Jurisdictional Mapping Task Force Creates Sub-Task Force to Map Its Own Jurisdiction

Historic Breakthrough in Bureaucratic Self-Awareness

In what officials are calling "a watershed moment for administrative clarity," the newly formed Federal Interagency Jurisdictional Clarification Initiative (FIJCI) announced Tuesday that it has made remarkable progress in its six-month mission to determine which federal agency should be responsible for launching initiatives. The breakthrough came when the task force realized that four separate departments claim authority over jurisdictional mapping, while three others insist they've never heard of such a thing.

"We've achieved something truly unprecedented," explained Dr. Margaret Fieldstone, FIJCI's Deputy Associate Coordinator for Interdepartmental Boundary Delineation. "We've successfully identified the exact problem we were created to solve, which is that nobody knows who's supposed to solve it."

The initiative, which emerged from a Department of Administrative Affairs memo suggesting that "someone should probably figure out who does what around here," has spent its first month determining whether it has the authority to determine authority. According to internal documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request that is currently being processed by six different agencies, the task force has scheduled 47 meetings to discuss which meetings they're authorized to schedule.

The Plot Thickens: A Sub-Committee Is Born

Facing this administrative labyrinth, FIJCI leadership took decisive action by creating the Sub-Committee for Task Force Jurisdictional Self-Assessment (SCTFJSA), a seven-member panel tasked with determining whether the original task force should exist. The sub-committee's first order of business was forming a working group to establish the sub-committee's terms of reference.

"It's really quite elegant," noted Harold Pemberton, Senior Administrative Liaison for Circular Reference Resolution. "We've essentially created a perfect closed loop of accountability. The task force reports to the sub-committee, which reports to the working group, which reports back to the task force. It's like a beautiful bureaucratic ouroboros."

The working group, officially designated as Working Group Alpha-Seven-Delta for Sub-Committee Oversight and Meta-Administrative Functions, has already identified the need for an advisory panel to review its recommendations. Sources suggest the advisory panel is considering the formation of a steering committee.

Expert Analysis: Peak Efficiency Achieved

Government efficiency experts are hailing the development as a masterclass in modern administration. "This is what we call 'bureaucratic recursion,'" explained Dr. Jennifer Walsh from the Institute for Administrative Excellence. "They've managed to create a system so perfectly self-referential that it may never actually need to produce results. It's almost artistic."

The Department of Organizational Development, which may or may not have oversight responsibilities for FIJCI, issued a statement clarifying that they "neither confirm nor deny involvement in any initiative-related initiatives." The Department of Initiative Oversight responded that they "don't handle initiatives about initiatives," while the Office of Administrative Coordination noted that "coordination of coordination falls outside our coordination mandate."

Form J-114B: A Light at the End of the Tunnel

In a rare moment of practical progress, the task force has proposed creating Form J-114B ("Application for Jurisdictional Responsibility Determination"), which would allow agencies to formally request assignment of administrative duties they'd prefer not to handle. The form is currently under review by the Forms Review Committee, pending approval from the Committee Review Board, subject to oversight by the Board Oversight Panel.

"Form J-114B represents everything we stand for," said Fieldstone. "It's a form about forms, created by a committee studying committees, designed to help agencies avoid responsibility for avoiding responsibility. If that's not peak government efficiency, I don't know what is."

The form is expected to be available sometime in Q3 2025, assuming the Department of Form Distribution can determine whether they're responsible for distributing forms about responsibility distribution.

Looking Forward: Infinite Possibilities

As FIJCI enters its second month of operations, leadership remains optimistic about the potential for continued non-progress. Plans are already underway for a six-month review of the six-month initiative, to be conducted by a review committee that will need to be reviewed by a review review committee.

"We're really just getting started," concluded Pemberton. "Once we figure out who's supposed to figure out who's supposed to figure things out, we can begin the real work of forming a task force to study that process. It's an exciting time to be in government."

The initiative is expected to conclude successfully when all participating agencies agree that the problem definitely belongs to someone else, at which point a new task force will be formed to study why the first task force failed to identify the responsible party.