During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last week, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) asked witness, former Ambassador Michael Polt, about improving costs within the State Department’s administrative resources.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I now recognize the Chairman Emeritus of the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee,
00:06the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson, for five minutes.
00:09Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and indeed, Ambassador Pohl, thank you for your service.
00:13It's really inspiring to have known that your service in Estonia, in Serbia, Montenegro,
00:20and then find out Mexico City and Berlin.
00:22It just never ends.
00:24Thank you very much.
00:25And with that in mind, I'm so grateful for your association with McCain Institute.
00:29I had the wonderful opportunity to campaign.
00:32It was hard at Hilton Head Island for Senator McCain when he was running for president,
00:37and then I was grateful to be with him and Senator Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman campaigning
00:41in New York City.
00:44Mike Lawler gave me a visa to be there briefly.
00:47And so then, over and over again, Senator McCain, what an inspiration.
00:52Each year at the Munich Security Conference, he played such a role, and indeed, he was
00:58referenced at the conference again this year as to his role that he's made.
01:03And so I wish you well in your service.
01:06With that in mind, in 2012, the GAO reported that the state had made limited progress in
01:15containing costs or providing administrative costs.
01:18It did not reduce the need for American administrative costs overseas, which cost more than local
01:27staff.
01:28Do you have any suggestions on how to re-engineer the administrative processes and seek innovative
01:34managerial approaches to improve cost effectiveness?
01:40Mr. Wilson, thank you very much for your question, and please, I'll give you my answer, but of
01:46course, I will defer to my colleague here, who's got much more expertise in those specifics.
01:52But I'll give you my response from my experience of 35 years of being the beneficiary of the
01:58administrative services that the A Bureau and other colleagues at the State Department
02:01provided.
02:03I must say that the overall support that the State Department provides, both to its Foreign
02:08and Civil Service and its locally employed staff, is excellent.
02:13People try very, very hard to go ahead and make us capable to provide the services that
02:19we are to provide for the American people in whatever function we serve, political,
02:23economic, public affairs work, consular work, or the management staff of the embassy.
02:28So overall, I think we all deserve gratitude.
02:31We all deserve to give gratitude and applause to our colleagues who provide the services.
02:36Now that said, I must say that I've been, over my time in the State Department, involved
02:42in a few efforts previous to the current undertaking that I did with some of my former colleagues
02:50to try and streamline our overall bureaucratic processes.
02:54And I'll give you one example that I think is, I once proposed, and I was quickly shot
02:59down, but one that I'd like to offer here for your consideration.
03:03For instance, our travel management system.
03:07To travel for, as you probably learned from your own experience, to travel for the U.S.
03:12government can be a very complex enterprise.
03:14And it becomes very, very difficult to arrange, very complex to do.
03:19And I would argue costly to maintain and to then cross-check once you have accomplished
03:25it.
03:26I once proposed something totally revolutionary, which I think would save the government a
03:29lot of money and make it much simpler to go ahead and undertake the vast amount of travel
03:34that the State Department particularly has to engage in.
03:37And that is a totally no-fault travel system, where the United States government simply
03:43says, Mike Polt, you're being sent to U.S. Embassy Berlin.
03:48You are to report to your supervisor on date X, and you are serving there for three years.
03:55The State Department has figured out that that costs so much money for you to go ahead
03:59and afford to make that travel, coach class, American carrier, all those roles.
04:06We've deposited this amount of money in your bank account.
04:11Report to your supervisor.
04:12Have a safe trip.
04:14End over out.
04:15There's nothing further that needs to be checked.
04:17Nothing further that needs to, no additional bureaucracy that needs to be deployed.
04:20You can just go ahead and do that.
04:22We could save ourselves a number of positions and expenses if we did away with some of those
04:27people who have to check the trip.
04:28Thank you for that suggestion.
04:29I saw Chairman Lawler write that down to forward it ahead.
04:34And Madam Secretary, as a former real estate attorney, it's always intriguing to me, real
04:39estate owned particularly by the U.S. government, and there are some properties that are under-utilized.
04:45What's being done to determine the ability to divest properties that are not needed worldwide?
04:53Sure.
04:56So I can certainly speak to domestic facilities because Overseas Building Operations is the
05:00bureau that's responsible for the properties that are overseas that are owned by the State
05:03Department.
05:04As I mentioned in my opening remarks, one of the things that the Real Property Group
05:08is doing in the Bureau of Administration is working under a working capital fund in the
05:12idea that if you charge other bureaus at the State Department for the space that they
05:17occupy, whether they use it well or if it's under-utilized or potentially not used at
05:21all, that they will not want to incur those fees charged to them by the Real Property
05:26Management Team, and therefore find ways to use the space more efficiently going forward.
05:31And if the space is unused, be willing to give up that space and give it back to GSA,
05:37who we all know is the landlord of the majority of the domestic facility that the State Department
05:41operates out of.
05:42So I think that's really a good way to really make sure you know what square footage you
05:46actually have.
05:47It's surprising how many government agencies don't even know the footprint that they necessarily
05:51possess.
05:52Thank you for your efforts.
05:53No problem.
05:54I yield back.