Panel to revisit ‘quiet crisis’ in the public service

Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker will head up a commission to revisit the "quiet crisis" in the federal public service that another Volcker-led commission publicized 12 years ago, Brookings Institution officials announced Wednesday.

The second National Commission on the Public Service will spend the next year reviewing the government's organization, outsourcing strategies and personnel systems, said Brookings Institution President Michael Armacost and public service expert Paul Light at a kickoff event in Washington. The commission will recommend ways to reinvigorate the public service as early as December, Volcker said.

"I can't think of a more important project we could undertake at this time," Volcker said.

Funded by grants from the Dillon Fund and the Packard Foundation, the new Volcker commission includes former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci and former Comptroller General Charles Bowsher.

The commission's executive director will be Hannah Sistare, currently minority staff director and counsel for the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Sistare is married to Government Executive Editor and President Timothy B. Clark.

"This new commission to revitalize the public service is the right effort at the right time," Senate Governmental Affairs Committee ranking member Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., said. "I gave Paul Volcker my blessing when he talked to me about taking on this challenge, and I demonstrated the depth of my commitment to the cause in letting him take my Governmental Affairs Committee staff director to be his executive director." The first Volcker commission reported on a "quiet crisis" in the public service that threatened to undermine the government's ability to perform its missions. The report was widely touted as a comprehensive and honest assessment, but many of its recommendations were never implemented.

Volcker and Sistare said there is now more interest in public service issues on Capitol Hill than there was 12 years ago. That should help garner attention for the new commission's report, they said. But they acknowledged they still face an uphill battle in fighting for civil service reform.

"This is not the sexiest subject in the world," Volcker said. "We have to keep at it."

The commission's first organizational meeting will be held on March 14.