From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: National Weather Service Hiring Backlog Description: Most of the National Weather Service's operations offices are open 24 hours a day, every day, to issue weather forecasts and warnings. But how are their staff vacancies--which are growing--affecting their ability to provide this lifesaving information? Related GAO Work: GAO-17-364: National Weather Service: Actions Have Been Taken to Fill Increasing Vacancies, but Opportunities Exist to Improve and Evaluate Hiring Released: May 2017 [ Background Music: ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's May 2017. The National Weather Service is responsible for issuing weather forecasts and warnings to help protect people and property, especially during severe weather. Most of its operations offices across the nation operate 24 hours a day, every day. A team led by Anne-Marie Fennell, a director in GAO's Natural Resources and Environment team, looked into the growing number of job vacancies at these offices. Sarah Kaczmarek sat down with Anne-Marie to talk about what they found. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] What did you find out about job vacancies at the National Weather Service's operation centers? Are they increasing? [ Anne-Marie Fennell: ] Yes. We found that the vacancies are increasing across the National Weather Service offices. In 2010, the vacancy rate across the offices was about 5 percent. By 2016, it had jumped up to 11 percent. In terms of individual National Weather Service offices, we found that there was quite a bit of variation in terms of the vacancy rate. For example, in some offices, we found that the vacancy rate was as high as 27 percent in 2016. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So overall it doubled, and then as high as 27 percent in some offices. How long are these vacancies staying open? [ Anne-Marie Fennell: ] The vacancies are staying open for quite a while. National Weather Service agency officials told us that they don't have the funding to fill all the vacancies, so some positions are just staying open. When they are able to hire, we found that the hiring process takes a long time. So for example, in 2016, it took anywhere between 2 months and 15 months to fill vacant positions. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] What are some of the root causes of just the trouble with filling these jobs? [ Anne-Marie Fennell: ] In short, attrition is happening faster than the National Weather Service can fill the positions. Complicating matters is that the hiring shop for the agency has been experiencing its own attrition, and has been understaffed, and they just haven't been able to catch up with the hiring backlog. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And how are managers and staff dealing with the shortages at the operational units? I'm assuming that the work still has to get done since warning people about severe weather is so critical, so how are they compensating? [ Anne-Marie Fennell: ] Yes, the work still has to get done, so managers and staff are taking on additional tasks and coping the best way that they can. For example, both managers and staff have had to work significant amount of overtime. In one office, they told us that they had to work 15 to 20 consecutive days without a day off. In other instances, managers have had to ask other staff to come from other offices on a temporary basis to get the forecast done. In one field office location that we went to, there was a meteorologist who was on temporary assignment from another location, and he was there for 7 months to be able to issue forecasts to cover for a vacancy. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] That's got to be tough on some of the staff there, but I wonder, are some things just not getting done? Are some of the critical things even not being covered? [ Anne-Marie Fennell: ] Yes. Because they've had to cover for the vacancies, other tasks have not been completed. For example, some offices just have not been able to provide the additional severe weather information support needed by state and local managers to cover for emergency situations. In other situations, some staff have not been able to take critical forecast training, which is necessary for them to hone their skills. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] What recommendations are you making in this report to try to address some of these challenges? [ Anne-Marie Fennell: ] We made two recommendations. First, we recommended that the agency ensure that complete information be provided to National Weather Service managers about their hiring requests so that they can better understand how long a vacancy might exist and to figure out a plan for how to cover. In addition, we made a second recommendation where we asked the agency to evaluate the various actions that they were taking to address the hiring backlog in order to determine what actions are going to be most successful for getting the job done. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Finally, what do you see as the bottom line of this report, especially for all of us who rely on this information? [ Anne-Marie Fennell: ] National Weather Service officials see that there is an increasing number of vacancies and that they are widespread. So they're taking a number of steps to try to address this problem, but they haven't taken that critical step back to see, with the many actions they're taking, what is actually going to be the most successful for dealing with the problem at hand. Given constrained budget environment and resources, it's important that the National Weather Service figure out, what are the most successful solutions for addressing the hiring backlog so that they can actually deliver the forecast and the weather warnings that are so necessary to protect life and property? [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit GAO.gov and be sure to tune in to the next episode of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office.