2007.07.27: July 27, 2007: Headlines: Congress: Legislation: Speaking Out: PCOL Exclusive: 19. Testimony of Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff on S. 732: The Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act: Quality and Quantity
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2007.07.27: July 27, 2007: Headlines: Congress: Legislation: Speaking Out: PCOL Exclusive: 19. Testimony of Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff on S. 732: The Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act: Quality and Quantity
19. Testimony of Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff on S. 732: The Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act: Quality and Quantity
It is difficult for Peace Corps to effectively manage more than about 100-150 Volunteers per country. Training, site preparation and Volunteer support are quality-intensive activities that today often fail to meet Volunteer needs. To assess and prepare one site for one Volunteer might take 3-5 visits. The traveling times and distances in many countries can be daunting. Peace Corps managers like to visit Volunteers several times a year and on average they can visit no more than two or three per day. If they are managing 40 Volunteers, they will have to spend 40 to 60 days on the road for these visits. On average, Volunteer training lasts about 3 months. Assuming that there are 2 training sessions per year, the training sessions take 6 months. Extra demands, say a Volunteer who needs special help, add to the load. Training sessions, and close-of-service and mid-term conferences all impose more work on the staff.
19. Testimony of Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff on S. 732: The Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act: Quality and Quantity
Quality and Quantity
At one point in the 1960s, nearly twice as many Volunteers were serving in the field, 15,000 versus about 8,000 today. For many years there has been a call to "double" the number of Volunteers in the field to return to that era. We support this goal as long as the level of support for the Volunteers is increased substantially, as provided in this legislation. Only after more attention is devoted to quality should we focus prudently on increasing the number of Volunteers.
Cost is one major reason to concentrate first on quality. The provisions of this legislation—all focused on improving the quality of the Volunteer experience—will impose additional costs per Volunteer.
* Providing a $250 minimum and $1000 maximum fund for seed demonstrations for every Volunteer (see proposed amendment to legislation to set the minimum) will impose additional costs. The Peace Corps currently funds "reimbursement" for some Volunteer expenses, so the total cost of this provision will not be $250 x 8,000 Volunteers ($2,000,000) or $1000 x 8,000 Volunteers ($8,000,000). We would need to subtract the current reimbursement expenses to reach a net total increase in cost.
* The job-related leave proposed amendment needs to be budgeted.
Some minimal administrative costs might be imposed by the following provisions:
* Implementing the programs for older Volunteers.
* Conducting the Volunteer surveys (personnel and programs).
* Operating the VACs.
* Reforming the medical screening process.
* Drafting the financial guide (minimal costs).
Some additional costs would result if the other amendments proposed below are enacted, especially the proposed strengthening of medical support for Volunteers.30
The survey of Peace Corps salary and benefits, discussed below, may lead to additional expenses.
All of these expenses should be accommodated before expending additional funds to expand the number of Volunteers.
In addition to the costs associated with these mandates, the legislation sets a priority on listening to, respecting and supporting the current Volunteers. This inevitably imposes non-financial burdens on existing personnel. More Volunteers in the field means less time and energy to listen, respect and support individual Volunteers. The process of finding outstanding CDs and APCDs to give outstanding support to Volunteers is intensive. Hiring more APCDs, medical staff, and personnel to manage more Volunteers strains the Peace Corps personnel system.
Given all of these pressures, it is difficult for Peace Corps to effectively manage more than about 100-150 Volunteers per country. Training, site preparation and Volunteer support are quality-intensive activities that today often fail to meet Volunteer needs. To assess and prepare one site for one Volunteer might take 3-5 visits. The traveling times and distances in many countries can be daunting. Peace Corps managers like to visit Volunteers several times a year and on average they can visit no more than two or three per day. If they are managing 40 Volunteers, they will have to spend 40 to 60 days on the road for these visits. On average, Volunteer training lasts about 3 months. Assuming that there are 2 training sessions per year, the training sessions take 6 months. Extra demands, say a Volunteer who needs special help, add to the load. Training sessions, and close-of-service and mid-term conferences all impose more work on the staff.
If, for example, the number of Volunteers in a given country is expanded from 150 to 300 Volunteers, a number of staff positions would have to double. Assuming that the Volunteers arrive in 4 rather than 2 groups, and each group receives 3 months of training, training would be continuous, 12 months a year rather than 6. The number of mid-term and close of service conferences would double. The number of site visits would double and the pressure to develop new sites would double. The Country Director must be personally engaged in every case of Administrative Separation, Early Termination and Medical Separation, which can run 25% per group. The number or size of regional houses would need to double. The number of reports to be filed would double. All of this places stress on an organization and potentially jeopardizes quality.
To us this means that the best opportunity for expansion is to launch the Peace Corps into new countries, or return to countries where programs have been suspended or terminated. If any country program is targeted for expansion, the highest priority should go to China because of its strategic importance to the United States.31
Finally, we have concerns that a dramatic increase in Peace Corps funding is not feasible given the constraints of the federal budget. It may be more realistic as a fiscal matter to focus on improvements in quality, which are less expensive, than dramatic increases in quantity.32
Section 401 of the legislation calls for increasing the Peace Corps authorization from $336 million for FY 2008 to $618 million for FY 2011. The NPCA survey found substantial support for this proposal with 89% agreeing and 26% disagreeing. Some 79% then agreed with the goal of doubling the number of Volunteers while 13% disagreed. Due to a preparation error, the survey failed to provide comment space for this section of the legislation. However, a number of respondents commented, in the course of the survey, on issues of funding and size. Some enthusiastically supported doubling (or even tripling) the number of Volunteers. Among those expressing concern or opposition, most raised the need for adequate funds to support and strengthen existing volunteers and programs. Following are some of the comments:
Peace Corps needs to make sure individual country programs are capable of dealing with the extra influx of volunteers so Peace Corps activities do not suffer…if they were to double Togo's volunteers at the time I served, PC Togo, I think, would have been ill-equipped for this because there was a limited local staff for training needs, assessing villages for volunteer placement, etc.
RPCV, Togo, 2000-01
Doubling PCV numbers without addressing real constraints of Volunteer support will result in more PCVs with insufficient PC support. Many staff, especially Program Staff, are overstretched to provide time and energy to their PCVs. Program staff should travel to visit PCVs, find sites as well as screen housing & counterparts with briefing to communities, counterparts, and supervisors; review project development with host country partners and PCVs, keep programming active and relevant, develop/review training to support technical as well as cultural and language needs, and maintain official rapport and communication with meetings and outreach that includes PCV input…Double PCV numbers means increase field staff numbers and skill development inputs also.
Seattle WA, Nepal, 5
This is one section from the testimony read into the record on the Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act by Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff, two RPCVs who are now serving their second tour in Senegal. The rest of the sections can be found by following this link. Their entire report in MS Word format can be downloaded by following this link.
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Headlines: July, 2007; Congress; Legislation; Speaking Out; Peace Corps Library; Peace Corps Countries of Service; Peace Corps Original Sources; Peace Corps Message Board; Recent Peace Corps News
When this story was posted in July 2007, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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