April 18, 1968
Page 10009
Intergovernmental Relationships in a Changing Society – Address by Hon. John V. Macy, Jr., Chairman, U.S. Civil Service Commission
HON. EDMUND S. MUSKIE OF MAINE IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES Thursday, April 18, 1968
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, one of the Nation's leading spokesmen in the field of intergovernmental relations and public administration is Chairman John W. Macy, Jr., of the U.S. Civil Service Commission.
Chairman Macy recently delivered a timely and provocative address to the National Conference on Public Administration of the American Society for Public Administration held in Boston. In this speech he outlined the challenges facing public administrators today and warned them that "the American people are weighing the evidence of our performance and are measuring our capacity to deliver in response to human needs." He then went on to spell out how public administrators could respond to these challenges of citizens’ expectation and how they could help open up new avenues of job opportunities for the disadvantaged.
Mr. President I was impressed and encouraged by Mr. Macy's remarks. I ask unanimous consent that his fine speech be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the speech was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONSHIPS IN A CHANGING SOCIETY – THAT DURABLE AND DELICATE BALANCE
(Address by Chairman John W. Macy, Jr., U.S. Civil Service Commission, before the 1968
National Conference on Public Administration of the American Society for Public Administration at the Sheraton-Boston Hotel, Boston, Mass., March 27, 1968)
Public administration is on trial today. In every public jurisdiction the American people are weighing the evidence of our performance and are measuring our capacity to deliver in response to public need.
President Johnson described our day as "a time of testing for our Nation." This test must be taken and passed by the public administrator who faces the current array of public problems demanding administrative solutions. Our capabilities will be scored as we are tested day to day in new and changing programs designed to raise the quality of life for all Americans.
The theme for this conference, and for all conclaves where public administrators gather, must be: new responses in administration to fulfill citizen expectation of public action.
How can this profession mobilize and develop to meet the test and to assure a favorable verdict?
We are not unfamiliar with problems. Not that all problems are new and revolutionary – though some clearly are and must be so attacked. Public administrators have faced many of them. In fact, some of these same problems have been faced before. But in their present magnitude, their implications for the future, their orientation toward emotional responses, and their interrelationships, the problems of today are unprecedented.
At the same time, our resources are limited, and time is pressing in upon us. We must quickly change some of the conditions which have come so close to overwhelming our cities. We must accelerate change in the desired direction, without all of the financial power we might wish behind the accelerator. We must utilize the newest and the best techniques of managerial decision-making in every arena of public activity.
This demand for administrative miracles calls for a higher order of cooperation among governmental jurisdictions than we have ever achieved before. What we have cited as desirable patterns of collaboration in the past now are urgently needed in action. We must stop just talking about the ecumenical movement in administration. We must make it a living reality.
And government alone, with all its elements, will not be enough to solve our human problems. We must devise means for the constructive involvement of the private sector – business and industry, labor and education, foundations and voluntary organizations. The total genius of our pluralistic society must be brought to bear on the solution of our basic social problems.
REVOLUTION OF RELATIONSHIPS
It was only two years ago, at this Society's Arden House Conference, that one of your speakers had this to say–
"We have little more than glimpsed the beginnings of the revolution in intergovernmental relationships that is ahead of us. Although grant-in-aid and other forms of intergovernmental dependency have become well established, the new programs of the Great Society call even more for direct participation in national programs by local governments, and in some cases by local nongovernmental organizations. An equally, if not more striking difference is one of focus: the problem is the target, and all agencies that have something material to contribute to its solution must converge upon it."
I remember that passage well, because I was the speaker – and I hope you have enough forgiveness in your heart to forgive me for quoting myself. You see this is one of the risks we all run in inviting veteran administrators for repeat performances.
But the revolution I forecast has not progressed as smoothly as we might wish. Grant-in-aid programs have indeed become well established. They now number around 220. Of the 21 principal departments and agencies of the Federal Government, 16 of them administer programs of this type.
With some overlapping, we have 50 different programs of aid to general education; 57 programs for vocational and job training; 35 for housing; more than 20 involved in transportation; 27 for utilities and services; 62 for community facilities; 32 for land use; and 28 for cultural and recreational facilities.
Grant-in-aid programs have been described as the most important vehicle of intergovernmental relations. Their growth is perhaps the best testament to their acceptance by the vast majority of the American people. It is their administration that has raised so many problems.
Senator Edmund S. Muskie, of Maine, whose studies in the field of intergovernmental relations are known to all of you, has pointed out: "The administration of this multitude of programs has severely taxed the resources of all levels of government. And the proliferation of Federal grants has put the spotlight on the Federal system – that durable but delicate balance of jurisdictions and powers that has evolved throughout our history."
LEGISLATION CAN HELP
That durable and delicate balance has been under a considerable amount of pressure from time to time in the past. But never more than in recent years. Legislation alone never accomplished anything. Legislation is the charter for action forged from popular demand and consent. Legislation is a challenge to activate public policy. The job of administration is to plan, focus, and apply the action for the fulfillment of the challenge and the response to the charter.
Again and again in recent years, special study groups and advisory commissions have identified deficiencies in public management as contributing causes in the growth of public problems. The reports of these groups should become required reading for public administrators. They constitute the assessment offered by the thoughtful critics of the roles we play on the public stage. The recent report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, the Kerner Report, spotlighted one difficulty in our modern administrative task. Said the report: "The new social development legislation has put great strain upon ... administrative practices at all levels of government. It has loaded new work on Federal departments. It has required planning and administrative capacity rarely seen in statehouses, county courthouses, and city halls."
The development of planning and administrative capacity in the statehouses, courthouses, city halls, and Federal offices has been a prime objective of this Society since its founding. Obviously our efforts must be extended if we are to provide the talent necessary to deal effectively with the difficulties cited in the Kerner report. Raising the quality of administrative and professional personnel in all these jurisdictions must be a primary and combined objective. Means exist for extended action in this area, but they can be magnified through the enactment of the legislative provisions contained in the Education for the Public Service and Intergovernmental Manpower Acts presented by President Johnson in his Quality of Government Message last year. These bills were drawn from significant contributions made by senator Muskie's Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, the Committee for Economic Development, and the Municipal Manpower Commission.
The proposals in these bills are designed to improve and strengthen the preparation and development of personnel for service at all levels. I include the Federal level, for the Federal civil service would gain through exchanges of personnel with other jurisdictions, and through the increased flexibility of training arrangements possible under this proposed legislation.
The provisions of these bills would permit the construction of new relationships between the several levels of government and the university community in the interest of raising the standards of public service performance. They would permit the development of new additional programs, both pre-service and post-entry, to overcome critical shortages in talent. They would permit in-service training programs with joint participation by local, State, and Federal personnel. They would permit joint recruiting and examining for public employment. They would permit mutual assistance arrangements for improvements in personnel administration. They would permit the joint development of modern personnel systems based on merit principles.
The Intergovernmental Manpower Act passed the Senate and is currently in hearings before the special House Subcommittee on Education. The Education for the Public Service Act is being presented at hearings in both Houses.
INTERGOVERNMENTAL COOPERATION
A third piece of proposed legislation, the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act, was reintroduced in the Senate in January 1967. The sentences I quoted to you earlier, from Senator Muskie, were taken from his speech reintroducing this bill. This proposal was designed to foster the fullest cooperation and coordination of activities between the levels of government.
It would provide for more uniform administration of Federal grant funds to the States, and improve the scheduling of fund transferrals so States could budget more effectively. It would establish a coordinated intergovernmental urban assistance policy. A new provision added in the current legislation would further improve the management of grant-in-aid programs: it would authorize the President to consolidate individual grants within broad functional areas, subject to Congressional veto.
The timeliness of this legislation is clearly indicated by another quotation from the Kerner report:
"There is a clear and compelling requirement for better coordination of federally-funded programs, particularly those designed to benefit residents of the inner city."
The Intergovernmental Cooperation Act would help to alleviate such situations as the surrounding Federal grants for community water supplies and sewage-treatment facilities. Five different agencies of Government are presently involved in administering such grants.
The proposed law would also provide for more uniform assistance to those forced to relocate as the result of the acquisition of real property for Federal and federally-aided public improvement programs.
This legislation is badly needed, and I hope all three of the bills will be passed by the Congress. They would provide administrators with many of the tools needed to build an administrative mechanism able to cope with the pervasive problems of today – problems which do not respect political boundaries.
Pending the passage of the legislation, however, arrangements should be made within existing authority to meet these objectives. The recommendations flowing from the Society's Arden House Conference in 1966 have not been fully exploited. The areas of potential action within the bounds of administrative discretion are large and have not been explored as productively as possible up to this time.
A NEW MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHY
As form follows function, so do programs respond to problems. Programs breed new outlooks on the part of those managers who must administer them. These outlooks have broadened the management philosophy of the public executive beyond the narrow perimeter of his immediate substantive responsibility. A new management philosophy is coming to maturity in the Federal service to encompass this broader outlook. It is a philosophy that recognizes that a Federal executive needs to view his responsibilities as being broader than his agency mission. It is a philosophy that supports an increasing involvement by the executive in interagency and intergovernmental relationships. It is a philosophy that prompts participation by the executive in joint community ventures calling for a pooling of leadership to assure fruitful social results. A broad view is essential among all public executives if public programs are to be synthesized for the greatest possible effectiveness.
FOCUS ON JOBS
The necessity for a closer interplay of jurisdictions – to get on with public administration's mission on the most critical fronts – impinges always on problems of the disadvantaged and of the cities.
The President has said that a primary essential in meeting these domestic challenges is more jobs ... that the time has come when we must get to those who are last in line – the hard-core unemployed. His objective is to find jobs for 500,000 of these persons within the next three years.
In respect to jobs, the President has called upon the innovative resources of American business and industry to help carry the load. And in so doing, he has pointed out that the disadvantaged people of this country make up a potential market of enormous size.
The National Alliance of Businessmen, headed by Henry Ford the 2nd, has gone to work with enthusiasm on this program. The effort is to get private industry to make jobs available for which the disadvantaged can qualify – or to train them, if necessary,' with a commitment to hire. For such training, the Government will negotiate contracts with individual companies to reimburse training costs, and thus protect them from loss.
As Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz says: "Jobs are the live ammunition in the war on poverty" ... and he adds that it's up to business and industry to pass the ammunition.
In a special report on business and the urban crisis, Business Week reports that businesses trying to "pass the ammunition" have found that "hiring and training the people at the bottom of the ghetto barrel is a lot tougher than it sounds."
The hard-core unemployed are unschooled, unskilled, unmotivated. To turn them into productive workers, business must help them overcome handicaps that bar them from good jobs: culturally impoverished lives, grossly deficient education, poor health, fear of failure, and discrimination. Society has turned its back on these people so finally that even when discrimination ends, the victims refuse to believe it.
The principal surprise reported by Business Week is that the hardcore unemployed are retarded so far. Not mentally, but educationally. Many companies had to start by teaching basic reading, writing, and arithmetic before they could even start on job skills.
The information gaps are often amazing. One trainee had attended three years of high school. He was told to drill a series of holes a foot apart. "What's a foot?" he asked.
Another was given a job requiring measurement with a ruler. The trainee admitted he didn't know how to use it.
In Government offices employing disadvantaged youth as part of the President's Youth Opportunity Campaign, we have found youngsters who were unfamiliar with the operation of a dial telephone, who did not know how to look up a name in an alphabetical list, and who did not know how to go about cashing a check. Simple things, all of them – inconsequential. But think how strange and uncomfortable the modern world of work would be to you, if you had never learned these everyday operations!
Another discovery made by industry is that training, by itself, does little good. But training with a job at the end of it – that's a different matter! Business Week notes that "the key to effective training is a job at the end of the training cycle."
Like Government, business has found that job restructuring is one key to the situation. Industry has found that lower-level jobs with lower requirements lead to charges that the company is lowering employment standards. Many companies find it necessary to emphasize to their employees that the filling of lower-level jobs with lower requirements does not mean a lowering of standards.
In Government we have found that opening of lower-level jobs for those with lower-level skills serves to support and protect the standards of the usual entrance grades. Standards are supported, not eroded.
Opening of lower-level jobs through job restructuring helps to concentrate the higher-level duties when the lower-level duties are stripped out. Again, the original job is strengthened, not weakened. Any change of the original job is in the direction of upgrading, not downgrading.
WILL IT WORK?
Although we don't yet know all the answers, some of the early results are encouraging. An auto company executive put it this way: "Some of the inner-city people we hired are working out better than the walk-ins." In Philadelphia a department store manager who hired eight Negro girls as trainees commented: "In the past we hired Negroes because we felt we had to. Now we feel these girls deserve to be hired on their own merits."
"On their own merits!" That is the key. In Government we have had a policy of equal opportunity for a long time. But we have made new, more active, more direct efforts to attract, train, and hire the disadvantaged in recent years – and our effort has consistently been to do this in ways which would not compromise the merit system.
Let me make the statement a little stronger. Not only do we strive not to compromise the merit system – but, in the long run, to improve it. Like industry, we went searching for the disadvantaged because it was our duty as a responsible employer. We began to see that they deserve to be hired on their own merit. And that is the name of the system.
Creative capitalism and creative Federalism are by no means mutually exclusive. In fact, they thrive together if given mutual confidence and respect. To make an impression on the great problems that loom ahead requires a delicate balance of powerful forces.
And that brings us full circle to what I said in the beginning. Public administrators are on trial, but so are managers in business and manufacturing, and so indeed is our entire system of free enterprise and free men.
Intergovernmental relationships and the partnership with industry both basically demand the same thing: that we concentrate on the problem, the job to be done, and that we develop ways of attacking it together. If such combined effort can be joined under talented administrative leadership, we can truly convert today's problems into tomorrow's opportunities.
Without delay, let us move ahead to pass the test.