Architect of the Capitol
Insert for the Record

Question. Are there specific instances where scheduling has been impacted, keeping ourselves on time and.......because of negligence and have there been instances where a contractor has found to be negligent and what is AOC doing to push people to be on schedule, on time, etc?

Response: The AOC reported the status of 61 ongoing construction projects as of the end of March 2005. Of the 61 projects, 13 were in the pre-award process, 20 were considered on schedule, and 28 were considered behind schedule. As noted during the hearing testimony, the AOC has been using a very literal interpretation of "behind schedule" by comparing the original contract completion date against the current contract completion date.

Of the 28 projects reported as being behind schedule in the March report, 4 projects were delayed due to contractor-related issues; 18 projects were delayed due to schedule changes initiated by the government; and one project was delayed by a combination of factors. In addition, five of the projects that were considered behind schedule were being executed by AOC and GPO in-house forces.

As noted in the hearing testimony, the "pilot" Project Management organization is attempting to take a proactive approach in dealing with contractor performance. During the testimony, the "HOB Interior Wayfinding and ADA Signage" project was used as an example of how this is being accomplished. It was noted that the contractor for this project is currently behind schedule and has installed signage that does not meet the standards of quality established by the contract documents. On 4 April, 2005, a letter signed by the AOC Contracting Officer was sent to the contractor, formally notifying him of our concerns regarding schedule and quality. On 6 April, 2005, a "Cure Notice", signed by the AOC Contracting Officer, was sent to the contractor. This letter is a formal contractor notification which requires that the conditions endangering the contract performance, be "cured" within a set period of time.

One of the new policies implemented as part of the new "pilot" Project Management organization is the adoption of the Construction Contractor Appraisal Support System (CCASS), used widely in other areas of the Federal Government. This policy was formally implemented on 14 January, 2005. This system provides a means of inputting contractor performance feedback into a data base that may be accessed by all subscribing governmental agencies for consideration in award of future contracts. The awareness on the part of a contractor that this database may impact their ability for future work, makes the CCASS system a powerful tool when used properly. The system allows for feedback to be provided both at an interim stage of the contract, if problems are detected, as well as at the contract completion. Accordingly, an interim CCASS evaluation noting "marginal" performance, was issued to the contractor on the wayfinding project on 13 May, 2005.

Performance issues are still ongoing with this contractor and the AOC is actively pursuing appropriate, but aggressive, procurement measures to address these concerns.

Actions have also been taken by the AOC for other projects in which delays were clearly caused by the contractor. One such contract was cancelled for contractor non-performance. On another in which the contractor has fallen behind schedule, a letter signed by the AOC Contracting Officer, was sent to the contractor on 9 May, 2005, informing the contractor that he is behind schedule and that Liquidated Damages are being assessed at the rate of $580/day, until substantial completion.

In addition, the AOC has required that all staff managing contracts, attend a 40 hour Contracting Officer's Technical Representative training session. This course was designed to heighten awareness of contract management requirements and to improve our project delivery process. A portion of this course was dedicated to monitoring contractor performance including adherence to schedule and quality assurance.

HOUSE ELEVATORS

Chairman LEWIS. One of the more curious distinctions and I know-my son is an architect, and he shared with me the fact that I shouldn't be surprised by this really-you come out of the Cannon Building and go down the escalator. There is a bank of two elevators in the Rayburn Building and you wait for those elevators to arrive. It does usually take a long time. Then, the banks of six or eight elevators are somewhere in the heart of the building.

How an architect could possibly design only two elevators on the entrance side of the building coming from the other two buildings is hard for me to imagine. Yet in the life of an architect, they say, that is just standard operating procedure. They weren't thinking about the use of the building; for goodness sake.

This is just a layman talking, but really-I hear this every day that I come to this building. How that happened, I don't have any idea, but it is a most interesting curiosity.

FOCUS GROUP SURVEY

We are extremely disappointed in the results of a focus group study among Architect of the Capitol employees that was recently reported. While the circumstances under which the results were released publicly in the press were unfortunate, the far greater concern is the results of that study among your employees.

The committee has been aware of management difficulties in the Architect's office and has made every effort to assist with improvements through the following measures: the establishment of the COO oversight position; increases in administrative staff; funding of innumerable contracts for management and administrative services; funding for a new human resources system; report directives on management issues; and unlimited assistance and reviews made available by the Government Accounting Office.

I understand that your plant project manager left last Friday. Will you explain to me from your perspective, the heart of those responses that came from your employees that are by way of complaints? They may be unreasonable, but I would like to hear your

reaction.

Mr. HANTMAN. Thank you for raising that, Mr. Chairman. I think it is important to recognize in the first place and I said this in my opening statements-that we initiated 25 focus groups across the agency so that our people could come together and tell us what the issues were, what the problems were, from their perspective.

We also had our human resources folks go out and do a questionnaire across the entire agency, and talk about service, not only external service but internal service. How are we serving our 2,000 people? Our 2,000 people are part of a service organization. It is critically important for us to be able to serve them, to show them respect, to give them an opportunity to grow in careers and not have any kind of glass ceilings or any favoritism to be shown.

We have made tremendous strides through the support that you have just described, Mr. Chairman, over the years, in creating the types of human resources programs, the types of support facilities

people to move from the House office buildings to the Senate office buildings, a recognition that this is one AOC agency.

When I first came on, Mr. Chairman, there was-I think fundamentally, because we had separate appropriations for so many areas, the House superintendent had his own way of operating, the Senate had his own way, the Library, the Capitol. Everybody basically had their open operating modes. We have standardized those into processes and procedures that everybody can understand, everybody can recognize, and making sure that we are treating people fairly across the entire campus.

So when that article came out, we were very distressed, because the issue of fear in the organization, we talked about it. That phrase was used in the response, basically because people were afraid of losing their jobs through privatization efforts. Those were the issues that we understood that they were concerned about.

Wherever there is an issue of any person having a concern for fear, a concern for favoritism, or a superintendent or somebody not treating them appropriately, we want to know about that. We want to solve that. So we have set up eight different committees on communications, on other areas, to be able to deal with the issues that were raised by our staff.

We take that all very seriously, and we have cross-sections of people from across the AOC dealing with all of those issues of communication, of strategic planning, quality management, senior leadership operations, et cetera. So we take that all very seriously. We have come a ways, we still have a ways to go. We continue to work on that, Mr. Chairman.

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

Chairman LEWIS. Let's try to open this discussion a bit, the results of the employee study include that 94 percent of the respondents suggest or characterize internal communications as unclear, confusing, and irrelevant; 78 percent of the crafts, or nonoffice employees, do not understand the office's mission; 85 percent charges that management is less than open about the way they operate; 63 percent do not believe that the issues reported to the EEO would remain confidential.

The description here reflects an underlying lack of confidence that there is at least two-way communication; 85 percent distrust of management, many saying that leaders act under cover; 91 percent state that management needs to develop a solid set of directives. Because of the tendency of senior management to diffuse responsibilities, a strong jurisdictional outline is necessary. This is a more specific commentary. So let us have your response on this.

Mr. HANTMAN. Once again, clearly there is a way for us to go. The issue of communications is the key one. Some of the recommendations that have come out of the task force again, which is a cross-jurisdictional task force, is use the communications task force to test the messages, the memos, before they are sent; how do people request training? Sometimes, perhaps, we naively send out information that is either misunderstood or not clearly enough expressed.

So the idea of testing out some of these messages and not sending excessive messages out because people will get too many ideas,

too many things that perhaps they are not interested in, we need to vet that. Developing recommendations on standard topics and schedules for staff meetings, so that communications can be sent at the appropriate time. Staff meetings can be appropriately held, and supervisors at all levels can address the needs and really transmit the information down to all levels of the staff. Developing cover sheets for policies to provide managers with talking points. Managers sometimes are not great communicators, and we need to give them the tools to communicate with their staffs very clearly. So when new policies come out, that they are explained to the staff, they can understand what is expected of them, what the policies are all about.

Developing clear and concise summaries of key policies and guidelines that are already in place, such as something as basic as how to request leave. To send these things as reminders to staffs on policies established 5 years ago, to keep the information flowing and have information sessions that really are helpful to people where they can request the types of topics that they want to have discussed.

In terms of internal service providers, we need to develop strategies for the services offered at the HR level so that HR can support them and employees can request those services and better understand what their rights are.

From human resources, we need to go out and develop an outreach strategy to improve employee knowledge of and access to their services.

So these are some of the things that our task forces are coming back with in terms of recommendations so that we can have people at all levels contribute to it and make sure that responsiveness and communications is clearly a lot stronger than it has been.

Chairman LEWIS. Mr. Hantman, it may be that we can talk privately about more of these. I am interested in trying to get a handle on the issues which I have outlined and their relevance to your claim of outsourcing concerns. I am not sure that outsourcing is a major problem here. I am not sure it is the major problem.

Mr. Moran has just a few employees nearby who may be interested in these subjects, so I yield to Mr. Moran for whatever time he might consume.

HOUSE OFFICE BUILDINGS MASTER PLAN

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Let me bring up some additional topics, since some very good probative questions have been asked on the CVC itself. Your longterm master plan is to provide for each member four-room suites. If you do that, we still won't have enough space.

So you plan that within 1 to 5 years to make a decision to build a new House office building. I understand that we would have to set in motion-now I think your cost estimate of $465 million was the figure that was thrown out. I am sure it is going to be a lot more than that by the time it is concluded.

I think we need some extensive thought and discussion on alternatives, because what you are suggesting as well is to possibly use