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Getting serious on bureaucracy
reform
By Donald
Devine
Bureaucracy reform may be the original oxymoron, but amazing
progress is being made against inefficient civil service rules and
regulations, against lifetime employment with guaranteed raises no
matter how poorly one performs.
President George W. Bush is absolutely
revolutionizing federal work force procedures. The Department of
Homeland Security has already put into effect its new system of
pay-for-performance, expedited personnel appeals and consultation
rather than endless bargaining with unions over work rules.
The
Defense Department will end its review process proposing similar
rules by midmonth, which will bring half of the civilian work force
under performance management. And legislation to extend this system
to the rest of government is being readied for possible public
consideration by summer.
Progress is
seen even among the states, where public employee unions have
traditionally dominated politics. Gov. Mark Sanford of South
Carolina recently drove to the Columbia capitol in a horse and buggy
to dramatize that civil service procedures belong to the 19th
century and require reform to meet modern challenges. The states
indeed have led the way in contracting services to private firms to
conserve taxpayer resources and improve work performance. Powerful
state unions, however, have frustrated work rule reforms although
many governors keep pushing for modernization.
Any doubts there has been progress are
confirmed by opponents crying foul. The Senate Government Management
Subcommittee met the first week of this month to review the DHS
rules and soon will meet again to question the Defense proposals.
The No. 1 recalcitrant has been the federal unions, which
unsurprisingly oppose any change. Their Democratic allies (and some
Republicans) complain the unions have not been consulted enough and
that it is unfair to pay civil servants according to performance
because good work is difficult to measure.
The Washington Post backed its hometown
workers in a March 1 editorial opposing Defense Department
pay-for-performance because it would be "politicized" and claimed
its expedited consultation would curtail union rights in
"unnecessary ways." The editors perfunctorily denied opposing
performance management "in principle" but claimed political
influence was inherent to the system and objective performance
rating impossible. The same problems are overcome in the private
sector and the Defense standards haven't even been set, but the
editors somehow know they can't work.
To
eliminate political bias, they propose Congress create performance
standards by law. So, the legislators will not politicize the rules?
As far as consulting the unions, the
review process has not yet concluded. As soon as it has and they
have considered the 6,000 comments (mostly solicited by unions), the
Defense representative, Navy Secretary Gordon England, and Office of
Personnel Management team leader, George Nesterczuk, will formally
meet with all union chiefs. Indeed, Mr. Nesterczuk and Defense
representatives have already met with union leadership several times
without any legal obligation to do so.
Congressional leaders are concerned
about extending performance to the entire work force. They say the
rules should be tested at the Department of Homeland Security first.
But pay-for-performance and its measurement have been tested more
than 20 years, beginning at the Defense Department's China Lake
facility back during the author's tenure of office. Any further
delay would be unconscionable.
What
could be more important than making the Defense Department work
well? The federal unions are, indeed, one of the most organized
interests in Washington and are generous with political
contributions. The Feds' whole livelihood depends on government, so
public officials understandingly fear them. But national defense and
many other functions are simply too important to be placed in the
hands of nonperformers.
Pay for
performance is not only the efficient way, it is the only right way
to pay employees. Those who do the best work and contribute most to
the public good should be rewarded better. Incentives should be
given for good performance but, practically, if the best workers are
not paid more, they will leave for more money in the private sector.
Indeed, the rules must be extended to
the rest of the government too or all the better workers will
transfer to Defense or Homeland Security and the rest of the
government will become a vast "turkey farm," as federal employees
call places where nonperformers are isolated in make-work jobs --
since they cannot be fired -- so they can do little harm.
The problem is common in Washington. The
special interests like the employee unions grouse loudly, but
average citizens are silent. If one day, the public let their
representatives know they want their government, especially its
critical functions, to work effectively perhaps legislators would
grow the necessary backbone. Meanwhile, congratulations to the Bush
administration and the governors pushing ahead on these thankless
but essential reforms.
Donald Devine, former director of the
U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is a government professor and
editor of ConservativeBattleline.com, the on-line publication of the
American Conservative Union Foundation.
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