Internal disputes in a government agency continue to threaten competence at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, with the agency failing to meet even half of its performance targets over a recent four-year period.
The agency failed to meet 61 of its 115 performance targets that measured its goals from 2009 to 2013, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday. Established by the 1957 eponymous law to investigate the quality of civil rights across the country, the agency is comprised of about 40 people, including eight commissioners and a staff director.
Success of these goals was “impaired by management challenges,” including “unclear roles and responsibilities of commission leaders,” which led to internal disputes, the report said.
In fact, the clarity of leaders’ roles was one such dispute.
“Congress may wish to consider clarifying the roles and responsibilities of commissioners and the staff director,” the report said. “All of the commissioners, except for the chairman, disagreed with our finding.”
Those seven commissioners told the GAO that the statute already sufficiently outlined leadership duties. Chairman Martin Castro, however, told investigators that those roles have often been contradicted and that “clarity would have been welcome.”
“This has contributed to internal disagreements and affected internal and external operations,” the report said. It also has resulted in a “weak leadership structure.”
The Civil Rights Commission declined to comment beyond its response in the report.
The commission’s leadership told the GAO that its greatest challenge was a lack of money. The agency’s budget has been stagnant at about $9 million since 1995.
However, feuding leaders added to the struggle.
“The commission’s resource levels have been essentially flat, but the commission’s challenges go beyond resource constraints,” the report said. Cooperative leaders may have updated policies to “help the commission operate more efficiently and effectively.”
Consequently, the Civil Rights Commission failed to meet many of its targets. Furthermore, a goal to better address state level civil rights issues failed to meet four-fifths of its marks.
Without a change in law, it is unlikely that commission leaders will work together to clearly define their roles and appropriately update and optimize commission policy.
