Why Working for FSA Is Worse These Days

 Sec. Vilsack testifying, link was posted to the Facebook FSA group. At the start he observes that it's no longer true that the county executive director of the FSA office is among the best paid in the county and that serving the public by working for the government has lost some cachet.

Government Salaries

 Today in the NYTimes Magazine the ethics column written by Prof. Attiah has a letter from a young attorney-to-be, who will have $150K in student loans and dislikes the idea of working for a big firm where:

The salary would be enough for me to pay off my loans, help my family and establish a basic standard of living for myself — plus maybe own a house or even save for retirement, which would be impossible for me on a public-interest or government salary.

I'm not sure what the writer thinks a "basic standard of living" involves. FWIW new attorneys for the federal government start at about $56K (with locality adjustments). 

Grade Creep and the GS- System

 This GovExec piece discusses the problem of job classification in the government, using the term "grade creep", which brings back old memories. Back in the late 1970's the Personnel Management Division (now HR) did a classification review of the branch I was heading (we had directives and records management responsibilities). They down graded the analyst positions.  

As the dust was settling, I was offered a job on the program side of ASCS, which allowed me to maintain my GS-13 grade. 

The classification standards for management analysts at the time were, IMHO, developed based on work in the New Deal days.  To get the highest grade levels you had to be creating new organizations and new processes.  I could see the logic of that.  The impact of the people involved in creating the AAA back in the 1930's was more impactful than the work of people making ASCS work reasonably well in the 1970's.  That didn't mean I liked the results. 

Note: the GovExec piece argues for using computer algorithms for job classification--I have strong doubts about that.

Trump: Keep Your Cotton Pickin' Hands Off My Money

I remember when the Thrift Savings Plan was created as part of a plan to reform the compensation of federal employees, of which I was one. IIRC the administration tried to eliminate the defined benefit retirement plan under civil service.  Switching from defined benefit to defined contribution was all the rage in private enterprise back then.

IIRC correctly there was some opposition particularly on the right based on the idea the investment money would be under the control of political types who would try to use their leverage to further their socialistic goals.

From EBRI's summary:i

KEY FACTORS TO SUCCESS: Despite initial opposition from labor groups and veto threats from the Reagan administration, Congress ultimately enacted a plan that reduced federal spending and eventually won strong support from federal workers, particularly because of the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). Lawmakers deliberately and carefully insulated the TSP from political manipulation and minimized the impact of the federal workers’ investments in the financial markets.

Now the Trump administration is pushing the TSP board not to include Chinese stocks in the I (international) fund.  (Some in Congress are pushing a law forward to effect the same goal.)What it means is a lower return on my money because they view China as an adversary. 

I hope all those conservatives who worried about political considerations impacting TSP investment decisions back in 1986 will now oppose this move.

The End of the Clerk-Typist?

OPM is proposing to end job classifications where there are fewer than 25 occupants across the Federal government.  One of the occupations is "clerk-typist"!!

Once clerk-typist was a very common job--when I joined ASCS there were 2 or 3 in the Directives Branch.  Typically people would move to a secretarial position or a more specific position after they'd acquired some experience in the office.  Clerk-typist was an entry position, basically requiring you to pass a typing test.  IIRC 40 words per minute with minimal errors.

Duuring the early 70's there was a Work-Study program. Much is fuzzy here; I don't remember what the program objective was--"diversity" as we'd say today, perhaps, or maybe just opening a new way to recruit clerical employees.  And I'm not sure of the details at this remove--I think high school students, perhaps seniors, spent time on the job during the school year and particularly during the summer.  As I recall we had two students from DC, who happened to be dating, I think.  Both were good and we were short-handed so we wanted to make them both permanent, but to do so they needed to pass the typing test for the clerk-typist position.  Not to be sexist but of course the woman qualified easily, while the man had problems.  With the help mainly of the management technician in the office he took and retook the typing test until he finally passed, to the pleasure of his new co-workers.

They married a couple years later.  Over the years they advanced within ASCS, ending as professionals.

A Blast at Moving ERS from DC

The Hill publishes an opinion piece blasting USDA on its proposal to move ERS out of DC.

I don't know who would be the first and second ranked agricultural economics research institution in the world, but it says ERS is number three.

I've some sympathy with one argument for the move: finding a place where living costs are lower and a government salary  goes farther.

I remember talking with Keith Townsend, the program specialist in the state of Washington, about moving to DC and his counter arguments. That was before locality-based salaries came into effect, but I strongly suspect the adjustments probably feel inadequate to many.

The Brits Do It Better

Wonky bureaucrats often admire Britain and its Civil Service, even to the extent of trying to reform our bureaucracy along its lines.  (See Jimmy Carter's civil service reforms, which created the Senior Executive Service with the dream, so far unrealized after 40+ years, of having the best people identified and moving from agency to agency and department to department as the need arose. In other words, Jimmy wanted to duplicate the Dwight Inks of the world.)

We bureaucrats and pundits forget the differences in the societies of the two nations, and the structural differences of our governments.  Nonetheless, when I see this report from FCW, I can't resist being envious.

"British citizens can access tax, pension and drivers licensing information through a single, secure login called GOV.UK Verify. The system is set to exit a public beta and go live the week of May 23."

The UK hasn't progressed as far as Estonia, but they're way ahead of the US.  

In Defense of Government Jobs

Megan McArdle at Bloomberg View had a post on what causes of inequality the government can remedy.  Apparently it's the initial post in a series at Bloomberg.on the subject. McArdle is always worth reading, though her posting has grown less frequent recently.  But she included this paragraph:

" Government is also not well suited to creating a lot of satisfying and remunerative jobs. It can contribute to productivity and help companies to flourish, for example through basic research and by maintaining a competent legal and regulatory system. And it can directly create a few jobs providing government services; these have been, for many communities at many times, a stepping stone to the middle class."

I think this is wrong.  I understand the last sentence as being a nod to the role of the Postal Service in nurturing a black middle class.  But many government jobs include the idea of "service".  "Service" used to be big in the world.  We had the "civil service" and the "military service" or the "uniformed services".  Service was to the community, to the "commonwealth".  I live in the commonwealth of Virginia, though most Virginians would have a heart attack at the idea of "common wealth". The term evolved from the idea of common well being.

The importance of "service" is that it can be the basis of a satisfying job. Remuneration is another issue.  Some jobs, like college football/basketball coaches, some of whom are technically government, jobs, are overpaid. 

Are Federal Employees Properly Compensated

This piece answers: "no one knows".

I agree. 

Firing Employees

Government Executive has a piece on firing federal employees.  It's all very nice, but it misses an issue which can be as important: the economists call it "opportunity costs".

A manager has many demands on her time, demands mostly over which she has no control.  It's the in-basket, which keeps filling up. In an office with several or many employees, there's also an urge to devote time to your employees, and to be fair to them.  (Not that I achieved that, but I could be made to feel guilty about failing.) And if you'd like to think of yourself as an effective manager, you probably have dreams of your own you want to implement. (I had too many.)

Now if you have an employee who's marginal, what the rules say is you need to devote time to him: counseling, training,  documenting actions, etc. etc. The rules are all very well, certainly they fit the golden rule, they're what I'd want applied to me.  But spending the time is the killer; it takes away from the in-basket, it takes away from paying attention to other employees, and it kills your dreams.

A Sign of the Future: Female Majority in Government SES?

I think this is a portent of the future:

"The Health and Human Services Department is the only major Cabinet-level agency that boasts more female than male senior executives, according to the latest numbers from the Office of Personnel Management.
Of the 420 total senior executives at HHS as of September 2014, women made up 53 percent of the corps, compared to 47 percent who were men. That’s 223 senior executive women compared to 197 senior executive men, based on OPM’s Fedscope data compiled by CEB, a member-based advisory company. The bulk of the Senior Executive Service’s members are career employees – a whopping 90 percent.

Women have shown they'll work for less than men, on average, and members of the Senior Executive Service earn less than people in private, for-profit enterprise.  The "service" ethos, such as it is, of non-profit organizations and the government is also likely to appeal more strongly to women than men.  Thus I'd predict HHS is the first (article doesn't say that but I imagine it's true) but not the last department to see women become dominant at higher levels.

A Different Time: October 29, 1869 NY Times

Happened to run a query on the NYTimes archive (firewall) which resulted in the Oct. 29, 1869 issue being retrieved.  Some the stories, all from the first page:

• a steamer, the Stonewall, took fire and burned near Carbondate--222 lives lost.
• the Dublin Fenian Amnesty Association met and criticize PM Gladstone's decision not to release Fenian prisoners.
• short piece on President Grant and the gold speculation
• blurb on France--the Press not to be prosecuted for violations of Press law
• Austrian government censures Prince Metternich for being connected to a duel
• fires in Scranton (coal breaker), Bath, NY (flour mill) Marion IN (factory) burned.
• report on a schism in the Mormon church
• summary of crop report from USDA, "importance of draining and thorough culture"
• woman's suffrage convention in Hartford
• two ships sunk on the Great Lakes
• a report on the movements of President Grant
• WV elections
• report on affairs and movements of various bureaucrats and government affairs
• report on the salaries and expenses of our ministers (ambassadors) abroad, down to the penny.
• meeting of "colored citizens" sending delegates to the National Labor Convention
• telegrapher's strik
• letter to the Secretary of Treasury on taxes and tariffs

The last item covers close to two columns on the front page.  It includes this statement:  "A Cure for Extravagance-- Every member of Congress and SEanator looks upon the public offices of his district as his own especial patronage, and gets appointed thereto, not those who by mental and moral acquirements are fitted for the office, but those whose appointment would be most likely to advance his own interest."

Civil Service College

Via Marginal Revolution, here's the "programme" of Singapore's Civil Service College for "Officers" (which I think is their term for front line employees, FSA's equivalent of the county offices.  One item is a 16-hour course in "Responsiveness In Frontline Customer Service: Making Customer Satisfaction A Daily Pleasure".

I've noticed a cultural difference between the other former members of the British Empire and the U.S. in regards to government employees: in the US we call them "bureaucrats" with a pejorative edge; in the other countries, they're "civil servants" or "bureaucrats" used as a neutral term. It may trace to differences in how we established independence (a la David Hackett Fischer's book on the US and New Zealand): we had a revolution against British authority, the face of which was bureaucrat/civil servants.  While Canada, Australia, Singapore, India generally had a more amicable parting of the ways with the "mother country", in which the local people just took over the bureaucracy.

When To Give Bonuses--a Flawed View

The Post has an article on the backlog in VA processing veterans claims.   Part of the problem seems to be that their system to measure performance of their claims processors is flawed--it gives more credit for easy claims and less credit for hard claims than it should.  That points to the difficulty of constructing good measures of performance in a service-oriented bureaucracy.  Build a widget, and you can count widgets. Run a dairy/poultry farm and you count pounds of milk, numbers of eggs, and feed consumed.  But try to measure service and it gets difficult.

But that's not why I'm blogging on the piece.  Another part of the piece is the fact VA is giving bonuses to employees even though the backlog is growing.   Now in principle I've no problem with bonuses being awarded when an organization is having problems.  There can be outstanding performers in poorly-run organizations, and they can be recognized.

But what blew my mind is this quote, from a bigshot HR type:

"“There are many, many employees who are exceeding their minimum standards, and they deserve to be recognized for that,” she said."

 No, no, no and no.  Exceeding the minimum standards is called "being average", and there's no bonuses for that--maybe an "atta-boy" (or girl, or woman).  You give bonuses for being outstanding.

I can only hope the HR person was misquoted, because the statement as quoted reflects poorly on all good government bureaucrats. 

How Far Should Transparency Go?

This site accesses federal government employees' salaries, by name.  It appears to exclude FSA county employees and doesn't cover all departments.  It was fun looking up the salaries of the few people at FSA who still work there.  Fun for me, I'm not sure for them.

In principle I'm all for this.  Of course my annuity isn't reported there.  :-)

Before the Days of COLA

Back in 1950 Congressmen vied to introduce bills to raise civil service salaries.  That's documented in this Post look back at its Federal column from those days.

Also back in the day Congressmen vied to expand the coverage of Social Security and to improve its payments.

Finally back in the day Congressmen vied to enact tax cuts.

Clearly those times were different than now. How so?

• we have 79 Congresswomen, rather than nine.
• civil service salaries are indexed to inflation, removing the opportunity to pass regular salary increases as inflation raises prices.
• Social Security is indexed to inflation, removing the opportunity to pass regular benefit increases as inflation raises prices.
• income tax rates are indexed to inflation, removing the opportunity to pass regular tax cuts as inflation raises people to the next tax bracket and increases the take from income taxes.

Maybe, in consideration of the last 3, being a Representative is a less attractive job, which might explain the first item.

Lincoln, the Movie, and Bureaucracy

Just came from seeing the movie. Very good, well-acted, mostly well-written, but I'm no critic.  Why then do I blog about it?  Simple: one of the bad guys, i.e., a leading opponent on the 13th Amendment in the House was George Pendleton.  Yes, you're right--some 18 years later he was to be the sponsor of the Pendleton Act, which established the civil service. 

Many Varieties of Federal Employees

Sarah Kliff at the Post reminds of the varieties of Federal employees.

"FEMA has 9,106 disaster assistance employees. Only 770 get federal health insurance."

The point is that FEMA uses "reservists" who are temporary employees and not eligible for FEHBP for most of its disaster response.  It's rather like the Forest Service which has a similar deal for its firefighters.  And FSA/ASCS which used to have a big slug of temporary field employees for summer compliance work.  And the other variety is, of course, the county office employees who aren't technically Federal for some purposes, meaning they're usually excluded in counts of federal employees.

A Famous Fed

Tom Shoop at Government Executive notes Neil Armstrong was a federal employee.  I won't claim him as a bureaucrat, though.

Civil Servants: Pay and Expectations

The Post reported this morning on an investigation in DC of people who drew unemployment insurance while employed by the District.  Apparently particularly for intermittent employees, the pattern was when they got paid by the District they failed to report the fact back to the unemployment people.

My immediate response was drastic, jail 'em.  Maybe that's because I think highly of public service, so feel let down when civil servants screw up. Then I thought: if civil servants should be models, isn't that a basis for paying them more? (Think of the public school teacher in a small town in the old days.) But then the prestige of the job is additional compensation.

Bottom line: I'm confused and don't know what I think.