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Washington, D.C.—The most important step in generating greater corporate accountability and increased public confidence in the U.S. economy is providing a fully staffed and adequately funded Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), the leader of the union representing some 2,000 SEC employees said today.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) called on President Bush to reverse the position of his proposed fiscal 2003 budget and to provide sharply increased funding for the SEC and to meet congressional intent by supporting meaningful pay parity for SEC employees. President Bush is to speak to business executives in New York tomorrow night on the subject of corporate responsibility.

“There seemingly is no end to the list of troubled companies,” President Kelley said. “The impact of the reported behavior of executives at companies like WorldCom, Enron, RiteAid, Tyco, Adelphia and more clearly have shaken not just the financial markets, but the confidence of all Americans in our economy.”

A strong and vigilant SEC “is crucial to our ability to restore confidence that public corporations conduct their business in ways consistent with the law and in the best interests not just of their key executives, but of American consumers and investors,” President Kelley said. “A weakened, underfunded SEC is no match for the inappropriate behavior of some in corporate America.”

The president’s proposed 2003 budget for the SEC is essentially flat, Kelley said, reflecting only a small increase due to inflation. “That clearly is unacceptable,” she said, noting that the agency, like other federal financial regulatory bodies, receives no appropriated funds. Instead, it operates on revenues generated from the industries it regulates.

“A flat budget for the SEC simply won’t get the job done,” the NTEU leader said. Nor, she added, will the pay parity plan unilaterally adopted by SEC management earlier this year have any meaningful impact on the agency’s critical recruitment and retention problems. Revenues generated from fees are more than sufficient to fully fund pay parity, President Kelley said.

“The clear intent of Congress in approving pay parity legislation for the SEC was to allow the agency to compete both with the private sector and other federal financial regulatory agencies to hire and retain the talented employees the nation needs in these critical regulatory positions,” President Kelley said.

“The administration’s failure to fund pay parity, and the actions of SEC management in seeking to unilaterally implement a system that rewards managers at the expense of front line employees, will only serve to further undermine the confidence of investors, and indeed of all Americans, in the ability of the SEC to perform its critical missions,” she said.

“Agency employees want to do the best possible job, but that cannot do that without the necessary resources,” Kelley added.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.