Rescuing Public

America‘s Service

Merelyralslng the salary ofpubllc employees wfllnotbe adequate to attract young people to publlc servlce. Polltlcal scandal and campalgn rhetorfc critlcal of bureaucrats and publlc servants not only depress the appeal of career publlc setvlce, but also discourage youngpeopfe from public life In general. Even lfsalarles are raised and respect restored, publlc employment must offer meaningful chal- lenge and room for advancement.

by PAUL LIGHT

merica’s Public Service is currently facing its greatest crisis since its A creation one hundred years ago. Two decades of political scandal, low pay, and campaign ridicule have finally taken their toll as mofe and more of the nation’s most talented young people opt for lucrative careers in the private sector, even as fewer of the government’s most talented executives opt to stay for yet another year.

However, much as higher government pay and renewed public respect will help, it is also time to restore the challenge of public service, including radical reforms designed to clear out the cementceilingsanddead wood that block young people from advancing. Incremental solutions simply will not do. There is no doubt it is time to act. Remarkably, only 13 percent of the federal government’s top career executives would recommend to their own children that anyone start a career in government. Personnel directors across government say recruitment has become more difficult over the past five years, even as motivation within the civil service hasalsodeclined. More foreboding, the future talent base is eroding. Three-quarters of recent recruits for the prestigious Presidential Management Internship Program-the cream of America’s professional school graduates- said they would leave government within ten years, and college honor students appear destined for careers anywhere but government. An Erosion of Talent

The steady erosion of talent is evident in a host of agencies, from a Department of Defense unable to find procurement specialists to a Department of Energy unable to manage its crippled nuclear weapons complex, or an Environmental Protection Agency unable to hire engineers for its toxic clean-up program. The

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list goes on and on. Even the blue ribbon agencies like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Internal Revenue Service, and Federal Bureau of Investigation report problems in recruiting and retaining top-flight personnel.

Although few hard statistics exist on overall government performance, there are ample stories of declining quality or substantial error, whether in the regulation of the savings and loan industry, now a $150 billion problem, or the delivery of benefit checks to the nation’s disabled veterans. How can cancer research not be imperiled when the government’s top researcher and his 40- member staff leave for higher pay in a private hospital center? How can defense procurement not be in jeopardy when procurement specialists trained at govern- ment expense exit to work for the very contractors they once bargained against? [There are also numerous examples of improved service delivery at the federal level; see Carolyn Burstein, “Total Quality Management in Federal Agencies,”

No government work force, no matter how motivated by the desire to help people or make adifference, can long sustain the kinds of budget cuts, bureaucrat bashing, politicization, and red tape inflicted by both Congress and President over the past ten years.

Indeed, a survey by the National Commission on the Public Service of college honor society graduates shows that the public sector has but one major recruiting advantage over the private sector: job security. Honor students motivated by challenging work and a chance to accomplish something worthwhile find the private Sector much more attractive, leaving federal. state, and local government with a recruiting base increasingly composed of the mediocre and apathetic. With entry-level pay lagging 20 to 30 percent behind the private sector, government seems to be telling America’s brightest young people-especially those with student loans to pay-to look for challenge elsewhere. Stop-Gap Measures

NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW 78:2 March-April 1989-Ed.]

There are many short-term remedies to this “quiet crisis”: Government agencies ought to be much more aggressive in advertising their

openings and recruiting top candidates; currently, students interested in public service face an almost impossible series of roadblocks en route to a job.

Congress ought to close the gap between private and public pay: The notion that career public servants should never be paid more than their political bosses on Capitol Hill is ridiculous, especially given the honoraria and special tax advantages enjoyed by members of Congress.

Presidential candidates might knock off the gratuitous bureaucrat bashing. After all, agooddeal of the mess in Washington comes from political appointees, not those in the career service below.

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The nation should make public service more inviting to the most talented students; there is no reason not to have apublic service scholarship program that works like nomination to West Point or Annapolis.

The public ought to be told that government service is a proud and honorable career. The amount of waste in government is negligiblecompared to the amount of public benefit derived from programs like Social Security and Headstart, or agencies like the National Cancer Institutes and Federal Aviation Administra- tion.

The fact is that, for many public servants, government is no longer a good place to work these days. The pay is poor. the working conditions are often temble, public interest is low, and recruitment is hampered by endless bureauc- racy. Talented public servants stay in their jobs not because of, but in spite of the personnel system. Elements of a Long-Term Policy for Improving the Public Service

But it will take more than incremental patching to fix the problem. Higher pay, scholarships, and renewed public respect will certainly help, but the problems underpinning the current crisis go much deeper.

First, government must restore the “proud and lively” careers that once amacted America’s most talented young people. Even a huge pay increase will go unnoticed unless government restores the challenge to its jobs. After nearly a decade of personnel ceilings and budget cuts, many of the good jobs in government have moved to the private sector at much higher cost. There is no hard evidence to document the extent of the exodus. Indeed, the federal Office of Personnel Management has shown virtually no interest in collecting data of any kind on the quality of either federal jobs or their occupants.

Nonetheless, the staggering growth of the private consulting and nonprofit sector in Washington and across the United States suggests that government employees are increasingly little more than contract managers, leaving the exe- cution and implementation of some of the government’s most exciting programs to private interests. There are ample opportunities to work on environmental policy, welfare reform, evaluation researchnven space policy4utside the public service, usually at much higher pay.

The private sector has always been and will likely remain able to offer young people much faster promotions and higher entry pay than government. This is part of the higher cost. With the vast amount of contracting out across govern- ment, the private and nonprofit sectors now can also offer young people a sense that they are working for the good of others, even though there is a bottom line to worry about.

Second, government must eliminate the “cement ceilings” that now close off

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opportunities for advancement. The worst thing government could do is recruit America’s most talented young people for dead end jobs, or place America’s most ambitious, motivated young recruits in agencies filled with dead wood or plagued by incompetence. Not only will those young people quickly leave, they will certainly spread the news back home. Yet, that is exactly what government often does.

Young people rightly worry that there is no place to go in government: career paths are narrow, if defined at all, and the layers between the top and bottom of government are staggering. At the very top of government, many of the good jobs once held by career executives are now occupied by political appointees of one kind or another. At the middle level of government, many of the more attractive positions once open to young “high-flyers’’ are now occupied by baby boomers still 20 years from retirement.

Even a huge pay increase will go unnoticed unless government restores the challenge to its jobs.

Thus, at the entry level of government, young people are increasingly trapped in long-term holding patterns, or job plateaus, that provide little hope of growth and challenge. There are still many good jobs left in government, but increas- ingly young people are “capped off‘ much too early in their careers. And for young people motivated by self-development and the chance to grow, the lure of rapid advancement in the private sector can become overwhelming.

It should come as no surprise that the nation’s top graduates are wary of government jobs, whether federal, state, or local. Indeed, 86 percent of the honor society graduates interviewed by the National Commission on the Public Service believe a federal job would not allow them to use their abilities to the fullest, while 70 percent said a federal career could offer a good change for responsibili- ties early in their careers.

Further, the growing number of entry-level job plateaus are complicated by the steady “thickening” at the middle ranks of government over the past two decades. America’s private sector may have discovered the benefits of cutting the number of layers between the corporate boardroom and the assembly line, but government is still wed to organizational structures characterized by towering hierarchy, limited employee involvement, and top-heavy management. Indeed, most agencies have used thickening as a way of promoting their best employees out of pay freezes and into higher paying jobs. Unfortunately, as the distance between the top and bottom of most government agencies has grown over the past two decades, the opportunity for advancement has inevitably declined.

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Third, government must deal with the underlying separation of young people from public life. In spite of a healthy increase in volunteerism in America’s communities, young people still view public service with remarkable suspicion. Part of the suspicion reflects natural disgust with a seemingly endless string of Washington scandals: from Wedtech to Meese, Deever, Nofziger, Col. North, Speaker Wright, and more recently, “Robin Hud.” What young person wants to be associated with a public service riddled with petty thieves? Even the most talented crooks work elsewhere.

That suspicion also reflects a lack of commitment to public life in general, an estrangement from involvement in community affairs. Young people may volunteer, but they remain leery of politics. There has been little change in their attitudes toward big government, big business, or big unions. Nor has there been much of a reversal of past attitudes toward the value of voting and participating in politics.

If anything, young people have become even more distrustful of the public service, linking career and political appointees alike in a general rejection of the public sector as corrupt or wasteful. That young people still care about helping others is clear in their growing volunteerism. That they do not feel they can help others through government service is also evident. ~ ... the problem is thatyoungpeople have few examples of how they might make a positive difference through government service.

Part of the problem is that young people have few examples of how they might make a positive difference through government service. Young people raised on mediocre. uninspiring history books could hardly think otherwise. Young people forced to sit through government courses stripped of the slightest controversy could hardly imagine the potential of civic action. One suspects that America’s young people would be more excited about public life if they skipped social studies entirely and took driver’s education instead. Moreover, young people raised on 30-second sound bites and the kind of political imagery that dominated the 1988 campaign could hardly envision political engagement as re- deeming. Young people need credible stories about how they might make a difference through public life, stories which either do not exist or which pale in comparison to Wedtech.

Finally, government must get serious about performance. Talented young people want to know they will be rewarded when they succeed. Unfortunately, government far too often appears to reward its employees just for showing up. There is a great deal of lip service paid to performance these days, but precious

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little substance, whether in the form of real dollars or symbols, for those who work hard to produce value.

Moreover, there are simply too many government employees stuck in dead end jobs who intend to stay in those jobs through retirement. Those who care a b u t rescuing the public service from its current crisis must speak truthfully to this issue, for the continued presence of dead wood in government does little to bolster public support or student interest. Far too many of the brightest students come home from internships in Washington or their state capitols foreswearing any future interest. Conclusion

Solving these underlying crises will not be easy. Clearly, the removal of cement ceilings and dead wood is hard work. Alas, few who care about the public service seem willing to bite into something radical, fearing that talk of cement ceilings or dead wood will merely fuel public cynicism or another round of arbitrary cuts.

Yet, much as short-term solutions like higherpay,betterrecruitment, and new scholarships will send the right signal, it is time to talk about ways of restoring the challenge that can make public service so inviting. The best way to motivate young p p l e and current civil servants alike is to provide meaningful work and room for advancement. Rescuing the public service requires more than just short-term tactics. It requires nothing short of radical reform.

Paul Light is associate dean of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the Univer- sity of Minnesota, and was special advisor to the US. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee during the 100th Congress. He was also senior advisor to the National Commission on the Public Service (Volcker Commission), where he authored the primary draj report. The opinions expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the sentimenh of the National Commission.

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