November 17, 2000 DO-00-043 MEMORANDUM TO: Designated Agency Ethics Officials, General Counsels and Inspectors General FROM: Amy L. Comstock Director SUBJECT: Program Plan of Agency Reviews for Calendar Year 2001 Attached for your information is the program plan of agency ethics reviews scheduled by the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) for calendar year 2001. This is to inform you of our schedule for the year and to allow you time to make revisions to your program as may be necessary. There will also be an opportunity for you to meet with OGE staff to discuss our program review objectives and procedures. We are sensitive to your increased workload during the coming transition year. We have scheduled military units and agencies with fewer political appointees in the first half of the year, leaving most departmental reviews for the second half. The Designated Agency Ethics Official (DAEO) will be contacted by phone approximately one month prior to our entrance into the agency. If our review would unduly disrupt your transition workload, please call Ed Pratt, Chief, Program Review Division, at 202-208-8000, extension 1115, to discuss rescheduling. We will attempt as much as possible to follow the schedule set forth in the attachment. However, as past experience has shown, the schedule may change due to complex issues that occur during reviews, transition workload, or other priority work within OGE. If reviews from the first quarter are rescheduled, we may pull agencies from later quarters and review them earlier. Certain reviews that were not completed last year are included for review early in 2001. To assist those of you who wish to become more familiar with our program review procedures, our analysts will hold two brown-bag luncheons to discuss procedures and answer any of your questions. If you are interested in attending one of these luncheons on either Wednesday, January 10, or Thursday, February 1, 2001, please call Ilene Cranisky on 202-208-8000, extension 1218. Attendance is open to all agencies, whether or not the agency is scheduled for review in 2001. One element we will be examining this year is whether all public financial disclosure reports for Presidential appointees have been filed, reviewed and certified, and where applicable, have been transmitted to OGE. This will include past annual and termination reports filed in the prior year (2000), as well as reports for new officials. We also will examine whether new Presidential appointees have received their initial ethics training. Our usual practice, once a review has been completed, is to send a report to the DAEO with recommendations for improving the program. We ask that the DAEO respond to our recommendations within 60 days as to the actions he/she has taken or plans to take. We do not send our reports to the Congress, but occasionally a Congressional committee will request a report of an agency under its jurisdiction. These requests are granted and the agency DAEO is informed that we have received such a request. We do not send copies of our reports to the news media, nor issue press releases concerning the reports. Periodically, we do release reports to the news media in response to Freedom of Information Act requests. We are continuing our program review evaluation form for you to complete after you receive the report. We ask that you take a few moments to provide us with feedback on the usefulness of our reviews and reports, and identify areas for improvement. Thank you for all the comments you gave us this past year; they have been extremely useful in modifying our review techniques. We hope that this answers some of your questions concerning our program review process. Should you have any other questions, please call Jack Covaleski, Senior Associate Director for Agency Programs, at 202-208-8000, extension 1120. Attachment ___________________________________________________________________ OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT ETHICS CALENDAR YEAR 2001 PROGRAM PLAN OF AGENCY REVIEWS __________________________________________________________________ PROGRAM REVIEW SCHEDULE JANUARY - MARCH 2001 1. Appalachian Regional Commission 2. U.S. Army - Aberdeen Proving Ground (MD) Test and Evaluation Command Chemical and Biological Defense Command Garrison 3. Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA) 4. U.S. Army - Fort Irwin (CA) National Training Center Garrison 5. Robins Air Force Base (GA) Air Force Reserve Command Air Logistics Center 6. Social Security Administration 7. National Security Agency/Central Security Service 8. McGuire Air Force Base (NJ) 305th Air Mobility Wing Air Mobility Warfare Center 21st Air Force 9. Federal Emergency Management Agency 10. Department of the Navy Activities (Jacksonville, FL) Navy Public Works Center Fleet Industrial Supply Center Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion and Repair Naval Region Southeast ___________________________________________________________________ PROGRAM REVIEW SCHEDULE APRIL - JUNE 2001 1. Federal Housing Finance Board 2. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission 3. Department of the Navy Activities (WA) Naval Submarine Base Seattle (Bangor) Naval Engineering Field Activity Northwest (Poulsbo) Fleet Industrial Supply Center (Bremerton) 4. Trade and Development Agency 5. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base (AZ) 355th Wing 12th Air Force Headquarters Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center (AMARC) 6. Commission of Fine Arts 7. Federal Trade Commission 8. Inter-American Foundation 9. American Forces Information Service (AFIS) 10. Kelly Air Force Base (TX) Air Force News Agency San Antonio Air Logistics Center Air Intelligence Agency Joint Electronic Warfare Center ______________________________________________________________________ PROGRAM REVIEW SCHEDULE JULY - SEPTEMBER 2001 1. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Commerce) 2. Department of Agriculture Office of the Secretary Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Food and Nutrition Service Agricultural Research Service U.S. Forest Service 3. Consumer Product Safety Commission 4. Department of the Army Office of the Secretary Office of the Chief of Staff U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Command 5. Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation (AZ) 6. Department of the Air Force Office of the Secretary Air Staff Air Force District of Washington 7. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations 8. African Development Foundation 9. Department of the Treasury Office of the Secretary U.S. Mint Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Financial Management Service 10. Patent and Trademark Office (Commerce) ________________________________________________________________ PROGRAM REVIEW SCHEDULE OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2001 1. Department of the Navy Office of the Secretary Naval District of Washington Office of the Chief of Naval Operations Naval Facilities Engineering Command Strategic Systems Program Office 2. Department of Defense Office of the Secretary Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Joint Chiefs of Staff Defense Science Board Office of Inspector General 3. Commodity Futures Trading Commission 4. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board 5. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Labor) 6. Federal Election Commission 7. Defense Intelligence Agency 8. Bureau of Prisons (Justice) 9. National Institute of Standards and Technology (Commerce) 10. Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Federal Railroad Administration Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation __________________________________________________________________ SPECIAL PROJECTS 1. Review of agency use of 18 U.S.C. § 208(b)(1) and (b)(3) waivers, and the consultation process with OGE. This review will be an overall assessment of the waiver process, including OGE's role. We will examine criteria for, and agency concerns with, the issuance of waivers. We will examine unique problems agencies encounter when issuing waivers for advisory committee members. While we will review some waivers, this is not an attempt to determine the appropriateness of agency waivers, but an in-depth look at the process and how it can be improved. 2. Review of ethics issues surrounding the 2001 transition process. In this review we want to interview ethics officials to determine what unique issues they faced during the transition process and how the process may be improved. This will include not only the nominee financial disclosure process, but also the collection of termination reports from the outgoing administration, the initial ethics training of new Presidential appointees, and other issues.