Chair Krishnan on IOTA training program and losing trained investigators to other agencies

What does OMB approve?

They're not approved.

merit-based promotions or pay increases.

So what are they approving?

It sounds like just the transfer of money from one part of the agency to another to fund some of these initiatives.

That's, I believe, what happened in the past administration, that DOI sought approval for promotions and raises,

was not provided that approval, and then sought approval to use funding for vacancies, for certain existing vacancies, to repurpose that to use it for promotions and raises.

Wow.

And I think the point is well made, too, that it does not allow the agency to remain competitive.

These are positions that are, you know, you're competing with many other parts of the legal sector and otherwise and investigative sector.

It really raises serious questions about how you all can stay competitive if you can't pay well or you can't promote your staff.

Just on that note, I would add, in an effort to provide training opportunities for our investigative staff, DOI developed in-house an investigative officer training program known as IOTA.

And it allows investigators to become certified peace officers.

It trains them up on investigative procedures and tools.

And it's been a very successful program that has resulted in highly trained entry-level investigators once they've gone through that program.

And because we are not able to fund raises and promotions, what we often find is that these investigators that we've spent time and effort training are then

going after a short amount of time.

And being hired by other federal and state agencies.

And so that's also a challenge where we're investing appropriately in ensuring we have a staff capable of conducting the important investigations that we work on.

But because of our funding issues, we're often not able to keep that staff long term.

Right, right.