The Federal Housing Finance Agency falsely claimed that it had developed recommended plans to assess the number and skill level of workers it needed, but an agency watchdog found that no such planning process had been enacted.
The Inspector General of FHFA determined nearly a decade ago that the agency lacked the necessary staff to conduct examinations of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae — collectively known as the Enterprises — and would need to adopt a workforce planning strategy to determine which positions were most in need to accomplish the agency’s mission. The agency agreed to develop a workforce planning strategy in 2013.
But despite claiming to have adopted that strategy in 2014 and a reaffirmation of its importance in 2018, FHFA’s Division of Enterprise Regulation failed to complete a high percentage of its planned examinations and a workforce planning process had not taken place, according to an OIG report released Feb. 25.
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“Notwithstanding its commitments, DER, through its senior leadership, acknowledged to us that DER had not engaged in a systematic workforce planning process,” the report said.
“The failure by DER over the past five years to adopt and implement a systematic supervisory workforce planning process and its persistent failure to complete targeted examinations in the cycle for which they were planned over the past seven years, calls into question its capacity to supervise the Enterprises.”
FHFA leadership told the investigators that the agency had not adopted the workforce planning because of constrained resources, a lack of maturity as a regulatory agency and a belief that the guidance would be better if instituted by the agency.
But OIG noted that these explanations had no merit, as the agency is funded by collections from the regulated entities, the agency was formed in 2008 from two already established and mature agencies, and FHFA had already agreed in 2013 to establish the workforce planning guidance themselves.
Moreover, OIG analysis of staffing levels and the number of completed examinations at the agency found that FHFA had completed the largest number of examinations in 2012, the same year its staffing levels were at their lowest point in the seven years examined by investigators.
Workforce planning initiatives are designed to both determine the number of people needed to complete the agency’s objectives and the level of training those employees must have.
“We hold no view as to the number of examiners needed for DER to carry out its statutory responsibilities and DER has undertaken no analysis to make that determination. Whatever that number may be, those examiners must have the necessary skills and training to conduct the planned targeted examinations,” the report said.
“Again, DER has no process to assess whether its current complement of examiners has adequate skills and training to undertake the assigned supervisory activities.”
The OIG recommended that the agency implement the workforce planning it had promised to pursue in 2013 within the next 12 months. FHFA deferred its response to the report until the end of June this year due to recent leadership changes in DER.
Jessie Bur covers federal IT and management.
