TABLE D-1 Organizational Statistics of the 13 U.S. Principal Statistical Programs and Units, Sorted by Overall Staff Size (FY 2020)
Principal Statistical Agency or Unit† | Number of Permanent Full-Time Employees | Direct Funding | Average Number of U.S. Dollars ($) Managed by Each Employee‡ | Reimbursable Programs |
---|---|---|---|---|
Census* | 6,328 | $7,185.8M | $1.1M | $303.4M |
BLS | 1,989 | $655.0M | $0.3M | $34.0M |
NASS | 1,033 | $163.0M | $0.2M | $17.1M |
BEA | 501 | $108.0M | $0.2M | $2.3M |
NCHS | 470 | $155.0M | $0.3M | $83.5M |
EIA | 357 | $118.0M | $0.3M | $1.1M |
ERS | 158 | $60.5M | $0.4M | $0.0M |
SOI | 139 | $34.7M | $0.2M | $2.2M |
NCES | 105 | $296.5M | $2.8M | $6.3M |
ORES | 79 | $36.8M | $0.5M | $0.9M |
BTS | 60 | $26.0M | $0.4M | $8.2M |
NCSES | 56 | $58.0M | $1.0M | $2.0M |
BJS | 49 | $57.1M | $1.2M | $18.2M |
SOURCE: U.S. OMB (2020), Appendix Tables 3a (Staffing Levels), 1a (Direct Funding for Statistical Programs, 2018–2020), and 2a (Reimbursable and Purchase Programs, 2020).
NOTES:
*FY 2020 is a decennial census year.
†The principal statistical agencies or units are sorted in ascending order by “Number of Permanent Full-Time Employees.”
‡The average number of dollars calculated as direct funding in FY 2020 divided by the number of FTE permanent staff, sometimes called the budget-to-staff ratio, is used to express the average number of dollars managed by each staff member.
TABLE D-2 Detailed Historical Organization of NCES Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) Employees (Select Fiscal Years)
FY 2003 | FY 2004 | FY 2007 | FY 2010* | FY 2013 | FY 2015* | FY 2019 | FY 2021‡ | Net Loss/Gain FYs 2003–2021 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number of FTE Employees | Percent Change | |||||||||
Statistics Units | 83 | 76 | 81 | 86 | 64 | 77 | 60 | 58 | –25 | –30 |
Office of the Commissioner–Statistics** | 20 | 16 | 22 | 18 | 9 | 2 | 2 | 2 | –18 | –90 |
Annual Reports & Information Staff | 6 | 10 | 5 | 4 | 4 | N/A | ||||
Statistical Standards & Data Confidentiality Staff | 9 | 12 | 9 | 9 | 9 | N/A | ||||
Sample Surveys Division | 12 | 19 | 19 | 18 | 18 | N/A | ||||
Administrative Data Division | 34 | 25 | 25 | 25 | N/A | |||||
Elementary/Secondary & Library Studies Division | 21 | 22 | 25 | 24 | 10 | –21 | –100 | |||
Postsecondary Division | 21 | 19 | 21 | 26 | 9 | –21 | –100 | |||
Early Childhood, International, and Crosscutting Division–Statistics† | 21 | 19 | 13 | 18 | 9 | –21 | –100 | |||
Assessment Units | 30 | 27 | 32 | 38 | 35 | 36 | 35 | 32 | 2 | 7 |
Assessments Division** | 24 | 21 | 26 | 32 | 29 | 36 | 35 | 32 | 8 | 33 |
Early Childhood, International, and Crosscutting Division–Assessment† | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | –6 | –100 | |||
NCES Total | 113 | 103 | 113 | 124 | 99 | 113 | 95 | 90 | –23 | –20 |
SOURCE: IES document provided to the panel, “IES & NCES Historical FTE Data and IES Appropriations Historical”; NCES response to question from the panel, pp. 7–10.
NOTES: These data represent how NCES staff are organized. All staff are paid indirectly through an allocation of the Department of Education’s Salaries and Expenses appropriation. The organization of staff into statistics and assessment units does not align with program appropriations (Figure D-2). For example, staff who work primarily on international studies are organized in assessment units, while the program dollars for the international studies collections have always come from the statistics budget appropriation. The organization of FTEs does not fully reflect the functional roles of the staff. For example, staff located in a statistics unit may also support assessment work. Vacant positions are not represented.
*NCES-initiated reorganizations have changed the structure of NCES several times since 2002, reflected by the “grayed out” areas. Each reorganization resulted in changes in FTE distribution across NCES. For example, from 2010 to 2013, the NCES Office of the Commissioner was divided into three separate teams, leading to a corresponding reduction in the total FTEs assigned to the Office of the Commissioner.
‡The FY 2021 Office of the Commissioner count excludes two fellows who are not paid employees of the federal government.
**In this table, the Office of the Commissioner count excludes one FTE across multiple employees who work on assessments for some of their time. The Assessments Division count includes one FTE from across multiple employees located in the Office of the Commissioner.
†As part of the 2013 reorganization, six staff who work primarily on international studies were moved from the Early Childhood, International, and Crosscutting Division into a newly formed branch of the Assessments Division.
TABLE D-3 Estimated Annual Hiring and Turnover Rates for NCES Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) Employees by Fiscal Year (FY)
Fiscal Year (FY)* | FTEs (at end of FY) | Hires | Separations | Average FTEs from Prior Year | FY Hire Rate | FY Turnover Rate |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2013 | 98 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
2014 | 103 | 12 | 11 | 101 | 11.9% | 10.9% |
2015 | 113 | 19 | 11 | 108 | 17.6% | 10.2% |
2016 | 114 | 6 | 5 | 114 | 5.3% | 4.4% |
2017* | 111 | 0 | 5 | 113 | 0.0% | 4.4% |
2018 | 101 | 1 | 10 | 106 | 0.9% | 9.4% |
2019* | 93 | 0 | 9 | 97 | 0.0% | 9.3% |
2020* | 93 | 10 | 9 | 93 | 10.8% | 9.7% |
2021* | 91 | 8 | 10 | 92 | 8.7% | 10.9% |
SOURCE: NCES response to question from the panel, pp. 16–17.
NOTES: The annual hiring rate percent is the number of FTE employee hires divided by (the FTE count at the end of the fiscal year + the FTE count at the end of the prior fiscal year)/2. The annual turnover rate percent is the number of FTE employee separations divided by (the FTE count at the end of the fiscal year + the FTE count at the end of the prior fiscal year)/2.
The number of FTE employees at the end of a fiscal year may differ slightly from Table D-2, due to different sources.
*The following events affected hiring and attrition: hiring freeze 1/23/17–4/12/17 (FY 2017), COVID-19 pandemic 3/13/2020–present (FYs 2020–2021), new telework policy (FY 2019), Voluntary Early Retirement Authority and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment (FY 2019 and FY 2020).
___________________
1 Calculated from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index calculator at https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm [March 2022], comparing $108,521,000 in appropriations in October 2009 (the first month of FY 2010) to buying power in October 2020 (the first month of FY 2021).
TABLE D-4 NCES Interagency Agreements (IAAs), Contracts, Contracting Officer’s Representatives (CORs) and IAA Administrators, with Ratios
IAAs Outgoing | IAAs Incoming | Contracts | CORs | IAA Admin | Contract-to-COR Ratio | All IAAs + Contracts | IAAs + Contracts Ratio | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Annual Reports | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3.0 | 3 | 3.0 |
Statistical Standards | 2 | 1 | 10 | 4 | * | 2.5 | 13 | 3.3 |
Sample Surveys | 11 | 1 | 27 | 12 | * | 2.3 | 39 | 3.3 |
Administrative Data | 5 | 0 | 23 | 7 | 3 | 3.3 | 28 | 2.8 |
Assessments | 7 | 2 | 69 | 16 | * | 4.3 | 78 | 4.9 |
NCES Total | 25 | 4 | 132 | 40 | 3 | 3.3 | 161 | 3.7 |
SOURCE: NCES response to question from the panel, p. 15.
LEGEND: NCES has 43 staff (48%) who serve as CORs or administer IAAs in addition to other duties. On average, each COR or IAA administrator manages 3.7 IAAs or contracts, with the Assessments Division having the highest average contract/IAA management workload, at 4.9.
NOTES: *IAAs within the Sample Survey, Statistical Standards, and Assessment divisions are managed by staff who are also active CORs on contracts. Since these staff are already included in the count of CORs, they are not double counted in this column.