Read the Good News About the Civil Service (or Hear the Bad News)

John Berry hasn't been director of the Office of Personnel Management for two weeks yet, and he's already been called to explain the whole set of working conditions for the government's civil servants.

Yesterday was his maiden voyage before a congressional panel as OPM director. The lofty title of the hearing was "Public Service in the 21st Century: An Examination of the State of the Federal Workforce."

Berry answered the implied question by saying in his written statement that "there is plenty of good news to report." It continues: "The state of the federal workforce is sound, but with room for improvement."

Yet, by the time he finished his oral statement, with its list of problems, Berry had told the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on the federal workforce, Postal Service and District of Columbia that his overall assessment was "pretty bleak."

Perhaps the fact that Berry's oral testimony was given under oath, as is the panel's custom, made it far more frank than the written statement he submitted. For example, he told subcommittee members that diversity in the federal ranks hasn't improved much at all over the last two decades.

"Our scores would be laughable, even in a T-ball game," he said.

The only reference in the written statement to diversity is a mention that surveys say federal workers gave the government higher marks on the subject last year than previously.

On the OPM's 20-year-old effort to improve the federal retirement system, Berry orally told the subcommittee that the agency has spent $100 million trying to fix it but that "what we have to show for that is precious little."

The prepared text makes no mention of the "balkanized" pay system that Berry complained about in person. "I can't defend that to you with a straight face," he told the lawmakers.

When it comes to Uncle Sam's recruiting efforts, he has a "tool belt, but no tools in it," Berry said. Sam stumbles when he tries to hire people because some of his job announcements appear to be written in "language from the lost city of Atlantis," Berry added.

In contrast to his colorful and informative oral testimony, his written statement was couched in careful language that was filled with positive spin and bureaucratic jargon.

This is part of what he wrote about the hiring process: