Name:   Talullahhound - Subject:   Trumps plan for civil service reform Date:   11/21/2016 10:44:22 PM

Read some articles today about what he has planned for federal workers.  A lot of them I like - making it less time consuming and a shorter period to fire poor performers; making the step increases mean something.  Reduction in the federal workforce through attrition.  He says he will reform the performance appraisal system because the current one is overinflated.  I agree it is overinflated, but I lived through about 5 different performance appraisal ideas, but none of them ever stick.  The problem is quantifying what is basically "fully successful" and what is really "outstanding".  I wish him luck with that.  He says they will throw out all the current personnel regulations and make new rules (tried before, good luck with that)  And he plans to get rid of the Education Department and part of the EPA.  I'd consider throwing the Labor Department on the pile too. 

My only real concern:  once they reform the retirement program and get rid of a lot of benefits, how will they attact high quality workers?  There are some things that the government does that are inherently "government" that can't be contracted out.  He might be left with  low quality people doing these jobs.  Now can fraud waste and abuse be done away with  - to some extent yes, but unless he knows where it exists, no body is going to tell him.  People can get pretty creative in justifying their jobs.  We had some obvious overlaps in various areas and they were identified in a number of "official reviews" looking for redundencies, but in the end, nothing happened. 

One other thing or "how empires get built" - let one thing happen that appears "bad" (whether it really is or not).  The Congress gets a hold of it, they work it to a fare thee well, and then demand another oversight group be created to make sure it never happens again.  It's not just the government employees who create the problem.

It will be interesting to me to see how this goes. Also I wonder if Trump is familiar with the "slow roll" i.e, when an organization is given something that they don't judge to be a good idea. It gets the "slow roll" which means it is being worked on, just not too hard.