The head of the federal Office of Special Counsel, which safeguards the federal merit system and protects whistle-blowers, says he has made substantial progress in eliminating complaint backlogs and contends a controversial reorganization will strengthen the agency.
In a Feb. 14 letter to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), Scott J. Bloch wrote that he is committed to protecting federal whistle-blowers and that his agency has reduced by 90 percent a backlog of complaints from federal employees about waste, fraud and prohibited personnel practices in federal workplaces.
 
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Bloch wrote that the reorganization, which would send 12 career OSC employees to new assignments in Dallas; Oakland, Calif.; and a soon-to-be-opened field office in Detroit, is designed to improve performance, not punish any employees.
"I share with you a 100 percent commitment to protecting federal whistleblowers, the merit system principles, and bringing justice to the federal workforce," Bloch told Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee.
Bloch's letter was in response to a written query last month from Waxman and Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.). Three government watchdog groups criticized the reorganization last month, saying that Bloch was engaging in the kind of retribution against employees that the OSC is supposed to police and prevent.
The independent agency's job is to safeguard the merit system, prevent the intrusion of partisan politics into the federal workplace and protect federal employees from prohibited personnel practices, notably retaliation against whistle-blowing. Bloch, a lawyer and former Justice Department official, began his five-year term as head of the agency in January 2004.
Critics say Bloch's reorganization is designed to punish employees who have questioned his management practices and policy decisions. The 12 affected employees were told they would be terminated if they did not accept and report to their assignments within a specified period. Seven are currently slated to be fired, four accepted reassignments and one retired, said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
OSC spokeswoman Cathy Deeds would not confirm the totals, saying "it's premature to discuss it."
In his letter, Bloch maintained that the reorganization was designed to keep backlogs down and decentralize agency operations. "In no way were any of these employees 'targeted' as has been alleged," Bloch wrote.
Ruch took issue with the claim that the backlog of whistle-blower claims has been reduced, saying he suspected that the agency merely dismissed many cases. "We don't know what happened to all of those," Ruch said.
Bloch told Waxman that the agency had whittled down pending whistle-blower claims from nearly 700 cases to 100. Deeds said yesterday that the 600 processed cases involved minor matters or issues previously investigated, and none was referred to Cabinet departments for further scrutiny.
Bloch wrote that about 500 prohibited personnel practice complaints were shaved down to about 30. Deeds said about 20 percent of the 470 reviewed cases are still active and have been referred to OSC investigators. The rest were closed without further investigation, she said.
In a written statement, Waxman said that "the Office of Special Counsel is supposed to protect whistleblowers and taxpayers, yet it appears that hundreds of cases may have been dismissed arbitrarily. We need to investigate how these cases have been handled and whether the Office of Special Counsel is doing its job."
