Read the article “Civil Service Reform Act” (attached PDF)Write a two-page (single space) summary/critique related to the theme for this week. The theme is “Introduction to Personnel Management
http://rop.sagepub.com/ Administration Review of Public Personnel http://rop.sagepub.com/content/28/3/200 The online version of this article can be found at: DOI: 10.1177/0734371X08319671 June 2008 2008 28: 200 originally published online 11 Review of Public Personnel Administration James L. Perry Ahead : Symposium Introduction The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978: A 30-Year Retrospective and a Look\ Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: Administration Section on Personnel Administration and Labor Relations of the American \ Society for Public can be found at:
Review of Public Personnel Administration Additional services and information for http://rop.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts: http://rop.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Permissions: at GOLDEN GATE UNIV on October 11, 2011 rop.sagepub.com Downloaded from What is This? - Jun 11, 2008 Proof - Aug 1, 2008 Version of Record >> at GOLDEN GATE UNIV on October 11, 2011 rop.sagepub.com Downloaded from 200 Review of Public PersonnelAdministration Volume 28 Number 3 September 2008 200-204 © 2008 Sage Publications 10.1177/0734371X08319671 http://roppa.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978: A 30-Year Retrospective and a Look Ahead Symposium Introduction James L. Perry Indiana University President Jimmy Carter initiated the most sweeping reforms of the U.S. f\ ederal civil ser- vice in 95 years when he signed the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) on October 13, 1978. This introduction reviews the substantive reforms whose implementation began with creation of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), on January 1, 1979.
CSRA’s provisions were wide-ranging. They included reorganization of the agencies tasked with civil service management and regulation, establishment of a Senior Executive Service, creation of performance appraisal and merit pay programs, and clar- ification and simplification of appeal procedures for personnel actions. The introduction concludes with summaries of the five articles that appear in the symposium and their sig- nificance in the context of CSRA and developments of the past 30 years.
Keywords: civil service reform; innovation diffusion; performance; merit pay T his Review of Public Personnel Administration symposium marks the 30th anniversary of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA), which was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on October 13, 1978. The symposium examines the significance of the act, the influence of the act’s provisions on public personnel reform over the last three decades, and the relevance of the act to the practice of public human resource management in the 21st century. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 CSRA was the last comprehensive federal personnel reform legislation. Because 30 years have passed since CSRA’s enactment, I briefly review its key provisions.
These provisions include reorganization of agencies tasked with civil service man- agement and regulation, formalization of merit system principles, establishment of a senior executive service, creation of performance appraisal and merit pay programs, clarification and simplification of appeal procedures for personnel actions, and research and demonstration authorities. at GOLDEN GATE UNIV on October 11, 2011 rop.sagepub.com Downloaded from Perry / Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 201 Reorganization Plans No. 1 and 2 Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1978 shifted responsibility for equal employment opportunity from the U.S. Civil Service Commission to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Reorganization Plan No. 2 was much broader in scope. It abolished the U.S. Civil Service Commission and established the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), effective January 1, 1979. OPM, led by a presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed director, was given authority to regulate the merit system and to maintain programs to enable departments and agencies to de\ al with employees on all matters relating to civilian employment throughout their careers. Reorganization Plan No. 2 also established the Merit Systems Protection Boar\ d (MSPB) and assigned it to protect merit systems from political intrusi\ on and to adjudi- cate appeals from federal employees. MSPB took over appeal functions that the Commission had exercised except classification appeals which were assigned to OPM.
An Office of Special Counsel was created within the Board to investigate allegations that might be brought against federal officials for violating merit system rules and to prose- cute such matters before MSPB. The Office of Special Counsel was charged with special responsibility for whistle-blower cases, especially those in which an employee brings improper activities to public attention and is subsequently an object for retaliation\ . Finally, Reorganization Plan No. 2 established the Federal Labor Relations Authority and transferred labor relations responsibilities to it. In sep\ arate provisions within CSRA, labor relations regulations and programs that had been based on exec- utive orders since the Kennedy administration were incorporated into statute. These provisions spelled out what unions and management could and could not do, what they were permitted and prohibited from negotiating, and how labor relations would be administered in the federal civil service.
Merit System Principles and Prohibited Personnel Actions For the first time in statute, CSRA articulated a list of merit system principles (5 U.S.C. 2301) and prohibited personnel practices (5 U.S.C. 2302). The intent of the broad statements of principles and prohibited practices was to anchor the merit system in something that transcended rules and regulations. The principles could then be used as standards for judging specific rules and regulations. Future policies and merit systems would have to measure up to the principles in the law. Senior Executive Service The Senior Executive Service (SES) was created as a separate executive merit system. The SES, like the General Schedule grades 16, 17, and 18 it replaced, is composed of managers and professionals who head major organizations and programs. Unlike the rank-in-position system it replaced, the SES allocates rank to at GOLDEN GATE UNIV on October 11, 2011 rop.sagepub.com Downloaded from 202 Review of Public Personnel Administration individuals who carry the rank with them wherever they are assigned permitting agencies and executives to move where they are needed without loss of rank or pay.CSRA limited the number of positions in the SES at any time and allowed the OPM to adjust the limit. The act defined the kinds of positions that agencies could assign to SES, subject to OPM’s approval. Two types of positions were defined.
Career reserved positions can be filled only by a career executive. Generalpositions may be filled by career or non-career-political executives. The act limits noncareer appointments to 10% of positions in the SES. SES members can be reassigned to any SES position in any department or agency to meet changing needs and priorities of federal programs without OPM ap\ proval.
The only restriction on transfers is that a new administration cannot shift career executives until it has been in office for 120 days. Career executives cannot appeal reassignments or transfers to other programs. CSRA required agencies to develop performance appraisal systems for SES members using criteria based on both individual and organizational performance.
Members of SES could lose their executive rank for less than fully successful per- formance. CSRA also authorized annual bonuses for career executives selected to the rank of meritorious executive or distinguished executive, with awards of US$10,000 and US$20,000, respectively.
Merit Pay for Managers Just as the SES offered performance-based bonuses to executives, the merit pay provisions of the act provided similar performance-based incentives to managers, supervisors, and management officials at grades 13, 14, and 15. The act abolished the step system at these grades for managers and supervisors—not for \ nonsupervi- sory employees—and provided a pool of funds from which they could receive annual merit pay increases based on their level of performance. Performance Appraisal Federal employees who were not in the SES and not subject to the merit pay system for managers and supervisors were subject to new performance appraisal sys- tems that would make development of specific performance standards for each job a joint responsibility of the supervisor and the employee. The results of the annual appraisals could be used as the basis for personnel actions to recognize\ and reward employees, to identify and assist employees whose performance fell short of goals, and to reassign, demote, or remove employees. Personnel Actions Based on Performance or Conduct CSRA sought to simplify and clarify the grounds for taking action agains\ t employees whose performance fell below requirements or whose conduct became unacceptable. at GOLDEN GATE UNIV on October 11, 2011 rop.sagepub.com Downloaded from Perry / Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 203 The appeals system before CSRA had several levels of appeals against adverse actions.
The act provided for appeal only to the Merit Systems Protection Board and it impos\ ed timelines for filing and resolving appeals to expedite the process.The act also changed the level of evidence required for a performance-based removal or demotion action. Instead of requiring a preponderance of evidence, man- agement needed only to demonstrate that an employee had failed to meet an estab- lished standard of performance on a critical job element after being given an opportunity to perform.
Research and Demonstration Authority CSRA created a foundation for continuous improvement by encouraging experi- mentation that might lead to future improvements. The act provided authority to carry on public management research and to establish demonstration proje\ cts to test new concepts. OPM could establish up to 10 demonstration projects simultan\ eously in departments and agencies across the federal government. OPM was given author- ity to waive some existing personnel laws as spelled out in the legislation and test new authorities consistent with the merit system principles. Symposium Overview The five articles in this symposium provide a range of perspectives about legacies asso- ciated with CSRA. I use the plural form of legacybecause it is difficult to reduce complex law and history to one or even a few summary statements. The contributors to this sym- posium provide long-term perspective and frame—and reframe—CSRA’s legacies. The lead article in the symposium assesses connections between CSRA and \ recent human resource management reforms in the Departments of Defense (DoD) \ and Homeland Security (DHS). In “Federal Personnel Management Reform: From CSRA to National Security Reforms,” Douglas Brook and Cynthia King contend that recent reforms preserve ideas from CSRA and originate, in part, from demonstration projects and alternative personnel systems authorized by the 1978 legislation. The DoD and DHS reforms preserve the shift—the rebalancing—between the values of politically neutral competence and performance embodied in CSRA. In addition to ackn\ owledg- ing the direct lineage of recent reforms to CSRA, Brook and King also differentiate the latest reforms from CSRA. They note that a distinctive development associated with the recent reforms is that they stem from larger macro-political issues associated with national security rather than the narrower issue of management of the civil service. The new emphasis toward reform based on mission may portend future reforms. A theme that Brook and King develop is that the differences between CSRA and successor reforms in DoD and DHS are most pronounced in the ways the policies were formulated and enacted. Heather Getha-Taylor explores these issues further in “Policy Parallels: Applying Lessons from CSRA Chief Architect Alan K. Campbell at GOLDEN GATE UNIV on October 11, 2011 rop.sagepub.com Downloaded from to Contemporary Personnel Reform Efforts.” Her analysis of personnel reform in the two eras is anchored in the biography and strategy of CSRA’s chief architect, Alan K. “Scotty” Campbell. She develops lessons from Campbell’s strategies and leadership of CSRA for current and future reformers.The next two articles in the symposium look at specific provisions of CSRA and their effects. In “Personnel Demonstration Projects and Human Resource Management Innovation,” James Thompson assesses the long-term consequences of Title VI of CSRA, which was intended to promote innovative human resource man- agement practices and policies. He notes that the demonstration projects\ got off to a slow start, but more recently they have significantly influenced the diffusion of two important human resource policy innovations, namely, paybanding and category rat- ing. Brook and King give credit for Title VI’s influence on recent reforms in their introductory article. Thompson addresses the effects of the personnel demonstration projects on reform and innovation in more depth. Using agenda-setting theory, he also sheds light on why the demonstration provisions have been more successful in the last 15 years than in the first 15-year period following CSRA’s passage. Janet Near and Marcia Miceli, the two leading scholars of whistle-blowing, syn- thesize what is known about whistle-blower protection provisions originating in CSRA. In “Wrongdoing, Whistle-Blowing, and Retaliation in the U.S. Government:
What Have Researchers Learned From the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) Survey Results?,” Near and Miceli synthesize research findings based on surveys of federal employees conducted since 1980 by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). Their synthesis touches on a range of empirical findings, from the incidence of wrongdoing and whistle-blowing, to predictors of whistle-blowing and retaliation against whistle-blowers, to the overall effectiveness of whistle-blowers in getting wrongdoing stopped. They identify new directions for research and policy that address important questions remaining to be answered about whistle-\ blowing. In the concluding article in the symposium, T. J. Lah and James Perry looked out- side United States borders for legacies of CSRA. In “The Diffusion of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 in OECD Countries: A Tale of Two Paths to Reform,” Lah and Perry analyze the cross-national spread of four provisions of CSRA: per- formance appraisal, merit pay, Senior Executive Service, and the separation of pos- itive and regulatory personnel functions. The key question they explore is, “What do the diffusion patterns tell us about the two themes of legitimacy and effectiveness— political control and administrative capacity—so frequently sounded since civil ser- vice reform was first proposed by the Carter administration in 1978?” Their analysis suggests that CSRA has had profound influences on civil service systems around the world despite its mixed reviews by those who have studied it in the United States.
James L. Perry ([email protected]) is chancellor’s professor, School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA), Indiana University, Bloomington. He is recipient of the 2008 Dwight Waldo Award and coeditor of Motivation in Public Management: The Call of Public Service (Oxford University Press, 2008).
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