 levels specified by congress, but it has been a little slower due to the decentralized nature of Civil Service hiring. The fiscal 2020 requests will support continued development of the talent and capacity of our Civil Service work force that is better prepared to address the challenges of todays international environment. Our 50,000 locally employed staff are the mainstay of our u. S. Diplomatic operations abroad, and we continue to look at ways to ensure we can attract and retain the best local talent. Mr. Chairman, Successful Organizations share one characteristic, they adapt. And in order to remain an employer of choice, we must innovate and effectively compete with the private sector to recruit, retain the best talent. As director of Human Resources, i have made innovation a key focus area. We are prioritizing removing barriers and streamlining processes so our employees can focus on their core responsibilities. My team and i are also looking closely at improvements to our policies and procedures so we can better support our people. In that regard, the top request from the work force is for paid parental leave, and the white house has been vocal in its support for paid parental leave, and employees have welcomed the recently proposed amendment to the National Defense authorization act of 2020 providing all federal employees with 12 weeks of paid family leave. As a 31 year, almost 32 public servant, i am thrilled to see the growing bipartisan support for this important endeavor whose tame has come. If we are to live up to our aspiration of being a model employer for our people, we should not have to choose between our families and the career that we love. I would close by saying that the 75,000 strong work force is a winning investment for our nation, and we deliver results for the American People every day. Thank you for the opportunity to be here, and i look forward to answering your questions. Thank you ambassador perez, mr. Pitkin. Thank you mr. Chairman, Ranking Member zeldin and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Secretary pompeo also noted in his march testimony our budget is designed around our National Security strategy to achieve our Foreign Policy goals. The top line request of 40 billion combined for the state department and usaid puts us in a position to do that. This funding protects our citizens at home and abroad, advances american prosperities and values and supports our allies overseas. Ill focus my remarks on the 13 billion diplomatic engagement appropriations request managed by the department of state which is the state from the foreign assistance pseudoof the budget, which my colleagues will also speak to. This comprised onethird of the told budget request. It supports the departments work force including the Personnel Resources ambassador perez mentioned, our Public Diplomacy programs, embassy construction, Diplomatic Security and our assessed contributions to the United Nations and other international organizations. This request is nearly 300 increase over the administrations fy 19 request about a 3 growth rate, but it would be about 15 below the Amount Congress enacted for 2019. We have submitted for the record the state usaid budget fact sheet for the record which outlines many of the specific numbers in our request. Ill highlight three of the major priorities. Our three major pillars are 5. 5 billion for diplomatic staffing, operations and programs, 5. 4 billion to secure or protect u. S. Government personnel overseas and domestically and 2. 1 billion for assessed contributions to the u. N. Including u. N. Peace keeping and other organizations like the oas. The funding for diplomatic staffing, operations and programs as the ambassador mentioned including americans and locally employed staff and the budget request would sustain our staffing at or above current levels consistent with the direction and the current appropriations. Were going to make continued investments in training and Human Capital development as well as continuous support for Public Diplomacy programs, which are vital to influencing foreign opinion and countering misinformation about the United States. Highlights within this request include a new consolidated bureau of Global Public affairs which will fight greater efficiency and effectiveness in managing a public deplo as authorized by the ndaa, a 20 million increase in appropriate funds for the department over current levels. Funding for our Management Platform includes increases for our regional bureaus to support new embassies and consulates scheduled to open up and this category of funding underwrites most of our 2. 5 billion of Information Technology spending which will help support and sustain the new chief Information Officers efforts to modernize our Information Technology platform including cloud migration, consolidated software licensing, and Greater Customer engagement across the departments i. T. Platform. Our 5. 4 billion request for personal security is primarily for the bureaus of Diplomatic Security and overseas building operations. Highligh highlights include an increase for Cyber Security, a 30 increase over current levels, to help increase our Cyber Security programs to protect our Networks Data and i. T. Infrastructure. Weve also requested 8 million for our bureau of medical services to update embassy inventories medical Counter Measures to counter potential wmd and kem bio threats. In addition counselor revenues, these are the fees we collect from visas and passports to help issue visas to overseas citizens and passports to american citizens as well as provide Citizen Services to americans overseas. We anticipate collecting about 3. 9 billion in revenues and we are continually looking at ways to more efficiently use technology and personnel to update our counselor services. Some minor fee adjustments to address some structural imbalances. In closing, we are committed to using taxpayer dollars effectively with continued congressional support we will continue to advance our foreign policies at home and abroad, and i look forward to answering your questions. Thank you mr. Pitkin. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member zeldin, thank you for ib vieting me to discuss if,. Today i will be summarizing the written statements from mr. Levitt and myself. Since joining usaid in april of this year, ive been impressed by the agencys dedication to bringing Development Solutions to uplift some of the worlds most Vulnerable People and advancing our Foreign Policy and National Security interests. Administrator greens vision for the Agency Partners us with professional experts, local organizations and hosts country governments to aid in their journey to selfreliance. For fy 2020 the request to support the agencys Global Operations is almost 1. 5 billion, which includes nearly 1. 3 billion for operating expenses approximately 610 million for salary, and benefits for u. S. Direct hire staff and 198 million for the Capital Investment fund. U. S. Aid recognizes the agencys success, we have enacted Human Resources transformation elements that support a 21st Century Work Force such as prioritizing recruitment and updating personnel and practices and expanding opportunities to diversify our work force through programs like the donald m. Payne International Development graduate fellowship program. Our hr successes such as the debut of a new employee portal, the redesign of employee performance management, streamlining Foreign Service office or assignments and bidding and the Staff Care Program are described in mr. Dedicated to secure and protect staff and facilities. At headquarters, usaid has implemented the Washington Real Estate strategy which is modernizing dated work spaces and technology while consolidating shortterm leases from four buildings into two with anticipated savings of up to 2. 5 million by 2025. The agency has become a leader in federal i. T. Monetization, and has enhanced Cyber Security protections. Over 143 million is within the operating expenses and Capital Investment fund budget request to upgrade Information Technology systems and data platforms. Usaid also expects also expects date multiple Agency Systems which would save the agency approximately 2. 2 million. U. S. Aid has used legislation to streamline budget execution, thanks to the cio has Statutory Authority to manage all i. T. Accusations and implement other measures since being realigned to report directly to the administrator. In 2017, the administrator announced a zero tolerance policy for audit backlogs. They had 840 open recommend digs at that time of almost 100 were in backlog. We cleared the backlog ahead of schedule allowing us to reach the first Agency Transformation goal. U. S. Aid is a leader in the federal government and managing agency risk and with one of five agencies to achieve the highest score of managing risk for all five functions in a 2018 Risk Management assessment. Additionally the agency has adopted an enterprise Risk Management framework. They keep principle to the approach of our implex talgs is the agencys Risk Appetite statement which provides staff with guidance on the amount and type of risk the agency is willing to accept. In the fall of 2018 we released our acquisition and assistance strategy honing in on engagement and reform to expand the local partner base, we launched the initiative to make it easier for new and underutilized partners to work with us. We seek your support for our request for a working capital fund and transfer authorities for the i. T. Fund and adaptive personnel project. The acquisition and assistance working fund is a fee for Service Model similar to the state Department Model which would provide a consistent funding stream dedicated to management and oversight. It permits the agency to align and develop workforces. As part of the agencys effort to implement modern Technology Act of 2017, the i. T. Working capital Fund Transfer authority would allow us to obtain consistent funding to support important i. T. Requirements. U. S. Aid is also seeking the necessary transfer authority to implement a pilot of adaptive personnel project allowing us to use Program Funding to hire Civil Service personnel as was discussed. With the support of the aid for these authorities, u. S. Aid would be able to use the authorities to the fullest extent of the agency. Your continued support means we will remain equipped with work to work with our partners to help countries in their journeys to selfreliance. Thank you and we look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, mr. Net and thank you mr. Levitt. Ill now turn to my opening questions and i will then recognize the Ranking Member and our other members for five minutes for the purposes of questioning the witnesses. And i recognize myself. My opening statement, and i think when we had a chance to meet, and i do think i brought this up with secretary pompeo. I am deeping concerned in the drop in morale at state department. As i noted a few months ago, states falling to the bottom of the polls of the ratings of best federal agencies to work at. In my opening i touched on the gio report, part of that certainly is the chronic vacancies that exist at state and the stress and pressure that puts on the existing workforce that, you know, obviously have to pick up the workload for others and that certain is of some concern how we address that. Its not as was pointed out in the gao report, not unique to this administration, youve seen it in prior administrations. The other concern is, you know, weve seen the registration for the Foreign Service officer test. They saw a 22 decline between october 2017 and october 2018. Were still getting very qualified folks taking the test, but again theres some concern of, you know, this nbc news report that suggested fewer people were actually taking the te test. I know youre in charge of implementing secretary pompeos state department etho and what id like to ask, what does this new ethos mean in practice . How does it boost morale and make the state department more attractive to that next generation of workforce and help us recruit and retain outside of just additional training, you know, what does implementation of this ethos look like . Thank you for that question, mr. Chairman. Id like to touch not only on the ethos statement but other statements you made if thats okay with you. Thats fine. The ethos statement is a short and powerful statement that embodies the values that the department has had for many, many years. Weve had them in a variety of places but never had a statement. Something that everybody could look to and understand, this doesnt bother our values and culture. The other thing that struck the secretary when he arrived we dont have a common way to share our culture. Foreign Service Officers come in classes. So you have a pr group of anywhere between 40 and 80 people who study together, learn together, and they understand the department together. Civil service its a oneweek Orientation Course and theres no time line for that. Political appointees dont get any training, no matter what party. The idea is to take all of these values we have, put them into a statement that everybody could understand and recognize. A big part of this will be training. We are rolling out a Training Course this year. The idea is to bring everybody together, whether youre a Civil Servant, a political appointee, a family member, you have an opportunity to sit down and talk about what it means to work for the best team in the world. Weve never had that. That is the intent. And the idea i think is when people understand that, they have a better understand of their colleagues. Doug is a Civil Servant im Foreign Service we need to Work Together. That happens together at our level but maybe not with people just joining or younger ranks. Thats the intent of the ethos. Let me talk about the feds. I think the federal Employment Viewpoint survey is an incredible tool for managers and institutions to use. It does allow us to drill down to a unit level and look at issues that employees care about, that might be accountability, how we reward people. This year we just we are up 10 over last year. 40 of our population completed that. So that was a huge push on our part. What we will do then is make sure that people get the results and theres a conversation between leadership and employees about where the department is, where the strengths are, and where we need to improve. Finally on the gao report, its that report took data from 2018, which was before secretary pompeo arrived. But i would acknowledge it talks about the fact weve had vacancies for overseas for at least ten years. Part of it is the churn. Part of it is the fact we rotate jobs all the time, we have people in training so theres always a bit of a gap for that. Were trying to be as creative as possible to fill those vacancies. Its not necessary we need more permanent Foreign Service officers or specialists but to use family members to the extent we can. Use programs like the fellows program, use our hardtofill exercises, our rotational opportunities for Civil Servants to Work Overseas to try to fill those gaps. The other thing were going to do is make sure that we are focussed on making sure those posts that are really under stress that we have the ability to go ahead and respond to that. Thank you. Im going to use a little bit of chairs prerogative to ask the followup question, if thats okay. One thing that, you know, when im thinking about the chronic vacancies ive become aware of unclassified president ial instruction that went out to all the embassies and missions requiring the chiefs of mission to take a look at these chronically vacant positions that have been vacant for longer than two years. Ive not seen the full cable but it seems every agency with personnel at an embassy like state, usda, cdc, has been asked to identify existing vacancies and discuss whether or not to abolish some of these vacancies permanently with the ambassador. I understand the importance of taking a look at, you know, theres positions that chronically are not filled in the organizations, certainly within its right to look and say, does this position really need to exist. Ambassador perez, can i get your commitment from you to perhaps provide my staff with that cable in full so we can take a look at it as well . Yes, sir. I have to apologize, im not sure ive seen that cable but we will find it and provide it to you. Thank you. With that, ill yield back. Mr. Chairman. Recognize the Ranking Member for five minutes to question the witnesses. Secretary pompeo recently merged the pubureaus which will save money and better align the resources for the mission of the department however congress has been informed theres still a lot of duplication in terms of Human Resources and executive support functions inside the family at state that could be eliminated. If you could speak to whether state is looking at this issue in an effort to make it more efficient . Yes, that is certainly aware of some of the feedback we received when we put forward the proposal in december and springtime frame. I know we committed to looking at the overall executive support structure. Part of the thinking is we want to create the organization, there is work to realign the positions and resources. Were also moving the office of historian to fsi, moving some functions to the eca bureau. So i think our goal is to complete this by the end of the year so everything is in place as we start fiscal year 2020 and based on experience look at where we can find additional opportunities on the consolidation or look at the executive support function. I think there are staffing gaps there, and were mindful that the same staff are the same ones doing the work to go through the details of the finance and staffing. So we have committed to look at that. I know the hr bureau working with the Public Diplomacy team is looking at it as an issue but were looking at it to complete the issues that weve notified and come back with a potential proposal down the road. How is it going down the road . Making tremendous progress. I think were prepared to the resources were aligning now under the new function we set a deadline to have as much done by the end of the fiscal year so we can start fiscal year 2020 with values set. Theres a tiger team with extensive support from the management bureaus, certainly my bureau, the hr bureau, the management policy bureau. Its a team effort not just on the Public Diplomacy side. We regularly meet and engage with the Ambassadors Team to make sure were providing the support we can on the management side and make sure things working on the staff in the new bureau get what they need from us and were supporting it. Were planning to update the hill and committees by the end of the year. Were well aware of the interest in executive support function. Ambassador perez, to walk us through a little bit of the current state of the hiring and firing process, we hear of individuals, rumors, something might get leaked to the media, best to go to the source. I guess generally fill us in on the process, but specifically there was a video that came out, are you familiar with the name Stuart Karaffa . There was a video of a state employee named Stuart Karaffa caught on a hidden camera claiming he is part of the antitrump opposition and his job is to, quote, resist everything at every level. He said in the video, quote, i have nothing to lose, its impossible to fire federal employees. Are you familiar with this case at all . I think i may have seen the same stories published that you did, but not intimately familiar with that case, sir. If you could walk us through lets call it a hypothetical then. Can you walk us through the process of how state handles cases like this . How hard is it . What additional tools do you need . I think youre talking very broadly about how we deal with performance and conduct issues . Please. We do have a we have an office within hr called conduct suitability and discipline. And, in fact, you will note in our budget request that we, for 2020, i think, right, the one for last year this year, we have asked for a doubling of the number of analysts that we have for that office. We did benchmark the federal agencies and generally there is one conduct suitability analyst for every 500 employees in an agency. We have one for every 2,000 so that is the reason for the doubling. Its going to put us at 50 of the staffing we have, but its important to move in this direction. So we do follow all the principles that employees have, we have two different personnel systems under title 5 and under title 22, and we file those streams to make sure that the agency is has an opportunity to do the appropriate, whatever they may need to do in terms of conduct issues. And also the protections each employee has as well because theyre obviously both very important. We work closely with the office of civil rights, the office of the inspector general. They are the people that send us most of our cases and so theyre the ones that would do the investigations, provide us with information, it comes to this division in my bureau thats responsible for sitting down, doing a case review and then making recommendations about appropriate discipline. This may be better if we were to send you information to outline this because it is a little bit different for the two groups of employees. Forsake of time im going to yield back but i believe theres going to be a second round so i may pick up where were leaving off. Yield back. The gentleman from california is recognized to question the witnesses for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chair. Ambassador perez, thank you for your long history of public service. Id like to ask you questions about the lack of diversity at the state department. My questions are not intended to assign blame, this has been ahappening as you know across administrations both democratic and republican, although its somewhat worse with this administration. Im trying to understand what the issues are and how we might be able to mitigate them. Based on percentages and from your own department, it does show that there is a lack of minorities in the Foreign Service. For example, the senior levels there was a decline for africanamerican in the senior Foreign Service from 4. 6 in september of 2016 to 3 in march of 2019. So my first two questions are, why do you think the percentages are so low for minorities in the state department and what is the state department doing, if anything, to try to make that better . Thank you for that question, kra congressman. I think theres a couple things. The federal agencies were not focussed much on diversity 15, 20 years ago or 25 years ago. So what you see at the senior ranks is a reflection of those hiring practices we had back then when i as a Foreign Service officer, people look at me, im a female officer, so obviously not an ethnic minority but i consider myself a minority still. We have a lack of women in the Senior Service because 25 years ago there wasnt an emphasis placed on trying to attract women. Thats part of the problem. Because the numbers are small in the senior ranks, if somebody retires and leaves, our percentages drop significantly. So youve seen that. Weve done a better job in the last 10 years or so. We continue to try our hardest. We have a network of 26 recruiters, 16 all over the United States and they are there to recruit for diversity. We want diversity in the broadest sense, it could be race, gender, ethnicity, it could be diversity in terms of geography. Not necessarily everybody grows up on the east or west coast, im from the midwest, went to a small college, ive managed to succeed because ive been given this wonderful opportunity by the government. So we are trying our hardest. That is our front line of defense or offense i should say, to go out and make sure that we are in touch with those populations. Our fellowship programs are popular. The two flag ships are the wrangle and pickling philosophies. Last year to this year our number of applications was 1500 for 60 positions. In the case of the pickering, it was 160 increase, and the wrangles it was an over 50 increase. So our fellowship opportunities are still an incredible source for us. They have increased the rate of diversity hires since they started by 29 . We are looking at other ways we might have more fellowship programs. We have a robust register of americans who would like to be a Foreign Service officer. Its tougher on the specialist side. So were looking at things like how to do i. T. Fellowships which would mirror those but again looking to make sure we increase diversity. Inside the Department Part is recruitment, the other part is retention. For retention were doing a couple things. We started an unconscious bias course which we are suggesting that hiring managers especially take. People sitting on our promotion panels so they understand what unconscious bias is and how it affects people. Well have an online course available by the end of the year. We also have a study from funded by the Cox Foundation thats going to look at barriers to the senior ranks for various groups of people not there now, women minorities. That was just funded by the Cox Foundation. We hope to have answers by the end of december. I want to look at both the entry, obviously, but then the barriers. I think there are barriers that start before entry, and then to make sure once people are in, do they feel included. Its not just diversity, its inclusion. Somebody said diversity is when you get invited to the party and inclusion is when you get invited to dance. We want to make sure everybody is dancing. Thank you. Let us know how we can be helpful. Can i add to that question for u. S. Aid . Sure. Weve been aggressive with regard to diversity. Our Hallmark Program brings incredible talent into the Foreign Service particularly from groups not represented in International Development. Weve been working with our Pathways Internship Program to make sure we have minority representation. In addition to the outreach programs and engagements we have with universities around the country were looking deeply into the way that we manage our own processes, promotions, assignments for Foreign Service officers to make sure we train everyone in implicit bias as well. As well as looking deeply at our demographics and who is at what level in our career services, really testing ourselves to make sure we are adequately represented at all levels and well followup with you on the results of our analysis. Thank you we appreciate that information. The gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized to question the witness for five minutes. Thanks, mr. Chairman. I think my questions will probably go to mr. Pitkin and mr. Net initially. Im looking at the white house balance of Budget Authority document, total unexpended balances by agency. At the end of 2017, the unobligated number is 24686. At the end of 2018, its 27022. And this is in millions. So and then, i guess its projected at the end of 2019 to be 23915. Im wondering what happens to that and how you account for those funds at the end of each year . Lets start there. I think thats two parts. One is i think we recognize that the department and nid, both, our appropriations have given us years of multiyear authority particularly for larger programs, overseas building operations is an example of that. As known your fiscal short. To make sure were fully funding projects upfront, when we start a project we fully budget for that project but only obligate as funds are needed. The unobligated balance runs between 6 and 8 billion a year reflecting projects that have been approved, notified to congress for which we have put the money committed towards a mr. Rosenstein project but we dont obligation until we on occur a fiscal resource. Thats a good chunk of our balances for those programs. Similarly for example, Counselor Affairs is a fee based agency they collected 3. 8 billion annually, they only can spend money as it comes in. So typically were rolling over about 2 billion at least from the end of one year to the next because we have to have the money in hand before we can expend it on personnel, contracts and payroll. So thats different than perhaps an appropriation that we have on an annual cycle. Diplomatic security, that is an appropriation one of the major areas ds spends money on is Guard Services contracts. And there again often we have performance of up to 18 months. So often ds is managing a multiple contracting vehicles at any given time. At some point because its know your money theyre not as prone to having move money through the pipeline in the last few days of the year. For the department it is those major categories of know your accounts. We still manage it year by year but it does result in some of those end of year balances that you noted. The percentages are lower on the accounts with single year appropriations so our diplomatic programs has a more limited authority so there are low balances there. It depends on the account. Education and cultural affairs, many of those projects are awarded at the end and beginning of the year. So again we have balances there as well. So we do track it at the end of the year. We submit quarterly reports to the committees to track account by account that shows those balances. I meet with my team every month to go over it for our propositio appropriations. If we sense it going out of balance, we work with the bureaus and our financial staff to see if theres something amiss in the underlying spend rate. So the percentages you cited are within our historical norms but also a function of our operating environment. Many cases we receive our appropriations in may, we appreciate thats part of the dynamic we operate under. But to a certain extent that multiyear authority gives us flexibility to allocate resources. Everything you said makes sense to me, although i do question you said the building for instance fund for lack of a better term is 2 billion. Annually, yes, sir. But were talking im looking at 24 billion, 27, 23. So theres you know, lets be ge generous and say theres 20 billion extra, so to speak. All that other stuff seems like not enough to account for 20 billion. Do you reconcile that down to zero every single year . We reconcile that, we track it down for each appropriation. We work on looking at if we have unliquidated obligations, is there balance that has not been spent were in the midst of it now to look and see where the balances can be corrected. Its something our auditors focus on. So part of getting a cleaner audit is to focus on those balances. It goes program by program for the operational activities i mentioned earlier as well as some of our foreign assistance programs. We have a number of multiyear authorities as well. Were working closely with our partners overseas as well as congress to ensure that the programs are spent for the purpose that congress attends. Im confident we can account for all of that. Is there ever an opportunity where theyre unobligated and something changes they would not obligated for the intent congress had and they would not be used . If there is a particular case whether or not we use occasionally the administration or congress has enacted rescissions of balances or transfer of balances. There was a rescission of about 300 million of the protection funds thats for Diplomatic Security that was provided in the 2017 supplemental and based upon conditions on the ground and spend rate, there was a recommendation by congress that some of those balances could be rescinded as an offsite for that appropriation for this year. Certainly in my tenure going back to the post ben ga see period. We identified a billion dollars in balances that could be realigned from our operations particularly in iraq to help make investments in Security Operations and the rest of the world. When we had an opportunity to rescind blnszs to create an offset and return funds to the treasury or a shared interest in congress we do that as well. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Time is expired. A small group and we have a little bit of time. I appreciate your coming down to the hill. Were going to do a second round of questions. Ill recognize myself for five minutes. Let me direct a question to mr. Net and mr. Levitt. I appreciate u. S. Aid operates in complex and demanding environment and you do respond to every humanitarian and Development Requirements in an increasingly complicated world. So i do applaud the outstanding work that your workforce does. I know the personnel system is equally complex and u. S. Aid has a multitude of hiring mechanisms as a result some of our best people dont qualify for Health Insurance or sometimes have to quit and reapply for their jobs every few years. What are some things that congress could do to simplify these authorities and mechani s mechanisms . Thank you for your question, chairman. Its an honor each day to work with our colleagues and support what they do around the world. On our side we have a complex workforce. We have employees working under multiple mechanisms and authorities and its not unusual for one supervisor to manage people on four or so mechanisms. On our side we appreciate your support for our toppive personnel project we plan to hire for our Health Workers and humanitarian workers. What were looking for is the transfer authority so we can make this pilot effort a reality. This will allow us to rely less on some of our other employment mechanisms in order to best support our workforce, particularly those working in difficult environments. In addition to that overall we request the transfer authority also for our i. T. Workforce working capital fund. And we request the authority to establish a working capital fund for acquisition and assistance. These three requests as well as for it and adaptive project is considered agile in responding to needs worldwide. Thank you for that. Mr. Levitt i ask you aor your s to meet with my staff and we can try to see what we can do to empower u. S. Aid and the folks that work for you in a more efficient way. Ambassador prez im glad you touched on something that is in the nda bill that well be voting on i imagine tomorrow. Paid family leave for, you know, for federal employees. I think when you and i met and we talked about how we retain kind of those mid career employees. The 35 to 40yearolds who are our next generation of senior diplomats and the demands of repeated postings overseas, et cetera, for someone who may want to start a family. We ask the private sector to provide paid family leave yet we dont do it for our personnel. You touched on it. Can you talk about what Something Like that would mean for those mid career folks and the morale as well as our ability to retain this talent . Yes. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. As you and i discussed when we met before, one of the things i did when i came on board five months ago was to step up engagement. And we have this innovation portal and we ask people to send us their ideas. We received over 400 now, we launched it may 15th. The vast majority when we looked at work place issues, this is the retention, making the state department the best work place possible were about things like paid parental leave. This is generally coming from, as you said, these are relatively new employees, they do not have enough time in federal service to have sick leave, annual leave. We obviously allow people to advance, get advance leave up to a year at a time, all according to the rules and regulations but its not enough. We have a leave bank, but you have to be out of leave before you can get leave paid. So 12 weeks would be ideal in order to have families be together. I raised three children in the Foreign Service and its tough. We are away from families, support systems. When you move every one to two years you have to make new friends, have a new medical system. So this would be something our workforce would appreciate. The nda well be voting on does have 12 weeks of paid leave for federal employees. With that ill recognize the Ranking Member for five minutes to question the witnesses. Thank you, mr. Chair. Ambassador perez, picking up where we left off. With regards to Stuart Karaffa, if the thats something we can followup with after this hearing, wed just like to know more details as far as what happened in that case. Did he get administrative leave, how long did it take to fire him . Is that a commitment i have some information because i have this cracker jack staff, they must be watching this hearing so they did send me something. My apologies. That must have happened about the time i arrived. I dont know the exact date, i was not personally involved. So this individual had security clearance suspended immediately and after that he resigned. Had he not, Diplomatic Security would have continued the investigation and suspended without his clearance while that investigation was concluded. After that investigation was concluded it would have been up to my office to determine what the appropriate discipline would have been. It could have been a reprimand to suspension to removal. But because his security clearance was suspended immediately he opted to resign and that was the end of that investigation. Have you familiar with a person named yalim poblet . I met her once. Shes no longer at the state department. Yes. Do you know why shes not there anymore . Sir, i do not. Im responsible for career Foreign Service but not political appointments. Marie stall, are you familiar with her case . Im aware of the name but she was again another noncareer employee. And the division is that im responsible for career, but not for the noncareer. So the off of white house liaison would have knowledge. Got it. So stuarts case would be one that would be under your jurisdiction, the other two would be outside your jurisdiction. Correct. Because he was a career employee of the department. And we already have 75,000 of those, when you include our local staff and then the noncareer appointments are handled separately from office. One quick followup. As you went through the hypothetical of what would have happened had he not resigned, do you expect him to have been removed at the end of the process or do you think he would have stayed at the end of the process . Is that reoccurring where lets say you have a lets say you have a democratic president and, you know, a very conservative state Department Staff or you have a republican president and a liberal staffer and they are quite rebellious speaking out on it, implementing their own vision and mission, whats the message through the ranks when that happens . Is that something that results in a termination, or is that something that results in less than termination . Ive been in the Foreign Service for well over 31 years. And the message to everyone is, we are here to support the American People. And ive worked for both republican and democratic administrations. And ive had senior level positions in both. You know, this is what we do, because we support the interests of the American People. Its not to say there are individual employees that do things like this individual did. And, you know, this is its a problem, i think its a bigger problem now when we have social media thats 24 7, that didnt exist when i came in obviously. Collin powell brought us internet to the desktop that our colleagues cant imagine. This is why a Statement Like the ethos is important. It does recognize, as i said, those values that are critical for us. Again be the best Diplomatic Team in the world, thats what we need. It talks about defending the constitution and serving proudly and unfailing professionalism. Those are things i grew up with, and thats what i try to tell my team and when i travel, i had the opportunity to travel quite a bit, this is the most rewarding job in the world but we have to Work Together, we have to pull together, and at the end of the day its not about us, its about the American People. Thats why it was important in my opening remarks. This happens in every agency in government, out of government, what should not be lost in our back and forth that were going to have today is your ranks are filled with amazing americans which make up nearly 100 , maybe not 100 , but its nearly that you do have great men and women that shouldnt be lost. Do you happen to know if how long it was before he resigned . She didnt give me that detail. But we will get that back for you. Do you know if he was suspended with pay . He resigned. He didnt get to that point . Well get you the time line. She just says here that he his security clearance was suspended immediately and he resigned. I dont know if that happened in a day or two days or three days. Im glad we had had a second round. As you pointed out you have a cracker jack staff but youre saying that in the most positive way. I do appreciate the detailed answers you were able to give. Thank you for the chairman for holding todays hearing. Recognize the gentle lady from minnesota. Ms. Omar is recognized to question the witness for five minutes. Thank you chairman and thank you to the Ranking Member and thank you all for being here. I wanted to chat a little bit with you, mr. Nut. One of the one of u. S. Aids publicly stated missions is the promotion of greater Economic Opportunities for women throughout the world. But in reality the work that this administration has done and some of the policies that its pushing for has been detrimental to womens prosperity and empowerment in whole host of ways. Theres a wealth of economic research, Academic Research showing us that gains in womens education and employment can be attributed to increasing access to contraceptions, that access has given millions of women control over their future and better enable them to participate in workforce and contribute both to local and global economies. And so im wondering if you can tell us how the policy priority that we have in our mission makes sense in regards to the proposed cuts to Family Planning that your department is putting forth. I have not been briefed on that particular matter at this point. I know the administration the administrator has been pushing an initiative to push out the implementation and the programs of u. S. Aid down to the more local level and to the betterment of people in country. But i cant speak to your immediate question, but i can take that question for the record. Wonderful. Did you have a as my colleague has answered well gladly followup with many details for that. Details that demonstrate the breadth and extent of our Education Programs around the world and how in many cases they prioritize access to education to girls, to young women. How we advance programs, economic livelihood types of programs in support of girls and women. We have a wealth of program that help advance thats well and dandy. My question was investment in Family Planning and the access to contraceptions and how we know there is so Much Research that that gives families the ability to have advancement when the girls and the women in the family have an ability to earn an education and enter the workforce. We look forward to following up with you with a detailed followup. Wonderful. Ambassador, i wanted to followup with mr. Lius questions earlier in diversity in hiring and retention. You mentioned earlier that you wanted to take a broad definition of diversity. And i wanted to see whos included within that definition. Are we including people with disabilities . Is that a yes . Im sorry, congresswomen, yes, that is a yes. Does that include the Lgbt Community . Yes, it does. Does it include religious minorities . Religious minorities are protected under the civil rights code, so yes. Are we currently collecting that data for these categories . The Data Collection is done on a volunteer basis, which is one of the struggles. People have to selfidentify. And we do not i believe collect on all of this. I will have to get back to this because im not sure on some categories. Do you think its helpful to collect this data . Does that inform us in some way to make sure were able to diverse few and promote and retain people . I think sometimes it would. I chair the committee that looks at assignments to principle officer positions and deputy chief positions. One thing we look at is diversity. Are we making sure we have the most diverse slate of candidates for every position . 12 people sit on the committee, these are senior level ons we tend to know a lot of these people. Sometimes we know them but times we dont. We left it up to the individual and it could hurt the statistics and sometimes its the person at the table who says i know this is a diverse candidate. We do not have something in place yet. Im sort of on the fence. I dont want to push somebody. Yes, does it hurt people sometimes . Obviously we dont have a really accurate record. I appreciate that. And i hope that were able to look at it because the reason i ask is that i hear muslims leaving this department because of this administrations per received hostility towards the Muslim Community or the Lgbtq Community leaving because of that perceived hostility. So i want to make sure that we have the relative relevant data in regards to retention and see if there are ways that we can make sure that were dealing with that as we go forth. Those that you mentioned are some of the most difficult because its not so obvious. And so, i think thats also an issue. What i would say more generally is our attrition rates are not very high. They are trending on historical levels. Im talking Foreign Service now, not Civil Service. Its 2 at the low levels mid level 4 . You see the spike at senior levels but you have people that age out. Its an up and out system. We have not seen much of a difference. I know i looked at the gender issues. We do keep an eye on that to make sure if theres anything that goes wrong, again trying to understand what the barriers are and making the workforce aware of inclusion as i said, once youre in the door i think the inclusion is so important. So to making sure people are aware of what they do and their actions and how that affects inclusion. I appreciate that and i hope well have a followup conversation on this, i think its important for us to have clear protections put in place for religious minorities and other vulnerable communities so they are able to fully participate in every Single Department within this administration. And i hope that we are able to have the opportunity for us to get the answers to the questions i had asked in regards to Family Planning and how that feeds into the Broader Mission of your department. Thank you. I yield back. Great. Thank you. The gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. Perry is recognized. Thanks, again, mr. Chairman. Following up on those questions, do you conduct exit interviews with the folks that depart the department . We do, but we dont do it for everyone. We dont have a requirement right now. Were moving to an Online System so its easy for everyone to do the exit surveys when they depart. Every Foreign Service officer that resigned, not retired but resigned, we sent them a letter and thanked them for their service. We had the exit surveys attached, some responded some did not. So it was completely voluntary . Yes. The other thing thats important i think we should do stay surveys, not only why people leave because then its too late. We need to figure out why are people staying, what is it thats important about what our organization offers that encourages them to stay . Im concerned because theres a supposition that goes with that that folks are leaving for a certain reason and can you quantify if thats true, if they feel because this administration is something or Something Else that thats why they left . Is that something that can be quantified right here, right now . Not right now because of the voluntary nature of it and its a pen and pencil exercise. We are looking to make this an theres no evidence whatsoever at this time to validate that claim . There might be anecdotal incidents but theres no impeer cal evidence right now to support that claim . Because we do not have a system thats required, we dont have that. The other thing is that Foreign Service and Civil Servant is completely difference in the Foreign Service we have a better handle on whos there and whos not because people resign, they may be overseas we have to bring them back to washington. So we probably have better data for Foreign Service officers. Im not sure were doing the same on the Civil Service side because its one action at a time. My office does not handle all those transactions. Its distributed among many different bureaus in the department. So its not just what data i have, which would be for Foreign Service, but what the rest of the data shows. So we have a ways to go in order to collect the data. At this point in time theres no system overall that would capture that kind of information. Not to be 100 accurate for the entire workforce. Another question i have is part of the problem with chronic vacancies is that Foreign Service officers choose not to go there. And state already has the authority to direct individuals to a post. Do you use that authority . Have you used it . Is there a case youre not using it that we should know about or why you wouldnt use it if if theres a va can si that someone should be or could be directed to the post . I have used the authority in my five months. Its not used frequently, but i do. Its partially because we are in the point of the cycle, most of our vacancies occur in the summer. So people start to bid on positions for next year in the fall. We give the average cycle for that assignment about six months, generally most of the workforce has a job by april. When they dont and it comes time for them to depart their current assignment, i send them letters encouraging them to find a job and if they wont, i will direct them. If people arent able to find jobs for whatever reason we will direct. Were going a different route. We have something called the special Incentive Program. Weve always offered incentives for our aip posts, afghanistan, iraq and pakistan we have generous compensation plans for employees that want to go there. This year were going to start with other unaccompanied posts, cuba, somalia, because we want to get our employees into these places but we understand there are risks. I understand as well. And i dont want to cut you off. I see your mission similar to my mission over the course of my life in the military. There were jobs in posts and positions that i desired, right, and i let my command know those things and i worked towards those things. And when the command said thats great but youre going here and youre going to do this, id say, sir, maam, i would like to blah, blah, blah. Theyd say, thats great youre going where i said. I said, roger sir, roger, maam, i got out and did the best i could. If youre going to work for the United States government and serve, just like i tell young aspiring applicants to one of the academies, youre here for service. You might be a pilot, maybe the army thinks youre a chemical officer, do you want to serve or not. We hope posts arent going unfulfilled because individuals have a personal desire, we get it, but its the needs of the country, nation theyre agreeing to. With the chairs indulgence one more question for mr. Pitkin. Not that you were present when it happened, maybe you were, i dont know. I wonder, were not going to litigate the timing or the coincidence of the payment to iran, but i do wonder where the 1. 7 billion came from. Did it come out of the unobligated funds or did it come from where did that come from . Do you know . Im familiar with the general parameters, my understanding it didnt come from resources, it came from other assets. We can take that back and confirm that. If you could, id like to get a confirmation of where it came from and what time. And who was involved, if you can provide that information. With that, mr. Chair, i yield. Thank you. We each had two rounds of questions. If you have additional questions, i do appreciate your taking the time to come up here. If if i can perhaps just expand on something that mr. Perry talked about, and i think its to the benefit of the members of the committee as well. When we think about state department employees, we have to think about them in two distinct buckets, right, the Foreign Service officers versus the civilian employees. And maybe ambassador perez, if you can expand on the differences there and how we ought to be thinking about that, if we can just take a quick second. Thank you very much. We have two completely different systems. The Foreign Service we have much more flexibility because we are under we have the Foreign Service act of 1980 so we are under title 22. That allows us to go ahead and be much more agile. The Civil Service is obviously not as agile. And sometimes that works against us because we are a foreign National Security agency. So sometimes its really tough when those when policies are promulgated that are for the entire government and were a little bit different. We are trying to look our hardest right now. After five months this is one of my priority areas, Civil Service reform. We want to make sure we keep people in the Civil Service thats another issue, we dont want people to leave. One thing were focussed on right now, could we have tracks to promotion for technical specialists. Now youre limited you have to go to a supervisory position, a lot of people dont want to do it, theyre not very good at it. Were about to start that. We focussed on other things first, the workforce support, those types of things now this is the next call to the workforce with their ideas. Were crowd sourcing this. We want to hear from the workforce to get their best ideas on this. Mr. Levitt, does u. S. Aide have those same as well . We seek to revitalize our Civil Service and Foreign Service we seek to hire approximately 175 Foreign Service officers by the end of next year. This year in terms of the Civil Service we hope to hire or initiate the hiring process for approximately 200 of those. In addition to the Civil Service and Foreign Service we are very much dependent on how we implement programs and funds we receive for that purpose. And the mechanisms we have our vision is to streamline and rationalize them. Thats the adaptive personnel project. Using the chairs prerogative again. Following up on ms. Omars question when the first daughter and ms. Trump talked about her desire to do womens empowerment in africa and her special program shes working on, i did also make the point that they wont get the results, in terms of empowering women if they dont address the issue of pregnancy spacing which is the academic literature is strong on making contraception and various contraception methods very available if you want to get the full effect of empowering women and girls. Mr. Dalton has another question. Just following up on the end of the back and forth with mr. Perry. Do Foreign Military sale payments get made without going through you at all . There are its a program, of course, we manage in cooperation with the department of defense. So they show up on the departments books but its a shared program with dod, in terms of how those sales are recorded between the state and defense books is something we probably have to followup on to reflect that. I think state general manages the assistance side of it. The execution of the sales is a shared dod mission. So its probably better we followup to give you a sense of how the accounting works. Youve been in your current position for a long time, right . Ive been with the bureau about 10 years, ive been the director for about four. Have you had any Foreign Military sales payments go out during that time that didnt come through your office at all . I would say they generally do not come through my office, which i think is why i they dont flow through that part of our budget. Again its a shared program with dod, so its not something shar with dod. So other times as well when Foreign Military sales were made when they dont come through your office . Again, because they dont come through my office in that sense, its not so much a before or after, just sales and programs are really executed as a morbid assistance program. One, i would have to refer to my colleague in office of resources and bureau of Political Military Affairs which does work more closely with dod on those programs. I think they could give you a better sense of accounting on the ledger. Who is the best person for me to talk to in the state department to get an answer on that. A followup but combination of Political Military Affairs an foreign assistance resources. Thank you. Recognize gentlelady from minnesota. Two quick followups. The Incentive Program that you talked about earlier, is that a new initiative . Congresswoman, whattes new about it is that weve expanded it outside of the afghanistan, iraq, pakistan war zones to make sure we have incentives in other places that are really tough for families to be in right now. But the incentive weve had special recognition packages. Weve had them in a variety of posts. What were trying to do is have a more standard type of incentive package available. Would you say its been in effect like a decade, two decades . How long has in places like somalia . Places you currently have. Absolutely. Weve probably had this. Im trying to think, i would guess, since 2005, 2006, more or less, doug may know. More than 10 years. Many masses that people wouldnt go to off go to because of these Incentive Programs, yes . It does. Places that they are leaving families behind, to help support the family, those kind of things. That money is there to help support families when they are separated. And for the kind of vacancies that exist now, have those vacancies existed for a year, two, three, five . What is the longest vacancy that you know of right now that needs to be filled . I cant answer that because we have 25,000 physicians worldwide, so i dont know what that would be. It really is there more vacancies now than lets say three years ago or less vacancies now than three years ago . I would say its probably pretty standard. Thats what gao study showed. At the time the gao study was released, secretary pompeo had not come into office. If we were a little bit short on entry level officers, it was because we had the hiring freeze. Of course after that, we are now well above recooping whatever we would have lost in 2017. So using data from then, i dont know. That report did show its fairly historic. I talked earlier about the fact were in churn all the time, the movement, the training, all these things means youre between posts. Youre not in your old post, youre not in your new. Sometimes it can take up to a year to do that. What our office does is work with the posts and bureaus to make sure we shorten whatever gaps to the smallest part possible. To use the other kinds of hiring authorities and other kinds of personnel we have in the department to help us staff those gaps. And in regards to the collection of the data for religious mississip religious minorities or people lgtbq or disabilities, do you think it is helpful for us to collect that data, to mandate it . You know, i dont know because im not one of those minorities and i dont know how it would feel. Thats my only concern, would i feel its good or bad do you think the knowledge of it creates discrimination . I dont know. I dont know how people would feel. I can tell you sitting here as a woman, i have no problem letting everybody know im a woman. Its kind of hard to hide that. Sometimes people have moved on now to where they are trying to do gender closed kind of evaluations and things. We do it on a volunteer basis. There are boxes you check for male, female. And for diversity as well. The question is do people check those boxes or not. We dont require it. Any of the boxes. Yeah. So the question is do you make people force people to do that or not. Im sorry, personally, this is not a department position, personally i just dont know. I dont know how you feel about forcing somebody to do a qualification they dont know. People lgtbq, binary, different situations, how do they feel protected. I dont have the answer for you, congresswoman, im sorry, on a personal level. Thats wonderful. We can try to Work Together to find the answers. Im also interested in knowing if the exit surveys would be helpful for us to figure out a way to get that information so that it is used to inform improvements for the department. Exit surveys will help us as will state surveys. The more information we have about why people more people why people join, why people stay, and why they leave is absolutely useful. Again, im trying to engage with the workforce as much as i can and i dont we put so much effort into our workforce and they put so much into us, we like to continue that relationship. So obviously the more data driven we are, the more information is better for everyone. Thank you. May i add onto the question with regard to Foreign Service assignments, overseas for us aid. We pulled together an incredibly talented group of Service Officers irrespective of rank and position geographically and we have significantly reformed the way that we do assignments overseas and how we imply existing incentives. As a result of that and the i. T. Tools that we brought to bear in doing so, weve been able to make sure we get staff to fill our most critical positions overseas. We have found that incredibly helpful for us to minimize vacancies overseas particularly for critical positions. With regards to how we motivate staff to stay in the agency, we find the federal Employment Survey to be incredibly powerful for us. Thats why we mandate every operating unit to have an action plan to follow up on the results they get. Perhaps its tied to that. We have seep that over the past four years, each of the past four years, fewer people say they plan to leave over the next year. Maybe theres something to be learned about the way you operate. Thank you. Thank you. I want to thank the witnesses and the members for being here today. With that the committee is adjourned. Live at 2 00 p. M. Carnegie for International Peace holds a discussion on Nuclear Deterrents and legality of nuclear weapons. Live at 5 00 p. M. Eastern, the House Rules Committee needs to set guidelines for debate on a resolution finding attorney general william barr and commerce secretary wilbur ross in contempt of congress for failing to comply with the congressional subpoena over the 2020 census. Watch both events live here on cspan3 or live on the radio app. Tonight on the commune caters, congressman ro khanna. Hes interviewed by Washington Post Technology Reporter craig timberg. People are outraged. I presume still are. Things congress should be doing to keep political campaigns to use our data to change the way we think about our vote in ways we struggle to perceive. Absolutely. We need to pass strong privacy laws. I have an internet bill of rights where articulates a few clear things. We should never have Data Collected without knowing about it in our consent. We should know whats happening to the data. In the Cambridge Analytica case, facebook should have had a responsibility to immediately notify people when they were transferring data. They didnt do that. People have also have been able to inquire what was happening to their data. That wasnt there. I think if you pass a basic protections for people online, you would avoid things like Cambridge Analytica scandal. Watch the communicators tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan2. Form are special Council Robert mueller is scheduled to appear before the house judiciary and intelligence committees on wednesday july 24th. Mr. Mueller issued a subpoena to testify in open session about his report into russian interference in the 2016 election. Watch live coverage wednesday july 24 on cspan3, only cspan. Org or listen on the cspan radio app. Cspans three president ial leadership surveys Woodrow Wilson drops from sixth to 11th place and become rise is from 21st to the 15th spot. Where does your favorite president rank . Learn that and more about the lives and leadership skills of the 44 executives in cspans the president s. Its great vacation reading. Available wherever books are sold or cspan. Org thepreside s cspan. Org thepresident s. In 1979 a Small Network with big idea rolled out an idea, let viewers make up their own minds. Cspan opened up doors of washington bringing for all to see, congress and beyond. A lot has changed in 40 years but today that big idea is more relevant than ever. On television and online, cspan is your unfiltered view of government so you can make up your own mind. Brought to you as a Cable Service by your satellite provider. Now democratic president ial candidates participate in a forum hosted by league of united latin america citizens at the groups annual conviction in milwaukee. Candidates who into include former congressman beto orourke of texas. Massachusetts senator elizabeth warren. Former hud secretary Julian Castro and senator Bernie Sanders of vermont. This is just under two hours. [cheers and applause]