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April 3, 2003
Testimony by Dwight Ink
Fellow, National Academy of Public Administration
Mr. Chairman and
Members of the Committee:
I appreciate the opportunity to testify
at these hearings on government reorganization. This is a
subject that attracts considerable discussion from time to
time, but is dealt with largely on an ad hoc basis by both
Congress and the White House. I am pleased that the current
management agenda of the President includes a request that
the Congress restore the presidential authority for submitting
reorganization plans, a step that could be of some help in
his managing the Federal Government's departments and agencies.
And I am pleased that your Committee is taking the time to
consider this request.
I am a Fellow of the National Academy of
Public Administration and a member of its Standing Panel of
Executive Organization and Management. However, my testimony
reflects my personal views and not necessarily those of the
Academy. My comments grow out of management experience in
a number of federal agencies, including my role as Assistant
Director for Executive Management in both BOB and 0MB where
I had responsibility for presidential reorganization plans
and other restructuring initiatives. In that role, I and my
staff handled seven plans, each of which resulted in significant
reorganizations, including the establishment of 0MB and EPA.
We also developed legislation for broad departmental reorganizations
that went beyond what would have been permissible under the
president's reorganization plan authority.
I concur fully with your statement about
the amount of overlapping and duplicative programs and agencies
with conflicting objectives. Not only is this wasteful, it
creates problems for many people and organizations served
by these programs. Grant recipients such as local governments
trying to utilize closely related programs, for example, are
confronted by funding from different agency offices often
located in different cities and states, with a variety of
administrative systems and requirements, and differing policies.
This splintering of functions also blurs
accountability because responsibilities are diffused among
several different departments, none of which can be held accountable
for more than a portion of a given function. Accountability
is further blurred because the structural fragmentation results
in issues gravitating to the White House that do not warrant
presidential attention. They either clutter the president's
desk and steal time that should be devoted to more critical
issues of the day, or they are handled by White House staff.
These staff members are usually very bright people, but they
seldom have the needed indepth background on all these issues
or ready access to the program expertise available to department
heads. Further, they are not as accountable to the public
or the Congress as department officials. Restoration of presidential
reorganization authority, if properly used, could be a useful
tool to reduce the problems of structural fragmentation, keeping
in mind it is a tool with limitations.
My experience with reorganization plans
date back to a period when the process permitted under the
legislation was reasonably straightforward. Since then, the
Chadha Supreme Court case has prevented use of the earlier
method by which reorganization plans would become effective
unless disapproved by Congress. However, I do not believe
the scope of what can be accomplished under reorganization
plan authority was reduced by the Chadha decision. At the
same time, the authority did accumulate some barnacles, and
I would agree that it would be best to simplify the law in
the process of reauthorization. I agree with the notion of
striking Section 903 and then deciding what, if anything,
needs to be restored with respect to limitations.
I strongly support the concept of restoring
reorganization plan authority if it provides assurance that
a vote is taken after a specified period of time, and the
authority limits or precludes amendments. This type of reauthorization
could provide a vehicle for addressing a number of organization
problems.
I would add, however, that passing the enabling
legislation, while necessary, will not necessarily accomplish
anything unless other steps are also taken. First, within
the Executive Office of the President there is a need to restore
a measure of professional competence in the field of departmental
and inter-departmental organization to assure good drafting
of reorganization proposals and effective implementation.
This expertise has been missing for a number of years. By
1981, the GAO criticism of reorganization plan implementation
led Congress to require detailed implementation plans to each
proposed reorganization in an effort to compensate for this
lack of executive branch performance.
The problem continues. Time after time we
see departmental and agency reorganizations that muddle, rather
than clarify, headquarters/field arrangements. Working arrangements
among various field offices concerned with the same clients
are often ad hoc and transitory. The relationship between
the secretary's office and the major operating elements of
a department is seldom well thought through. Departmental
management leadership is fragmented by a series of laws, a
deficiency the President has sought to avoid in the new Department
of Homeland Security through the Under Secretary for Management,
a highly desirable feature. These and other issues can best
be addressed by men and women with experience and expertise
in organizing and managing large organizations, not by legal
or budget experts, as is the ease today.
A second ingredient for success with reorganization
plans is the need for cooperative working arrangements between
the executive and legislative branches. Meaningful consultation
with the relevant committees before sending a reorganization
plan to Congress has been essential to the success of most
presidential reorganization plans. During the first term of
President Nixon, BOB (later 0MB) consulted very carefully
with congressional committees before forwarding his organization
plans, all of which came into effect. At the beginning of
his second term, however, as a drug reorganization plan was
being drafted, Presidential Assistant John Erlichman told
0MB that the president wanted to discontinue such consultations,
thereby creating tensions that prevented the reorganization
authority from being renewed for several years.
To be effective, executive branch consultation
requires a maximum of bipartisanship on the part of the committees.
Over the many years I have worked with this Committee and
its predecessors, I have been struck by the extent to which
periods of strong bipartisanship have increased the influence
of the Committee within Congress and with the Executive Branch.
Although I believe restoration of reorganization
plan authority is a desirable step, I also urge the Committee
to review with care the Volcker Commission recommendation
that the federal government be reorganized into a limited
number of mission directed executive departments. I recognize
that accomplishing such a task is an enormous undertaking,
far beyond what the reorganization plan efforts involve. It
would require a high level of executive-legislative cooperation
that is often in short supply, as well as considerable strengthening
of management leadership capacity in the Executive Office
of the President as well as in the affected departments and
agencies. But I would argue that change is needed, and we
should not permit the difficulty of large-scale reorganization
to serve as an excuse for failure to address this issue.
In considering the Volcker recommendation,
the Committee may wish to review the earlier work of the Ash
Council and President Nixon's reorganization proposals. Designed
to achieve much the same goals as those of the Volcker Commission,
they were the most sweeping ever proposed by a president.
They were gaining substantial support in Congress when Nixon
abandoned the effort during the 1972 election. These proposals
should not be confused with the very different ill-advised
super-cabinet arrangements he tried to implement without legislation
during his unfortunate second term. If it would be of interest,
I would be happy to provide for the record a brief description
of the legislative proposals developed by 0MB as a result
of the Ash Council recommendations.
I would be pleased to respond to any
questions.
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