ICASS AFSA Survey Results - American Foreign Service Association

are being rendered less relevant at the mission level as USAID became less of an independent agency and more a ward of theDepartment of State. The "ownership" we had developed for our areas of responsibility and to the countries we serve in isbeing replaced with a less urgent, but more stressful, need to comply with the directives of non-development professionals(COM and DCM) and to complete and submit a myriad of reports. Our DoS colleagues have clearly taken advantage of the factthat USAID has been a weakened agency and the attitude shows in their lack of respect for our agency, our leadership and ourwork. Please, if USAID is to become another office of the DoS, please say so right now. USAID FSOs will accept the role and willposition ourselves to be effective in such an organization. If not, let's take a stance and get on with it!Service standards have declined and the ATTITUDE of the ICASS staff is awful. In general, they have no service mentality andare insulted by the term "service provider." Many are extremely unpleasant to work with. Those who try to be helpful and makeICASS work are soon "reigned in" by the ICASS staff. There have been attempts at more than one Mission where I've workwhere the ICASS staff have attempted to improperly charge costs to ICASS in order to get USAID to pay for things that weshouldn't. USAID staff end up spending an enormous amount of time in oversight of vouchers, services, etc. I don't think we'vesaved money -- now rather than managing quality services, we're an oversight body constantly having to watch for decreasesin services, follow-up on service complaints, inappropriate billing and attempts to take over more of USAID's operations. In onepost, the ICASS staff were inappropriately using business class even on short flights and when this was reported no action wastaken -- in fact one of the officers in charge was nominated for an award. If you were to ask for specific examples from thefield, you could write volumes.After one month at post I still do not have normal computer access through Open Net. Less frequent travel to meetcounterparts. Decrease in quality of housing (at greater cost, I am told).Services are provided first and at a higher quality to State Department Employees. I am at my second ICASS consolidated postand this was the case at each location. Also, the proportion of costs sunk do not equal the service percentage given - at mycurrent post we pay 40% of Motor pool and vehicles provided - but cannot get out to visit projects because of Embassy visitorsand priorities.Open Net has sufficiently changed the efficiency of network. It's much slower and many of our sites and connections are nolonger available.Loss of ability to adequately support field staff. Loss of aidNET has been disastrous. A DOS power play for administrativeprimacy that ignores the operational reality of multiple Foreign Affairs agencies.We now can't get cars most of the time, or are told to take a cab, which is charged directly to USAID, not to ICASS. So it hasdecreased efficiency, made my job harder, and increased costs.They use expensive inexperienced American personnel, who turn over every two years, to supervise work that an experiencedFSN is capable of doing and who will be at Post for years. State does not operate with a customer service state of mind. Theyare focused on the Ambassador only, while USAID is focused on development.Our NEC will have a power bill of over $1M per year which is more than 5X what we currently pay. Also, since the embassyinsists on using Americans to manage IT, HR, maintenance and other basic support services, the cost of these services is waytoo high. Finally, the lack of forward planning on building space needs puts constraints on our ability to grow or adjust.much higher costs, far lower service - basic work orders takes 3-4 times as long or are simply never done. Dual standard forleased vs. owned housing which greatly disadvantages those in leased houses and boosts costs tremendously for USAID. Totalloss of cost control and strong-arming by the Embassy to accept more USDH who are far more expensive and actuallycontribute little.(1) Increased cost for services; (2) Increased conflict between USAID and the Embassy (USAID is being treated as an inferiorpartner); (3) Lowest morale levels ever, especially for those who were consolidated; (4) Increased waste of facilities; i.e. theformerly USAID Warehouse has been run down; there is very little care for it and it is as if it is not a USG property; (5)Increased staffing levels (more and more staff are being hired yet the impact is not seen); (6) Inferior products are beingpurchased; (7) Increased monitoring required to monitor payment vouchers, etc. (8) Lack of transparency on how propertywas supposed to be marked under the consolidation; etc, etc.Example - FSN personnel...State has no idea how USAID uses FSN personnel. Many of our FSN's are high grade and extremelyqualified persons, in some cases they have more experience that State personnel. The people at State grading our personnelrefuse, simply refuse, despite the CAJE system to grade them high. (Yes, CAJE can be manipulated) It causes problems forUSAID with retention of FSN staff. I have seen that the majority State personnel treat FSN personnel like they are their maids.FSN personnel at USAID are treated as partners. State should NOT be doing our cajing of FSN.Poor customer service (from State and contractors), providers that are not accountable to AID in any way, poorly managedcontracts where problems are not addressed, services that don't meet our needs, no way to complain/resolve problems. Forexample - our new travel agent is so poor that we often have to call airlines ourselves to make our own reservations or resolveproblems that the travel agent has created. This is after wasting significant amounts of time trying to get the travel agent toprovide the service they are supposed to be providing to us (that we are paying for!). Official travel is a major part of our jobsand essential to our role in project monitoring - we've even had to cancel trips because travel arrangements weren't made in