Federal Daily - June 12, 2008

DOT OIG Says FAA Needs to Bolster Controller Training

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) needs to improve its badly fragmented air traffic controller facility training program as demand for staff increases, said a Department of Transportation (DOT) Office of Inspector General (OIG) report. The OIG report, dated June 5, noted that FAA’s facility training program continues to be extremely decentralized, and that the efficiency and quality of training varies from one location to another. FAA is under increasing pressure to ramp up its training program as it prepares to hire and train 17,000 new controllers through 2017. The OIG also recommended that the agency establish realistic standards for the number of “developmental” controllers that facilities can accommodate. New graduates of the FAA Academy assigned to air traffic control facilities are classified as developmental controllers until they complete all the necessary requirements to be certified for all of the air traffic control positions within a defined area of a certain facility. Although developmental controllers comprise more than 25 percent of the national controller work force—up from 15 percent in 2004—many facility managers, training officers and union officials told the OIG that the proportion should be much lower. The OIG also suggested that the FAA ensure training standards address individual facilities’ capacity and encourage veteran controllers to transfer to busier, higher-level facilities. To see more, go to: www.oig.dot.gov/StreamFile?file=/data/pdfdocs/av2008055.pdf.

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Arbitrator Rules Against Air Force Uniform Requirements

An arbitrator has ruled in favor of a group of Air Force reservists at Whiteman Air Force Base who complained that a new Air Force regulation unfairly forced them to wear military uniforms while in civilian status performing civilian duties. The complaint was filed by Air Reserve Technician (ART) employees and their union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). They said the new military dress rules—established in 2007—threatened their ART dual status and violated their union contract. The arbitrator ruled that “the record contains no demonstrable evidence about the practical positive effects [of wearing uniforms], if any, on ARTs’ civilian work duties or the Air Force’s mission.” AFGE applauded the ruling. “This costly, ridiculous tactic of the DoD to manipulate and control federal civilian employees has failed,” AFGE President John Gage said in a June 10 statement. “To imply that one needs to wear a uniform in order to be patriotic and ‘fit in’ is absurd.” To see more, go to: www.afge.org/Index.cfm?Page=PressReleases&PressReleaseID=860.

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GAO: Army Needs to Improve Pre-deployment Medical Monitoring

The Army needs to upgrade the monitoring system that checks the pre-deployment status of soldiers with medical conditions that require certain duty limitations, said a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report issued June 10. GAO looked at how well the Army was adhering to its medical and deployment requirements regarding decisions to send soldiers with medical conditions to Iraq and Afghanistan. The report concluded that the Army lacks enforcement mechanisms to ensure that all requirements are met, and that medical record keeping problems obstruct the service’s ability to oversee the conditions of affected soldiers. GAO estimates that 3 percent of soldiers deployed from Forts Benning, Stewart and Drum who had medical designations that required some accommodations did not receive the necessary board evaluations prior to being sent overseas. Also, soldiers in some cases were not evaluated because commanders lacked timely access to their medical profiles. The Army also had problems with retention and completeness of profiles, the report noted. Although Army guidance mandates that approved profiles be retained in soldiers’ medical records, 213 profiles were missing from a sample of 685 records GAO reviewed, the report said. To see more, go to: www.gao.gov/highlights/d08546high.pdf.

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