April 11, 2003

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee,

On behalf of the American Foreign Service Association and the 23,000 active-duty and retired members of the Foreign Service, I express our appreciation for the opportunity to share our views and concerns with you.

First, I wish to also express our deep appreciation for the Subcommittee's and the Congress's support of the Administration's request in meeting our staffing needs, improving our information technology system, and making our posts and missions more secure. Certainly Secretary of State Colin Powell and his staff also must be thanked for their hard work on our behalf as they make their presentations before the Congress. The Secretary has often described his current role as both the President's principal foreign policy advisor and as the CEO of the Department of State. It has been a long time since the Foreign Service has had a Secretary who has so positively worn both hats.

CONTINUED VIGILENCE OF STAFFING NEEDS REQUIRED
In 1999 and 2000, several well-known institutions issued reports expressing grave concerns over the state of diplomacy's infrastructure. As you may remember for instance, the Overseas Presence Advisory Panel (OPAP) reported in 1999,

"The United States overseas presence, which provided the essential underpinnings of U.S. foreign policy for many decades, is near a state of crisis. Insecure and often decrepit facilities, obsolete information technology, outmoded administrative and human resources practices, poor allocation of resources, and competition from the private sector for talented staff threaten to cripple our nation's overseas capability, with far-reaching consequences for national security and prosperity."

Fortunately those studies were taken to heart. The Secretary developed a three-year plan, the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative (DRI), to meet a staffing shortfall at the Department of State of more than an eleven hundred people. We are in the final year of that plan with the FY04 request of $97 million for the DRI to hire 399 additional foreign affairs personnel above

attrition. We are already beginning to see the benefits as new personnel are hired, the stress is being lifted from the shoulders of overly-stretched personnel and there is an easing, though not a reduction, in the work expectations of "doing more with less." Foreign Service personnel are able to take needed training and participate in career development programs instead of having to choose between training and filling an empty position, and a surge capacity is developing.

This hiring momentum needs to be maintained and the DRI needs to be successfully completed. AFSA urges the Congress to provide the necessary funds in FY04 to complete this effort.

However Mr. Chairman, I would also urge the Subcommittee to see adequate staffing as a dynamic process. The 1,158-person shortfall was identified nearly 3 years ago as existing at that point in time. A full forward-looking workforce study was not completed and conditions have changed. Section 301 of Public Law 107-228, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2003 requires the Secretary of State to submit a "Comprehensive Workforce Plan" for the Department for the fiscal years 2003 through 2007. "The plan shall consider personnel needs in both the Civil Service and the Foreign Service and expected domestic and overseas personnel allocations." AFSA would encourage the Subcommittee to consider these workforce plans for staffing considerations to accommodate changes in the world in the coming years. We were near crisis until the Administration and the Congress stepped in to turn things around. The job is not done and such a situation should not be allowed to occur again. As the Secretary often states, "diplomacy is the first line of offense," and there are serious consequences for the economy, the welfare and the security of our nation if diplomacy is not adequately funded.

EMBASSY SECURITY - STILL MUCH TO BE DONE
AFSA believes that together, the Department of State and the Congress have been
making impressive strides in improving the security of our posts and missions abroad. After the 1998 east Africa bombings of our embassies, the Accountability Review Boards (ARB), chaired by Admiral William Crowe, looked into the cause of those bombings. There were two important conclusions among others from ARBs work. First they found that there was a new face to international terrorism and a new threat environment.

"The renewed appearance of large bomb attacks against US embassies and the emergence of sophisticated and global terrorist networks aimed at US interests abroad have dramatically changed the threat environment. In addition, terrorists may in the future use new methods of attack of even greater destructive capacity, including biological or chemical weapons. Old assumptions are no longer valid."

Secondly the ARB found that the cause of the bombings could not be placed at the doorstep of any single individual but that it was a systemic problem of inattention.

"…there was a collective failure by several Administrations and Congresses over the past decade to invest adequate efforts and resources to reduce the vulnerability of US diplomatic missions around the world to terrorist attacks."

The "new threat environment" continues to haunt us as seen by the continued attacks on the symbols of our country at home and abroad. However, we have seen a major multi-year increase in security funding in both the hiring of additional security personnel and in security upgrades that has left no facility abroad unimproved. This increased funding is paying off as evidenced by the minimal damage done to the American Consulate in Karachi in a terrorist bombing in July 2002.

Mr. Chairman, as much as things have improved around the world with regard to the security of our facilities, the General Accounting Office reported in its March 20, 2003 testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations:

"However, even with these improvements, most office facilities do not meet security standards. As of December 2002, the primary office building at 232 posts lacked desired security because it did not meet one or more of State's five key current security standards…. Only 12 posts have a primary building that meets all 5 standards. As a result, thousands of U.S. government and foreign national employees may be vulnerable to terrorist attacks."

The Foreign Service does not seek fortresses in which we do our work. Such would be counterproductive to our purpose for being in a country. We accept the dangers that are part of this profession, but we also expect that our government, which sends us to these posts, should seek to provide for our safety as much as possible. AFSA urges that funding continue at its current, if not accelerated pace to complete the work of securing our posts and missions abroad.

"SOFT TARGETS" There is a subset of our concerns about the security of our posts and missions abroad. As you know from our testimony submitted to the Subcommittee last year, threats to "soft targets" are a major concern to the Foreign Service. In just the past year, we have had a mother and daughter killed in a church in Islamabad, Pakistan, and an USAID official killed in front of his house in Amman, Jordan. The threats to "soft targets" are very real for us. To Foreign Service members, the term "soft targets" means our spouse and children as we try and lead a somewhat normal life of going to school, to church, and on other family outings abroad.

We are very appreciative of the fact that the legislative branch understands that more than bricks and mortar need to be protected, but the Foreign Service community as well. The requirement in the FY03 Omnibus Appropriations bill calling upon the Department of State to develop a plan for the protection of "soft targets" and especially for schools abroad is very welcome. We did note, however, that the Senate was prepared to provide more for protecting "soft targets" than the House. Senator Gregg also provided for an additional $10 million for soft target protection in the FY03 Supplemental, and we hope that has survived the Conference.

AFSA urges this Subcommittee to continue to follow this issue and to provide additional funding to shore up this important part of our overseas security. "Soft targets" is a descriptive euphemism but what we are really talking about is the lives of our people and their families as they serve this Nation abroad.

OVERSEAS COMPARABILITY PAY

Mr. Chairman, there is one more issue I wish to raise. At this time, it is not a request for funding, though hopefully there will be a time when such a request can be made. The issue is Overseas Comparability Pay, and it is very important to Foreign Service personnel.

The Federal Pay Comparability Act of 1990, 5 USC 5301 et seq., added a locality pay component to the salaries of all federal civilian employees serving in the continental U.S. As a consequence, when Foreign Service members transfer overseas from Washington, D.C., they now suffer a 12.74 % pay cut in salary. For example, an employee going to a 15 % hardship differential post such as Dakar, Senegal or Rangoon, Burma does not realize that 15 % pay incentive but rather only 2.26 % (i.e., differential payment minus forgone locality pay). Moreover, the lack of locality pay abroad also dramatically reduces employees' retirement savings (including Thrift Saving Plan contributions). While most Foreign Service members join because of the psychological, not financial, rewards of serving America, a continued slicing of overseas salaries by one percent a year compared to domestic salaries will inevitably make it difficult for the foreign affairs agencies to attract and retain a talented, diverse Foreign Service.

For two years, Secretary Powell has been working to convince the White House to seek authorization and funding to pay overseas Foreign Service employees an allowance equal to the Washington, D.C. locality pay rate. This effort has been coordinated with the other foreign affairs agencies and was formally endorsed by Director Kay James of the Office of Personnel Management. OPM endorsed this effort focused on the foreign affairs agencies after OPM concluded that there was not a strong argument for the inclusion of non-foreign affairs agencies that send employees on short tours abroad or that hire expatriate American citizens to work in their foreign country of residence. (Note: two years ago, the CIA and NSA began paying their overseas employees an allowance the amount of which is exactly equal to the D.C. locality pay rate.) Unfortunately, the White House has so far declined to seek funding or authorization for Overseas Locality Pay for Foreign Service employees. AFSA understand that the Department of State continues to believe there is a need for Overseas Comparability Pay even though the Administration does not support such a proposal at this time.

AFSA believes that Overseas Comparability Pay is needed, and when there comes a time to support an appropriations request, it is our hope that this Subcommittee will do so.

CONCLUSION

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I again wish to express our appreciation for the opportunity for the American Foreign Service Association to share our views and concerns with you. The decisions you make affect both our professional and private lives as we serve this Nation abroad. You directly help determine how safe we are at work and in our housing abroad; what are working conditions are like from having to work in converted cargo boxes to comfortable, fully equipped offices; whether we have adequate staffing to share the work and whether we have information and telecommunications software and equipment to talk to our Colleagues around the world. We thank you for your decisions these past few years, and we ask for your continued support in the FY04 funding process and beyond.