The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee held a confirmation hearing yesterday to consider the nomination of Jeffrey Zients, President Obama's pick to be Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget and sit in the newly created position of Chief Performance Officer. The hearing was uneventful and short, lasting less than an hour, and Zients received mostly praise and kinds words from Senators.

Senators questioned Zients about a wide range of issues he will be responsible for overseeing, including excessive outsourcing, lack of use of performance data, government overpayments, waste and mismanagement in IT projects, federal workforce development, and overburdened acquisition employees. They also probed on Zients' private sector experience (he has never worked in government before).

Overall, Zients did very well. He acknowledged up front that the private sector and government are inherently different types of structures, and generally promoted some ideas already developed within the new administration, such as curbing the competitive sourcing initiative. Two particularly quotes stood out for me during his testimony. First, Zients confirmed again that the Obama administration wants an open process used to overhaul the current performance systems in the government:

The test of a performance management system is, is it being used to make important resource allocation and budget decisions. I'm looking forward, if confirmed, to taking a collaborative approach, working with all the stakeholders, to develop a system.

Second, Zients discussed that the excessive outsourcing that has occurred in recent years leaves the government vulnerable over the long term:

We must recognize there are critical functions that, even if not inherently governmental, should be performed by federal employees to make sure organizations have the internal capability and capacity to maintain control of their operations.

Zients is expected to be easily confirmed by the committee and full Senate.

GovExec.com: Management nominee backs performance, accountability measures
Federal Eye: Zients Gives the Public Sector Some Love

(Adam Hughes 06/11/09)