U.S. Department of Agriculture: Recommendations and Options to Address Management Deficiencies in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights
GAO-09-62
Published: Oct 22, 2008. Publicly Released: Oct 22, 2008.
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Highlights
For decades, numerous federal reports have described serious weaknesses in USDA's civil rights programs--in particular, in resolving discrimination complaints and providing minority farmers with access to programs. In 2002, Congress authorized the position of Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights (ASCR) at USDA to provide leadership for resolving these long-standing problems. GAO was asked to assess USDA's efforts to (1) resolve discrimination complaints, (2) report on minority participation in farm programs, and (3) strategically plan its efforts. GAO also reviewed experiences of other federal agencies to develop options for addressing the issues. This report is based on new and prior work, including analysis of ASCR's discrimination complaint management, strategic planning, and interviews with officials of USDA and other agencies, as well as 20 USDA stakeholder groups.
Recommendations
Matter for Congressional Consideration
| Matter | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| To better ensure sufficient oversight and management direction are provided to guide USDA's civil rights efforts, to make responsibility for improvement clear, and to make USDA's performance more transparent, Congress may wish to consider making USDA's Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights subject to a statutory performance agreement. | As of August 2019, Congress has not taken action to make USDA's Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights subject to a statutory performance agreement. Since it has been over 10 years since the issuance of our report, we are closing this matter as not implemented. | |
| To better ensure sufficient oversight and management direction are provided to guide USDA's civil rights efforts, to make responsibility for improvement clear, and to make USDA's performance more transparent, Congress may wish to consider establishing a USDA civil rights oversight board. | As of August 2019, Congress has not taken action to establish a USDA civil rights oversight board. Since it has been over 10 years since the issuance of our report, we are closing this matter as not implemented. |
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Agriculture | To improve USDA efforts to address civil rights issues and the participation of minority farmers and ranchers in USDA programs, the Secretary of Agriculture should prepare and implement an improvement plan for resolving discrimination complaints that sets time frame goals and provides management controls for resolving complaints from beginning to end. |
Officials with USDA's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights (OASCR) provided documentation in May 2018 of standard operating procedures for resolving employment discrimination complaints and a policy memorandum on program discrimination complaints. Each of these documents set time frame goals for their respective processes, covering complaint resolution from beginning to end. OASCR also documented management controls over these processes, including a Director's Report that provides information on processed and pending complaints, as well as average processing times for various steps and the proportion of complaints that met set time frame goals.
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| Department of Agriculture | To improve USDA efforts to address civil rights issues and the participation of minority farmers and ranchers in USDA programs, the Secretary of Agriculture should develop and implement a plan to ensure the accuracy, completeness and reliability of ASCR's databases on customer and employee complaints, and that provides for independent validation of ASCR's data quality. |
In April 2018, officials with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights (OASCR) provided an array of documents to support actions taken over the years to address this recommendation, including 1) the results of the work performed by its Data Integrity Team, completed in FY 2014; 2) how OASCR maintains the completeness, accuracy, and security of its iComplaints and PCMS databases; 3) some of the user guides and training provided to staff to ensure the consistent use and completeness of iComplaints and PCMS; and 4) testimonial and documentary evidence indicating that OASCR contracts for independent validation of iComplaints and PCMS. Taken together, and in conjunction with other actions taken by OASCR over the years, these actions satisfy the recommendation.
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| Department of Agriculture | To improve USDA efforts to address civil rights issues and the participation of minority farmers and ranchers in USDA programs, the Secretary of Agriculture should obtain an expert, independent, and objective legal examination of the basis, quality, and adequacy of a sample of USDA's prior investigations and decisions on civil rights complaints, along with suggestions for improvement. |
USDA has implemented this recommendation. USDA created a task force that reviewed more than 17,000 program discrimination complaints filed with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights (OASCR) in fiscal years 2000 through 2008. The task force documented the results of its review in a report, "Program Complaints Resolution Plan, USDA Civil Rights," dated December 9, 2009. The task force determined that about 3,800 complaints warranted further processing and estimated that about 600 complaints would be eligible for settlement. USDA determined that it could not further process these complaints under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act because most had exceeded the then applicable 2-year statute of limitations. According to USDA officials, to overcome the statute of limitations, USDA would need legislative relief and about $60 million to process the complaints and pay the estimated settlement costs, which it was still seeking as of August 2012. The task force also made 12 recommendations to OASCR to improve its complaint resolution process. OASCR agreed with most of the recommendations and has taken actions to address them, according to OASCR officials.
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| Department of Agriculture | To improve USDA efforts to address civil rights issues and the participation of minority farmers and ranchers in USDA programs, the Secretary of Agriculture should work expeditiously to obtain Office of Management and Budget's approval to collect the demographic data necessary for reliable reporting on race and ethnicity by USDA program. |
USDA has implemented this recommendation. In March 2011, USDA obtained the Office of Management and Budget's approval to collect race, ethnicity, and gender (REG) data for the USDA programs that serve agricultural producers and landowners. In October 2011, USDA published a departmental regulation to implement the use of a new form it later issued in January 2012 to collect REG data. REG data from the Farm Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Rural Development mission area, and Risk Management Agency should cover most of the programs that serve agricultural producers and landowners, according to USDA. USDA also is developing an outreach plan to identify additional programs that serve socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, and will propose plans to collect demographic data at the USDA agencies responsible for these programs, as needed.
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| Department of Agriculture | To improve USDA efforts to address civil rights issues and the participation of minority farmers and ranchers in USDA programs, the Secretary of Agriculture should develop a results-oriented department-level strategic plan for civil rights at USDA that unifies USDA's departmental approach with that of ASCR and the newly created Office of Advocacy and Outreach and that is transparent about USDA's efforts to address the concerns of stakeholders. |
While Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights' (OASCR) Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2016-2020 shows some improvement over its plan for Fiscal Years 2011-2015, it still falls short of a results-oriented department-level strategic plan for civil rights that unifies USDA's departmental approach. The newer plan still focuses primarily on the activities that OASCR plans and generally does not unify OASCR's approach with that of other USDA agencies or the department as a whole. For example, the plan does not discuss the potential to develop linkages to the plans of these other agencies and the department. The plan also lacks a discussion of the concerns of external stakeholders, such as community-based organizations, and USDA's efforts to address these concerns. In addition, the plan does not clearly discuss how data from other USDA agencies could be used to demonstrate progress toward meeting OASCR's strategic goals and to identify gaps in the performance of USDA agencies with respect to civil rights. For example, USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service conducts the census of agriculture and the Economic Research Service analyzes and reports on trends in agriculture, including social changes. In addition, other USDA agencies, such as the Farm Service Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, are directly involved in working with and delivering benefits to farmers, including beginning, minority and socially-disadvantaged farmers. Given the above issues, the significant passage of time since we issued our report (October 2008), and the long lead time to OASCR's next strategic plan in 2021, we have closed this recommendation as not implemented.
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| Department of Agriculture | To improve USDA efforts to address civil rights issues and the participation of minority farmers and ranchers in USDA programs, the Secretary of Agriculture should further explore the potential for an ombudsman office to contribute to addressing the civil rights concerns of USDA customers and employees, including seeking legislative authority, as appropriate, to establish such an office and to ensure its effectiveness, and advise USDA's congressional oversight committees of the results. |
USDA has implemented this recommendation. The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights (OASCR) completed efforts to explore the potential for an ombudsman office. It reached out to the Ombudsman Association and ombudsman programs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Transportation Security Administration, and National Institutes of Health. Initially, OASCR concluded an ombudsman would be helpful. However, during our discussion on July 25, 2012, the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights said he no longer supports the need for an ombudsman because of more recent improvements made by OASCR, including its increased staffing, use of Lean Six Sigma, development of standard operating procedures, and timely processing of complaints. On July 26, 2012, the Assistant Secretary signed a decision memorandum recommending that USDA not establish an ombudsman office. The memorandum stated that, by not establishing an ombudsman office, the Secretary and OASCR remain free to take necessary corrective actions to address departmental issues without deference to an independent ombudsman and the costs of an ombudsman office will be saved. On July 26, 2012, the Secretary also signed the decision memorandum, concurring with the Assistant Secretary's recommendation.
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Topics
Agricultural programsCivic actionCivil rightsCivil rights lawCivil rights law enforcementClaimsData collectionData integrityDisadvantaged personsDiscriminationDiversity managementFair employment programsInternal controlsMinoritiesPerformance measuresProgram managementReporting requirementsStrategic planningProgram goals or objectives