Report: FEC leaders, managers share blame for horrid morale

Headquarters of the Federal Election Commission in Washington, D.C.

Dave Levinthal/Center for Public Integrity

Bickering commissioners, ineffective managers and lousy internal communication rank among the top reasons why the Federal Election Commission staff is one of the federal government’s most bedraggled.

That’s the dispiriting — if unsurprising — conclusion of a new report from the FEC’s Office of Inspector General, which for months had conducted employee surveys and interviews in hopes of answering a nagging question: why, specifically, is agency morale so consistently rotten?

Investigators dump the most blame on the FEC’s six commissioners: three Democratic appointees and three Republican appointees who have regularly criticized one another and frequently (but not exclusively) deadlocked on high-profile political issues before them.

“Tone and attitude perceived as poor,” the report said of the commissioners.

“Too many disparaging public statements … employees feel work not valued,” it continues.

The report also scolds the commissioners for failing to hire for top management positions, either placing people in “acting” roles or simply leaving key jobs unfilled.

The FEC, for example, has gone three years without a permanent leader for its legal department — despite its congressional mandate to administer and enforce federal election laws.

An image from a Federal Election Commission Office of Inspector General report studying th reasons behind low morale among staff members.

Federal Election Commission

For those managers in place? The staff views them with “suspicion and distrust,” the report states. Staffers also routinely questioned why a single person, Alec Palmer, served as both staff director and chief information officer.

A culture of favoritism and fear also persists, according to the inspector general’s report.

“A number of people believe that rewards, good assignments and promotions unfairly go to managers’ favorites,” the report states. “A sign of the major gulf between employees and upper management was the fear that employees have of retribution should they voice their concerns.”

In all, only about one in four FEC employees agreed that the tone set by top FEC officials is “generally positive” and that their work is “valued by the commissioners.”

Fewer than one in four surveyed agreed that Palmer, the staff director and chief information officer, is an “effective leader” — the rest either disagreeing or expressing no opinion.

The Office of Inspector General Report undertook its research in response to a separate U.S. Office of Personnel Management report that last fall ranked FEC staff morale second to last among 41 small federal agencies studied.

More than half the FEC’s staff — 185 people — completed a detailed survey circulated by the Office of Inspector General, which also personally interviewed 78 agency staffers and conducted four focus group sessions.

“It’s sobering and sad to hear that our hardworking and committed employees feel that their important work is disrespected by the commission and by senior staff,” said Ann Ravel, a Democratic commissioner who served as FEC chairwoman during 2015. “Low morale exacerbates and is exacerbated by the dysfunction at the Commission.”

The agencies five other commissioners could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

rse staff that isn’t “predominately white, male managers.”

Investigators reported that they “heard few stories in our interviews with employees in which they said their thoughts were solicited and acted upon by upper management. What we heard more frequently from employees was the belief that their thoughts were either not welcomed or unlikely to impact decisions of top management.”

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