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Team 12’s proposed business plan is written in such a way that is not easy to comment on, so please pardon the length of the following comments. 1. Page 5, the last sentence states: “As the National Research Council noted in its report, Reclamation operations should remain decentralized, but they need to be “guided and restrained” by agency-wide polices and directives and standards which are implemented locally but consistently”. This is different than what the NRC actually wrote. The National Research Council’s (NRC) report stated: “Reclamation’s operations should remain decentralized and guided and restrained by policy but empowered at each level by authority commensurate with assigned responsibility to respond to customer and stakeholder needs”. See page 5 of NRC’s executive summary. Team 12’s statement conflicts with what the NRC wrote about empowering “at each level by authority commensurate with assigned responsibility to respond to customer and stakeholder needs.” By not including NRC’s empowerment statement, Team 12’s statement has the effect of impacting all existing requirements and practices that Reclamation currently has with its local operating Districts under O&M contracts. These operating agreements and contracts contain requirements and practices that in some cases have been in affect for more than 90 years. These contracts are particular to the projects. Team 12 should ensure not to establish policies, and subsequently directives and standards that could be in conflict with Reclamation’s existing O&M contracts and agreements where those policies could have a detrimental affect on the Districts’ ability to fund and staff O&M work. These proposed policies also should not diminish the Districts’ contractual responsibilities either. Team 12 should consider exempting actions that adversely affect operators of transferred works. Perhaps guidelines could be developed rather than policies, directives and standards for the Area Offices to implement whenever the opportunity permits thereby allowing the Area Offices to continue administering their O&M contracts and agreements as written. 2. Page 10 contains a diagram of a Project Maintenance Workflow Process. This diagram does not accurately depict the processes that are particular to transferred works where O&M costs are the sole responsibility of the operating entity (customer) rather than shared with Reclamation. In this case, the O&M program technical work is identified by the customer, funded by the customer, designed by the customer, and constructed by the customer. The diagram should be deleted or revised to recognize this. 3. Page 11 refers to Policy WTR-P05 for formulating operation and maintenance programs. This policy primarily targets projects where Reclamation and water and power contractors share O&M responsibilities. WTR-P05 does not cleanly apply to operators of transferred works who have sole responsibility for all O&M. This should be noted in the report. 4. Page 14, the last paragraph offers an example of tensions between the objective of empowering the program offices versus the business model Team 12 is proposing. It basically states that giving the program offices “broad discretion in how they accomplish the programs for which they are responsible – may conflict with the agency’s need to maintain core capabilities in engineering and other technical disciplines or with the objective of having consistent, transparent decisions (which customers have said they want).” Team 12’s argument is one sided. Team 12’s business model also could equally conflict “with the objective of having consistent, transparent decisions (which customers have said they want).” I’m not convinced that the establishment of the COG, Team 12’s proposed work flow processes, and subsequent appeal processes will be visible and transparent enough since the final decisions on appeals will not be made locally by an established committee/team composing representatives of the operating entity, stake holders, and Reclamation. The appeal process moves the decisions regarding who performs the work from these currently existing locally established teams to the Deputy Commissioner of Operation’s COG. This has the effect of achieving the opposite of what we really should be achieving – good customer relationships, collaboration, visibility, transparency, etc. The NRC recognized some successes with regards to developing these processes at local levels. The following are just reminders of what is contained in the NRC report: NRC report, page 9, Recommendation 5a, “Because effective planning is the key to effective operations and maintenance, Reclamation should identify, adapt, and adopt good practices for inspections and O&M plan development for bureau wide use. Those now in use by the Lower Colorado and Pacific Northwest regions would be good models.” NRC report, page 67, third paragraph, “An example of excellent stakeholder communications was observed by the committee at the Lower Colorado Dams Office.” NRC report, page 69, first paragraph, “Given the success of the planning process in the Lower Colorado region, the committee believes that all regions should develop and use such plans as a stakeholder communications tool and as a roadmap for meeting future requirements.” NRC report, page 104, Finding 8, “The committee believes that the key to effective relationships between Reclamation and its sponsors and stake holders is open communication and an inclusive process for developing measures of success. In addition, the more transparent and consistent the processes used by Reclamation, the easier it will be to obtain buy-in from sponsors and stakeholders. The Lower Colorado Dams Office’s interactions with its coordinating committee of sponsors illustrate the beneficial effects of these factors and their contribution to successful operation of the project.” NRC report, page 104, Recommendation 8, “Making information readily available about processes and practices, both in general and for specific projects and activities, should be a Reclamation priority. Successful practices, such as those used in the Lower Colorado Dams Office, should be analyzed and the lessons learned should be transferred, where practical, throughout the bureau.” These are good examples where empowerment at each level by authority commensurate with assigned responsibility has successfully responded to customer and stakeholder needs. Team 12’s proposed business model will impact these existing successful processes and practices. Team 12’s business model should allow these processes and practices to continue, not alter them with a one-size-fits-all policy. The proper questions to ask are do existing policies and practices achieve visibility and transparency with the local customers/stake holders? Are the local customers and stake holders satisfied with them? Team 12 should reconsider dropping its end goal of developing this very restrictive proposed business plan, and perhaps concentrate on developing tools and roadmaps (guidelines) for good customer collaboration as goals. This would allow the program offices and Regions the flexibility to craft processes and practices that are agreeable by their local customers. 5. Page 15, third paragraph, “Empowerment of the Regions” should also include empowerment of the Area and Program offices as well. Empowerment of the Area and Program offices should also be preserved. 6. Page 16, Team 12 indicates as one of the functions of the COG will be to “Collect and analyze data on workload distribution and performance.” The following phrase should be added: “except where an operating district has sole responsibility for paying for and performing all O&M of a project.” By contract, this responsibility already includes planning, design, construction, contracting, oversight, etc. where these tasks are necessary for successfully performing O&M and even replacement, refurbishment, etc. To require regular and periodic collection of this data on very large districts such as the Salt River Project, or the Central Arizona Project is highly excessive and burdensome, not only on the Area Offices, but on the Districts too. 7. Page 16, Team 12 states: “The team has fashioned the Deputy Commissioner’s COG to be an integral part of the business model without being a bureaucratic layer.” The Deputy Commissioner does not need a COG. The Deputy Commissioner only needs to promulgate policies to the Regional Directors and Area Managers. Reporting could be tailored similar to the requirements of annual dam safety summary reports that the Area Manager’s draft. A less intrusive process can be developed without the establishment of a COG. The proposed COG is a bureaucratic layer. 8. Page 16, Team 12 states that the COG “will have significant workload, especially in the initiation phase, as much effort will be required to ensure consistent implementation of the business model throughout our decentralized organization.” Note that the COG will consist of representatives serving via temporary collateral-duty assignments. Anytime a collateral-duty assignment is required to perform work, the individual performing the collateral-duty is not performing the original work he was tasked to do. This will increase costs, delay the completion and/or affect the quality of that individual’s original assignments. 9. Page 17, Team 12 discusses temporarily increasing staffing levels of the TSC in relation to assigning overflow work. It states: “This overflow work is a desirable and necessary component of maintaining expertise because it provides the learning opportunities entry-level staff must have in order to gain higher level expertise over time.” Note that Team 12 does not include a similar consideration about staffing levels of the Regional and Area offices. The Regional and Area offices will require some sort of succession planning and methods for achieving it as well and therefore, Team 12 should also recognize this fact. This includes allowing the Regional and Area offices to selectively staff for greater amounts of work similar to what is being allowed by the TSC for short times too. Team 12’s business plan seems to be overly favorable to the TSC in these regards. 10. Page 17, first paragraph under (2) Fee-for-Service, Team 12 states “The objectives to be cost-effective, transparent, and accountable will be addressed through establishing a consistent fee-for-service practice for all engineering and other technical services across Reclamation.” Team 12 should recognize that this should not include engineering and technical services currently being performed by our transferred work O&M contractors who should be exempt from these policies. Many of our O&M contractors are already performing this work at no cost to Reclamation. 11. Page 19, first paragraph, Team 12 states “Reclamation’s safety of dams program provides the best example of how advance planning and careful communication between a program office and multiple service providers (both in the TSC and in regional offices) produces efficient staff utilization, good accomplishment, and accountability and transparency.” Recently, this Area Office experienced the opposite. The TSC chose to outsource a CFR for one of this area offices dams. The field examination took place in March 2007. We are still waiting for the final report. Communications have not been very smooth. Costs of performing the CFR that should have been applied to FY07 appropriations are now being shifted to FY08 appropriations. This affects this area offices budget which could not have anticipated these delays and problems. We sincerely hope that this is an isolated instance and does not re-occur very often. In practice, the safety of dams program should be a good example for scheduling work, especially when the CFR schedule is basically set (6 year cycle), foreseeable, and under normal circumstances, easy to plan and budget for. Of course, this will not be the case if the TSC chooses to outsource more CFRs. 12. Page 19, Team 12 desires to receive public input on Alternative 1 for workflow distribution. Both Alternatives are not desirable; however, Alternative 1 is easily the least desirable of the two. 13. Page 19, last paragraph, Team 12 indicates that the COG is important to the success of either alternative and “would be a central mechanism for ensuring that Reclamation has the data and processes it needs to achieve the objectives of assessing core capability and strategically selecting work to be contracted out.” The Deputy Commissioner should be able to meet with the Regional Directors (RD) and Area Managers (AM) to get this same information for assessing core capability without establishment of a COG. Also, Team 12 has yet to define or provide examples of Reclamation’s core capability. 14. Page 20, second paragraph, “Once developed, the “Guidance Document” would be modified and updated upon recommendation of the COG and acceptance of the DCO.” The Regional and Area Offices should have the opportunity to review and comment on any modifications to the “Guidance Document” before accepted by the DCO. The proposed and yet to be drafted Guidance Document has the potential of removing or effecting the RD’s and AM’s responsibilities. From this page on, the “Guidance Document” is mentioned very frequently but has not been provided for review and comment. It is difficult to see the full effects of Team 12’s proposal when this proposal relies so heavily on a “Guidance Document” that is not yet available for review. Team 12’s proposed action plan should not be implemented until the “Guidance Document” has received the same level of review as well. 15. Page 21, the Alternative 1 workflow decision flowchart shows that if workload exceeds TSC’s “valleys”, it is then outsourced by TSC. I disagree with this workflow decision. If the workload was originated in either the Regional/Area/Program Offices, and if the workload exceeds TSC’s “valleys”, then the workload should go back to the office it originated in for disposition (perform in-house, outsource, or terminate). This is recognizing that every time workload is evaluated for estimating and performance by either the Regional Office or TSC, that the funding that workload came with would be incrementally reduced in preparing for such cost estimating and evaluation. There may not be funding left for completion, even if it is determined to be outsourced. It’s likely that decisions made by the TSC could place the Regional/Area/Program office in an anti-deficient position. It’s possible, that after the Regional Office and TSC provided the necessary cost estimates and evaluation, that the workload would be deferred or terminated due to lack of sufficient funds. 16. Page 22, for Alternative 2, Team 12 states: “Direct outsourcing of workload (only when contrary to the Guidance Document or overflow workload distribution process) by the program office would be permitted, but not without first soliciting proposals for the workload from Reclamation service providers.” To be fair, the TSC through the Dam Safety Office should also be included under the umbrella of these requirements as well, especially when outsourcing CFR’s. This would allow the Regional and Area Offices to compete for that work which the TSC out sources and provide opportunities for enhancing technical expertise in the Regional and Area Offices along with providing training opportunities for succession planning efforts. Opportunities for performing overflow workload should be a two-way street. Please note that by outsourcing CFR’s, the TSC has already determined that conducting CFR’s is not an inherently governmental capability, thereby raising the question of whether conducting CFRs is a core capability. 17. Page 22, Team 12 states: “Direct distribution of workload to the region (area office or regional office) when the Guidance Document would have directed the work to the TSC would also be permitted, but not without first soliciting a proposal from the TSC before performing the work within the region.” Who pays for the TSC to develop a proposal? How long does the TSC have to develop the proposal? This is a burdensome cost of doing business if adopted. The effects of this requirement are too similar to the effects of Alternative 1. 18. Page 22, Team 12 states the following: “If the program office chooses to outsource work, and the TSC service provider is interested and capable, then….” Who determines if the TSC service provider is interested and capable? How much time should this decision take? Shouldn’t cost also be a consideration too? Who pays for determining this? 19. Page 22, Team 12 states the following: “Program office would document the reason(s) for its decision not to use the TSC and provide that documentation to the COG and the TSC service provider.” There’s going to be a cost of reviewing this document, especially if the COG has 30 or so members. This is assuming that the COG members will not be of the GS-4 variety. Let’s say four hours for review multiplied by 30 members is 120 staff hours applied to Reclamation’s highest hourly rates. Who pays for this? This would kill small funded projects/programs. 20. Page 22, Team 12 states the following: “The TSC service providers denied work could protest the decision of the program office to the COG.” At what point will a protest be considered too late? Who pays for the protest, the program office or the TSC overhead accounts? The program office will have to consider if its decisions can survive a protest. It won’t be long before a program office will seek some sort of deal with certain TSC service providers in order to survive/avoid a possible protest. This could lead to a corruptible and broken agency. 21. Page 22, Team 12 states the following: “The COG would have the discretion to request the DCO to override the program office’s decision.” This implies that the Regional/Area/Program offices need approval from the COG in order to begin the work. How much time does this take? Who pays for this? What if the work is already underway via a contract or binding agreement? This is one of the many reasons why the proposed COG is an additional bureaucratic layer because Team 12 has positioned the COG to be one of the primary decision makers. 22. Page 22, Team 12 states the following: “The DCO consults with the involved regional director, with the Director of the TSC (if applicable), and with the affected customer (if applicable), and then either upholds or overrides the decision.” How much time does this take? Note the players here, the DCO, regional director, director of the TSC, all very highly paid positions. Doesn’t the DCO, regional directors, and director of the TSC have more important issues to address? Who pays for this consultation? Can everyone see a pattern developing between comment #17 and #22 related to cost and how intrusive this work plan could be to program accomplishment not to mention the time of our RD’s? The Regional/Area/Program offices must maintain their existing flexibility to accomplish their work. That’s what the current budgets are set up for. The review and appeal process outlined by Team 12’s Alternative 2 – Workflow Decision Flowchart is simply too time consuming and costly in terms of funding and even Reclamation’s credibility. It basically establishes a tax that will be indirectly applied to all programs and projects. All the funding for a typical small program could be consumed in this review and appeal process with no program accomplishment. Any program or project scheduled to begin late in a fiscal year may not be initiated on time and the possibility of its associated funding could be lost during typical end of fiscal year fund transfers/shifting or sent back to the Treasury. This is especially acute when we are under ever longer continuing resolutions every year. If this policy is adopted, the DCO and COG should be held accountable if a particular program is delayed, experiences funding shortfalls, or fails. Is the Regional/Area/Program office responsible for paying for an appeal even after the DCO decides in favor of the Regional/Area/Program offices decision to perform the work in-house or contract it out? There has to be some accountability assigned to the DCO and COG, and those in the TSC filing appeals, especially when accomplishing the work will no longer be under the control of the Regional/Area/Program offices. If a poor decision is made by the DCO, COG, and/or TSC, they should be held accountable and made to reimburse those costs charged to the Regional/Area/Program offices. 23. Page 23, the Alternative 2 workflow decision flowchart shows that if workload exceeds TSC’s “valleys”, it is then outsourced by TSC. I disagree with this workflow decision. If the workload was originated in the Regional/Area/Program offices, and if the workload exceeds TSC’s “valleys”, then the workload should go back to the office it originated in for disposition (perform in-house, outsource, or terminate). This is recognizing that every time workload is evaluated for estimating and performance by either the Regional Office or TSC, that the funding that workload came with would be incrementally reduced in preparing for such cost estimating and evaluation. There may not be funding left for completion, even if it is determined to be outsourced. It’s likely that decisions made by the DSO and the COG, or TSC could place the Regional/Area/Program office in an anti-deficient position. It’s possible, that after the Regional Office and TSC provided the necessary cost estimates and evaluations, that the workload would be deferred or terminated due to lack sufficient funds. 24. Starting from this day forward, as a program manager, I have no choice but to begin closely scrutinizing TSC’s work product/performance by individual, and document, and document, and document. This will provide me the necessary backup to help protect against a TSC protest should the need arise in the future. Besides, Team 12's proposed business plan requires it - see comment #19. Can the TSC protest against itself? Every office has its star performers and its drift wood. I wish to continue to seek the best the TSC has to offer. I don’t look forward to someone requiring me to use the worst the TSC has to offer. Team 12’s proposed business plan puts the TSC under a much bigger magnifying glass than it already is in. Is this what the TSC really wants? As a regular customer of the TSC, it’s not what I want.	11/09/2007

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Team 12’s proposed business plan is written in such a way that is not easy to comment on, so please pardon the length of the following comments.

1. Page 5, the last sentence states: “As the National Research Council noted in its report, Reclamation operations should remain decentralized, but they need to be “guided and restrained” by agency-wide polices and directives and standards which are implemented locally but consistently”. This is different than what the NRC actually wrote. The National Research Council’s (NRC) report stated: “Reclamation’s operations should remain decentralized and guided and restrained by policy but empowered at each level by authority commensurate with assigned responsibility to respond to customer and stakeholder needs”. See page 5 of NRC’s executive summary.

Team 12’s statement conflicts with what the NRC wrote about empowering “at each level by authority commensurate with assigned responsibility to respond to customer and stakeholder needs.” By not including NRC’s empowerment statement, Team 12’s statement has the effect of impacting all existing requirements and practices that Reclamation currently has with its local operating Districts under O&M contracts. These operating agreements and contracts contain requirements and practices that in some cases have been in affect for more than 90 years. These contracts are particular to the projects. Team 12 should ensure not to establish policies, and subsequently directives and standards that could be in conflict with Reclamation’s existing O&M contracts and agreements where those policies could have a detrimental affect on the Districts’ ability to fund and staff O&M work. These proposed policies also should not diminish the Districts’ contractual responsibilities either. Team 12 should consider exempting actions that adversely affect operators of transferred works. Perhaps guidelines could be developed rather than policies, directives and standards for the Area Offices to implement whenever the opportunity permits thereby allowing the Area Offices to continue administering their O&M contracts and agreements as written.

2. Page 10 contains a diagram of a Project Maintenance Workflow Process. This diagram does not accurately depict the processes that are particular to transferred works where O&M costs are the sole responsibility of the operating entity (customer) rather than shared with Reclamation. In this case, the O&M program technical work is identified by the customer, funded by the customer, designed by the customer, and constructed by the customer. The diagram should be deleted or revised to recognize this.

3. Page 11 refers to Policy WTR-P05 for formulating operation and maintenance programs. This policy primarily targets projects where Reclamation and water and power contractors share O&M responsibilities. WTR-P05 does not cleanly apply to operators of transferred works who have sole responsibility for all O&M. This should be noted in the report.

4. Page 14, the last paragraph offers an example of tensions between the objective of empowering the program offices versus the business model Team 12 is proposing. It basically states that giving the program offices “broad discretion in how they accomplish the programs for which they are responsible – may conflict with the agency’s need to maintain core capabilities in engineering and other technical disciplines or with the objective of having consistent, transparent decisions (which customers have said they want).” Team 12’s argument is one sided. Team 12’s business model also could equally conflict “with the objective of having consistent, transparent decisions (which customers have said they want).” I’m not convinced that the establishment of the COG, Team 12’s proposed work flow processes, and subsequent appeal processes will be visible and transparent enough since the final decisions on appeals will not be made locally by an established committee/team composing representatives of the operating entity, stake holders, and Reclamation. The appeal process moves the decisions regarding who performs the work from these currently existing locally established teams to the Deputy Commissioner of Operation’s COG. This has the effect of achieving the opposite of what we really should be achieving – good customer relationships, collaboration, visibility, transparency, etc.

The NRC recognized some successes with regards to developing these processes at local levels. The following are just reminders of what is contained in the NRC report:

NRC report, page 9, Recommendation 5a, “Because effective planning is the key to effective operations and maintenance, Reclamation should identify, adapt, and adopt good practices for inspections and O&M plan development for bureau wide use. Those now in use by the Lower Colorado and Pacific Northwest regions would be good models.”

NRC report, page 67, third paragraph, “An example of excellent stakeholder communications was observed by the committee at the Lower Colorado Dams Office.”

NRC report, page 69, first paragraph, “Given the success of the planning process in the Lower Colorado region, the committee believes that all regions should develop and use such plans as a stakeholder communications tool and as a roadmap for meeting future requirements.”

NRC report, page 104, Finding 8, “The committee believes that the key to effective relationships between Reclamation and its sponsors and stake holders is open communication and an inclusive process for developing measures of success. In addition, the more transparent and consistent the processes used by Reclamation, the easier it will be to obtain buy-in from sponsors and stakeholders. The Lower Colorado Dams Office’s interactions with its coordinating committee of sponsors illustrate the beneficial effects of these factors and their contribution to successful operation of the project.”

NRC report, page 104, Recommendation 8, “Making information readily available about processes and practices, both in general and for specific projects and activities, should be a Reclamation priority. Successful practices, such as those used in the Lower Colorado Dams Office, should be analyzed and the lessons learned should be transferred, where practical, throughout the bureau.”

These are good examples where empowerment at each level by authority commensurate with assigned responsibility has successfully responded to customer and stakeholder needs. Team 12’s proposed business model will impact these existing successful processes and practices. Team 12’s business model should allow these processes and practices to continue, not alter them with a one-size-fits-all policy. The proper questions to ask are do existing policies and practices achieve visibility and transparency with the local customers/stake holders? Are the local customers and stake holders satisfied with them? Team 12 should reconsider dropping its end goal of developing this very restrictive proposed business plan, and perhaps concentrate on developing tools and roadmaps (guidelines) for good customer collaboration as goals. This would allow the program offices and Regions the flexibility to craft processes and practices that are agreeable by their local customers.

5. Page 15, third paragraph, “Empowerment of the Regions” should also include empowerment of the Area and Program offices as well. Empowerment of the Area and Program offices should also be preserved.

6. Page 16, Team 12 indicates as one of the functions of the COG will be to “Collect and analyze data on workload distribution and performance.” The following phrase should be added: “except where an operating district has sole responsibility for paying for and performing all O&M of a project.” By contract, this responsibility already includes planning, design, construction, contracting, oversight, etc. where these tasks are necessary for successfully performing O&M and even replacement, refurbishment, etc. To require regular and periodic collection of this data on very large districts such as the Salt River Project, or the Central Arizona Project is highly excessive and burdensome, not only on the Area Offices, but on the Districts too.

7. Page 16, Team 12 states: “The team has fashioned the Deputy Commissioner’s COG to be an integral part of the business model without being a bureaucratic layer.” The Deputy Commissioner does not need a COG. The Deputy Commissioner only needs to promulgate policies to the Regional Directors and Area Managers. Reporting could be tailored similar to the requirements of annual dam safety summary reports that the Area Manager’s draft. A less intrusive process can be developed without the establishment of a COG. The proposed COG is a bureaucratic layer.

8. Page 16, Team 12 states that the COG “will have significant workload, especially in the initiation phase, as much effort will be required to ensure consistent implementation of the business model throughout our decentralized organization.” Note that the COG will consist of representatives serving via temporary collateral-duty assignments. Anytime a collateral-duty assignment is required to perform work, the individual performing the collateral-duty is not performing the original work he was tasked to do. This will increase costs, delay the completion and/or affect the quality of that individual’s original assignments.

9. Page 17, Team 12 discusses temporarily increasing staffing levels of the TSC in relation to assigning overflow work. It states: “This overflow work is a desirable and necessary component of maintaining expertise because it provides the learning opportunities entry-level staff must have in order to gain higher level expertise over time.” Note that Team 12 does not include a similar consideration about staffing levels of the Regional and Area offices. The Regional and Area offices will require some sort of succession planning and methods for achieving it as well and therefore, Team 12 should also recognize this fact. This includes allowing the Regional and Area offices to selectively staff for greater amounts of work similar to what is being allowed by the TSC for short times too. Team 12’s business plan seems to be overly favorable to the TSC in these regards.

10. Page 17, first paragraph under (2) Fee-for-Service, Team 12 states “The objectives to be cost-effective, transparent, and accountable will be addressed through establishing a consistent fee-for-service practice for all engineering and other technical services across Reclamation.” Team 12 should recognize that this should not include engineering and technical services currently being performed by our transferred work O&M contractors who should be exempt from these policies. Many of our O&M contractors are already performing this work at no cost to Reclamation.

11. Page 19, first paragraph, Team 12 states “Reclamation’s safety of dams program provides the best example of how advance planning and careful communication between a program office and multiple service providers (both in the TSC and in regional offices) produces efficient staff utilization, good accomplishment, and accountability and transparency.” Recently, this Area Office experienced the opposite. The TSC chose to outsource a CFR for one of this area offices dams. The field examination took place in March 2007. We are still waiting for the final report. Communications have not been very smooth. Costs of performing the CFR that should have been applied to FY07 appropriations are now being shifted to FY08 appropriations. This affects this area offices budget which could not have anticipated these delays and problems. We sincerely hope that this is an isolated instance and does not re-occur very often. In practice, the safety of dams program should be a good example for scheduling work, especially when the CFR schedule is basically set (6 year cycle), foreseeable, and under normal circumstances, easy to plan and budget for. Of course, this will not be the case if the TSC chooses to outsource more CFRs.

12. Page 19, Team 12 desires to receive public input on Alternative 1 for workflow distribution. Both Alternatives are not desirable; however, Alternative 1 is easily the least desirable of the two.

13. Page 19, last paragraph, Team 12 indicates that the COG is important to the success of either alternative and “would be a central mechanism for ensuring that Reclamation has the data and processes it needs to achieve the objectives of assessing core capability and strategically selecting work to be contracted out.” The Deputy Commissioner should be able to meet with the Regional Directors (RD) and Area Managers (AM) to get this same information for assessing core capability without establishment of a COG. Also, Team 12 has yet to define or provide examples of Reclamation’s core capability.

14. Page 20, second paragraph, “Once developed, the “Guidance Document” would be modified and updated upon recommendation of the COG and acceptance of the DCO.” The Regional and Area Offices should have the opportunity to review and comment on any modifications to the “Guidance Document” before accepted by the DCO. The proposed and yet to be drafted Guidance Document has the potential of removing or effecting the RD’s and AM’s responsibilities. From this page on, the “Guidance Document” is mentioned very frequently but has not been provided for review and comment. It is difficult to see the full effects of Team 12’s proposal when this proposal relies so heavily on a “Guidance Document” that is not yet available for review. Team 12’s proposed action plan should not be implemented until the “Guidance Document” has received the same level of review as well.

15. Page 21, the Alternative 1 workflow decision flowchart shows that if workload exceeds TSC’s “valleys”, it is then outsourced by TSC. I disagree with this workflow decision. If the workload was originated in either the Regional/Area/Program Offices, and if the workload exceeds TSC’s “valleys”, then the workload should go back to the office it originated in for disposition (perform in-house, outsource, or terminate). This is recognizing that every time workload is evaluated for estimating and performance by either the Regional Office or TSC, that the funding that workload came with would be incrementally reduced in preparing for such cost estimating and evaluation. There may not be funding left for completion, even if it is determined to be outsourced. It’s likely that decisions made by the TSC could place the Regional/Area/Program office in an anti-deficient position. It’s possible, that after the Regional Office and TSC provided the necessary cost estimates and evaluation, that the workload would be deferred or terminated due to lack of sufficient funds.

16. Page 22, for Alternative 2, Team 12 states: “Direct outsourcing of workload (only when contrary to the Guidance Document or overflow workload distribution process) by the program office would be permitted, but not without first soliciting proposals for the workload from Reclamation service providers.” To be fair, the TSC through the Dam Safety Office should also be included under the umbrella of these requirements as well, especially when outsourcing CFR’s. This would allow the Regional and Area Offices to compete for that work which the TSC out sources and provide opportunities for enhancing technical expertise in the Regional and Area Offices along with providing training opportunities for succession planning efforts. Opportunities for performing overflow workload should be a two-way street. Please note that by outsourcing CFR’s, the TSC has already determined that conducting CFR’s is not an inherently governmental capability, thereby raising the question of whether conducting CFRs is a core capability.

17. Page 22, Team 12 states: “Direct distribution of workload to the region (area office or regional office) when the Guidance Document would have directed the work to the TSC would also be permitted, but not without first soliciting a proposal from the TSC before performing the work within the region.” Who pays for the TSC to develop a proposal? How long does the TSC have to develop the proposal? This is a burdensome cost of doing business if adopted. The effects of this requirement are too similar to the effects of Alternative 1.

18. Page 22, Team 12 states the following: “If the program office chooses to outsource work, and the TSC service provider is interested and capable, then….” Who determines if the TSC service provider is interested and capable? How much time should this decision take? Shouldn’t cost also be a consideration too? Who pays for determining this?

19. Page 22, Team 12 states the following: “Program office would document the reason(s) for its decision not to use the TSC and provide that documentation to the COG and the TSC service provider.” There’s going to be a cost of reviewing this document, especially if the COG has 30 or so members. This is assuming that the COG members will not be of the GS-4 variety. Let’s say four hours for review multiplied by 30 members is 120 staff hours applied to Reclamation’s highest hourly rates. Who pays for this? This would kill small funded projects/programs.

20. Page 22, Team 12 states the following: “The TSC service providers denied work could protest the decision of the program office to the COG.” At what point will a protest be considered too late? Who pays for the protest, the program office or the TSC overhead accounts? The program office will have to consider if its decisions can survive a protest. It won’t be long before a program office will seek some sort of deal with certain TSC service providers in order to survive/avoid a possible protest. This could lead to a corruptible and broken agency.

21. Page 22, Team 12 states the following: “The COG would have the discretion to request the DCO to override the program office’s decision.” This implies that the Regional/Area/Program offices need approval from the COG in order to begin the work. How much time does this take? Who pays for this? What if the work is already underway via a contract or binding agreement? This is one of the many reasons why the proposed COG is an additional bureaucratic layer because Team 12 has positioned the COG to be one of the primary decision makers.

22. Page 22, Team 12 states the following: “The DCO consults with the involved regional director, with the Director of the TSC (if applicable), and with the affected customer (if applicable), and then either upholds or overrides the decision.” How much time does this take? Note the players here, the DCO, regional director, director of the TSC, all very highly paid positions. Doesn’t the DCO, regional directors, and director of the TSC have more important issues to address? Who pays for this consultation?

Can everyone see a pattern developing between comment #17 and #22 related to cost and how intrusive this work plan could be to program accomplishment not to mention the time of our RD’s? The Regional/Area/Program offices must maintain their existing flexibility to accomplish their work. That’s what the current budgets are set up for. The review and appeal process outlined by Team 12’s Alternative 2 – Workflow Decision Flowchart is simply too time consuming and costly in terms of funding and even Reclamation’s credibility. It basically establishes a tax that will be indirectly applied to all programs and projects. All the funding for a typical small program could be consumed in this review and appeal process with no program accomplishment. Any program or project scheduled to begin late in a fiscal year may not be initiated on time and the possibility of its associated funding could be lost during typical end of fiscal year fund transfers/shifting or sent back to the Treasury. This is especially acute when we are under ever longer continuing resolutions every year.

If this policy is adopted, the DCO and COG should be held accountable if a particular program is delayed, experiences funding shortfalls, or fails. Is the Regional/Area/Program office responsible for paying for an appeal even after the DCO decides in favor of the Regional/Area/Program offices decision to perform the work in-house or contract it out? There has to be some accountability assigned to the DCO and COG, and those in the TSC filing appeals, especially when accomplishing the work will no longer be under the control of the Regional/Area/Program offices. If a poor decision is made by the DCO, COG, and/or TSC, they should be held accountable and made to reimburse those costs charged to the Regional/Area/Program offices.

23. Page 23, the Alternative 2 workflow decision flowchart shows that if workload exceeds TSC’s “valleys”, it is then outsourced by TSC. I disagree with this workflow decision. If the workload was originated in the Regional/Area/Program offices, and if the workload exceeds TSC’s “valleys”, then the workload should go back to the office it originated in for disposition (perform in-house, outsource, or terminate). This is recognizing that every time workload is evaluated for estimating and performance by either the Regional Office or TSC, that the funding that workload came with would be incrementally reduced in preparing for such cost estimating and evaluation. There may not be funding left for completion, even if it is determined to be outsourced. It’s likely that decisions made by the DSO and the COG, or TSC could place the Regional/Area/Program office in an anti-deficient position. It’s possible, that after the Regional Office and TSC provided the necessary cost estimates and evaluations, that the workload would be deferred or terminated due to lack sufficient funds.

24. Starting from this day forward, as a program manager, I have no choice but to begin closely scrutinizing TSC’s work product/performance by individual, and document, and document, and document. This will provide me the necessary backup to help protect against a TSC protest should the need arise in the future. Besides, Team 12's proposed business plan requires it - see comment #19. Can the TSC protest against itself? Every office has its star performers and its drift wood. I wish to continue to seek the best the TSC has to offer. I don’t look forward to someone requiring me to use the worst the TSC has to offer. Team 12’s proposed business plan puts the TSC under a much bigger magnifying glass than it already is in. Is this what the TSC really wants? As a regular customer of the TSC, it’s not what I want.

11/09/2007