Above: This "Dragon Wagon" being used in a controlled burn was either purchased or leased through the Bureau's acquisition program. (BLM file photo)
Above: This "Dragon Wagon" being used in a controlled burn was either purchased or leased through the Bureau's acquisition program. (BLM file photo)
While BLM's primary business is to restore and maintain the health, diversity, and productivity of our Nation's public lands, accomplishing this requires strong internal business and support service functions. This includes providing accurate and timely management information, paying the bills for goods and services, managing office space, maintaining vehicles, and handling financial and budget record keeping. The BLM needs supplies, equipment, and services to fight fires, maintain campgrounds, support office staff, and perform other work. All of these tasks, and many more business functions as well, are critical to BLM's ability to do its job.
The American people want real value for their tax dollars. They want to know what government is costing them, and they want costs reduced wherever possible. The public expects government to provide quality services that are comparable to those they would receive from the private sector. And increasingly, taxpayers want government to recover the costs of doing business when appropriate, especially when costs lead to profit by private interests.
The BLM is a diverse and geographically dispersed agency with a complex mission to manage public lands and their many resources in some 30 States. Its FY 1997 budget included over $1.1 billion in appropriated funds, plus reimbursements and other revenue collected and used to support a number of services. The workforce included more than 10,000 employees at year-end located in over 200 offices. Given these complexities, it is a challenge to consistently and effectively deliver BLM programs and services.
The BLM is meeting these challenges. Employees are improving the way they provide products and services. And management is making investments now so that the agency will work better in the future.
Specific actions the BLM is taking to improve business practices focus on three strategic goals: (1) Improve business systems, (2) Improve program accountability and performance, and (3) Deliver quality services to customers.
The BLM is striving to be as cost-efficient as companies in the private sector and to provide better value for the Nation's tax dollars. By delivering products and services to customers more efficiently, the BLM can then re-direct its resources to help accomplish other mission objectives.
The BLM relies on both manual and automated systems in accomplishing its work. (courtesy BLM's Eastern States Office)
Part of the BLM's approach to improving business systems is to reduce costs related to process operations and agency overhead. For example, the BLM has reduced administrative support staffs and middle management levels.
The BLM has many systems that it relies on to accomplish its work. These may provide manual or automated information storage, retrieval, processing, or output. Managers and staff use these systems in everyday work for analyzing data, making decisions, producing reports, or conducting specific operations (e.g., budget tracking or revenue collection systems).
One significant challenge facing the agency is that many BLM program and support systems designed years ago achieve technical and professional objectives, but they do not provide business information. In addition, most BLM automated systems were designed as stand-alone systems, which makes it impossible to easily share data with others and often requires data to be entered more than once. This causes extra work, delays, and increased costs. It also hampers good decision making because it limits the availability of comprehensive information.
Emerging information technology may provide opportunities to solve many of these issues. The BLM must prepare employees and others it works with to use these advances to become more efficient and provide better customer service. Recognizing this, the BLM has an extensive communications network that provides electronic access to virtually every employee. This infrastructure enables employees to communicate easily and deliver services faster. The development of computerized data bases will also increase the quality and consistency of the products the BLM delivers.
Other challenges and opportunities include the following:
The Bureau is developing a Management Information System (MIS) that will:
The components of the MIS are budget and financial data, a unified billings and collections system, managerial cost accounting data, performance measurement data, customer satisfaction data, and other business data (such as the number of square feet of office and warehouse space leased by the BLM).
In FY 1997, initial prototyping of the financial data system occurred, with full implementation of the financial and budgetary data module plus initial billings and collections, performance data, and property data modules scheduled for late FY 1998. The MIS will provide BLM employees with financial information that is up-to-date and electronically accessible. It is replacing a paper report system whose data is sometimes 30-45 days out of date. Through the new MIS, managers and employees will be able to electronically query (ask for) and retrieve information at their desktops using Web-enabled software tools without needing custom programming skills.
In the current budgetary climate, the return of costs and retention of other revenues for BLM's use in meeting demands for increased services is being re-emphasized. The terms "collections" or "revenue enhancement" refer to payments made for using land or other resources. This includes rents, filing fees, donations, fines, reimbursable revenues, copy fees, resource product sales, and any other funding the Bureau receives for product sales or services rendered, or private enterprise efforts in performing tasks that supplant resource management efforts. The term "cost recovery" applies only to payments received under the authority contained within Section 304(b) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) and other similar laws for work done in processing applications, issuing and monitoring use authorizations, etc.
Historically, the BLM has collected costs using a number of authorities. The Mineral Leasing Act and FLPMA are two authorities most commonly used and associated with cost recovery. In addition, the BLM is directed by the 1993 OMB Circular No. A-25, and Title V. Independent Offices Appropriations Act of 1952 (IOAA), 31 U.S.C. 9701, to pursue fees for government services that provide benefits to recipients beyond those accruing to the general public, and for the sale or use of government goods or resources. BLM's cost recovery authority was also the subject of a Solicitor's "M" Opinion, M-36987 issued on December 5, 1996.
In 1997, the BLM established a Revenue Enhancement Team to analyze and report information on:
The Team's report is currently under review within the Bureau.
The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, along with the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 and Government Management Reform Act of 1994, require the BLM to set priorities and long-term goals, to use resources efficiently and effectively to meet strategic goals, to tie budget expenditures and workforce efforts to strategic goals, and to measure and report on progress toward meaningful results.
As part of the effort to set priorities and long-term goals, BLM's Business and Fiscal Resources Directorate developed a Strategic Plan that includes work priorities for FY 1998. This plan serves as a vital link between the overall BLM Strategic Plan and the day-to-day work processes and projects of the Directorate. It helps ensure that Bureau employees "walk the talk."
The BLM re-engineers its work processes whenever possible to enhance efficiency. (BLM file photo)
Challenges and opportunities that confront the BLM include the following:
The BLM has redesigned its entire acquisition system. In a typical year, the Bureau completes 120,000 separate transactions and spends roughly $180 million to obtain the supplies, equipment, and services vital to the agency and its employees. Some of the goods and services bought are:
Our progress in implementing new acquisition processes and tools includes the following accomplishments:
Delegation of Authority - Acquisition authority up to the $100,000 simplified acquisition threshold was delegated to the BLM State Offices on March 6, 1997. This increased authority has empowered BLM field offices to take advantage of simplified acquisition procedures at the higher $100,000 threshold that was authorized by recent acquisition reform legislation.
Survey equipment must be purchased and maintained if the BLM is to meet its responsibilites. (BLM file photo)
VISA Purchase Card Use - The VISA Card program allows any BLM employee to purchase goods and services under $2,500 without the cumbersome requisition process or the need to go through the Imprest fund. A 90% transaction goal has been established to maximize the use of the VISA Purchase Card for acquisitions less than $2,500.
The BLM has continually provided leadership in the Department of the Interior's purchase card program. We have approximately 4,300 employees who complete over 100,000 transactions annually with the purchase card at an estimated value of over $30 million. The card has helped to streamline the procurement process at a time when BLM procurement employees are dwindling (from 214 to 156). And vendors, who get paid almost immediately, are encouraged to do business with the BLM.
The BLM developed an innovative self-study purchase card training package that trains cardholders in less than 3 hours. This saves on travel costs and employees' time that would otherwise be required for classroom instruction. Many other Bureaus have used the BLM course to train their own employees.
Check Writing Capabilities - The BLM is pilot testing First Bank convenience checks to enable check writers to use VISA convenience checks for vendors who don't accept credit cards, instead of resorting to costly purchase orders. This program comes in really handy when dealing with mom-and-pop businesses in small Western rural communities; these establishments frequently don't take credit cards and can't afford to wait 60 to 90 days to be paid under a purchase order.
The first phase of the pilot, which is nearly complete, provided check writing to field personnel as an immediate and efficient way to pay emergency incident costs in remote areas to vendors who don't accept credit cards. The second phase is expected to eliminate Imprest cash funds, which are burdensome and costly to administer.
Internet/Electronic Commerce - Electronic Contracting, including the use of the Internet and "electronic commerce," enables the BLM to be more efficient. The Bureau is maximizing electronic purchasing and contracting and use of the Internet for transactions over $2,500. Commerce Business Daily Notices for acquisitions over $25,000 are posted on a Department of Commerce Internet Server, saving acquisition processing time and paper. Solicitations are posted on BLM's Web site.
The BLM is purchasing GSA items from the GSA Advantage Web site using VISA purchase cards. The BLM is also buying from other electronic catalogs.
The Department of the Interior's new Electronic Acquisition System (IDEAS) software is scheduled to be implemented in the BLM in FY 1998 and FY 1999. This new software is expected to increase operational efficiency, provide a seamless link with the Federal Financial System (FFS), and increase our electronic commerce capability for procurements over $2,500. IDEAS will also enable BLM employees to submit their requisitions to procurement people and then check on the status whenever they want to through the Web.
Maximizing Commercial Item Buys - Instead of designing specifications tailored for the BLM, we are buying commercial items that vendors regularly sell to the public. Our costs should be reduced because the vendor will not incur any additional expenses in meeting special BLM requirements. Delivery of commercial goods and services can now be as fast or faster than it is in the private sector.
The BLM has issued guidance to its field offices on commercial item acquisitions, and acquisition models are being developed by a team for use by the BLM States and Centers in making commercial item buys. These models will be posted on the BLM Web site as they become available (www.blm.gov/natacq). Experiences and success stories will be shared with the Department of the Interior and other government agencies.
Past Performance - Past performance is now being used as a primary source selection factor in competitive acquisitions when a customer needs a contractor who offers the "best value," rather than the lowest price. In the past, the competing vendors' experience was generally a technical evaluation and source selection factor. Now, we are considering how well the vendors performed as a primary source selection factor.
Guidance and best practices for using past performance to select sources and administer contracts have been provided to BLM field offices. This guidance includes a simple two-page electronic form to collect past performance data.
Performance-Based Service Contracts - Performance-Based Service Contracts (PBSCs) enable the BLM to both improve contract quality and save money. Instead of contracting and paying based primarily on processes, methodology, or the number of labor hours, we focus on outputs, outcomes, and results. The OMB estimates that PBSCs could save at least 15% of the contract price, or about $4 million in savings for BLM service contracts (excluding space leasing).
Over the past two years, BLM's efforts in property systems redesign have involved three components: the personal property system, fleet management system, and real property system. This redesign effort was intensified by a qualification to BLM's 1994 Financial Statements because the property records and the general ledger were irreconcilable. Since that time:
Managing BLM's fleet of vehicles is a major responsibility. (BLM file photo)
These efforts have streamlined the data entry process through one-time entry of data at the point of origin, have greatly reduced the time and effort spent on reconciling the subsidiary records to the general ledger, and have resulted in improved information for program managers. Thanks to these efforts, the BLM has received an unqualified ("clean") audit opinion on its FY 1995, 1996, and 1997 Financial Statements.
The mission of the National Business Center (NBC) in Denver is to provide centralized administrative services and professional business management skills for the Bureau. These encompass finance, payments processing, major pro curements, property management, space management, and Bureauwide fleet management. The NBC also provides technical advice to field offices in many of these areas.
Reductions in office/warehouse leasing costs have resulted in savings of close to $3 million. (BLM file photo)
Accomplishments for fiscal year 1997 include the following:
The BLM is responsible for providing cost-efficient, quality customer service. This is in keeping with initiatives such as the National Performance Review, which requires all Federal agencies to take a customer-oriented approach to work processes and results.
One way to improve customer service is by working across jurisdictional lines with other Federal, State, Tribal, and local agencies to develop more efficient ways of serving customers and increasing customer satisfaction. Collocation is one tool for accomplishing this.
Collocation is defined as the sharing of a building by two or more public agencies. And the value of collocation goes beyond saving building and utility costs. Collocation provides one-stop service for customers doing business with several natural resource agencies through sharing of equipment, facilities, and scarce skills. Intangible benefits, including improved customer service, can result from simply being located near each other. By working across jurisdictional lines with other Federal, State, Tribal, and local agencies, we can develop more efficient ways of serving our customers and increasing customer satisfaction.
One example of collocation efforts is the "Trading Post" initiative being undertaken jointly with the U.S. Forest Service in Colorado and Oregon, in which the BLM and Forest Service share common offices and staff responsibilities. These provide "one-stop" service and have greatly improved service to customers at the local district and forest level.
The BLM must determine existing levels of customer satisfaction and constantly seek ways to improve the products and services it provides. Using customer feedback devices such as comment cards, focus groups, and surveys, BLM employees can get direct input on those areas that require attention. Customers can provide helpful suggestions for improving a variety of processes, products, and other areas.
Delivering quality customer services also requires the BLM to ensure that its programs, activities, and facilities are universally accessible to all customers, including those with disabilities.
Two Trading Post initiatives are currently underway. The Central Oregon Initiative's Trading Post involves BLM's Prineville District and the U.S. Forest Service's Ochoco and Deschutes National Forests. This Central Oregon Initiative has already served as a benchmark for other offices wishing to collaborate and improve customer service (Federal Benchmarking Consortium Study Report, NPR, April 1997). Among the areas emphasized have been firewood permitting and fire suppression services. Together with the Colorado Trading Post Initiative, the Central Oregon Initiative has piloted customer service and efficiency concepts that are now being expanded to all BLM State organizations. And this initiative continues to develop new approaches to sharing work processes to provide even better service in the future.
The BLM and U.S. Forest Service cooperate in a variety of activities and programs. (BLM file photo)
The BLM and Forest Service in southern Colorado are charting a new course for public lands management. The BLM manages 3.4 mi llion acres of surface lands and more than 6.6 million acres of Federal and Indian mineral estate, using a permanent workforce of approximately 162. The Forest Service manages 6 million acres of public lands with a permanent workforce of approximately 374. The focus of the Colorado Trading Post is on boundaryless management of lands and a "one-roof, one- manager" concept.
Together, the BLM and Forest Service are forging a relationship that fosters innovation, effective management of public resources, and quality service to customers. In the foreseeable future, these efforts will result in seamless government, an important step in public lands management. Sharing the skills and resources of both the BLM and the Forest Service has already resulted in "one-stop-shopping" public service and coordinated, cohesive natural resource management.
The Bureau is refining its customer research methodology and applications to strengthen its ability to work with its partners and serve its customers. Customer research is being conducted to help us find out what is really important to our customers and partners: to recreation users, livestock operators, local government officials, and others. We also want to be able to identify any barriers our own employees might face in serving customers in the field. This research will help us understand where we are now and what we need to do to improve customer service and measure the results.
Good customer survey data at both the national and local levels is critical to strategic planning, performance measurement, and the evaluation of results called for by GPRA. In fiscal year 1997, we made progress toward establishing baseline data on customer satisfaction and ensuring the consistent gathering and use of customer research information.
The BLM conducted three customer surveys in FY 1997. These are summarized as follows:
Based on a random nationwide telephone survey of 821 individuals and organizations conducted in August and September 1997, 51 percent of state and local governments are satisfied with the BLM. Just under half of the respondents were from State governments, while 30 percent were from county governments. When asked for suggestions to improve BLM's performance, 26 percent said improve land management, 22 percent recommended better communications with the public, and 23 percent highlighted improving offices and staffing. The average percent satisfied for the arenas identified by the stakeholders and partners in focus groups are:
The survey also examined and prioritized improvement opportunity areas for the BLM. The administration and interpretation of rules, regulations, and guidance has the highest potential for improving customer satisfaction, with leadership and partnership next. Specific actions the Bureau could take to improve customer satisfaction would be (in priority order):
These results mirror the 1995 BLM employee survey. The first four improvement priorities from above were also identified by BLM employees and ranged from mid to high priority, with communication and coordination as the top priority for improvement.
Based on a random nationwide telephone survey of 904 individuals and organizations conducted in August and September 1997, 46 percent of the BLM's stakeholders and partners are satisfied with BLM's performance. When asked for suggestions to improve BLM's performance, 42 percent said improve land management and 25 percent recommended improving relationships with the public. The average percent satisfied for the arenas identified by the stakeholders and partners in focus groups are:
The survey also examined and prioritized improvement opportunity areas for the BLM. The administration and interpretation of rules, regulations, and guidance has the highest potential for improving customer satisfaction, with leadership and partnership next. Specific actions the BLM could take to improve customer satisfaction would be (in priority order):
These results mirror the 1995 BLM employee survey results, in which the employees identified management of the regulatory process and communication and coordination as top priorities for improvement. Employees also concurred with stakeholders' top priority for taking action on issues versus just talking about them, and for resolving policy issues effectively and quickly.
Based on a random nationwide telephone survey of 1,201 wild horse and burro adopters conducted in August and September 1997, 89 percent of the BLM's wild horse and burro adopters are satisfied with BLM's performance, while 70 percent are satisfied with the animal they adopted. When asked for suggestions to improve BLM's performance, 26 percent said provide better information and education and 23 percent recommended improving adoption process and rules. Two out of five adopters learn about the adoption program from friends, family, and acquaintances, and most adopters have more than one animal. Over half of the adopters received their notification of titling and, of this group, four-fifths of the adopters applied for a title. The average percent satisfied for the arenas identified by the adopters in focus groups are:
The adopters gave the BLM an excellent rating for having a friendly and knowledgeable staff, with equally high marks in treating horses and burros humanely and providing information about adoptions.
At BLM's Cross Plains, Tennessee, facility, hardy wild horses culled from western public rangelands await adoption to qualified applicants. (BLM file photo)
The survey also examined and prioritized improvement opportunity areas for the BLM. The education program on wild horses has the highest potential for improving customer satisfaction, with post-adoption processes next. Specific actions the Bureau could take to improve customer satisfaction would be (in priority order):
In response to customer surveys and feedback, the BLM has initiated six reengineering labs since 1994, concentrating on Use Authorizations, Protest and Appeals, Cadastral Survey, Billings and Collections, Acquisition, and Alaska Conveyance. These labs have achieved over $7 million in cost savings and avoidance. The BLM and U.S. Forest Service interagency "one-stop shopping" partnership known as the "Trading Post" initiative has produced over $1 million in cost savings and avoidance, as well as moving resources and personnel to the front lines and meeting customers' needs and expectations.
To improve customer service, the Bureau has established several policies:
