WASHINGTON – Today at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, officials from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its largest union disagreed about whether NASA has more employees than it needs.
At the hearing, Toni Dawsey, NASA Assistant Administrator for Human Capital Management and Chief Human Capital Officer, said the agency believes that approximately 800 full time equivalent (FTE) staff are currently underemployed, but she said she did not know how many actual employees did not have sufficient work. She said NASA would try to get those employees to accept buyouts, but reserved the option of initiating a layoff.
Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert (R-CA) said, “It is vital that NASA have access to the critical skills necessary to lead America and the world in the areas of space, aeronautics and science. There are hard fiscal realities facing NASA, but just as important and disconcerting are the hard technical realities of which the agency will be reliant on its workforce to manage.”
NASA is facing a critical period in ensuring that it has a workforce of appropriate size and with appropriate skills. On the one hand, NASA has several major new undertakings related to the goal of returning to the Moon by 2020; on the other hand, to free up funds for that purpose, the Agency is terminating the Space Shuttle program in 2010, reducing aspects of International Space Station research, and reducing the budget of aeronautics. At the same time, the agency faces a potential surge of retirements in the coming years.
Concerning layoffs, Dawsey said, “As we have testified before, NASA will conduct a reduction in force of any of our civil servants only as an action of last resort consistent with our statutory constraints.”
Other witnesses cited shortcomings with the current Workforce Strategy, which was submitted to Congress in April, as required by law.
Dr. David Black, President and Chief Executive Officer of Universities Space Research Association, advocated further review of which space systems will be developed by NASA and which ones will be contracted out, in order to better realize workforce needs. “The extent to which NASA decides to develop and operate space systems in-house at its field centers or to contract such work out will have a substantial influence on the skills needed in-house,” he said. “Moreover, such make/buy decisions also have a strong influence on recruitment of future NASA employees.”
Black concluded, “NASA needs to look outside of itself in assessing the nature, scope, and possible solutions for its skill mix… The issues NASA faces in terms of workforce are national in character; they reverberate through other government agencies involved in space-related work, as well as the private sector including universities.” He added, “NASA should not, in our Committee’s view, try to structure a solution in isolation from consultation with the broader set of communities.”
Dr. Lee Stone, testifying on behalf of the largest union at NASA, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) advocated greater protection to NASA’s career scientists. “IFPTE’s primary interest in testifying today is to provide forceful advocacy for maintaining the broad technical excellence and independence of NASA’s civil service workforce that has served the Agency well for decades.”
Mr. John Douglass, President and Chief Executive Officer of Aerospace Industries Association of America, also was critical of NASA’s Strategy, saying that NASA should contract more of its work out to industry, while still preserving certain highly specialized labor skills. Douglass said, “As the forthcoming National Academies panel report will note, industry has the flexibility to move engineers and managers among programs depending on customer needs, a key advantage for NASA in a constrained budget environment.” He then went on to say, “NASA, however, must preserve its traditional mission of conducting basic, laboratory-focused research in areas such as aerodynamics or propulsion that yield broad public benefits.”
