ICASS AFSA Survey Results - American Foreign Service Association

Without question, the standard of services will dramatically decrease and our costs will dramatically increase. This is not aperspective, it is a fact. I am the EXO in a Regional Mission and have seen this played out in each country we have offices. Werecently have completed in depth "what if" financial scenarios, and have seen our ICASS bill double in one location, to obtainservices from ICASS that we currently self provide, with very little corresponding decrease in our internal (FSN staffing) costs.Another location will see our net costs to obtain the 13 mandated services under consolidation increase by over $600K! This iswith keeping our same staff to do their same job, except now we "buy" them back under ICASS. The morale of our staff iscrushed because they do not want to work for the Embassy, and they fear in the future there will be Reductions in Force (RIF)or that they may be overlooked for career advancement within the ICASS system because they are an "outsider". Others havelegitimate concerns that there will be two positions doing very similar jobs, and one of them will get demoted to a lowerposition. Others fear that USAID jobs are classified higher under CAJE because we empower our staff more, and that theirfuture jobs under ICASS will be less challenging and reCAJE'd at a lower grade.Morale is definitely lower Quality of Life is 75% lower, DOS has turned 1 bedroom apartments into 2 bedrooms, forcing peopleto double up - The importance of people at CPCs having their own space is severely underestimated.USAID is even more of a second priority in scheduling vehicles and getting maintenance work done. Paperwork to accessservices has gone up and it increases all the time. What could be done with one request (schedule a round trip in a vehicle)now requires two and takes twice as long to complete. Ditto for clearances for visitors; to clear visitors to the office hasbecome much more paperwork intense and the time limits are sometimes unrealistic. This has resulted in more meetings outside the Embassy, which means more use of vehicles and increased expense.More bureaucratic layers. House pool merging has dramatically reduced USAID's voice in housing assignments. Agencies with1-2 staff in the pool have the same vote as USAID with dozens of staff in the pool. This has resulted in often inappropriatehousing for family size and professional needs. Services such as motor pool are organized around the needs of a diplomat anddo not adequately accommodate the needs of project oriented staff.USAID is not taken seriously...we lose control. One vote on ICASS board is not sufficient for an agency that represents overhalf the USG presence in country. Also leads to favoritism by agency which is EXTREMELY harmful to morale and interagencyrelationships. Fairness must be paramount but unfortunately, it's the second post where I see that it is not considered.Every thing. Project monitoring comes to a standstill, new officers are always late to meetings and the office because the motorpool does not have enough drivers or vehicles to pick them up. Work orders seems to get lost. It takes days to move workorders, get spare parts bought by USAID before the actual repair gets done. Embassy staff insists that we hire theirdependents and mature, experienced USAID staff were let go even though they were doing the same work that Embassy hasmanaged to get new people to fill. Telephone management is a night mare and travel services has come to a stand still.1. Housing: We are having a very difficult time adjusting to this new post largely due to the fact that our housing leaves muchto be desired. It is not up to the standards that a professional working with USAID should have. We are investing our time andfinancial resources to have the house and garden brought to the minimal standards. We have found that the leases are notwritten and negotiated to USAID's advantage which puts the agency at a large disadvantage when negotiating with ourlandlord. As a result, we found that the GSO office uses this limitation as an excuse and won't take necessary risks to work in amanner (i.e., modify leases)that benefits the agency.You pay more and get less. In a budget crisis world where everyone is trying to maximize their dollars and get more for less,USAID is the only entity worldwide that is lining up to pay extra for worse services. Our programs for needy beneficiaries areactually being defunded to pay for State's high cost/low quality ICASS operation and to subsidize the training of their juniorofficers. To add insult to injury, our staff are getting bullied, insulted and treated like dirt by the so-called "service provider".The State folks are absolutely aware of our powerlessness and they glory in it. This has been one of the most demoralizingthings I have experienced since joining the agency. The whole experience is horrible and the fact that most of our supposedleadership in Washington is not fighting for us and doesn't have the guts to say no to this travesty makes it even worse. Therehave been days that I have actually been unable to sleep at night, I have been so distressed, so upset, so morally outragedabout the wrong that is being done to our staff, our beneficiaries and our agency.The key difficulty stems from the fact that ICASS at this mission appears not be a complete consolidation. We need to be eithertotally separate or totally unified not some hybrid, hodgepodge, in-between -- which is what we are now. Here's an example toillustrate the issue: The embassy has set-up a one-stop Customer Service Center and requests, status checks, etc. are allonline through this center. However, the online connection is housed w/in the OpenNet system. USAID users do not haveaccess to OpenNet at their desks. We're in a 4 story building, have a staff of 200+ and there are 3 computers in the wholebuilding with OpenNet access. At present, we're suppose to email our office assistants, who email the CSC, who login to theOpenNet system to enter requests for service on our behalf. So, they say we've consolidated... but have we...?Because this consolidation process is seen and treated by State Department as a subordination of USAID, we drop to thebottom of every list. The local staff tend to direct their efforts toward their immediate supervisor - so rendering good service toAID staff is no longer a consideration. Motor pool is unresponsive, vehicle don't show up. We have had personnel abandoned ata Kabul visit for hours because they could not get a vehicle. The computers are messed up, the email is messed up, our accessto directories doesn't work. Emails from DC to me have taken days to come through - or they don't get here at all. We nolonger have access to EIMS. It took two days to get an ink replacement cartridge for our printer when we used to be able tojust walk down the hall. Processes aren't consolidated, they're doubled. Since all of our reporting must go through State, weare not free to express issues or difficulties and our needs and opinions are omitted. This was especially and startlingly so of