Letters

These statements in your article ("The Daniels Decree," July) are looney: "A mid-level manager at an independent agency says the Clinton order pushed the supervisory ratio from one supervisor for 12 employees to 1-to-26. . . .Work backlogs grew, employees filed grievances and communications became more difficult."

Even Comptroller General David M. Walker acknowledges that the agencies, not Bill Clinton, used poor or nonexistent strategies when they let their most skilled managers and workers leave through early retirement or buyouts. Clinton's order required the federal workforce to be cut by 273,000 workers by fiscal 1999 (a six-year period). It did not mandate pushing supervisory ratios from 1-to-12 to 1-to-26. Atrocious or nonexistent management policies did that, not Clinton.

Next, Daniels' figure of 425,000 positions that he believes must be contracted out is accepted as a wonderful, intelligent approach to straightening out the government "mess." If managers screw that up, will they, or President Bush, be blamed?

C. Gray
Silver Spring, Md.

Compensation Conundrum

What I can't understand in the comparison of military and civilian pay ("Salary Split," Executive Memo, June) is this: Civilians must contribute to their retirement and pay for their health benefits, while military personnel have noncontributory retirement and health benefits programs.

If the value of the military's noncontributory retirement and health programs were to be calculated, the military compensation package would be way ahead of that for civilian employees of comparable grade and length of employment.

James W. Hawkins Jr.
Transportation Programs Manager
NASA, Washington

Corrections

In the May issue, the nonlethal weapons identified in a photo on page 48 in "Force Without Fatalities" are being used by Army soldiers, not Marines, in a Kosovo riot. The photo was taken by Sgt. 1st Class Jonathan Crane in April 2000.

This listing for Andersen should have appeared in the 2000-2001 edition of The Federal Technology Source:
Andersen......202-481-3622
www.andersen.com
Fax: 202-481-3600
Richard Patrick, Senior Manager and Director of Marketing
1150 17th St. N.W., #900
Washington, D.C. 20036-4613
E-mail: richard.patrick@andersen.com
Specialty Areas: E-commerce Site Development, E-commerce Services, Web Development, Web Hosting, BPR, Change Management, Customer Relationship Management, Data Warehousing, Outsourcing, Professional Services