Features

Promises, Promises

July 15, 2004

Cut 40,000 middle-management positions over five years by eliminating positions vacated by half of the 80,000 senior and middle-level managers who are projected to retire by 2005. Let private companies bid on at least half of the federal jobs designated as "commercial in nature" on Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act lists, amounting to 425,000 jobs. Appoint a governmentwide chief information officer to accelerate the e-government efforts. Require agencies to pass their annual financial audits. Enforce the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act by recommending higher levels of funding for programs that do work. Establish a Sunset Review Board to recommend eliminating programs that are deemed unnecessary or duplicative. Convert at least half of all federal service contracts to performance-based contracts. Create performance incentives in the civil service system to reward achievement and to attract job candidates from the private sector. Move all significant government procurement to the Internet within three years. Shift to a two-year budget process. Persuade Congress to act on political appointees within 60 days. Enact legislation guaranteeing that the government would not shut down during end-of-fiscal-year budget squabbles.

"Government likes to begin things-to declare grand new programs and causes and national objectives," George W. Bush proclaimed in a June 9, 2000, campaign speech in Philadelphia. "But good beginnings are not the measure of success in government, or in any other pursuit. What matters in the end is completion."

Here's a status report on 12 management-related campaign pledges Bush made during the Philadelphia speech and during an address the day before in Knoxville, Tenn.

Middle Management

Promise:

Result: Managers haven't retired at the rate expected, and the Bush administration abandoned the numerical target in favor of asking agencies for five-year plans to flatten management.

Competitive Sourcing

Promise:

Result: Employee unions attacked the target as an "arbitrary privatization quota." In July 2003, administration officials dropped the governmentwide goal in favor of allowing agencies to set customized goals.

Chief Information Officer

Promise:

Result: Administration officials balked at legislative proposals to create the position, worrying that a governmentwide CIO might end up shouldering responsibilities better left to agencies. But the 2002 E-Government Act required the White House to appoint an administrator to head an Office of Electronic Government within OMB. Karen Evans currently holds the position.

Fixing Finances

Promise:

Result: In 2003, 20 of the 23 major agencies that are required to undergo audits passed. Agencies must earn clean audits to net green lights for financial management on OMB's quarterly score card.

Performance Measurement

Promise:

Result: Administration officials established a technique for evaluating the performance of individual programs, and to date, have rated 400 of them. In his 2005 budget request, Bush recommended $1 billion in cuts for poorly performing programs. The missing link: Congress must cooperate.

Cutting Waste

Promise:

Result: House and Senate lawmakers have introduced legislation creating program review commissions, and the Bush administration has backed the proposals. But Congress has yet to pass any of the bills.

Performance Contracting

Promise:

Result: Efforts are ongoing and procurement experts estimate that to date, roughly 35 percent of eligible service contracts are performance-based.

Results and Rewards

Promise:

Result: Bush has convinced Congress to let the Homeland Security and Defense departments overhaul personnel rules to improve the link between performance and pay. In his 2004 budget request, Bush asked for $500 million to reward top performers, but Congress appropriated only $2.5 million.

Web-Based Purchasing

Promise:

Result: It will be another three to six years until agencies can complete the entire procurement process online, experts predict. But there has been progress in moving steps of the process online.

Biennial Budgeting

Promise:

Result: In his fiscal 2005 budget request, Bush proposed a biennial process where Congress would make funding decisions in odd-numbered years and spend even-numbered years on authorizations. Some GOP lawmakers backed the idea, but Congress has not passed legislation.

Streamlined Appointments

Promise:

Result: The process remains deadlocked in many instances. For example: In November 2003, Bush selected David Safavian to succeed Angela Styles as head of OMB's Office of Federal Procurement Policy. Nearly eight months later, the Senate had yet to confirm him, and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., had placed a hold in order to learn more about the nominee's views on contracting.

No Shutdowns

Promise:

Result: Bush requested the legislation in his fiscal 2005 budget proposal. But Congress hasn't acted.

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