According to President Trump, “Billions and billions of dollars are being wasted on activities that are not delivering results.” A White House release states that “today’s Executive Branch is not equipped to meet Americans’ 21st century needs.”
The Administration has produced a document, “Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century Reform Plan and Reorganization Recommendations” that proposes reshaping a portion of the federal bureaucracy. We have excerpted key portions and present them here:
… Government in the 21st Century is fundamentally a services business, and modern information technology should be at the heart of the U.S. Government service delivery model. And yet, today’s Executive Branch is still aligned to the stove-piped organizational constructs of the 20th Century, which in many cases have grown inefficient and out-of-date. Consequently, the public and our workforce are frustrated with Government’s ability to deliver its mission in an effective, efficient, and secure way.
To that end, Executive Order (EO) 13781, entitled “Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch,” highlights the need to evaluate the organizational constructs that support today’s mission delivery objectives… the EO focuses specifically on the role of organizational alignment in reducing “duplication and redundancy,” and improving “efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the executive branch.”
This report outlines the Administration’s analysis and recommendations for structural realignment of the Executive Branch to better serve the mission, service, and stewardship needs of the American people. While some of the recommendations identified in this volume can be achieved via Executive administrative action, more significant changes will require legislative action as well.
… while some of the proposals are ready for agency implementation, others establish a vision for the Executive Branch that will require further exploration and partnership with the Congress.
MISSION
The first principle of organizational reform in the 21st Century is to start with the mission. Specific reforms must ensure that Government activities are rooted in the missions that the American people, through their elected officials, require. Within these mission areas—from national security to infrastructure to food and water safety—Government must have clear and aligned structures that allow Federal programs, staff, and agencies to deliver the outcomes the public expects.
Service
Understanding the customer or stakeholder needs in the 21st Century is critical to understanding how to realign the organizational model. In many cases, outmoded assumptions about customer and stakeholder needs have distracted from core mission, hindered outcomes, and fallen out of step with customer expectations. Federal customers—ranging from small businesses seeking loans, to families receiving disaster support, to veterans expecting proper benefits and medical care—deserve a customer experience that compares to or exceeds that of leading private-sector organizations, which most Federal services lag behind. The Executive Branch must develop capabilities to better facilitate endto-end customer experiences that cross agency boundaries, and create faster, more convenient, and more cost-effective interactions.
Stewardship
Effective stewardship of taxpayer funds is a crucial responsibility of the Federal Government, from preventing fraud to maximizing impact. Taxpayer dollars must go to effective programs that produce results efficiently. For example, Government too often recreates similar administrative functions across programs and agencies, failing to take advantage of opportunities for shared services, centers of excellence, or other arrangements that leverage the highest-performing organizations and free up resources to focus on mission. Using data-driven methods, Government must shrewdly consider how structural alignment can best support efficient and effective use of taxpayer dollars.
OVERVIEW OF ORGANIZATIONAL ALIGNMENT PRIORITIES
Merge the Departments of Education and Labor into a single Cabinet agency, the Department of Education and the Workforce, charged with meeting the needs of American students and workers from education and skill development to workplace protection to retirement security. As part of the merger, the Administration also proposes significant Government-wide workforce development program consolidations, streamlining separate programs in order to increase efficiencies and better serve American workers.
Move the non-commodity nutrition assistance programs currently in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service into the Department of Health and Human Services—which will be renamed the Department of Health and Public Welfare. Also, establish a Council on Public Assistance, comprised of all agencies that administer public benefits, with statutory authority to set cross-program policies including uniform work requirements.
Move the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) Civil Works out of the Department of Defense (DOD) to the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Department of the Interior (DOI) to consolidate and align the Corps’ civil works missions with these agencies.
Reorganize the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and the food safety functions of HHS’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) into a single agency within USDA that would cover virtually all the foods Americans eat.
Move USDA’s rural housing loan guarantee and rental assistance programs to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), allowing both agencies to focus on their core missions and, over time, further align the Federal Government’s role in housing policy.
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Merge the Department of Commerce’s (Commerce) National Marine Fisheries Service with DOI’s Fish and Wildlife Service. This merger would consolidate the administration of the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act in one agency and combine the Services’ science and management capacity, resulting in more consistent Federal fisheries and wildlife policy and improved service to stakeholders and the public, particularly on infrastructure permitting.
Consolidate portions of DOI’s Central Hazardous Materials Program and USDA’s Hazardous Materials Management program into the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Superfund program. This consolidation would allow EPA to address environmental cleanup under the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation & Liability Act (CERCLA) on Federal land regardless of which of these agencies manages the land, while DOI and USDA would maintain their existing environmental compliance, bonding, and reclamation programs for non-CERCLA sites.
Optimize Department of State (State) and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) humanitarian assistance to eliminate duplication of efforts and fragmentation of decision-making. A specific reorganization proposal will be submitted by State and USAID to OMB as part of their FY 2020 Budget request to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Federal Government’s humanitarian assistance across State and USAID, establish unity of voice and policy, and optimize outreach to other donors to increase burden-sharing and drive reform at the UN and in multilateral humanitarian policy.
Consolidate the U.S. Government’s development finance tools, into a new Development Finance Institution in a reformed and modernized way to leverage more privatesector investment, provide strong alternatives to state-directed initiatives, create more innovative vehicles to open and expand markets for U.S. firms, and enhance protections for U.S. taxpayers.
Transform USAID through an extensive, agency-driven structural reorganization of headquarters Bureaus and Independent Offices as a foundational component of USAID’s overall plans to better advance partner countries’ self-reliance, support U.S. national security, and ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of foreign assistance.
Move the policy function of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) into the Executive Office of the President, and elevate its core strategic mission while devolving certain operational activities –the delivery of various fee-for-service human resources, IT services, and background investigations – to other Federal entities better aligned to provide non-strategic transaction processing services that meet 21st Century needs. This new structure would better accommodate an overhaul of the Federal civil service statutory and regulatory framework.
Transfer responsibility for perpetual care and operation of select military and veteran cemeteries located on DOD installations to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Cemetery Administration. This transfer assures these cemeteries will be maintained to national shrine standards to continue the recognition of service of those interred therein, gains efficiencies, and limits mission overlap based on a common-sense approach to good government.
Reorganize the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics under Commerce to increase cost-effectiveness and improve data quality while simultaneously reducing respondent burden on businesses and the public. Together, these three agencies account for 53 percent of the U.S. Statistical System’s annual budget of $2.26 billion and share unique synergies in their collection of economic and demographic data and analysis of key national indicators.
Consolidate the Department of Energy’s (DOE) applied energy programs into a new Office of Energy Innovation in order to maximize the benefits of energy research and development and to enable quicker adaptation to the Nation’s changing energy technology needs.
Devolution of Activities from the Federal Government
a) Sell the transmission assets owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Power Marketing Administrations within DOE, including those of Southwestern Power Administration, Western Area Power Administration, and Bonneville Power Administration, to encourage a more efficient allocation of economic resources and mitigate unnecessary risk to taxpayers.
b) Restructure the U.S. Postal System to return it to a sustainable business model or prepare it for future conversion from a Government agency into a privately-held corporation. The President’s Task Force on the United States Postal System will make recommendations on reforms towards this goal in August 2018.
c) Reorganize DOT to better align the agency’s core missions and programmatic responsibilities, reduce transportation program fragmentation across the Government, and improve outcomes. Changes would include spinning off Federal responsibility for operating air traffic control services, integrating into DOT certain coastal and inland waterways commercial navigation activities and transportation security programs, and reassessing the structure and responsibilities of DOT’s Office of the Secretary.
Photo: U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
There are about 2 million civilian federal employees. Are they being used effectively?