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Washington, D.C.— When Congress created the Internal Revenue Service Oversight Board and charged that body with helping make the IRS more effective in carrying out its critical mission, Congress itself took on an additional responsibility—to act on the Board’s best judgment. Now it is time to meet that responsibility, said the leader of the union representing IRS employees.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said a report released this week from the Oversight Board sharply critical of the Bush administration’s proposed IRS budget for fiscal 2002 “gives Congress the blueprint it needs to create the new IRS it demanded” in 1998 with passage of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act (RRA).

The nine-member, public-private Oversight Board was established in RRA and began operations last year. Among its duties outlined in that law are responsibilities for IRS long-term and strategic planning and budgeting. In its initial report to Congress, the Board urged an IRS budget of $10.2 billion for fiscal 2002, up from the administration’s proposal of $9.4 billion.

“The administration’s 2002 budget request does not adequately support the IRS strategic plan, and provides inadequate support for technology modernization,” the Board said in a statement accompanying its 24-page report.

Kelley, who testified before the Board in late March, agreed strongly with that position, repeating her assertion that inadequate funding, such as that proposed by President Bush, will put “at risk” continuation of IRS modernization, including its systems, processes, procedures and technology.

“Just as we feared,” Kelley said, “the administration’s proposal short-changes both the IRS and its employees, at the same time that extraordinary and changing demands are being placed on both.”

By law, the Board’s report goes to Congress for consideration along with the administration’s budget proposal. “Congress will have the final say,” Kelley said. “We will find out in the appropriations process how serious Congress is about remaking the IRS.”

NTEU is the nation’s largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments, including more than 97,000 in the IRS.