Addressing Human Capital Management Challenges at EPA

• EPA has struggled for several years to identify its needs for human resources and to deploy its staff throughout the country in a manner that would do the most good.
• EPA’s process for budgeting and allocating resources does not fully consider the agency’s current workload.
• In preparing requests for funding and staffing, EPA makes incremental adjustments, largely based on an antiquated workforce planning system that does not reflect a bottom-up review of the nature or distribution of the current workload.
• EPA’s human capital management systems have not kept pace with changes that have occurred over the years as a result of new legislative requirements and priorities, changes in environmental conditions in different regions of the country, and the much more active role that states now play in carrying out day-to-day-activities of federal environmental programs.

^ Back to topWhat Needs to Be Done

• To remedy its antiquated and unscientific methods for determining workload and allocating staff resources, EPA must first substantially improve its resource planning by identifying the factors that derive the national and regional workload and develop more realistic allocation systems for deploying staff with the requisite skills and capabilities to areas of the country where they are most needed to address the highest-priority needs.

  Highlights of GAO-01-812 (PDF), Highlights of GAO-05-721 (PDF), Highlights of GAO-06-840T (PDF), Highlights of GAO-07-883 (PDF), Full Report of GAO-08-1109R (PDF, 31 pages)

^ Back to topKey Reports

Budget and Spending

Environmental Protection

Environmental Compliance and Enforcement

Clean Water Act

Human Capital

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