Transcript
PAUL LIGHT: Okay. Let's get started. Nice and cool in here.
I'm Paul Light. For the next 24 hours or so, I'm still vice president and director of Governmental Studies. As of tomorrow, or, I guess the 1st, I'll be director of the Center for Public Service, but no longer vice president. I'm giving up one of my several titles in an effort to flatten the Brookings hierarchy. (Laughter.)
At the start of this event here, where we're going to release this report and hear from Senator Thompson on his views of what's going on, let me thank the team of people who helped with this work. Gina Russo, Mary McIntosh, Judy Labiner, Carole Plowfield, Bill Fanaras, Hannah Sistare, who was released from her indentured service to the Governmental Affairs Committee in February so that she could be the executive director of the Volcker Commission. I hope I got everybody on our team. A lot of people contributed to this report. The Packard Foundation and the Dillon Fund also contributed funding to this report. The first version — the first piece of this work was published in Government Executive, which has actually been my longest association with any organization in my career. It's been 12 years with Tim Clark and the team there.
This is one of the most difficult reports I've ever written. It's very complicated data. It's very good data. It's probably the best sample and piece of data that I've had to work with in a long time. The survey at hand is based on two separate surveys with the same people: 673 federal employees in 2001 and the same 673 employees in 2002. The number may seem small to you, but these employees were identified through random-digit dialing at home, not at work. George Gallup once said that it does not take a gallon of blood to determine blood type, and when you look at survey sampling, you need to remember that the key to a high quality representative sample is randomness, that every federal employee has an equal opportunity to be included in the sample and that increases the power of the sample to reveal prevailing patterns.
Random sampling through random-digit dialing is an extraordinarily powerful tool and the fact that we went back to the same employees a year later means that even small changes in attitude can be very significant because you're talking to the very same people. This report has some very troubling conclusions about the federal workforce, but for me, I always have this issue of whether this is a glass half full or a glass half empty.
Now, there's a sign out at the sign-in desk advertising government's greatest achievements. We put that out there to just show you that I can be positive about what government can do. Government does wonderful things. I think we're going to have a successful endeavor here on homeland security and the war on terrorism, but there is some troubling information to talk about today.
Let me start with the half-full argument — the glass-half-full argument. Looking back to 2001 and comparing the answers to the survey in 2002, there's still much to admire about the federal workforce. Some things have not changed since September 11th. Federal employees still say their organizations encourage employees to take risks. Federal employees still refuse to characterize their jobs as boring. Feds are still reasonably satisfied with salary benefits and the public respect they receive for the work they're doing. Feds still say that their organizations provide enough information and technological equipment to do their jobs well. Feds still overwhelmingly say they accomplish something significant at work and the estimated percentage of poor performers — when we ask federal employees how many other people you work with are not doing their jobs well — has remained exactly the same in 2001 and 2002 at 22 percent. That is lower than the estimated percentage of poor performers among private sector employees who estimate the number in their midst of poor performers at about 24 percent. It is slightly higher than non-profit workers who estimate the number of poor performers in their midsts at 19 percent.
I should note here that there's some troubling news about what Americans think about federal performance. In June, Mary McIntosh graciously did a survey for us of 2,200 Americans, more or less, asking them to estimate the number of poor performers in the federal government. We said to Americans — just your best guess, how many federal employees are not doing their jobs well. Americans said 48 percent on average of federal employees were not doing their jobs well. They said 42 percent of people who work for private businesses are not doing their jobs well and 38 percent of people who are working for charitable organizations are not doing their jobs well. We did not ask about think tank employees because we knew that answer would be zero percent were not doing the jobs well, so — and the media, we would never ask. I mean, Americans — there's something going on when Americans think that our work force — that a very high percentage of our work force — federal, private or non-profit — is not doing its work well and I can't quite figure that one out. Mary and I are going to do some work on it.
There's no change in the desire to leave government and there's one positive up trend. Satisfaction with job security among federal employees is up, which is contrary to some of the concerns so many of us have about contracting out. I would not say that's something to advertise as good news. If I were a federal employee or a federal agency, saying, well, here's a good thing: satisfaction with job security post-September 11th — I just don't think politically it's a good advertising point for the federal government, especially when we talk about the down points.
There has been significant improvement in at least one of the federal government's work forces: the Defense Department. Defense employees were significantly more likely to say they're given a chance to do the things they do best; more likely to say there are no poor performers in their midst; more likely to say their organizations provide enough employees to do the job well; more likely to say that they are satisfied with the opportunity to accomplish something worthwhile. Interestingly enough, there has not been a significant increase in defense employment during the period before we did this second survey. What we think is going on here is that defense employees are perceiving better performance among their colleagues and more employees in their midst because there's more productivity at that agency. That's what we think might be going on. Well, that's what I think might be going on and looking squarely at Mary and Mary is thinking, am I thinking that? Why are you using the pronoun we? (Laughter.)
Cautionary note. Defense employees are more likely than non-defense to say their organizations do not provide enough training to do the job. Now, why is that? Why are defense employees more likely to say they're not getting the training they need than non-defense, and I think the reason is that they're feeling the need for training more than non-defense; that they're really on edge. They've got an acutely apparent mission and I think that they want to be on top of that mission.
Now let me give you the glass-half-empty news and then we'll turn it over to the senator. Despite the good news, there are many indicators in our survey that show that the federal government's workforce is in trouble. Morale is down. Satisfaction with the opportunity to accomplish something worthwhile is down. The ability of employees to describe the mission of their agencies is down. The number of layers that federal employees see between themselves and the top of their agencies is up. That could be perception. I don't think there's an increase in the actual number of layers in the federal government, but I think federal employees are feeling the impact of layers today more than they did a year ago because they feel a lot of pressure to do better.
More significantly, the number of federal employees who say they come to work for the paycheck — solely the paycheck — is up. Now, we asked federal employees this simple question. We said a variety of factors motivate people to come to work each day. Why do you come to work every day? Very simple question. And we recorded all of the answers, you know, you could have said anything you wanted. Many did. We had one respondent who said, I come to work because my wife makes me come to work, otherwise, I'd be out gambling. (Laughter.)
Of the answers here in 2001, 31 percent of federal employees answered that they come to work solely for the paycheck, for the compensation. In 2002, that number was up to 41 percent. I mean, I can explain that figure. I can explain why it went up, but I cannot forgive that figure. I've been a strong advocate of public service for a long time and for federal employees — for that number to be going up is extremely troublesome.
Now, to keep it in perspective, almost 50 percent of private sector employees come to work for the paycheck, okay? So federal employees are still below the private sector, but senator and others, we talk a lot about federal employees and federal agencies becoming more businesslike; this is one area where federal employees are becoming more businesslike and it's troublesome.
By comparison, we just came out of the field, as we call it, with a survey of non-profit employees. Only 16 percent of employees of charitable organizations say they come to work for the paycheck or compensation. About 41 percent of non-profit employees say they come to work because they love the job. I love my job. I like helping kids. I love my work. I make a difference. I mean that's what we want to hear from federal employees. We don't want to hear from federal employees that they're just coming to work for the paycheck; at least I don't think we do. There are very serious problems at non-defense agencies. The percentage of employees at non-defense agencies who say they're given a chance to do the things I do best is down substantially, while defense employee satisfaction with the opportunity or being given the chance to do the things they do best has gone up. There's a 19 percent spread now between defense and non-defense employees on that one question where there was no spread at all in 2001.
The number of feds who say that the job is a dead end with no future is up at non-defense, unchanged at defense. The number who are dissatisfied with their job is up at non-defense, unchanged at defense. Trust in the organization, belief the organization is good at helping people — all of these measures are down at non-defense agencies and either stable or up at defense.
Let me briefly talk about how we might explain these findings. Number one, defense and non-defense work forces, I believe, were dissatisfied with the opportunity to accomplish something worthwhile for different reasons. I think defense employees are dissatisfied with their lack of ability to accomplish something worthwhile because they've got a mission that's intense. They want to make an impact. They are frustrated with bureaucratic barriers and they're frustrated with a lack of training. That I think is the good predictor of why they're dissatisfied at defense. They've got a job to do and there are bureaucratic barriers to doing so.
Non-defense employees appear to me to be confused about their mission. They seem to feel that they're being left behind. They don't know their place in a post-September 11th world. Percent of defense employees who said people they work feel more of a sense of mission since September 11th was 63 percent. You know, two out of three defense employees said that the people they worked with have more of a sense of mission post-September 11th. Among non-defense employees, it was 35 percent.
Non-defense employees looking around their agencies are saying we don't feel more of a sense of mission here; it's still the same. Nothing has changed. Defense employees were also responding to what a lot of HR professionals call satisfiers: leadership, mission, and the ability of the employees to get the resources they need by way of employees and so forth. They have a focus-measurable mission while non-defense employees appear to be focusing on what human resource experts call dissatisfiers. I think they're reacting to the dual pay raise. I think they're reacting to the contracting out initiative. I think they're reacting to the lack of a focus mission and, I think most importantly, I think they're reacting to the lack of contact with the president. The president isn't talking much to them about what he expects from the civilian workforce. What we've got here I think in some ways is a response to what the president isn't saying, and I'm strongly encouraging the president here in this report to talk to the federal workforce about what's going on and to try to interpret the post-September 11th environment in a way that federal employees can grapple with.
And I talk a lot here about the need for stronger measurement of performance, which is something that Senator Thompson has worked on a good deal, the Office of Management and Budget — and I'd like it noted that I'm saying something positive about OMB. They have a new initiative on performance measurement, which I think actually holds some promise for rewarding agencies more effectively for what they do well and for what they don't do well.
So that's pretty quick. I don't know, I think I got that in about 10 minutes, was it? Our interviews lasted about 30 minutes, so that's a pretty good timeline.
Let me introduce Senator Thompson to talk about these issues. I've admired his work ever since he came to the United States Senate. I paid money to see his work before he came to the United States Senate and once he leaves the Senate.
SENATOR FRED THOMPSON (R-TN): I hope you will again.
MR. LIGHT: Yeah, I was just going to say that.
(Laughter.)
MR. LIGHT: I was watching "In the Line of Fire" last night, which was on TNT. You'll see.
SENATOR THOMPSON: (Off mike.)
MR. LIGHT: Yeah, and a darn good one, you know. (Laughter.)
At any rate, Senator Thompson, from my perspective on governmental affairs, did a terrific job zeroing in on performance issues: worried about the right questions, asked the right questions. I strongly encouraged him not to leave the United States Senate. I felt that there is an unfinished agenda. I thought I had him convinced and that we as a community had him convinced. I think we did for a little bit but he's going to be leaving, and we hope to continue to engage him at Brookings and elsewhere in town on these issues of good government. I think we've got a commitment of a sort to doing that.
It's just a pleasure to introduce the senator from Tennessee and welcome him here to talk about these issues. Senator Thompson.
(Applause.)
SENATOR FRED THOMPSON (R-TN): Thank you, Paul. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only lame duck here today (laughter), so I feel a little better. Several things I could say about the survey, sitting here thinking about it — I'm wondering how much of this general public 48 percent view — unfavorable view of federal employees has had to do — is unduly weighted by their view toward members of Congress. I mean, I assume that we?re included in that federal employee group, but my commitment to better government has to do with the fact that I gave up Hannah Sistair to come over to the Volcker Commission and try to help out. I?m glad to see Hannah and Tim here today.
Just a couple of comments. First of all, thank you again, Paul, for what I consider to be a great public service. These issues need to be highlighted and brought to our attention. These are long festering problems that cannot — we cannot afford to have go in the direction that they are going in. We clearly have got to do a better job of our hiring processes for federal employees, motivating them, giving incentives and disincentives in the right way, having a system in which they can work and prosper and be held accountable. We?ve failed in all of those things. We are trying to move toward a more performance-based government little by little. We?re trying to make the results mean something and work. It is a tough job.
Until it?s tied to the budget process, it?s probably not ever going to work, but I must say the president in his budget has a management-focused agenda. I?ve talked to Mitch Daniels and several others at the OMB, many of whom used to work for me about this area and so it?s just the proverbial huge battleship. You?re trying to move a couple degrees, and in the last two years we?ve been able to move it a little bit, but certainly Paul and Brookings and others downtown have done at least as much, but we?ve got to continue to do that because we now are beginning as never before to see the significance of these problems.
In the first place, I?ve watched over the last few years and studied for the last years of some of the causes of this problem and seeing that it?s a part of a bigger problem with regard — that we have with regard to the federal workforce; the fact that the downsizing we went through in the ?90s caused a brain drain; the fact that the retirement picture does not look good. I think the next — you know, 50 percent in the next five years are eligible to retire. The GAO, of course, tells us that my human capital issues are now on the high-risk list as far the government is concerned. We know of problems we have with the civil service and how virtually impossible it is to do anything about that.
That is all of our background, but as I say, now we?re beginning — and I?m certainly — beginning to see just one big chunk of the significance of that and it?s not all bad news because surely now these problems can be highlighted in such a way that we can get some momentum for doing something about it.
I just saw — reading the paper coming over here — it looks like a big chunk of employees is going to get a raise out of committee — 4.1 percent, I think, for defense and other employees. That probably wouldn?t have happened a short time ago, but when I talk about significance, I?m talking the national defense area, and of course we?re up to our neck right now in the Governmental Affairs Committee considering the homeland security bill, and it?s going to be one of the things that both parties agree should be at the top of our agenda as we finish up this year.
The Hart-Rudman Commission pointed out to us many things; they?re quoted daily now. But one of the things they pointed out was that there was a crisis of confidence in government that a lot of that had to do with the kind of work force that we were attracting and needed to attract. The key people we were losing, the highly specialized needs that we had and were developing, that we were falling behind in such things as language skills and other things that were extremely troublesome, and for one thing, it was having a direct impact on our intelligence-gathering capabilities. It?s very specific, and boy, has all that come home to us because we see now that the heart of the problems that we have seen and have been public so far and I think the ones that will come out still yet in large part have to do with the collection, analysis and dissemination of intelligence, and now we?re in the process of setting up a huge new homeland security department involving just under 170,000 employees in 22 agencies, and that in and of itself is a real issue in terms of federal employment and the attitude of the people who may be coming into this and it may not be, and where they?re going to be in the hierarchy, and what?s going to happen, but the significance I?d like to talk to today is the fact that so much of it is going to be resting on a questionable foundation. This is a department that needs to happen, but a good part of it is going to be based on its ability to collect accurate and timely — and analyze on an accurate and timely basis — intelligence.
And our intelligence community, our counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism capabilities need substantial reform, and this department will be relying on traditional sources of intelligence for its ability to operate in all of the various ways that it?s going to be set up to operate, so we have to have better intelligence. We have to have better capabilities in the collection and certainly in the analysis and dissemination of information. That, in turn, is based upon the kind of people that we?re able to attract and keep. We have fallen way behind in terms of things such as human intelligence. We have fallen behind in terms of our ability to penetrate. We?ve fallen behind in terms of our language capabilities and things of that nature. It?s a different world altogether as we know, and it?s even a more different world in the national security arena and specifically the intelligence arena.
And so it all goes — it all builds up, the things we?re talking about here today. It builds up to become what I consider to be the crux of the most important issue facing our country today; that is the national security of this country. It all rests on the foundation of good, capable, knowledgeable people, and in some areas, more and more growing areas, people who must have extremely significant skills, training, capabilities, willingness, and will never be able — these people can make many, many more times the salary of what they?re making. They?re going to have to be motivated in a way that they?ll be willing to give a certain part of their lives to their country.
So we need to understand that, and as we tackle the larger issues that this is a part of and that being the overall management of government, the overall lack of leadership that we have seen. You know, management and leadership would solve an awful lot of our problems, and it distresses me to see that as we?re debating homeland security, as we?re trying to grapple with those issues, as we?re talking about the human capital issues that we face with regard to national security, as we talk about things like information technology and those issues that are such an integral part of protecting this country. Now, we understand that. These computers, yes, they have to talk to each other. Yes, we have to have the most sophisticated technicians. Yes, we have the capability in this country of developing scanners so that people don?t have to stand in line half their lives at airports and all of that.
Unfortunately, all of these areas that we?re dealing with now as part of homeland security are the things that the government does worse. We?ve seen over a period of years that all of these areas that I just mentioned are on the GAO high-risk list. I mean, you can throw financial management in there, too, because as this new bureaucracy gets built up, somebody is going to have to, you know, remember where the typewriters are or something. I mean we lose billions of dollars just misplaced in this country, in this government because of financial mismanagement and we don?t know where things are.
So the challenge now that we?re facing is to come with a national security component — as large as it is, it?s still a component of the bigger government — that is efficient and well running and well staffed and fully funded in an area when the thing that they are a part of is nothing like that?nothing like that, whether you?re talking about human capital issues or information technology or financial management or whatever. That just highlights the size of the challenge.
So again, working our way back — big picture, national security, homeland defense and all of that — you?re working your way down the steps. It all gets — all rests upon these personnel and human capital problems and challenges that we have in that particular area. So it?s very, very good that we are reminded and kept aware, for this is exactly what are situation is from the ground up — what actual people are thinking about their jobs and what our fellow citizens think about their jobs. It will help us continue to move hopefully in the right direction. Thank you all.
(Applause.)
MR. LIGHT: (Confers off mike.) We?ll take some questions here. I agree. We do see in this homeland security debate a fairly significant opportunity to do some work on fixing the human capital problems, but we?ll talk a little bit about that.
Let?s — Al, what?s on your mind?
QUESTION FROM AL EISELE OF THE HILL: Paul, I wouldn?t —
MR. LIGHT: Answer to the second first, no. This is a survey of civilian workers; not postal workers, not military and not congressional. We did ask a question about Congress a couple of weeks ago. We were trying to explore public support for a pay increase for members of Congress and Supreme Court justices, and I think Mary McIntosh and I have concluded that there?s no way to ask this question that would get a majority of Americans to support a pay increase for members of Congress. That may be a surrogate here.
On the first issue, you can?t get at the question of fear. We did ask whether or not federal employees think their jobs are more stressful. Defense Department employees were more likely than non-defense, so at the back of the survey you?ll see those questions: Is your job more stressful since September 11th? More fulfilling? More difficult? More rewarding? And in all of those cases, Defense Department employees were more likely to say stressful, fulfilling, rewarding, difficult, and all of those answers were significantly correlated with feeling better about work.
Actually, Defense Department employees feel that their jobs are more difficult, but they also feel that that?s linked to a sense that morale is up, that?s linked to a sense that they have the ability to accomplish something worthwhile. We did pick up some fear factor in the open-ended questions about why do you come to work each day. We did 40 long interviews with a whole team of people from the Center for Public Service and we did hear a little bit about that. This is sort of a generalized fear.
Tim?
QUESTION FROM TIM CLARK OF GOVERNMENT EXECUTIVE: The Republican Party has not been one for creating new bureaucracies. The last organizational efforts that I can recall by the — that were endorsed by the Republican Party in fact went the other way and were contemplating the abolishment of some cabinet level departments. This new agency, it seems to me, is — no question about it, big government, growth of government. You?ve got a big, new bureaucracy being put in place. You?ve got 12 new political appointees. You?ve got a new super structure that has to be created to manage all of the newly organized department and the agencies that are coming in under it.
I sense that there is fear that it will take a long time to really get that working, so that — and you alluded yourself to peoples? worries about where they would be in the hierarchy and all that. I wonder whether that worries you.
And secondly, I also wonder whether you think that now is the opportunity — now comes the opportunity to — you alluded to fully funding — to increase the funding of some of these organizations like the Border Patrol, for example. Barry McCaffrey has said that the Border Patrol should be four times the size it is and the Coast Guard and other agencies moving into this department are pretty demonstrably underfunded, and so you?re looking not only at a bigger bureaucracy, but perhaps considerably more spending. And I?m just wondering — looking through the lens of the Governmental Affairs Committee and the Republican Party — how all that looks to you.
SENATOR THOMPSON: I think one of the first things that the creators of the department would point out is that while a large new bureaucracy was being created, other smaller bureaucracies are being diminished. I, for one, have no doubts. In my opening statement the other day, I said while some will be diminished, we need to come to terms with the fact that we are creating a giant new bureaucracy, and it will be a bureaucracy as all others are and that is difficult — hard to set up and difficult to manage.
I think that this — on the political side of it, I think that the significant point to make there is that Republicans have always been willing to spend for national security, and I think that?s just the bottom line there, so I don?t think the money will be an issue in terms of overall budgetary considerations. It won?t be lumped in with everything else. I think it will have priorities, so that is — that leads to the last point and that is hopefully that means that we can come together with some funding increases for areas that need it. I don?t think we have yet come to terms with the massive spending requirements that this is going to take. We?re going along about our business as if we were not at war, didn?t particularly have any financial fiscal problems on the horizon. And both those cases are not true. We?re continuing to do things like spend a tremendous amount of money on a farm bill and we?re undoubtedly going to be — well, we just created a new entitlement for those who get laid off from their job because of international trade, not the 95 percent of other people who get laid off or other reasons, but an entitlement for this select group of people is a price we had to pay for trade promotion authority. We undoubtedly will be creating a new entitlement for prescription drugs, which everybody agrees that we need, but be that as it may, it still adds up, and we?re not reprioritizing because of these new needs on the horizon.
We?re acting as if, you know, it?s going to be trade off we?ll save here and we?ll make it up there. I don?t think that that?s the case at all. We know now, whether it?s the Coast Guard or so many of these other agencies, that we are underfunded. I don?t think we know yet what the FBI did with this money was supposed to go into computer enhancement, but presumably we?ll still have to come up with enough money to get their computers to talk to each other. I mean, get some e-mail on their desk and things like that. I mean, it?s just everywhere you turn. I think it?s going to be a tremendously expensive proposition forever, and we have yet to come to terms with that, but it?s not going to be — Republicans are not going to characterize that along with, you know, highway money. At least, I would be very disappointed if they did. I think it?ll be prioritized and I think the Democrats will be supportive too. The problem is that nobody wants to give up on their priorities, so I think we?ve got a difficult fiscal situation ahead of us.
MR. LIGHT: May I add two points here? One is that for whatever reason we?ve been talking about the department as of 170,000, FTE department — the senator mentioned that. That?s because the estimates don?t include, well, we already know TSA needs in terms of baggage screeners. TSA has not forwarded its formal estimates, but we know they need about 30,000 baggage screeners to go with the 30,000 passenger screeners, so there we got a department now that?s already at 200,000. You talk about increasing personnel and so forth. This department will be at 250,000 within five years and probably should be is the point.
Now, on the issue — the FBI lost all those laptops. I don?t know — maybe they should try to find those laptops that they lost last year. That was the story. Senator Thompson has long talked about financial management. We had a report in June that received almost no coverage from OMB that the federal government lost $20 billion last year, just lost it in erroneous payments. I think Senator Thompson two years ago —
SENATOR THOMPSON: That?s half the homeland security budget.
MR. LIGHT: Yeah. If you could find that $20 billion, that would go a long way toward fixing some of these problems. Two years ago, Senator Thompson released a report called, "On the Brink," where he reported that $250 billion had been lost over 10 years, and I remember trying to write a column about it and saying that nobody cared because they thought it must have been more like $250 trillion. I mean, the American public had so little confidence that even those big numbers don?t matter.
Right here.
QUESTION FROM GRAHAM BROWNING OF FEDERAL COMPUTER WEEK: Graham Browning, Federal Computer Week. As you know, the new homeland security proposal, at least from the president, includes some fairly dramatic changes in human resources management area. There?s been some controversy over that. The federal unions say that many of that — much of that language would get rid of the civil service rights of employees who are transferred to the new department, but it seems like in terms of what we?re talking about today that the ability to attract new people to the federal government in ways that will help them to retain, particularly in the IT area. You mentioned the large salaries that are available in the private sector. Can you comment on that part of the new legislation? And is that specifically aimed at IT professionals?
SENATOR THOMPSON: I?m glad that you brought that up. That?s something that I really should have mentioned in the beginning because of its importance. There are basically four main sections to the bill, and the management section is one of those four to the homeland security bill, and I think it?s extremely important to give the secretary flexibility and maybe more flexibility than people who had in times past, but let me back off away from that for a minute and kind of lead up to it.
When I started looking at this bill and the sweeping nature of it and thinking about just how difficult this was going to be, I then ran across some articles written — great articles where CEOs were quoted — some of whom had gone through big mergers, some of whom were very aware of the difficulty of mergers. And they were given the chances of this merger — this government merger taking place like 20-30 percent success rate. And they talked about how difficult it was going to be, and they talked about the culture problems, and they talked about all the difficulties that private management would have and then you add on top of that Congress. And on and on and on. And it occurred to me — I — it was an overwhelming feeling. Here we are in the midst of such tremendous needs trying to do this in the midst of the fight, as it were. What kind of gaps were we going to create as we made this transition, how long was it going to take — as Paul has pointed out and the GAO points out from time to time. I think David Walker, as late as yesterday, said it takes years to get much, much less than this halfway up and running.
I concluded that only way that we could do something maybe a little different and a little better than what?s been done in the past is to approach it in somewhat of a different way, and part of that seems to me — has to do with what you?re talking about here, and that is the way in which we go about setting it up and the way in which we manage it and the giving of the top people enhanced flexibility. It is a very brief section of the bill. Basically what it says with regard to the relevant — the human capital side, it gives some flexibility with regard to procurement and things like that, too, but (inaudible) says that, you know, the secretary can promulgate regulation notwithstanding what?s in Title V and promulgate regulations with notice to Congress. That?s very broad.
Now, I don?t think — they can speak for themselves on it. They?re not going to try to abrogate civil service. There are a lot of flexibilities in Title V that are not used to start with. There have been 18 or so agencies that have already been given substantial flexibility and nobody pays much attention to that — the IRS, for example — and you know, we wait until these agencies get in bad trouble then we give them additional flexibility, as you know, and it may have occurred to somebody, well, if that?s a good idea for them, then maybe — you know.
So it?s not a revolution that we?re talking about here. But it does — the way it?s drafted now — give the secretary the opportunities to do some different things, I guess, in terms of all of these areas such as, you know, hiring, firing, moving, but most of these flexibilities in times past have had to do with incentives and inducements to get the kind of guys you need over at the IRS to straighten it. We?ve spent billions of dollars in the IRS on information technology — down a rat hole — over the years. And so who are you going to get to straighten that out?
So most of these flexibilities have had to do with pay and moving expenses and enhancements and inducements and so forth. I would hope that people would not be so afraid of us doing something a little different or somebody who is not perceived to be quite up to speed being somewhat at risk that we would not be so overcome with those notions that we would give this thing a chance to work. And in the political environment that it will continually operate in any perceived excesses and so forth will be worked out.
I just think that it?s vital that we do some things here. If we can?t kind of set up a model, a new template to address some of these problems that we know that we have had in an area of this importance, than we can never do it anywhere. So I?m hopeful that that or something along those lines will survive this process.
MR. LIGHT: Can I follow up and ask you whether — I mean, you?re saying the secretary needs flexibility, but are you also saying that you would be interested in seeing ideas that are more specific than what?s currently in the president?s bill?
SENATOR THOMPSON: I don?t know, Paul. I don?t know how specific we ought to get. I think that you could make a case either way. I guess if I were secretary I?d like it the way it was. On the other hand, if I were an employee I would like it, you know, I?d like a fairly thick book delineating exactly what could or could not happen to me. We may wind up somewhere in the middle and, you know, so be it. I just think we need to maintain as much flexibility as we can while not demoralizing the workforce, while having the workforce conclude that if you?ve got some problems, perhaps you should be concerned. But if you?ve got some capabilities that are not being rewarded, you ought to be happy — and have it shake out that way.
MR. LIGHT: That noise you heard in Washington last week when the president?s bill went up to Capitol Hill was federal employees looking up what the words flexible and contemporary meant in the dictionary, and these provisions in the bill have become kind of a Rorschach test for pretty much everything you imagine could or could not happen. There are some federal employees who are desperate to get into the department because they want the pay rates that come at the Transportation Security Administration, and others who don?t want to be in the department because they?re concerned about some of these flexibilities.
Other questions here. We?ll just keep working. Steve — we?ll take these three, Steve?
QUESTION FROM STEVE BARR OF THE WASHINGTON POST: Picking up on what the senator said about demoralizing the work force, why in your survey do you think morale went down by those ten points after September 11th? Because it seems to me that September 11th put all public servants in the spotlight, showed that government does important vital work. I mean, how can we explain the morale going down?
MR. LIGHT: Well, I think there are different explanations for the two work forces. I think — this was a question where we said, you know, what?s the morale among the people you work with? And I think that federal employees and defense were saying morale was down because we?re working hard and we don?t have the resources to do our job. We need more of the stuff to get the work done. We don?t have the training, for example. There are too many layers between ourselves and the top of the agency. I mean, that?s — you know, as I said, I don?t think the number of layers went up, but I think the impact of the layers most certainly did and that?s something that we need to worry about in the new homeland security department.
In the non-defense layers, I really believe that federal employees are just saying that that it?s grim season out there. You know, what has been said to federal employees over the last six to nine months? Well, you?re not going to get the same salary increase as military personnel. We?re going to continue on with this competitive sourcing initiative. There?s not been much talk — I mean, we had the red light, green light scoring system come out and everybody got a red light. Well, there was one agency that got a green light, NSF, but you had, what, 119 red lights. I mean, practically everything — and then there?s been one story after another in the press about how federal employees can?t pound sand into a hole. I mean, it?s just been one bad story after another, you know. We?re not answering the phones at SSA. We can?t give the right answer one time out of four at IRS. We lost $20 billion. It?s not just homeland security; it?s all across government.
The media continues to generate — not to blame you, Steve (laughter), but you know, federal employees see in the mirror, you know, kind of a beleaguered work force, and the American public, certainly over the last six months, trust in government has plummeted — well, not plummeted, I think that?s too sharp a word — but it has fallen and it continues to fall back to where it was. And respect for federal employees — favorability towards federal employees, Steve, has gone back to where it was before September 11th.
SENATOR THOMPSON: Can I ask you a question?
MR. LIGHT: Oh, my god. Wait, wait, wait — oh, my gods.
(Laughter.)
MR. LIGHT: I?m sorry, I don?t —
SENATOR THOMPSON: Is there any — is this endemic to a government, any government, number one? A government of the size of ours — is there any reason to think — historically, for any other reason — that we can ever have a situation where the picture is much different in terms of perception and all? We all know that there are just any number of wonderful, good hard working — some of us have been there and some of us have had family there and raised families there.
On the other hand, we all know situations where — the ones that you hear about where, you know, Alice basically comes in and tells the new guy that I ain?t going to do that and there?s nothing you can do about it — maybe transfer them and you spend half your time figuring out how to transfer Alice, but basically there?s no way to deal with it.
I mean, all that goes on and you wind up with kind of an amorphous situation and the general public always thinks that they?re lazy, and you?ve got a mixed bag, and it?s just a big bureaucracy mess in many respects. Is there — a little devil?s advocate here — but is there any reason to think that it can really be different?
MR. LIGHT: Well, I think it goes to this priority-setting question. You think about the federal employees for example who are in the AG price support program. You know, what does their work have to do with the kind of post-September 11th desire to make a difference for your country? There are spots in the federal government where you have employees who are in agencies where they don?t agree with the direction of the president?s agenda. You?ve got EPA, where I would guess the level of employee dissatisfaction would be higher because there?s a concern about whether or not we?re going to purse environmental regulation as aggressively as we did before.
I don?t know. You know, we looked at private employees and what we saw with private employees pre- and post-September 11th was a rise in pride, a rise in job satisfaction, a rise in a sense that they could accomplish something worthwhile. That could be the fact that they saw the economy coming out of the recession. It?s not a national funk, is what I?m saying, that?s brought federal employees down. It seems to be specific to government. It could be that, you know, big bureaucracy just produces some of this. The thing that?s troublesome about this data is the significant rise in the number of federal employees who are reporting that they?re coming to work just for the paycheck. Of all the data in this report, that to me was the most troublesome data.
SENATOR THOMPSON: But yet it was also high in the private sector.
MR. LIGHT: But we, you know — and somebody asked me, are we holding federal employees to a higher standard than the private sector?
SENATOR THOMPSON: See, I think — I tend to think that so much of it has to do with management and lack of effective management in a democracy or any kind of government I guess, a bureaucracy — lack of inducement for effective management. We?ve come in here for, you know, most people want to stay three years or maybe four years, and they don?t want to spend their time on these issues. The president of the United States is trying to win a war and trying to, you know, get the GDP up a little bit, you know.
Most presidents don?t want to mess with this stuff, and the fact of the matter is until it comes from the top down, until you have presidential leadership — and we do have the first MBA, I guess, president. He does have really, for the first time in my recollection, a chunk of his budget dealing with management issues. We?ll see what the follow-up is, but until you have that presidential leadership from the cabinet secretary level on down, leadership and accountability and the elevating of these issues as important issues, it?s never going to change. And in a democracy you have such constant turnover and other agendas and bigger issues and so forth, it?s very, very difficult to get the leadership and the accountability to reward the good work, to disincentivize the bad work and the flexibility to do anything about it. Maybe a lot of people who would be leaders would take a look at the morass of regulations and difficulties in shaking up a department and saying, I don?t have time to mess with that. So maybe we can — maybe we can add the rules and regulations maybe as a part of the problem.
But I think we?re going to have to continue to try to get to the heart of the problem and I?m not sure that I know what that is, but I think it?s worthy of this institution and you to continue to really try to get to the inherent difficulties in addressing these kinds of problems.
MR. LIGHT: We want to take a couple of more questions and then we?ll bring it to —
SENATOR THOMPSON: Sure, sure.
MR. LIGHT: I think the layering responses here are a surrogate. I don?t think they?re talking about layering, I think they?re talking about red tape and then perceiving that they just can?t get their work done.
Here. And then we?ll come back to you.
Q: Senator, in regards to sort of where Title V is going now — with homeland security coming, with many new modifications to it, with Senator Voinovich?s bill just being introduced this week — if you were to project yourself five years in the future and the fact that right now we have almost 50 percent of the government outside of Title V, can you forecast what you think will be happening with our civil service system?
SENATOR THOMPSON: No, I really can?t. You know, those are — highly charged words, you know — civil service system — and I don?t think anyone ever envisions a system that does not provide some stability and protection for people. I?ve been part of that system, you know, myself. I?ve seen it from both sides, mostly outside, but on the other hand, I think that in order for us to do the things that we have to do, in order for us to meet the challenges of the future in national security and otherwise — we all know that we?ve got a demographic time bomb looming. We?ve got some significant difficulties out there. We live in a world now where any part of the world could either blow up or become major economic competitors. China could go either direction. We don?t talk about them anymore. One of the things that worries me is that we?re going to get this terrorism situation done, we?re going to get a lock on it and then wake up and realize that something is happening on the other side of the world that we didn?t have a clue about.
So those are the kinds of things that concern me, and we?re going to have to do better in a lot of different respects, and we?re going to have to do better from top to bottom, and we?re going to have to have some flexibility, and we?re going to have to have more reward and punishment in our system, I think, and we?re going to have to have some efficiencies. We?re going to have to get away from our old ideas about pay structure. I mean, if we can pay folks now at TVA $250,000 a year?whatever it is they?re getting down there, some of the top people?then we can pay scientists to figure out how to keep me from having to stand in line four hours in an airport. So we?ve just got to think differently and civil service cannot be exempt from that. We need to face up to that.
MR. LIGHT: I think we just figured out how to monitor the borders like we do minibars in hotels. (Laughter.)
MR. LIGHT: I?m telling you. They always get me. (Inaudible.) (Laughter.)
SENATOR THOMPSON: (Laughing) well, we know what your sense of priorities is. (Laughter.)
MR. LIGHT: Darn tootin?.
QUESTION FROM KAREN ROBB OF FEDERAL TIMES: Hi. Karen Robb from Federal Times. When you did your first survey, Bush had just taken over. He didn?t have very many political appointees in and now everyone is there. They?re doing reorganizations within the agencies, they?re imposing performance measurements. And you see in the private sector, when there?s a new regime come in, everybody gets very unhappy for a while. Could that be what the morale issue — is it just new management style?
MR. LIGHT: I don?t think so. First of all, not everybody is here yet. The Presidential Appointee Initiative here at Brookings shows that about 99 out of the 528 appointees are still missing; 54 I believe at last point — Michael Hafkin can correct me — are stuck on Capitol Hill where we?ve got a blockade around an FEC position; and there are 39 I think who have yet to be identified, some very important positions. We still don?t have a commissioner of Food and Drugs, for example. I think that?s as demoralizing to work force as, you know, having a political appointee come in who is hostile to the agency, and we?ve already started to lose people. This administration, as I like to say, is still arriving as it?s leaving. We?ve lost the deputy secretary of Energy, the assistant secretary of Treasury for Tax Policy. So we?re starting to turn over even before we finished filling the first positions.
You know, the spring of 2001 when we did the first survey was not a happy spring. There was a lot of unsettlement in the federal government. We?d just come through a very contentious campaign; the transition had been difficult. We had the Supreme Court case. I think you — we can?t tell because we don?t have the data in looking back, but I don?t think it was a particularly happy moment and that federal employees were just gleeful, and I don?t think they?re reacting to presidential appointees. I think they?re reacting now to the resource question and I — you know, I have argued that one of the reasons so many more federal employees are coming to work for the paycheck may be that they can?t come to work for much else. They don?t have the resources to do much else. That doesn?t forgive it. That does not forgive it. It may explain it, but it does not forgive it, and my view is that any federal employee who cannot come up with a reason for coming to work besides the paycheck ought to think about whether they should come to work any more at all.
Way in the back, Max, we?ll let you ask the last question so that the senator can go up and fix what ails homeland security and —
SENATOR THOMPSON: I think I missed the Pledge of Allegiance.
(Laughter.)
MR. LIGHT: How did you vote — how did you vote on that resolution?
SENATOR THOMPSON: I voted right on that.
MR. LIGHT: Yeah, good.
(Laughter.)
QUESTION FROM MAX STIER OF THE PARTNERSHIP FOR PUBLIC SERVICE: I was expecting Paul to start this whole session with the pledge, but in any event, Paul, I think this is terrific work that you?ve done here and very, very important.
Senator, I was hoping to follow up on some of your remarks on management. It strikes me that your point about management flexibility is quite important, although it has to be combined with accountability and management skill because otherwise the flexibility is not going to be all that effective.
You raised the question about what I think is one of the root causes of the problem here — why hasn?t there been sustained attention on these issues — and you noted that there is, you know, a very quick turnover at the top and in fact, it?s every two years you see political appointees moving on to other jobs, and in some sense, it?s a tragedy of the commons. Your human capital resources are resources that in that time frame you?re much better using up, rather than investing in because anything you do on the investment side won?t be felt until your successor or your successor?s successors get there.
So my question to you, though, is —
SENATOR THOMPSON: Does it remind you — if I can interrupt you — does it kind of remind you of the corporate world a little bit nowadays? The name of the game is to get that stock price up immediately.
Q: Right.
SENATOR THOMPSON: And to get the benefit of it and, you know, let the next decade worry about itself.
Q: Well, certainly in the corporate world where the private sector companies are failing, that?s for sure. My question really to you though is one suggestion to at least partially address this that has been raised by the comptroller general Dave Walker is the notion of creating a COO, chief operating officer for agencies along the New Zealand model in which someone would be brought in under a performance contract for five years or some lengthy period of time and they would make a commitment, a contractual commitment to meet certain performance goals. Is that something that you think, A, would make sense in our present system and B, is politically viable?
SENATOR THOMPSON: Yes and no. I think it makes an awful lot of sense. You know, strangely enough New Zealand is a good example for us in a lot of different respects. They?ve done some wonderful things, wonderful reforms there, but if you could get the political hassling out. I mean, for a person to do what they ought to do — (audio break, tape change) — and it would take a strong commitment from the president himself to protect that kind of a system and those people and give them the flexibility to do things, and if we didn?t pass enough law — limiting laws and legislation all around there — yes but, yes but, you can?t touch this, this and this — then it would be a wonderful thing, but that would be the big question, the political part of it. But I think that?s the kind of, as they say, outside the box kind of thinking that we?ve got to do. Absolutely.
You know, what?s Newt?s definition of insanity? Doing the same thing the same way and expecting different results. Well, that?s kind of where we are and have been. I?ve got to vote in about 15 minutes.
MR. LIGHT: I appreciate your comments.
SENATOR THOMPSON: Excuse me for running.
MR. LIGHT: Thank you very much for coming. It?s been a great event. All right. We are adjourned.
(Applause and end of event.)