News
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., wants more information from the Office of Personnel Management on a planned marketing campaign to polish the public image of federal employees.
Coburn yesterday sent a letter to OPM Director John Berry asking how much he plans to spend on the rebranding effort he announced April 19, how it will work, why it is necessary and what he hopes the campaign will achieve. Coburn said he wants to better understand how spending money on the campaign will benefit taxpayers. He asked OPM to respond by Aug. 15.
Berry said at the Excellence in Government Conference that OPM is surveying liberal and conservative citizens to find out their impressions of federal workers and the issues that are important to them. OPM will use that data to create a new marketing campaign, he said.
Berry's comments came as the Pew Research Center released a survey showing that the public's trust in the federal government has reached historic lows. Just 22 percent of Americans say they can trust the government almost always or most of the time, the survey found. That's down from 31 percent in January 2007, and down from 40 percent in February 2000.
OPM's outreach and recruitment efforts should highlight specific jobs done by federal employees such as park rangers, research scientists and spies, Berry said. The public may think of federal employees in general as faceless bureaucrats, he said. But when people are asked about the specific jobs feds do, their opinions of civil servants rise, Berry said.
Coburn yesterday sent a letter to OPM Director John Berry asking how much he plans to spend on the rebranding effort he announced April 19, how it will work, why it is necessary and what he hopes the campaign will achieve. Coburn said he wants to better understand how spending money on the campaign will benefit taxpayers. He asked OPM to respond by Aug. 15.
Berry said at the Excellence in Government Conference that OPM is surveying liberal and conservative citizens to find out their impressions of federal workers and the issues that are important to them. OPM will use that data to create a new marketing campaign, he said.
Berry's comments came as the Pew Research Center released a survey showing that the public's trust in the federal government has reached historic lows. Just 22 percent of Americans say they can trust the government almost always or most of the time, the survey found. That's down from 31 percent in January 2007, and down from 40 percent in February 2000.
OPM's outreach and recruitment efforts should highlight specific jobs done by federal employees such as park rangers, research scientists and spies, Berry said. The public may think of federal employees in general as faceless bureaucrats, he said. But when people are asked about the specific jobs feds do, their opinions of civil servants rise, Berry said.
