Originally posted by Jamie Dupree on ajc.com
Yet another federal agency is taking heat from the Congress for spending money on conferences, as Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has asked the Department of Education to explain why it still plans to hold a large gathering in Las Vegas late this year, even as it makes cuts to deal with the sequester.
"The Administration is claiming that over a million students will lose access to support services and special education, but the Department of Education is still planning to hold a conference in December at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Vegas," Coburn said in a news release issued on Thursday.
In a letter to the Secretary of Education, Coburn once more raised the issue of Obama Administration complaints about automatic budget cuts from the sequester, arguing that gatherings like the 2013 Federal Student Aid Conference in Vegas should be canned.
You can read about the Vegas conference at http://fsaconferences.ed.gov/lasvegas13.html.
"The Department should cancel this conference and review all conferences for the remainder of the year to determine whether they should continue while core programs are being reduced," Coburn wrote in his latest letter to government agencies about spending and the sequester.
Coburn's request for information on the 2013 FSA gathering comes as the Education Department is still working on a Freedom of Information Act request that I submitted on May 1 for information on the 2011 and 2012 FSA conferences.
The 2012 FSA conference was in Orlando, Florida; the 2011 FSA gathering was also in Las Vegas.
"Due to the Department's pending FOIA backlog, we are unable to fulfill your request within the 20-day timeline. Your request is currently still being processed by the appropriate program office," the Department told me on June 3.
As you can tell, July 11 is more than 20 days after May 1.
Coburn's focus on the conference spending, as well as a multi-state bus tour planned in coming months by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, is of note, because the Education Department decided not to furlough any workers, and instead took the $2.5 billion in cuts out of various programs.
"Therefore, cutting back on employees' work days at this time would not be in the best interest of the taxpayers, states, schools, and students who benefit from the department's programs," Duncan told workers earlier this year.
"Education dollars belong in the classroom and should not be wasted on campaign-style bus tours and junkets," Coburn said in his letter, referring to a planned bus tour in Texas, Arizona, California and New Mexico.
To see the 80 page rundown of the 2012 FSA agenda, you can find that here.
On Friday afternoon, Education Department spokesman Cameron French countered Coburn's arguments with the following information:
- The FSA Training Conference is not a conference for FSA employees, like many of the government conferences portrayed in the press (e.g., conferences held by the GSA and IRS for their own employees). Rather it is a training conference for financial aid professionals from the higher education community. FSA sends only the staff essential to conduct this training, and government employees only participate in an instructional or support capacity.
- FSA alternates its conference each year between the Eastern Region of the U.S. and the Central/Western Region of the U.S. FSA does this to accommodate participating schools from different regions of the country to help them reduce travel costs. For 2013, Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV was identified as the location providing the best value to the federal government when considering services (meeting room space, sleeping rooms, local transportation costs, etc.) and price.
- As a result of our efforts to control and reduce costs, the unit cost per attendee has fallen from $437 per attendee in 2007 to under $175 per attendee in 2012, a reduction of 60%.
- FSA leverages low-cost, week-after-Thanksgiving conference dates to procure the best rates with conference facilities.
- In 2012, the 2,088 schools that were represented at the conference were responsible for packaging and disbursing $110 billion in aid (on average, over $52 million per school). The schools attending the 2012 conference disbursed approximately 77% of all federal student aid awarded. This investment in training and technical assistance helps ensure program integrity and reduces waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement in the Title IV programs, and ultimately taxpayer dollars. FSA is expecting an even higher rate of school participation at the 2013 conference.
- In the past 10 years, FSA has consolidated multiple conferences held throughout the year to a single annual conference.
In response to Sen. Coburn's letter implies that ED can move funding for FSA's conference, back-to-school tour and employee salaries to support other programs instead, including Title I and IDEA. Can ED do that?
No. The sequester was designed to provide an incentive to get Congress to act on deficit reduction. The across-the-board reduction for all programs, projects, and activities was not supposed to be rational. Congress did not allow for flexibility among accounts.
We had to cut Title I, IDEA, and CTE, because those are separate appropriations from Congress. Each accounts and the programs within the accounts had to be reduced by the same percentage. Because those big programs get so much more in appropriations than our accounts that pay for employee salaries, travel, conferences, etc., they also got cut by more.
We have cut back conferences already. We have also pared back hiring in all offices, including the offices Sen. Coburn singled out. We cut $85 million from our accounts covering salaries and expenses in the 2013 sequester.
Has ED canceled or restructured other conferences in light of the sequester?
Yes. Some examples of...
- Eliminating or restructuring conferences that were held last year.
- Annual Migrant Education Program Directors Meeting will not be held in FY 2013.
- Restructured the annual summer institute of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (Afterschool Program). One large meeting, 2800 attendees, was restructured into smaller meetings and webinars. The savings will be seen next year.
- Changing the Schedule/Periodicity of Conferences
- In our Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, historically, two major meetings were held each year: a Leadership Conference and a Program Directors conference. Beginning in FY 2014, these conferences will alternate years. Because of prior commitments, this strategy could not be employed this year
- General Cost Savings Related to all Conferences
- The Department has always been very vigilant about costs, but we've been able to reduce costs by
- Reducing expenditures on food, travel expenses, and equipment
- Reducing expenditures on venues by increasing use of Federal facilities.
- Conducting trainings for department leadership, department staff, and contractor staff on possible cost saving strategies.
- Increasing use of webinars and other media
