NIH Principal Administrative Officers		Alternates
Richard Freed, NIAID		Francie Kitzmiller, NIDDK
Carroll Hanson, NHLBI		Joan Harvey, NIMH
Brenda Sandler, NIAAA		Marlyn Strickland, CIT
Carol Smith, NINDS		Betty Fitzpatrick, NCI
Ana Ferreira, NINR		Myra Thomas, NCI, DCEG
Linda Adams, NHGRI		Trish Scullion, NIAID
Rene Smither, NIDCR
John Slauson, NEI
Olive Childers, OD/OIR
Marsha Hennings, NIAMS
Bruce Wiggins, NIEHS
Jackie Robinson, NEI
Nadine Fonrose, OIR
Corrine Abbott, NIDCD

Meeting of Principal Administrative Officers (closed session)

Richard Freed opened the meeting and introduced the first topic.

I. Human Resources Re-structuring - Lynn Hellinger, Associate Director for Management and Operations, NIAID

Lynn Hellinger gave a detailed explanation on how the Human Resources (HR) Re-structuring would be conducted. The interest lies in consolidating and re-structuring the business practices of our existing HR system. Tony Itteilag, who is the Co-Chair of the committee on restructuring, will be taking a close look at the current HR operations at NIH. The Steering Committee, which consists of Personnel and Executive Officers at NIH, will examine how the NIH can form one single HR office that will have single accountability for HR at the NIH. Fred Walker, OHRM and Marvene Horiwitz, NINDS will be doing the leg work on the project. It has been decided that this cannot be done in isolation of the Committee.

The Committee will need input from the scientific staff and Administrative Officers etc. The National Academy of Public Administration, an independent firm hired toassist with forming 45 focus groups. These groups will consist of Scientific Staff and Administrative Officers who will brainstorm to come up with ideas. The data from these groups will be consolidated and summarized. The National Academy of Public Administration will also design models from the ideas developed by thefocus groups.

Some of the HR areas at NIH are not able to process their own personnel actions. It was discovered that the majority of HR time is being spent on processing personnel actions. The idea of consolidating HR functions under one umbrella will relieve a great deal of this processing time. Part of the consolidation will consist of transferring all HR FTEs from each Institute to OHRM and the individuals will physically remain in their servicing areas. Therefore, on the surface functions will look the same, however, in reality each individual will be in one area. Also, funding options will be looked at once FTE's are transferred.

The Design Team will deal with the logistics of everything else. The Design Team consists of 65 individuals from HR, Executive Officers, Scientific Directors, Administrative Officers, and IC representatives. They will meet on March 1 to develop modules to look at and consider. This Design Team will be facilitated with members of Howard Gatlin's staff. They will decide on what we as an organization can do on a corporate level rather than each IC working individually. The team will also develop standardized PDs that can be used by each Institute. The Design Team will also, decided which activities and services to leave as a function of the IC.

In conclusion, we do not want a single solution to the problem but many ideas from groups and the Steering Committee, who will then present these ideas as a model or models to Dr. Ruth Kirschstein. Once these models are formed the structure will be developed and implementation will be phased in at a gradual pace. Updates of the project will be posted at the following web address: ----------------------------

Questions:

1. What impact will this have on the Administrative area at NIH?

There will be no impact on the Administrative Officers in the area of HR other than, routing of personnel packages and such. There will be an "All Hands Meeting held in April. In this forum, you will be able to ask questions and voice concerns.

2. Who will receive the information developed in these focus groups and Steering Committee? We were also asked to develop ideas. Will that information be consolidated with the rest?

All information developed in the focus groups and benchmarks will be shared and developed into models to be presented to Ruth Kirshtein. The input from ITs, Grants, Public Relations, and Administrative Officers will be consolidated and presented by September 30.

3. In regards to AD and non-FTE appointments, how will these appointments be handled?

At the moment, we are not sure. Each IC handles these appointments differently.

4. Will the Department consider telecommuting at any point?

The Department has been thinking about expanding this use due to space issues and traffic problems. To avoid ethical issues, the decision should not be made at the Institute level, but rather the Departmental level.

At this point Richard Freed, announced that he will be stepping down as the Chairman of the NIH IAO Meeting. He has accepted a position as the Director, Office of Management for New Initiatives, NIAID.

II. Reports from SDs and Executive Officers Meetings - Olive Childers and Brenda Sandler. (it was decided that Brenda will do the reports on the Executive Officers Meeting at the next IAO meeting).

The SDs meeting for this week was canceled. However, Olive presented a report from the January 16th meeting:

• The Global Health Research Initiative Program is a new program implemented by FIC to support scientist from Third World countries. This Program will have a great impact on Intramural scientists.
  
• The Management Interns are beginning their rotations; please allow them to do rotations in your areas.
  
• Dr. Gottesman wants to be sure that evaluations for tenure track investigators are being completed.
  
• A list of all Tenure Track Investigators and their research is on the OIR website.
  
• The web training for tech transfer is an excellent resource for tech transfer. It goes through all mechanisms such as Crada's and material handling. Ron King wants to be certain that all the bugs are out. Dr. Gottesman will review the program. After the review, it will be available in 4 weeks.
  
• Please remind scientists in your areas to include women, minorities, and the handicapped as presenters for Institute lectures. Dr. Ruth Kirshstein has approved of the NIH Director's lecture nominees.
  
• Dr. Michael Gottesmen has given approval of the human embryonic stem cell research.
  
• Dr. Gottesman enjoyed attending the IAO meeting and would like to attend more.

Open Session

I. NIH Business and Research Support System (NBRSS) Update - Colleen Barros

Colleen Barros introduced Susan Corey who is the Change Management Director for the NBRSS and Stella Griffin who is a senior specialist working on the implementation of the Enterprise Human Resource and Planning (EHRP) system.

A. The NBRSS is deploying two enterprise systems. The NBS to replace the ADB and the CAS with Oracle and Bolt -Ons and the EHRP to replace IMPACT with Peoplesoft.

B. The NBS Oracle software and bolt-on packages will integrate all non-HR business functions including financial management, travel, property, research and development contracting, supply/acquisition, and service and supply funds.

C. The NBS will reduce cost and complexity, replace multiple applications with one system that will link all business functions for the NIH, will integrate the flow of information, and will improve managerial control and access to key data.

D. The work to implement the NBS and incorporate the accounting structure into the system will be used as a "proof of concept" for the corporate system being deployed by the DHHS (Unified Financial Management System).

E. The EHRP is a PeopleSoft, web-based management system that will replace the current IMPACT system. The current Central Payroll System will remain in use.

F. The EHRP system will include NIH Civilian Employees and will handle the following functions: personnel action requests and base benefits.

G. The EHRP system will not include Commissioned Officers and Non-employees. While the functionality exists to deploy other functions such as training and workforce development; recruitment and staffing; labor management and employee relations; labor costs and distribution; and employee self-service, the Department has chosen to implement "core" functionality with the first deployment.

H. The NBRSS has provided for a comprehensive change management program which will combine communication, training, workforce strategy and evaluation for both the NBS and EHRP systems.

More information about the NBRSS can be obtained in the handout or online at http://nbs.nih.gov or http://ehrp.nih.gov.

II. Update on Travel Ceilings and Per Diem while on local travel - Joel Papier

Joel Papier gave a very abbreviated talk on travel. He explained that to be authorized a per diem allowance for travel in the local area, the temporary duty site must be located more than 35 miles from both the employee's residence and official duty station. This parameter must first be met. Then, one of two other parameters can be applied: 1) The event will run into the early evening and you are required to return early the next morning or, 2) The event will run the course of a workday for a normal workweek (5 days). You must be in travel status for at least 12 hours to be eligible for a per diem allowance. Due to the short amount of time, Joel will return for next months meeting and elaborate on this topic in addition to giving us more information on other travel related issues.