GAO noted that: (1) a number of long-standing problems are impending USDA's efforts to improve delays in its processing of discrimination complaints within its Civil Rights Program, including: (a) continuing management turnover and reorganizations in USDA's OCR; (b) inadequate staff and managerial expertise; (c) a lack of clear, up-to-date guidance and procedures; and (d) poor working relationshi

GAO noted that: (1) at the end of FY 1999, women and minorities in USPS' districts represented a district average of about 49 percent of the EAS 16 through 26 workforce; (2) the representation of women and minorities in EAS levels 16 through 26 in USPS' 83 districts ranged from about 22 percent to 95 percent; (3) in Chicago, women and minorities represented about 93 percent of the EAS 16 through

GAO noted that: (1) GAO has not done any work that specifically addresses the representation of minorities in the federal workforce; (2) however, GAO reviewed data by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and EEOC; (3) these data show that from fiscal years 1993 through 1998, the proportion of the federal workforce made up by minorities increased by 1.5 percentage points; (4) both the number a

GAO noted that: (1) at the end of FY 1999, women and minorities represented about 35 percent of the PCES executive workforce compared to their representation of about 58 percent in the Service's overall workforce; (2) similarly, their representation among PCES executives for each specific women and minority Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) category was lower than their representation in the cor

GAO noted that: (1) the rise in the number of complaints caused growing backlogs of unprocessed cases; (2) the net effect has been that complaints, and the conflicts underlying them, have been left unresolved for increasingly longer periods of time; (3) in fiscal year (FY) 1999, federal workers filed close to 27,000 complaints with their agencies, 50 percent more than they did in FY 1991, when th

GAO noted that: (1) HUD's awarding of contracts to two law firms to investigate the Deputy Assistant IG's EEO complaint deviated from HUD's standard EEO investigation process and did not comply with the requirements of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR); (2) from February 12, 1998, to August 5, 1998, HUD followed its standard EEO process of reviewing the complainant's allegation for accepta

GAO noted that: (1) in GAO's limited analyses of the data the Service reported to EEOC, GAO found errors in statistics on the underlying bases for EEO complaints and on the length of time complaints had been in inventory; (2) GAO also found that required data on the issues raised in complaint information system; (3) these discrepancies were generally linked to statistical reports generated by the

GAO noted that: (1) inventories of unresolved federal sector discrimination cases at agencies and EEOC have continued to grow; (2) overall, from fiscal year (FY) 1991 to FY 1998, complaint inventories at federal agencies rose by about 114 percent, to 36,333; (3) at EEOC, during the same period, the hearings inventory rose by 280 percent, to 11,967, while the appeals inventory went up by 648 perce

GAO noted that: (1) IRS has acknowledged EEO-related problems in its Midwest District Office, including problems in hiring and promotion, and has begun addressing them; (2) after an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission administrative judge's finding that an IRS employee was a victim of discrimination, the district produced a climate assessment report noting that a lack of trust and goodwill pe

GAO noted that: (1) relevant and reliable data about the bases for federal employee discrimination complaints and the specific issues giving rise to these complaints would help decisionmakers and program managers understand the nature and extent of conflict in the federal workplace; (2) these data could also be used to help plan corrective actions and measure the results of interventions; (3) how