Congressional aides are questioning some "curious" personnel changes at the Environmental Protection Agency, which three years ago demoted nearly 50 percent of its managers under President Clinton's reinventing government program, but then placed them in positions that allowed them to keep their previous salaries.
The House Commerce Committee began inquiries into the staff changes after a March analysis of federal records by Scripps Howard News Service found that the agency's shake-up was "part of a broader pattern ... in which tens of thousands of federal supervisors throughout government were technically demoted but kept their salaries." The EPA's total payroll increased from $839.8 million in 1992 to $983.3 million in 1996.
In a letter last week to committee Chair Tom Bliley, R-Va., EPA Associate Administrator Chuck Fox said the management shake-up did achieve the goal of removing a layer of management. But the purpose, he said, was "not to achieve cost savings" but rather "to increase the efficiency and effectiveness" of EPA programs. Fox: "Efficiency and cost savings in some people's minds are synonymous, but the agency's reinvention agenda is much, much more broad than just making changes to the bureaucracy."
But Bliley responded in a letter to EPA Administrator Carol Browner that "there may be more show than substance" in the agency's reinvention effort. (Thomas Hargrove, Washington Times, 6/13.)
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