>> Robin Waldman: Hello, NARA. Hello everyone.

Thank you for joining us for today's town hall,

we'll begin in just a moment. Okay, thank you, everybody for joining us today. We are here to
discuss a few big topics, our budget, our strategic plan, our accountability reports, and what they
all mean for NARA going forward. Thank you for joining us today, we have collected quite a few
questions from staff and we are going to get to as many as we can, as many voices and as many
employees as we can, addressed in one session today.

If you have questions that are still occurring to you or that you would like to contribute to the
ongoing conversation, you can submit them in all the usual ways. If you are watching via webcast
you can type them into the webcast chat function, and we will capture them that way. If you are in
the room here in College Park you are welcome to come to one of the two side microphones, and if
you do please make sure that you speak directly into the microphone so that everybody in the
room and watching our webcast can hear you. And if you are participating by phone you have the
option to submit a question that way as well. So let's take a moment right now to ask the phone
operator could you please give us the instructions for participation by phone?

>> OPERATOR: Certainly. To ask a question by phone you would press star then the number one
on your telephone keypad.

>> Robin Waldman: Great, thank you very much. So as you can see we have most of the
management team here in front of you today to answer your questions, they'll introduce
themselves in just a moment. I want to let you know that we have a lot of material to discuss
today, so we are very grateful for your engagement, and the number of questions that we've
collected so far.

If you do want to contribute further to our queue of questions today I'd just ask you please to limit
yourself to one question and to ask it as succinctly as possible so that we can address as much as
we can today. So with that, let's look at the agenda very briefly.

And as you can see, it is a brief agenda. We'll look at a quick overview of where we are thus far with
the strategic plan and the budget request and the budget process. We'll have brief presentations,
and then the floor is yours.

So we will start with Archivist of the United States David Ferriero and opening remarks.

>> David Ferriero: Thank you, Robin. So each administration comes into town with some large
goals, this one included, to modernize government to better meet the needs of the American
people, and to make more efficient use of resources to reduce the burden on the American
taxpayer.

Late in April of 2017 the Office of Management and Budget issued the memorandum 1712 -- 22, to
all executive branch agencies, with a mandate to do the following things.

Develop an agency reform plan by reviewing all programs and activities, to ensure that every
function is operating efficiently and effectively, and is contributing to the core mission of the
agency.

By identifying activities that are duplicative, nonessential or not operating effectively and
efficiently, for those actions to improve, organize or eliminate those functions. That was the first
mandate. The second was to prepare a new strategic plan and fiscal 19 budget incorporating our
reform plans, and all had to be submitted by the end of June.

We communicated this to you in a NARA Notice on the 27th of April and promised to engage you
in the process as much as possible.

The management team sitting here on the stage worked through May and June to accomplish this
assignment, and in May we asked you for ways to improve our organization activities, products
and services in the Survey Monkey opportunity. We received 505 responses, and reported back to
you in late June. Then I want to thank all of you who did contribute.

About half of the suggestions were ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of NARA
operations; most of the rest of the responses addressed customer service but didn't quite fit into
the categories provided. All -- we found all of them helpful, as a matter of fact, not only for this
exercise but just as a snapshot of agency pain points.

The most common ideas suggested, changes to our organizational structure, improvement in our
human capital policies and procedures, or new ways to meet our digitization goals.

It was a broad and diverse range of viable ideas, which were reviewed and considered by the
management team in drafting our plan. In the middle of August we shared with you the draft of
the strategic plan on the ICN for discussion, by survey and two All Hands meetings. Your input was
valuable and resulted in the addition of four new strategic objectives. Just as important were the
many thoughtful comments relating to implementation of the plan.

We shared the revised strategic plan with you in September, four days after we had submitted it to
OMB with our fiscal 2019 budget.

At that point, OMB requested no release of information until the White House submitted the total
budget to the Hill, which happened on the 12th of February. And at that point, on that day, in
another NARA notice, we shared the outline of our strategic plan and the budget requests with
you.

We're here today to review that information with you and answer any questions that you have. So
let me once again thank all of you who provided input along the way. And once more remind you
of the unique opportunity you've had to participate, limited though it may have been, by OMB
requirements. And if you compare notes with your colleagues in other agencies, I would guarantee
that you will find that your experience is very different than what has happened in other agencies.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Micah, who will walk us through the plan and the budget.

>> Micah Cheatham: Sorry. Thank you. And as the Archivist said, this is sort of a very long process
that culminated on last Monday, February 12th, when NARA submitted our new strategic plan for
2018 through 2022, as well as our 2019 budget request, annual performance plan and report, and
also legislative proposal that would change some of the statutory authorities of the Archivist of the
United States.

Now just a little bit, right of process here. The strategic plan then, as the Archivist sort of
explained, is a different process than how we formulate the budget. The strategic plan is designed
and actually required to be done somewhat openly. And you do have the sort of milestones or
check points, where we've reached out to staff through several different vehicles, to try and collect
input. And then separately we are required to reach out to stakeholders.

We chose to engage federal agencies in particular and customers, but then after that we're
required to share it with OMB and we're also required to share a draft with Congress. And then
those things happened. So in this very deliberative and time sort of staged way, and then that
results in this is our final strategic plan, which is going to govern sort of how we function and
operate, in particular set that vision and how we drive the agency for the next four years.

The budget is different. The budget is very much a statement of policy. There's a lot of numbers in
it, but to some extent that's sort of allocating resources and putting your money where your mouth
is by saying this is what I want to do and this is how I'm realigning funds in order to get this
accomplished. To the extent that real sort of real life policy needs to be embedded and concurred
in and agreed to by the White House, by the Office of the Management and Budget, they need to
be okay with what we're saying. But they also want to see whether other agencies are doing
something similar or contradictory, and to try to align those.

For those reasons that is embargoed information, it's not something that agencies are allowed to
sort of ever, not just during a period, but you're not allowed to ever sort of reveal that. And there's
a reason why, because it provides evidence of a conflict within the administration. And it's what
we call pre-decisional and deliberative, and it's the idea that the White House is making up its
mind. We made up our mind because we said this is what we want to do, but the White House and
the Administration needs to say no, this is what we're going to do.

And then that goes to Congress as a request, because constitutionally Congress has the power of
the purse, and they appropriate funds through laws, appropriations laws.

So what we provided them is a mixture of, you know, requests and absolutes. So the strategic plan
has already been to Congress, they've already had an opportunity to comment on it, and we're
saying this is it; this is what we're going to do. And then we're providing a plan for how we're going
to implement that. Through the budget request, through the performance plan and report, and
then also we had a unique opportunity this year to provide a legislative proposal. And our
legislative proposal, much like the budget request, is really what we think we need in terms of
authorities and support and funding in order to start to accomplish the strategic plan.

The legislative proposal then changes some authorities within Title 44 that would give the Archivist
the authority to take custody of permanent records that are past their disposition date; allow
NARA to deaccession archivable records that no longer have historical value without going back to
the agencies, and allow NARA to dispose of temporary records that are past -- unilaterally dispose
of records that are past disposition date.

What you see then this is the only legislative proposal I think other than the Alaska stuff that I've
seen here, so this is a very unique opportunity, and although we don't have a lot of firm things from
the White House saying, you know, we're okay with your strategic plan, their request that we
pulled together of legislative proposal and inclusion in the budget is a very strong sign of their
support for our strategic plan.

Then that strategic plan then itself is a very sort of compelling case for change. And you can see
the support we've gotten here is really people are sort of starting to build around this. So our
strategic plan again, you've been with us through the whole process and we really appreciate the
input we've gotten and received from all staff and other sources. We took the strategic goal to the
last plan, right? The make access happen, connect with customers, maximize value to the nation,
and build our future through our people. But we took that and we built new objectives, right? We
created much different type of objectives.

If you look at the old strategic plan, 2014 through 2018, it's very much about preparing for
electronic records. And it's grasping sort of how we can get started with electronic archives. And
the new strategic plan is done preparing. This is our set of actions and our set of policies that we're
going to do, that we're going to implement electronic archives and we're going to draw others into
a fully electronic government.

If you look at the 2022 goal, right, the 2022 goal, the objective, this is really sort of what we've
talked the most about, we've put out the most, it is the center of the strategic plan. It says after
December 31st, 2022 NARA is no longer going to accept new transfers of analog records of the
FRCP, and we won't accession new records in analog formats. And to the fullest extent possible,
but then what we will accession is electronic records with the appropriate metadata. And that
really is very much focused about modernizing NARA, becoming more efficient and effective, all
the things that the Archivist described as being part of the reform plan guidance.

But it does another thing too; it sends a strong signal outside the agency. If you're going to -- so
remember, managing government records directive, the 19th goal said manage -- you have to
manage your electronic records electronically. Now we're saying 2022, you've got to manage your
permanent records electronically. It's not -- it's past sort of do manage electronic electronically,
and manage paper paper-ly.

The goal then is now we're pushing other federal agencies into managing their permanent records
electronically. And by closing the door of the FRCP, we're also telling them you need to look at
your temporary records too. This is changing the economic analysis that agencies go through
when they're deciding whether to modernize a system or keep going through paper. We're giving
a strong incentive to move beyond sort of the electronic recordkeeping in the management --
managing government records directive, beyond electronic archives, we're driving an electronic
government. This is an exciting plan.

And we are putting forward resources in the budget, until we get to -- that take NARA a step in
that direction, we're beginning to build that path.

But it's also driving other agencies to adopt more efficient and more effective ways of managing
their records and really managing their business in an electronic environment.

And I don't really have smooth transitions out of things, I just kind of stop. I'm sorry. But so that's
the strategic plan.

The budget then again is really the first step in the four years covered by the strategic plan; this is
how we're going to start within the many constraints, other constraints established by the
administration.

>> Colleen Murphy: Can you hear me? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to walk through, I
know many of you have already seen the budget, but walk through some highlights. So first I think
most -- first I'm going to walk through have to do with our appropriation. So the budget request,
377 million in appropriations, how that's broken down is 365 for operating expenses, many of you
are already familiar with. The Office of Inspector General also has a separate appropriation in that
$4.2 million.

And we also have repairs and restorations for our many buildings we own, which was 7 and a half
million dollars. Yes.

>> (Inaudible)

>> Colleen Murphy: I do. Is this better? Yes? I'm sorry. Thank you.

Is this better? Okay. So and then one thing I did want to mention has to do with -- this will be
better. This will work. Thanks. Has to do with the grant appropriation. Many of you have noticed
that there is no request for an HPRC grant. I just wanted to point out this is consistent in terms of
other programs similar to NEH and NEA. So now I get to do the positive stuff first. As Mike had
mentioned, with our new strategic plan, what the budget also proposes is many investments in our
future.

The first one that I wanted to point out has to do with ERA for Executive Office of the President.
What this will do is it's a separate instance of ERA 2.0 that will sort of consolidate and put all the
electronic Office of the President records into one system, and build off what we already have in
ERA 2.0. Can you still hear me? Okay.

Also, there's also funding in terms of securing our physical and data assets; improving -- everyone
is familiar -- I always hold up my card with two factor authentication, that provides funding for this.

We also have funding for modernizing our physical access control, and logical access control, which
will allow us to update some of our outdated systems. And then as well as modernize our high
value assets.
The one thing that I also wanted to point out in terms of the fully electronic recordkeeping has with
the transfer of a new program to NARA. This is called E-rulemaking, and it's currently with the ER -
- the EPA and it's moving to NARA. So one thing I want to point out is this program involves FTE at
approximately $8 million, but it is fully reimbursable. So what that means is there's approximately
40 partner agencies that pay into this program. Somewhat similar to the Records Center Program,
but I did want to make sure you're aware of that.

And for E-rulemaking, it is comprised of regulations.gov, which will give the public a chance to
comment on regulations, along with the federal docket management system, in terms of
managing those comments and documents related to it. And I wanted to point out that this is
really a great consolidation in terms of bringing together E-rulemaking and the Federal Register
operations, that's really going to give us this great opportunity to improve efficiencies and reduce
redundancies.

So now I've given you the good news. So I wanted to make sure a couple things in terms of many
of you saw reductions in the budget as well. The first thing I do want to point out is if you do look at
the document itself, you will see a comparison for 2017, which is our enacted level, 2018, and that's
where I want to point out the difference.

This is -- the figure listed in the budget is the annualized ECR. As many of you know, we've all gone
through several shutdowns. That means it has not enacted yet. So I did want to make sure you're
aware this is -- the 2018 is the 2017 level, minus a small rescission. And I think there was -- go
ahead and answer, I think there was one question in terms of ERA 2.0 and the reduction of funding,
so I wanted to point out this is the reason that it was taken off for 2019, because it is a 2018
program. And you'll see the direct link from ERA 2.0 in allowing us to fund ERA/EOP.

Also I wanted to mention that it doesn't provide funding a pay raise -- excuse me, doesn't provide
for a pay raise in FY 2019. This is government-wide; this is not something that's specific to NARA.
And also, mention that this doesn't have any impact on within-grades or career ladder promotions.

Then the next thing I wanted to cover has to do with the workforce reductions in terms of I wanted
to reiterate what was mentioned in the NARA notice in terms of that there will not be any
reduction in force. As well as there is no planned offer buyouts. I think many of you saw that.

But in terms of the workforce planning, I wanted to mention as we move toward this new strategic
plan implementation we are planning to implement staffing plans across organizations. So what
this will involve is institute any conduction the executives, the staff directors will work to institute
staff ceilings by organization, and develop the authorized staffing plans. And then it will enable
the executives and staff directors to hire up to that staffing plan, without getting additional
approval. Which is a real -- I don't know how long many of you have been at NARA, but that's a
really exciting thing to see that I haven't seen since I've been here.

Also I did want to mention in terms of it does involve consolidating our classified operations. As
many of you are aware, classified operations are already consolidated in the D.C. area, so this is
bringing them in line with the rest of NARA. As well as accelerating the completion of the Nixon
College Park project, in order to allow us to meet those targets.

So I know I threw out a lot of information, so getting back to summarizing in terms of as we

prepare for a fully electronic government we're going to discuss several initiatives, including the
ERA/EOP; talk about the inclusion of the E-rulemaking project allowing us to collaborate regarding
regulations; along with allowing us to meet, ensuring that we have appropriate staff to meet those
needs, institute the staffing plans.

>> Colleen Murphy: That's great. Let's go to John Hamilton, and then we will do an introduction of
all the management team, and then all the questions.

>> John Hamilton: Okay, can everybody hear me, is my lapel -- okay. As Micah and Colleen said on
February 12th our budget, NARA's budget was submitted to Congress, and this is the same thing
that every other agency in the government did on February 12th, they submitted their plan to
Congress. What they say on the Hill, it's very true, the President proposes, but the Congress
disposes.

So in all matters of raising revenue, cutting revenue, and allocating spending, only Congress can do
that. So what the President, through the agency submitted on February 12th, are the ideas that
the administration believes should be considered, but it's up to Congress to decide and act.
Sometimes they like the ideas, sometimes they don't.

So where we are now, our budget is up there, and very soon we will be meeting, probably Micah
and Colleen and others will be meeting with the appropriations committees to discuss it, to answer
their questions, and to give them what they need to actually start writing the bill. So it all gets
confusing when you talk about budget, appropriations and fiscal years, but where we are now is at
the beginning of the process to determine fiscal year 2019, which should begin on October 1st. It
will probably begin with a CR; we can talk about that later, but.

And the appropriations process is that process on Capitol Hill where 12 bills are written, and those
12 bills encompass all of the discretionary spending that will occur in this country during the year,
fiscal year 2019.

Discretionary spending is about one third of the overall federal budget. You draw up a 4 trillion
dollar pie, but one third of that pie is discretionary. The other two-thirds of that pie are mandatory,
and they're the fastest growing parts of the pie. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps,
interest on the debt.

That's all mandatory, that money has to be spent every year. Congress will make decisions on that
one third, and of that one third, about half of that is defense discretionary spending. So as I said,
there are 12 bills that need to be written by 12 appropriations subcommittees. Two of those
subcommittees deal with defense, military construction, and Veterans Affairs. That composes
over half of that one third of discretionary spending. So the rest of us agencies, big and large, get
to work with the remaining one half of that one third.

We fall under a subcommittee, you probably heard me say this before, called the financial services
and general government subcommittee. That subcommittee is responsible for funding some very
large agencies like the IRS, the GSA, the federal courts, and a whole bunch of small agencies. Like
NARA, the FEC, the FTC, the SEC. I like to think we still have pretty good relations with members,
Republican and Democratic, on those subcommittees, and over the next weeks and months we
will be engaging with them, mostly at the staff level but oftentimes with David at the member
level, as well.

We'll be making our case for our budget, we'll also be working with them on some of the things,
like someone pointed out that NHPRC, as you know, is a zero in our budget again. This isn't the
first time that our grants program has been zeroed in the request. I don't believe it's ever come out
zero at the end of the day, and there is a pretty vocal constituency out there that lobbies Congress
on behalf of the NHPRC, so that's certainly something we hear from Congress about and will be
talking to them about in the weeks and months to come.

In a normal year -- I don't think there is a normal year anymore, but the way it's supposed to work is
these bills start getting written in the spring, they go through the final committee process in floor
votes in the summer, House and Senate bills get merged together in early fall then by October 1st
they're all signed and we go on our way.

All the bills haven't gone through that process on that timeline since -- what, 1990 -- 4, or 6?
During the Clinton administration. It happened once. So CRs are non-normal. I would be shocked
if we have our FY 19 budget in place by October 1st. Not only because the process right now is
totally broken and dysfunctional, but also it is an election year, and Congress works shockingly few
days in an election year because they all want to get home and campaign.

And they also don't like dealing with difficult issues, like spending money. So we'll probably be
looking at a CR well into the post-election season.

Colleen did point out to you, we're still in this spot right now where we're under a continuing
resolution for fiscal year 18, which should have started last October 1st, but two shutdowns and
several CRs later and we're still here.

There is movement to get an omnibus year for the rest of fiscal year 18 together before October
23rd, that's the deadline for this latest CR. March 23rd. It's looking -- it is looking promising. So
we're -- the same committees that we'll be talking to about FY 19 are also in the midst of trying to
take care of us for 2018, and we're talking to them at the same time we're talking to them about
2019, so it's a very confusing time for those folks on Capitol Hill, and certainly confusing for all of us
who are trying to make sense of all of this.

I guess I'll leave it there, and I'll be happy to answer any questions later.

>> Colleen Murphy: Okay, thank you. We have questions on all of the topics, but let's start by
making sure that everybody knows who is speaking. So management, could you please introduce
yourselves to our audience, to our staff, starting with Ann, so we make sure everybody knows who
everybody is.

>> Ann Cummings, research services.

>> Pam Wright, chief innovation officer.

>> Hi, Swarnali Haldar, CIO.

>> Gloria Stanwich, staff.

>> Jay Trainer with agency services.

>> John Hamilton, congressional affairs.

>> Jay Bosanko, chief operating officer.

>> Debra Wall, deputy archivist.

>> Mike Cheatham, chief of management administration.

>> Colleen Murphy, CFO,

>> Susan Donius, acting executive for executive archives, presidential libraries and museum
services.

>> Lawrence Brewer, chief records officer.

>> Donna Forbes, business support services.

>> Gary M. Stern, general counsel.

>> Oliver Potts, federal register.

>> Robin Waldman: Thank you all very much. Once again I will remind you if you have questions
please submit them by phone or by chat or come to the mic in the room. But I have a few queued
up to get us started, so let's see where this conversation takes us.

I have to scroll up my lengthy document. I'm getting there.

Okay, we have a lot of questions about how the FTE reductions will be handled. And let's be sure
everybody knows what FTE means in our documents also. Correct me if I'm wrong, full-time
equivalents, so basically how many employees we have who work full-time. So we have questions
about how the FTE reductions will be handled, how backfills will be prioritized, and how we'll
strategically guide the reductions. Can you tell us more?

>> Micah Cheatham: So an FTE is a full-time equivalent, it's 2080 hours of work. It's not a person;
it doesn't directly represent a person. I'll tell you a couple ways how it does it. So if you have two
employees who work half time, those two employees together contribute one FTE. Probably most
of you are aware that most of the administrative functions are split funded. So for example, the
chief financial officer is paid partially from operating expenses and partially from the records center
revolving fund. Well, their FTEs are split also. So when we talk about FTE in terms of what's
associated with an appropriation only, in the context we do with the budget, then what you get is a
fraction of an FTE for the entire sort of management administration workforce.
So none of us are fully represented in that regard. So we need to be careful when we look at
anything that talks about FTE to try and sort of equate that to on rules, it's really not particularly
helpful, and it's not necessarily what it represents. It's a unit of work, and it's a representation of
effort as opposed to a count of people.

As far as the workforce reductions, Colleen may have headed off some of those concerns or issues
in the past, but it goes a little bit like this.

We have -- I have -- we've done a great deal of work with the records center programs to set up
authorized staffing plans or patterns, and this is a listing of positions, some of which are filled and
some of which are not. And those that are not may be hired against, and those -- and when a new
need arises, then you can't just hire against it, it needs to go through a deliberative process to
determine if it's something that makes sense. There are a number of sort of bad things that this
controls for, but essentially it provides you a clear understanding of what your workforce is
regardless of how many people have to be on board.

So the commitment here then is with the reductions to -- with the staffing reductions, the
workforce reductions that are included in the budget, comes, will also come the authorized staffing
pattern. Or plan. And you have the ability then, with this hard target, we will enumerate or
identify those positions that add up to that target.

And then within those positions, once any executive unit or staff directory gets below that target
they can hire at will within those positions. And to the extent that needs to be changed or
modernized over time, then those would go to the resource allocation board for deliberation,
consideration, approval, ultimately by the Archivist. The difference is of course now we're doing
that very much on the fly by requiring every hire to come through the resource allocation board.

This gives managers and supervisors some constancy, some assurance, that -- and it also provides
this list of positions that then go to the budget and we can incorporate in the budget we know
what the size of the workforce is and we can prepare and plan for it.

>> Robin Waldman: Thank you. We have follow-ups. Can you talk about the numbers of FTEs that
were listed for reduction in the documents that we've seen? We have a loss of 36 FTEs in the
libraries, for example. And this question specifically asks according to NARA's posted 2017
workforce numbers, employees from L, meaning the libraries, make about -- LPM make up
approximately 25 percent of NARA's total appropriated workforce. So it seems burdensome for
presidential libraries to shoulder what this has been figured as to be 36 percent of reduction in
workforce. Can you talk more about the reason behind allocating the libraries a disproportionate
share of the workforce reductions?

>> Jay Bosanko: So let me start off and kind of answer actually part of the last question, which is
what Micah and his team and Colleen have done is look at what these numbers actually mean
based on our current staffing levels, and where we have to get to.

And we have shared, each of us has shared with our folks the numbers as far as what we need to
do, and this is the beginning, if you will, of the process of looking at each organization and trying to
figure out how do we implement the reductions that need to be made in a meaningful way. That
causes the least disruption, the least frustration, and otherwise provides us with opportunities to
realign our resources and our work to -- you know, in a constrained budget environment. So that
process is just beginning.

Those numbers kind of roll up to the high level number that was in the memo, and then there are
some other numbers which are more specific. For example, the 36 for the Presidential Library
system. That number is in addition to some number that Susan has been given that's specific to
LPM as a whole.

So there's a lot of work to be done to figure it out.

As far as the disproportionate nature of the numbers, I can tell you can cut these numbers lots of
different ways and look at them and say, well, if I measure this it appears disproportionate, if I
measure this a different office feels the same way. So I would caution folks from that approach.
But ultimately we have set out on a path, in the combination of two things that have already been
mentioned to the consolidation of a classified, and then the sort of the accelerated conclusion of
our work with the Nixon staff here in College Park. Those two projects will account for some
measure of the 36 specific to the libraries. So we've got some -- those, as well as some other things
that Susan and I have been discussing that will make it easier to implement these.

>> Micah Cheatham: So I think if you look at this over a continuum over time, right, it's fine to sort
of decide now that the 2019 library cuts your -- request cuts your program, then let us now sort of
look at the 2019 request. But if you look at the history of NARA funding, at least since 2014, 2015,
it's been steadily declining. And we've taken that out from different programs as we've developed
initiatives that are consistent with the strategic goal. What we haven't really done is to try to take a
pro rata cut and sort of spread it like peanut butter across the universe. So over time, going from
this much larger number -- perspective, right, and then down to this $365 million request, it's not --
I think it's not perhaps as out of proportion as it appears when you just get down to this one
instance.
But what the bigger picture then is that we're driving towards -- in order to drive towards an all-
electronic archives and to move into a fully electronic government we have to sort of start really
taking a harder look at some of these programs we haven't in the past, and start trying to figure
out how we can improve the efficiency and effectiveness. And frankly, divest in some paper based
processes and functions and let us sort of be serious about moving into an electronic environment.

It is not a coincidence then that we are investing 5 million into the ERA/EOP, right? This is very
much a function of putting your money where your mouth is.

>> Robin Waldman: Thank you. So as we talk about improving efficiency and effectiveness, and
also moving into an electronic environment, and as we look at the vacancies we already have and
the reductions in FTEs, how will position descriptions and particular elements be modified to
include additional roles and responsibilities for existing staff.

>> Jay Bosanko: I think at this point in time we're still pretty far away from being able to do that in
earnest. We have lots of planning that needs to be done, a lot of sort of assessment of where we
are as we implement the changes we're talking about. But to the extent that any of those changes
result in significant changes, that don't fit within existing PDs, then we will have to start that
process when we get to those points.

>> Micah Cheatham: I think we've been here before, right? This is like -- I can think of at least three
previous occasions where I've been on this stage talking about this issue that the OPM fly sheets
describe what archivists and archivist technicians do. And now the 308 series, I think it's
government information specialists, in a very paper-based world. So we have actually sort of
prepared this request, and we're trying to get some leverage with OPM to go back and look at this.

Of course the fly sheet, the classification standards which drives the position description, you've
seen where we've had some degree of success with research services where we're moving, and also
in FRCP, moving towards new position descriptions with modernized tasks and responsibilities, to
the limits that we can within the classification standard. You're going to continue to see that. But
it's a matter of not just sort of adding or reducing tasks, it's really rethinking what are we doing and
why and how.

>> Robin Waldman: We have a follow-up that's directed primarily to Susan and Ann. With all of
the core work still to be done and as we move into this electronic environment, how will the work
get done with WESCA.
>> Susan Donius: So colleen and Micah both spoke to the issue of the authorized staffing plan, and
I believe as, at least for L, as we begin to develop those we'll be working with each director, both
library director and division director, to evaluate the types of work we're doing. And we'll be
making very difficult choices about this type of work we need to pull back from and just go back
from. This will be done openly with the division directors, the library directors, and with staff input.

>> Ann Cummings: Much like Susan described, research services will be doing the same thing.
We'll be taking a look at the work, determining what's our priority, and how that fits in with the
authorized staffing plans that we're going to be developing with all of you.

>> Jay Bosanko: To be clear, this is something that every office is going to have to do. We've been
saying it for a while, where we've got to sort of figure out what it is we're not going to do, or do less
of, and those are never easy conversations. Sometimes what we're doing less of or what we stop
doing is something that's critically important to a part of the agency, and to the people that are
doing the work, could be incredibly important to stakeholders or researchers or different groups of
people that we serve. Whether it's other federal agencies, researchers, museum visitors, you
know, there's any number of ways to look at it.

So this is the beginning of that process in earnest. We've been on a path for a number of years
now. Just as John mentioned, the federal budget sort of with the different chunks, we've got
buildings, people, and then a tiny little sliver that covers everything else. And that sliver has gotten
significantly smaller over the last couple of years as we've been cutting things, trying to avoid more
dramatic impacts. And the reality is we're kind of at the end of that. We've got -- we're at that
point where we must start taking a harder look at the work we do, what our work plans are going
to cover, and sometimes that's going to mean -- you know, less of some things and more of others.

>> Robin Waldman: Thank you. This question I believe is for Colleen. Can you tell us more about
what going to shared services means? And we have several staff who are writing in to ask can you
tell us more about the number, the 24 FTEs that are mentioned as we talk about going to shared
services.

>> Colleen Murphy: Sure. So I think most of you in this room are familiar with it on the phone and
watching online. Shared services, there are shared service providers; an approved list of other
government agencies that apply typically shared administrative services. Probably the best
example I can give you is currently we are with -- I'll say the full name -- the Department of
Treasury Bureau of the Fiscal Service Administrative Resource Center for all our financial
management shared services. So what this allows us to do is to use state of the art, most of the
time, systems and services, without bearing the full cost.
So we are not responsible for systems, we're not -- we don't have to maintain an extra staff, we
really can rely on their expertise and their efficiency, and work with other shared service providers
and other customers collective. So that's for financial management. And then we're also in the
process of migrating in terms of HR shared services, which is similar in terms of systems, and
services.

>> Robin Waldman: Thank you. Lawrence, this one is for you. According to the President's
budget, more than 20 agencies will be shut down or scheduled to be shut down. Are we going to
be responsible for all of their records?

>> Lawrence Brewer: So the short answer is yes. An easy answer to a straightforward question.
So the longer answer is the Office of the Chief Records Officer for federal agencies that are going
defunct or terminating, we become the custodian of the records. So there's a good example, I
know I've worked with Ann before, and she's more than familiar with the Panama Canal
Commission records that went defunct. And then our office signs off on disposal and transfers.
We become the successor.

So the key thing is what on that list or which of the 19 are federal agencies, and which are entities,
not in the sense of the spirit world, but organizations that are not subject to the Federal Records
Act.

So those are on a different path, we wouldn't take possession of those records. But any federal
agency that does go defunct, then we would assume responsibility for those records and
administer those records. And they become part of NARA's record group RG 64.

So one of the things that we're doing is there's a lot of regulations in this VFR that do cover that --
they don't go into 64?

This is why Ann needs to help.

>> They have their own record groups.

>> Lawrence Brewer: They have their own, okay. So strike that part, pay attention to the first part,
and pay attention to this part. Because what's important is that there are regs that clearly say what
agencies need to do and what we do, and then right now we're working on an FAQ that sort of
distills the key points from those regs that we'll be issuing shortly that will provide some guidance
to those 19 and agencies that may find themselves -- and I say may find themselves in that boat.
>> Robin Waldman: Thank you. Swarnali, I have a questions for you. Can you tell us please in the
various documents there was a comment, a line about modernizing high value assets? And it says
there are two assets, but we would like to know what they are.

>> Swarnali Haldar: Sure. So high valued assets, as far as systems goes right now, is ARCIS and
CMRS and we have put in a plan and a budget request for modernization of those systems. They
are very old, they're legacy systems. For 19, we are currently working with VHS to stabilize any
security gaps we have in the current system. So CMRS and ARCIS are our high valued asset
systems.

>> But to be clear, high valued assets have a very specific meaning, and it really come -- I'm afraid
some people are hearing these are the two systems we've identified as of the most value to the
agency. Can you talk a little bit about --?

>> Swarnali Haldar: So it's actually a living list. So we're currently looking at what other systems
may or may not fall -- it does have a criteria that we have to walk through and look at our whole
portfolio recurringly, so that we do identify HVAs as far as systems goes.

What am I missing?

>> It's about PII.

>> Swarnali Haldar: Some of the criteria. Okay, so some of the criteria, I apologize, are PII related
information. So if a system contains PII, it automatically goes to a high value criteria, and is
considered an HVA list system, and currently those two are it, but we are constantly revisiting
those.

>> Robin Waldman: Thank you. Can you tell us why permanent electronic records are not
considered high value assets?

>> Swarnali Haldar: Some of them are. This is why we constantly looking at the list of data
elements and systems and record sets that are coming in. Permanent records, regarding what
they are, is what makes it into the HVA list or not. So if it has Social Security number, if it has your
address, if it has a combination of things about you that puts you into the PII category, it rises to
the HVA level.

>> Micah Cheatham: So I think one way of looking at it is it's high value to hackers or to malicious
actors outside of the agency; it's not high value to us. What may be the highest priority to us -- and
again, ARCIS and CMRS are very important, but they're not the only super important systems.
This is about what's going to be so valuable or tempting to someone outside the agency that it
would be worth trying to breach the security perimeter.

>> Robin Waldman: Swarnali, one more for you. As we talk about the priority of electronic records
and move to an electronic environment, what is being done to upgrade our computer systems and
technologies to handle the large quantities of data and large file sizes associated with our
digitization goals?

>> Swarnali Haldar: So working with Ann and Pam's groups, we are putting together a strategy
and a budget request for our forward0looking digitization goals. We are looking at what our
current pilot assessments are finding as far as what our gaps are, and looking to put together
infrastructure and a plan for our digitization goals. Do you guys want to add a little bit?

>> Pamela Wright: Sure. So I guess the risks that we're most concerned about are the technology
being able to scale, and we have people working on that every day, and also to make sure that we
have the ability to move large amounts of records up into the cloud is a big issue for us. And then
we're also concerned about -- we have many ways to do digitization, as you know. Do we have the
staff and the ability to support all those different ways, because you know it doesn't just happen on
its own there are staff that need to do that.

>> Ann Cummings: And then from research services point of view we have a plan starting with
looking at digitizing some of our microfilm as well as, as Swarnali mentioned, we're looking at ways
to implement digitization. We have a pilot where we're autofeeding records that can be autofed,
and to see what that requires and staffing needed for that.

As well as we have units that are doing small bits of digitization based on needs of the records, as
well as use from researchers.

>> Robin Waldman: Thank you. Here's a question for -- I'll let you decide who this is for. Are we
considering closing any facilities?

>> Micah Cheatham: We have no plans to close any facilities.

>> Donna Forbes: We don't have any plans to close any facilities. But I do think we need to
evaluate what we have. Is it the right portfolio, the right size, the right type of facilities? So I think
we do need to evaluate that and put a committee together to do that. We don't have the answers
going in, so it needs to be evaluated.

>> Robin Waldman: Okay, this question says thank you for working to protect us from RIFs, but
can you explain why you won't be offering any buyouts or early outs?

>> Colleen Murphy: Robin, I can take that one. I think in the past in terms of buyouts, they just
don't work. That's the short answer. I wish I had something fancy to tell you, but that's why.

>> Robin Waldman: Let's check the phone right now. Do we have any questions waiting on the
phone?

>> OPERATOR: We do not have any phone questions at this time.

>> Robin Waldman: Okay. All right, we'll keep going with the questions coming in through the
computer, then. And there are no questions in the room, as you can see.

So John, you mentioned that Congress will likely be doing another CR or might be doing a CR, but
it's looking good. In light of the omnibus bill, which seems to increase the availability of funds
beyond our former levels, do you think there's a chance our budget might actually be enhanced by
Congress?

>> John Hamilton: A chance? We're talking about FY 18. Well, the CR -- talking about -- well, I
can't say anything about FY 19, because they haven't done allocations yet. FY 18, this is a little
complicated. So a few weeks ago, when Congress was unable to agree to a CR, we had the brief
shutdown. One of the -- there was the immigration issue was -- you know, forcing a lot of
members to urge a shutdown, but the other issue that really was at play was the fact that under
the budget caps that were put in place a few years ago, everyone remembers sequestration and a
budget agreement that was struck a couple years ago, it was very difficult for, particularly in the
Senate, to write bills under those caps that could pass the House. Which is much easier with one
party control to put through any bill, no matter how extreme some people think the bills are, they
can pass bills. In the Senate you need 60 votes to pass legislation, and to pass spending bills
without lifting the caps for both defense spending and nondefense discretionary, was difficult.

So one of the agreements that was reached, before we entered into this current CR, was an
agreement to lift those spending caps for two years. So over the next day or two, those
subcommittees, those 12 subcommittees that write the annual spending bills, are getting
increased allocations to, in a sense, rewrite the bills that they had been working on for 18.
So for some agencies that were projected to receive cuts, they might not get those cuts. You may
recall that our budget going into FY 18, our proposal looked very similar to the one we're seeing
now for 19. It had some serious cuts. If we weren't charged we probably wouldn't be writing an
overall cut that size, but it is what it is.

There's a good chance -- I can't say for sure, but I'm fairly confident that there will be some
movement to get our budget numbers a little more square than they were at the start of the
budget process for 18. But how those will shake out, it's hard to say right now. But we'll know
within the next month for sure.

>> Robin Waldman: Okay, thank you, John. Okay, more questions from libraries. Can you please
explain the rationale for centralizing classified records and closing SCIFS in Presidential Libraries?

>> Jay Bosanko: Sure. Thank you. So a lot has changed in the declassification world, as well as in
the ways that we safeguard classified national security information. And this is really something
that has had its roots going back quite a number of years, and it's something that has challenged
this agency for more than a decade.

So to be clear, the only classified that we have in the field today is in the Presidential Library
system. We previously consolidated all of the federal records that were classified, accession
records that were in the field, and then we separately consolidated all of the classified that was in
the Federal Records Center Program into the D.C. area.

The reality is, as we've moved from really just needing to lock materials up inside a room to
electronic systems and enhanced criteria over time, the sort of disparate storage of classified has
proven more and more inefficient.

So if you go back -- so there's a couple criteria that are driving this. The first is -- let me talk a little
bit about what we're actually doing, because there's already been sort of some misunderstanding.
What we're looking at doing is coming up with a planned and careful consolidation of the classified,
in the Presidential Library system, here in the Washington, D.C. area.

It's a temporary move. As the records are declassified, they will be returned to those libraries, and
will then be part, again, of the specific collections and made available locally and things like that.

It's not going to be easy, there's going to be issues, it's going to be tough. We know this because
we've done consolidations in the past, and the Presidential Library System has consolidated a
couple of the smaller, older Presidential Libraries that had classified in the D.C. area, as well. So we
have lessons learned from past consolidation efforts.

Why are we doing this? It comes down to resources, efficiency, and effectiveness. So starting
about 1996 we've created a program called the remote archives capture program, often referred to
as the RAC program. In essence, that program set out to go out to the libraries, digitize materials,
bring the digitized versions of them back to the D.C. area, where the people that make the
decisions on other agencies' equities exist. So CIA, their declass folks are here in the D.C. area.
State Department, Defense, all the people that make those decisions are here. They record their
decisions, and then we bring those classified decisions back to the field where the staff and the
libraries implement them. And it's a lot more complicated than that, that's just -- you know, at its
simplest way.

When we developed RAC it was revolutionary, it was an incredible thing. We developed it in close
partnership with the Central Intelligence Agency. But we were also developing it based on libraries
that had -- you know, many tens of thousands of pages of classified.

The reality is, as you got closer to the Reagan Library, and you're looking there at 8 million pages,
the reality is RAC simply doesn't scale over time. The costs to the agency goes up incredibly when
you get to the Reagan administration because the volume of materials increases.

In addition, over the last couple of years the CIA -- by the way, the Office of Presidential Libraries
started to signal that there was a problem with the model as far as the funding, more than 10 years
ago. This has been a challenge that's been going on. NARA hasn't had the funding to do RAC, as it
ought to be. And then the Central Intelligence Agency, which was to a certain extent subsidizing
the work, has had for a variety of reasons some changes in their approach, and they've been
scaling back their funding. So the reality is RAC is really not a sustainable approach, and we need
to come up with an alternative.

At the same time, other changes have -- we mentioned the need for high value assets, and in the
classified world we've had Wikileaks and Snowden and other folks that have made targeted efforts
to attack our classified systems.

There's now a set of requirements for us to implement user activity monitoring on every classified
workstation regardless of where it is.

Well, that's easy when you have a classified system, or it's easy when you have a -- you know, a
larger system like JWICS or SIPRNET where they're managed by the Department of Defense. For
all of our classified systems in the libraries, we have to buy, replace, maintain, equipment that
would have to be deployed to each location and attached to each box. And then we would have to
fly people out every couple of months to gather the data and bring it back here.

It's yet another factor that just makes the current model not sustainable.

And then you've got the efficiency issues. We've got a lot of overhead associated with
maintaining, you know, secure facilities in 14 locations versus doing it in one or two.

You've got SCIF doors that need to be replaced, alarm systems that need to be replaced, DX has to
do that many more field inspections. And the list goes on and on. It really comes down to the
efficiency. And then once the records are consolidated here, they're in the same location where we
already have the other agencies working, and we have a much enhanced capability to hold their
feet to the fire, get decisions made, deconflict decisions that are inconsistent from one
administration to the other, and things like that.

So that's sort of the impetus for this. Again, it won't be easy. There's lots of work to be done.

We set out last week to have library directors inform the staff that work with classified records at
each library so they wouldn't hear about it for the first time here, but that also means we don't --
we're not rolling out every last detail of the plan. This plan needs to be developed and shaped with
input -- and this is true for an awful lot of what we're going to be doing under the strategic plan,
and the changes we have to implement with the budget.

We have to engage with our staff, subject matter experts, and say now that this is the direction
we're going, how do we implement this in the best possible way.

That's the phase that sort of starts after this conversation today.

>> Robin Waldman: Okay, well, thank you, everybody.

Our hour is up. As you can imagine, we did not get to all of your questions today. So if more
thoughts occur to you and you would still like to have more material just feel free to send them in,
we will as always circulate the material and publish responses as appropriate.

One announcement, we have a regular All Hands meeting on March 6th, so we'll see you back
there then.

Have a good day, everybody.

(Meeting adjourned)