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consultant denotes the need for an individual with specialized expertise, and results in a temporary or intermittent increase in CBO's personnel resources. The contract mechanism would apply in all other situations where the product or service rather than the individual-is the primary concern.

General regulatory requirements observed within the Federal Government such as provisions for equal employment opportunity and competition will be included in CBO's contracts and consultant arrangements as appropriate. Attachments:

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE

EMPLOYMENT OF CONSULTANTS

1. Purpose. This policy statement provides guidelines for the appointment of individual consultants in CBO.

2. Definition. A consultant is a person possessing the necessary professional qualifications and experience to assist or advise CBO in specialized areas of its responsibilities.

3. Appointment Procedures. CBO officials desiring to appoint individual consultants are requested to provide the Deputy Assistant Director for Personnel and Administration with:

Background information bearing on the specific qualifications of each consultant.

A list of assignments the consultant is to perform.

The probable time period the consultant's services will be requied. The correlation between the specific qualifications of the intended consultant and the purpose for which CBO wishes to utilize his or her services.

This information must be provided at least ten working days prior to the desired appointment date so that the necessary documentation can be provided to the Committee on Rules and Administration of the Senate which exercises final approval authority.

Pay for consultants will be set at a rate commensurate with their qualifications and present salary but can not exceed the pro-rated daily equivalent of the highest General Schedule pay rate as provided in Section 201(c) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

A consultant cannot receive an advance of travel funds but duly appointed consultants may be reimbursed for travel expenses. The Deputy Assistant Director for Personnel and Administration will develop internal ČBO reimbursement procedures. Until an individual has been formally appointed as a consultant for CBO, that person will not be eligible for reimbursement.

ALICE M. RIVLIN, Director.

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE

CONTRACT PROCEDURES FOR THE CBO

1. Purpose. This policy statement establishes internal CBO responsibilities and procedures for contracting.

2. Responsibilities. In order to assure funding availability and the application of soundcontract management principles:

(a) Each Assistant Director will be responsible for the review and approval of all contract requests initiated by his staff.

(b) The Deputy Assistant Director for Personnel and Administration, with the advice as necessary of the General Counsel, will be responsible for all administrative requirements pertaining to the commitment and payment of contract funds and to the development and execution of contractual agreements.

3. Procedures:

(a) Form of Contract Request. Each contract request should be included in a brief memorandum which identifies the specific service or item of equipment needed; the purpose of the request; the estimated cost and duration of the contract; the name and telephone number of the CBO employee in the initiating office responsible for monitoring the contract effort; and, if available, the names of any prospective vendors. A contract request with estimated total cost of less than $1,000 need not satisfy the additional requirements described in subparagraph 3(b) below unless that information is requested by the Deputy Assistant Director for Personnel and Administration. If a particular vendor is desired, the contract memorandum should include the rationale for restricting competition to a single source.

(b) Factors Determining Selection of a Vendor. All factors relevant to the selection of a vendor in addition to cost should be considered in the development of the procurement request. Such factors should be set forth in order of their priority with a percentage weight associated with each factor. (c) Processing the Contract Request. After review and approval by the Assistant Director, the contract request should be forwarded to the Deputy Assistant Director for Personnel and Administration for processing.

ALICE M. RIVLIN, Director.

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE,

Washington, D.C., July 24, 1975.

Memorandum

To: Executive Staff

From: Howard M. Messner

Subject: Dealings with Vendors and other Obligating Actions

We have experienced some difficulties recently in finding ways to pay bills for items which were procured without contract authority. One example is in our use of time on computer data bases. This area is vitally important to our program operations; and Alfred Fitt and I are trying to resolve the problem.

What I would like to bring to your attention is the generic problem and our need to solve it. CBO staff should come to the Management Programs Division with their contract requirements so that we may satisfy them and assure that the necessary funding is available and contractual requirements are met. Individual staff contacts with vendors should be very limited-at most to obtain information-and never to make any commitments for the CBO.

I will be developing a paper on a simplified contracting procedure and circulating it for your views later next week. It should be brief like the ones on leave and salary administration. In the meantime I would appreciate your expressing my concern to your staff and asking for their cooperation.

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE,
Washington, D.C., November 21, 1975.

Memorandum

To: Executive staff

From: Alice M. Rivlin

Subject: CBO travel policy

We have three types of travel by CBO staff-and I would like to set a policy for who decides on the appropriateness of each type of travel.

1. Program Related Travel: This includes project related field work to visit Government facilities or staff and trips to meet with State and local officials or other resource people on specific studies or projects. Each Assistant Director is responsible for the approval of staff travel in this area. A travel allocation will be made to each Division after our appropriation is approved.

2. Professional Meetings: This includes the presentation of professional papers and serving on panels, etc. The Assistant Directors should exercise good sense here and not have a flood of CBO staff going off to the same meetings. You will each have an annual travel budget to work within-and staff travel to professional meetings should be carefully reviewed to be certain a clear benefit to the Agency can be gained by attendance at a professional meeting.

3. Foreign Travel: I will retain approval for foreign travel, and expect recommendations from the Assistant Directors to accompany any requests for my approval.

All of this, of course, is subject to the availability of travel funds. Once we have received an appropriation, Howard Messner will work with each of you in developing a requested travel budget for your Division. I will make an allocation of the available funds.

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE,
Washington, D.C., October 3, 1975.

Memorandum.

To: CBO Executive Staff.
From: Alice M. Rivlin.

Subject: Affirmative Action.

The purpose of this memorandum is to establish policy guidelines for affirmative action within the Congressional Budget Office. I want it to be absolutely clear that we have a special responsibility to make CBO a place where women and minority groups have unusually good opportunities for leadership and professional development.

Affirmative action involves as a first step making sure that no CBO policy, procedure or practice unfairly or adversely affects the interests of any group of employees or applicants. No one here would let such things happen deliberately, but it is vital to be sure that we do not discriminate by inadvertence: defining job qualifications so narrowly that they serve to screen out minority applicants, or looking for candidates with experience not available in the past to women and minorities. There is ample evidence that this happens all too frequently in businesses and government, and we have to make special efforts to be sure it doesn't happen here.

But I expect CBO to go much farther than simply minimum compliance. Few agencies have the luxury of starting from scratch and building into recruiting efforts really major opportuni ies for women and minorities. We have that luxury but are losing it fast as positions become filled, and it would be a frightful abuse of responsibility to let that happen. Moreover, ĆBO represents one of the most dramatic new developments in American government in recent years, and it is the object of a great deal of public attention and interest. I think for that reason we should work very hard to set the example and provide a model for Congress and others. Finally, I think we have a special responsibility because CBO holds so much promise of becoming a remarkable place where talented people will greatly accelerate their professional development. That means that working here could be the turning point for a young woman or minority person trying to make up for lack of opportunities in the past. From this standpoint, CBO is an unusually potent place for career development and we must work especially hard to open its doors to those who seldom have had a fair chance.

Unfortunately, we haven't done very well in these terms so far. Nearly 170 very talented people have been recruited, 127 of them professionals; but few of the latter are women or minority people. As may be seen in the attached table, only 20% (26 out of 127) of our professionals are women and only 6% (8 out of 127) are minorities. Our performance has been least successful at the policymaking and supervisory levels. I conclude from this that standard recruiting procedures and safeguards against discrimination simply haven't done the job, and we have to focus much harder on finding minorities and women for those positions not yet filled.

Ultimately we will define the entire scope of affirmative action in CBO, and develop a comprehensive plan which addresses the full range of policies and procedures to achieve our goals. These will include opportunities for advancen ent and career development. But in the meantime, I would like to take four specific actions to insure that the recruiting opportunities represented in those unfi ed positions under the voluntary ceiling don't disappear. These actions deal mainly with professional recruiting because that is where we have been doing worst; they are not to imply any less emphasis on affirmative action for support people.

First, I would like to establish goals and targets for CBO overall. Targets are not the same thing as quotas and we should not treat them as such. Slavish adherence to a fixed number of positions allocated to minorities or women is a crude and ineffective approach to the problem, and it demeans the essential purposes of affirmative action. But as in any other enterprise, it is impossible to get anywhere without a set of objectives. I think we should strive to have 25% or more of all CBO professional positions filled by women, and 12% or more filled by minorities.

This should be regarded as an interim objective to be reached by the end of this year. To achieve this target under our current temporary personnel ceilings means that the 19 remaining professional positions would all go to women or minorities. While not making that a rigid requirement, I do want, while we are under the ceiling, to approve in advance the hiring of any white male professional. (After the ceiling is off, I still want to be assured in each case that a thorough search for women and minority people has been made before a white male professional is hired). Second, I expect each assistant director to establish specific targets for his division, and to organize an effective search for women and minorities who are qualified for those unfilled professional positions remaining under the temporary ceiling. I will meet with each assistant director right away to fix division targets and establish a plan within the division for reaching them.

Third, I have asked Bob Levine to organize a recruiting committee within CBO, to help assistant directors identify suitable candidates. I expect this group to meet regularly, to monitor division requirements, and conduct a vigorous effort to locate people-particularly for the positions remaining under the temporary ceiling. But it must be clear that the responsibility remains with the assistant directors.

Fourth, I have also asked Bob Levine to organize and chair a CBO Affirmative Action Review Committee. This committee will be charged with the development of a comprehensive plan for affirmative action within CBO, and periodic review and evaluation of our policies and procedures for implementing both the plan and the intent of this policy memorandum.

Let me emphasize how seriously I take CBO's responsibility to produce an effective affirmative action program. We cannot espouse lofty goals and purposes for this institution and ignore its great possibilities as a force for change and opportunity itself.

I would like each of you to make clear to members of your staff the character and purposes of this policy.

Attachment.

PROFESSIONAL STAFFING OF MINORITIES AND WOMEN AS OF OCT. 1, 1975, AND POSSIBILITIES WITHIN THE

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The purpose of this memorandum is to describe Congressional Budget Office policies with respect to conflicts of interest. A copy shall be furnished to every present employee and to each subsequently appointed employee.

The work of this office may touch all aspects of the economy, and it is imperative that our institutional efforts not be compromised by any doubt concerning the disinterest of any member of CBO.

There is a formal safeguard-the public disclosure of personal financial interest, and the bar to participation in any decisions significantly affecting those interests—but there can be no substitute for a continuous and scrupulous personal

alertness by every CBO employee to the need for so conducting himself and so managing his affairs as never to give rise to any reasonable challenge to his integrity and impartiality as a servant of the public.

No formally promulgated code of conduct can cover every questionable situation, and none will be promulgated for CBO. All of us must adhere to the highest standards of honor, never giving ourselves the benefit of any doubt. If any member of CBO has any question about the propriety-or the appearance of propriety-in connection with his own circumstances, he should promptly seek the advice of the General Counsel.

In any event, an employee of CBO must not engage directly or indirectly in a financial transaction as a result of, or primarily relying on, inside or advance information obtained through employment with CBO.

The three most frequently recurring areas of question are in connection with a) financial interests, b) outside employment and c) the acceptance of gifts.

As to financial interests, it is the common practice in both the executive and legislative branches to require employees to disclose their holdings and to disqualify themselves from acting in a public capacity in a way which might significantly affect those holdings. CBO is no exception. To that end, every CBO employee whose annual rate of compensation is $25,000 or more, or whose duties include recommending or approving any procurement of goods and services for CBO from a particular vendor, must complete and file the disclosure form, a copy of which appears as Attachment A to this memorandum.

The disclosure forms are to be filed by August 31, 1975 or within 30 days of appointment, whichever occurs later. By July 15th next succeeding the initial filing by more than 60 days, and by each July 15th thereafter, the employee shall make a supplementary filing showing changes in or additions to the initial filing, or negativing the same, through June 30th. The completed forms (and those filed under the next paragraph) will be available for public inspection.

An employee should make a special supplementary filing within two weeks after any change of circumstances which reasonably could be said to create a potentially direct conflict of interest, for example, the employee's spouse commences employment with an organization holding or seeking a contract with CBO.

Employees shall forward their disclosure forms to the General Counsel through their division head, who shall review same and append an appropriate notation that there is or is not an indication of a conflict of interest. Assistant Directors and persons in the Office of the Director shall forward their forms through the Deputy Director, who shall append a similar notation. The Director and Deputy Director shall file their forms directly with the General Counsel. The General Counsel's form shall be reviewed by the Director.

Whenever a disclosure statement suggests the possibility of conflict of interest, whether or not noted by a division head, the General Counsel shall review the circumstances and arrive at an appropriate disposition of the question with the person who filed the statement and with that person's superior.

As to outside employment, the basic rule is that there shall be none which is not compatible with the full and proper discharge of the duties and responsibilities of employment with CBO.

No employee of CBO shall receive compensation or anything of monetary value for any outside employment, consultation, lecture, discussion, writing or appearance the subject matter of which is (a) devoted substantially to the responsibilities, programs or operations of CBO, or (b) with respect to which any expense was or could have been lawfully charged to the government.

(The foregoing shall not preclude non-federal payment of an employee's travel, subsistence and other expenses incident to attendance at meetings, if the payment is made by an organization qualifying under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (i.e., tax-exempt educational, scientific and charitable institutions), or by another unit of government, where no federal reimbursement is claimed.) No employee of CBO shall engage in any outside employment that is dependent on information obtained as a result of or in the course of CBO employment, except when that information is available to the general public.

Any employee who intends to engage in outside employment (other than intermittent, non-professional activity, e.g. babysitting, thesis typing, etc.) shall obtain advance approval, through the head of his office or division, from the Deputy Director. A record of each such approval shall be kept in the employee's official personnel folder and shall be available for public inspection.

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