I’ve been dealing a lot the last couple of weeks with a serious budget shortfall that we’re dealing with in one of our accounts under the current Continuing Resolution. For non-DC types, a CR is a stop-gap measure that Congress passes to keep funding flowing, in a limited capacity, until they get off their asses and pass our regular spending bills. The last time the entire Federal government didn’t have a CR was somewhere around 1997 or 1998. Before that it was the mid-80s. It’s a regular occurrence that they don’t bother funding the government until sometime in November, or even as late as March. With the current switch in leadership we’re probably looking at a real bill closer to March.
But that wasn’t what I wanted to write about. What these discussions have entailed has been a series of conversations in which I’ve discovered for the first time just how old the workforce is at my Big Government Agency (BGA). Now, the figure that some exorbitant percentage of the Federal workforce is eligible to retire either right now or within the next five years or so has always been somewhat abstract. What I’m seeing now is that we’re going to be facing some serious leadership issues among the career staff pretty quickly here.
In the CFO’s shop they rattled off the names of several top managers who will be going either next year or the following year (typically people leave in January because of how the pay raises work in the federal government, and how that affects their retirement). By January of 2008 we will be missing all of our current top managers in that office, and I’m not sure how we’re going to replace them. In my own office, the General Counsel’s office, something like 60% of our workforce can retire right now. No waiting, they can just go out the door. At least three of our top managers are doing just that in January, and we’re not in a position to replace them right now with the current budget posture.
We’re in a precarious spot in the Federal government, and I’m not sure where we’re going to get the folks we need to do all of these jobs. I don’t know that we’ve ever been in a position where so much of the civil service was ready to head out the door en masse. And never before was it brought home so vividly as it has been under the current budget cycle. It’s worrisome to contemplate. I’m sure we’ll muddle through somehow, but as the Congress continues to (properly) put more requirements to be accountable with the responsibilities we carry out, it’s going to be more and more difficult unless we can replace folks who are already gone, and start to train replacements for the management that will be leaving soon.