'Best Kept Secrets' Stay That Way

EXECUTIVE MEMO

udging from the reception received by the Clinton Administration's fourth report on reinventing government, "The Best Kept Secrets in Government," those secrets are likely to stay pretty well-kept.

The few newspapers that took note when the Clinton-Gore campaign released the report Sept. 20 in Portland, Ore., raised Republican criticisms of the Administration's downsizing efforts, questioned the Vice President's savings claims, and cited a congressional report showing less streamlining than boasted.

Since 1993, the Vice President said, savings from reinvention has totaled $118 billion. In the new report, Gore emphasizes the Administration's effort to cut 240,000 federal jobs in the last four years. While Republicans have noted that most of the cuts have come from Defense, Gore argues that every department except Justice has shrunk.

The General Accounting Office recently concluded that most agencies failed to meet the goal of cutting management, and that many simply reclassified supervisors as non-supervisors.

GAO concluded that as a result of job cuts, some agencies have skill imbalances that leave them unable to meet mission goals. Elaine Kamarck, a Gore adviser, contested the criticism. "This notion that you sort of do this elaborate plan and then you cut is purely an academic notion," she said during a briefing on the Gore report. "Everyone downsizes and reengineers simultaneously."

A Washington Post story drew on GAO's report to question whether downsizing leads to increased efficiency. A Baltimore Sun account suggested the Adminstration failed to account for more contractors in its cutbacks, and Newsday noted the $118 billion savings figure includes estimates through 2000.