PROJECT 2025 – #10 – Chapter 3
BLOG DISCLAIMER
This blog was created as a public service. It is a Cliff’s Notes version of the actual 900 pages of text found in PROJECT 2025. It is not a commentary. Most importantly - It DOES NOT reflect my opinion in any way.
This blog was created as a public service. It is a Cliff’s Notes version of the actual 900 pages of text found in PROJECT 2025. It is not a commentary. Most importantly - It DOES NOT reflect my opinion in any way.
CENTRAL PERSONNEL AGENCIES: MANAGING THE BUREAUCRACY
By Donald Devine
[BIO Wikipedia: PhD, Syracuse; taught at UMaryland and Bellevue U; Office of Personnel Management head, Reagan Admin; Advisor, Sen. Bob Dole; adjunct scholar, Heritage Foundation since 1992]
Dennis Dean Kirk
[BIO: JD, Washburn University; Worked for Bush and Trump; Under Trump, senior position OPM; Project 2025, Associate Director for Personnel Policy.]
[BIO – Paul Dans – Director, Project 2025; BA-MIT, JD-UVA ; private law practice for 20 years; Trump Administration, chief of staff, OPM.]
“Personnel is policy” as a theme has been the fundamental principle guiding the government’s personnel management.
There are four major personnel organizations for the government:
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
The Merit System Protection Board (MSPB)
The Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA)
Office of Special Counsel (OSC)
Two other agencies also work in this area:
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
While not a personnel agency per se, the General Services Administration (GSA) is charged with general supervision of contracting.Today, there are many more government contractors than civil service employees.
ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
OPM: Managing the Federal Bureaucracy
Since the turn of the 20th century, progressives have sought a system that could effectively select, train, reward, and guard from partisan influence the neutral scientific experts they believe are required to staff the national government and run the administrative state. Yet, as public frustration with the civil service has grown, generating calls to “drain the swamp,” it has become clear that their project has had serious unintended consequences. The modern merit system. Insulates civil servants from accountability. Making it almost impossible to fire all but the most incompetent of them. The Government Accountability Office, however, has reported that pay raises, within grade pay increases, and locality pay for regular employees and executives have become automatic rather than based on performance.
OPM: Merit Hiring in a Merit System
For the past 34 years, the US Civil Service has been unable to distinguish consistently between strong and unqualified applicants for employment. Various tests have been used to evaluate candidates but courts have ruled that even without evidence of overt, intentional discrimination, such results may suggest discrimination. OPM must resolve this.
The Centrality of Performance Appraisal
Currently, the government uses a Functioning appraisal system to reward good performance or correct poor performance. This is a very challenging ideal to implement successfully. 99.9% of employees were rated fully successful or above by their managers. How is this possible? Political executives should take an active role in supervising performance appraisals of career staff, not unduly delegate this responsibility to senior career managers, and be willing to reward and support good performers.
Merit Pay
Performance appraisal must be tied to real consequences for success as well as failure. 90%. Of major US private companies use a system of merit pay. For performance. Based on some type of appraisal system. The federal government rates individuals on seniority rather than merit. Democratic Friends of the Employee unions resisted such a change in 1993 and no changes have happened since. Political executives should use existing pay, and especially fiscal awards, strategically to reward good performance to the degree allowed by law.
Making the Appeals Process Work
The MSPB can and does handle all such matters, but it faces a backlog of an estimated 3,000 cases of people who were potentially wrongfully terminated or disciplined as far back as 2013. From 2017–2022 the MSPB lacked the quorum required to decide appeals. On the other hand, as of January 2023, the EEOC had a backlog of 42,000 cases. While federal employees win appeals relatively infrequently—MSPB administrative judges have upheld agency decisions as much as 80 percent of the time—the real problem is the time and paperwork involved in the elaborate process that managers must undergo during appeals.
Stay tuned for Blog #11 – Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy – Part 2
Remember, please – read, comment, pass it on
By Donald Devine
[BIO Wikipedia: PhD, Syracuse; taught at UMaryland and Bellevue U; Office of Personnel Management head, Reagan Admin; Advisor, Sen. Bob Dole; adjunct scholar, Heritage Foundation since 1992]
Dennis Dean Kirk
[BIO: JD, Washburn University; Worked for Bush and Trump; Under Trump, senior position OPM; Project 2025, Associate Director for Personnel Policy.]
[BIO – Paul Dans – Director, Project 2025; BA-MIT, JD-UVA ; private law practice for 20 years; Trump Administration, chief of staff, OPM.]
“Personnel is policy” as a theme has been the fundamental principle guiding the government’s personnel management.
There are four major personnel organizations for the government:
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
The Merit System Protection Board (MSPB)
The Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA)
Office of Special Counsel (OSC)
Two other agencies also work in this area:
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
While not a personnel agency per se, the General Services Administration (GSA) is charged with general supervision of contracting.Today, there are many more government contractors than civil service employees.
OPM: Managing the Federal Bureaucracy
Since the turn of the 20th century, progressives have sought a system that could effectively select, train, reward, and guard from partisan influence the neutral scientific experts they believe are required to staff the national government and run the administrative state. Yet, as public frustration with the civil service has grown, generating calls to “drain the swamp,” it has become clear that their project has had serious unintended consequences. The modern merit system. Insulates civil servants from accountability. Making it almost impossible to fire all but the most incompetent of them. The Government Accountability Office, however, has reported that pay raises, within grade pay increases, and locality pay for regular employees and executives have become automatic rather than based on performance.
For the past 34 years, the US Civil Service has been unable to distinguish consistently between strong and unqualified applicants for employment. Various tests have been used to evaluate candidates but courts have ruled that even without evidence of overt, intentional discrimination, such results may suggest discrimination. OPM must resolve this.
Currently, the government uses a Functioning appraisal system to reward good performance or correct poor performance. This is a very challenging ideal to implement successfully. 99.9% of employees were rated fully successful or above by their managers. How is this possible? Political executives should take an active role in supervising performance appraisals of career staff, not unduly delegate this responsibility to senior career managers, and be willing to reward and support good performers.
Performance appraisal must be tied to real consequences for success as well as failure. 90%. Of major US private companies use a system of merit pay. For performance. Based on some type of appraisal system. The federal government rates individuals on seniority rather than merit. Democratic Friends of the Employee unions resisted such a change in 1993 and no changes have happened since. Political executives should use existing pay, and especially fiscal awards, strategically to reward good performance to the degree allowed by law.
The MSPB can and does handle all such matters, but it faces a backlog of an estimated 3,000 cases of people who were potentially wrongfully terminated or disciplined as far back as 2013. From 2017–2022 the MSPB lacked the quorum required to decide appeals. On the other hand, as of January 2023, the EEOC had a backlog of 42,000 cases. While federal employees win appeals relatively infrequently—MSPB administrative judges have upheld agency decisions as much as 80 percent of the time—the real problem is the time and paperwork involved in the elaborate process that managers must undergo during appeals.
Remember, please – read, comment, pass it on
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