8Remake Civil Service
The vital role of public officials in America was brought in sharp focus with the COVID-19 pandemic. Modern society requires able and energetic stewards who can use their professional judgment to manage crises and provide public services.
Public service in America has become a backwater. Official initiative is suffocated under dense bureaucracy, public workplace culture is enervated by lack of accountability, and individual dignity is demeaned by outside disparagement. The difficulty of recruiting top talent is exacerbated by lengthy, tedious, and unresponsive hiring processes. Exemplary public servants are nonetheless found at all levels of government, who achieve results notwithstanding discouraging work conditions, and some exceptional agencies that have maintained a culture of excellence.
The civil service system is overdue for an overhaul. The original goal of a “merit system” remains as valid today as when it was created in the Pendleton Act of 1883. But the accretion of legal rigidities and rights has transformed public jobs into an entitlement, instead of an affirmative duty to serve the common good. Reviving energy and honor requires a framework built on the solid foundation of individual responsibility and achievement, not a system where all public employees are treated the same.
Civil service should be remade, consistent with original purpose of hiring and firing based on merit instead of as political spoils:
Hiring should be flexible, not bureaucratic. Expedited and exceptional hiring decisions should be permitted, subject only to review by an independent civil service official that the placement is meritorious, and not based on spoils or nepotism.
General supervisory and management authority should be restored to public supervisors. Accountability should be a matter of supervisory judgment, and not subject to legal proceedings except to guard against conduct that would be unlawful for all employers, and to guard against politically-motivated firings. The standard for personnel decisions should be the public good, not political advantage to elected leaders or claims of unfairness to the individual. Collective bargaining should be eliminated. Congress’s imposition of collective bargaining agreements is almost certainly unconstitutional under a long line of Supreme Court precedent. Executive power is toothless if supervisors are required to run a legal gauntlet of trial-type legal proceedings for any negative supervisory decision.
The presumption of lifetime tenure should be abolished, replaced by a framework which encourages stints in public service, as recommended by the Partnership for Public Service.
Numerous layers of appointed officials should be eliminated, to focus responsibility for results on identifiable appointees and civil servants.