The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) recently published a report looking into the firing of former State OIG Steve Linick (see Watchdog Firing Came Amid Probe of Trump’s Friend, the U.S. Ambassador in London). Excerpt below:
In Senate testimony on July 30, Pompeo gave a new reason for the firing, claiming there was dismal employee morale in the inspector general’s office under Linick’s watch. Of “38 assistant secretary level bureaus,” Pompeo said, “the IG’s office was the worst survey results of any of those 38.”
But an examination of the data shows a strikingly different picture.
The department’s Office of Inspector General in fact had the third-highest engagement score of any State subcomponent in 2019, according to the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service’s analysis of Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data from 2019, the most recent publicly available.
Instead, it was Pompeo’s office—the Office of Secretary of State—that had the lowest employee engagement score of any State Department subcomponent in the “Best Places to Work in the Federal Government” list. Indeed, it ranked near the bottom government-wide, 404th out of 420 federal subcomponents.
So we went and took a look. Within State Department sub-components, the top three highest engagement scores per Partnership for Public Service:
- Foreign Service Institute, Department of State – Rank #80 out of 420
- Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State – Rank #111 out of 420
- Office of the Inspector General, Department of State – Rank #149 out of 420
Within State Department sub-components, the three bottom ranked offices with the lowest engagements scores per Partnership for Public Service:
- Office of Secretary, Department of State – Rank 404 out of 420
- Comptroller and Global Financial Services, Department of State – Rank #353 out of 420
- Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, Department of State – Rank #306 out of 420
The data includes a total of 24 State Department subcomponents out of 420. Click on the screen caps below to see a larger view. Don’t skip the categories. Click here to see the original data from the Partnership for Public Service.
How soon before the State Department releases its own survey to show that the Office of the Secretary has the best survey results?
