Douglas A. Brook

Federal Personnel Management Reform From Civil Service Reform Act to National Security Reforms

In what ways are current civil service reform efforts similar to and different from the qualities that characterize the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA)? These issues are explored by examining the new personnel authorities granted to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and to the Department of Defense (DoD) in the National Security Personnel System (NSPS). In many respects, current reforms preserve some of the ideas behind CSRA or they derive from the authorities included in the CSRA. In other respects, current reform departs from the CSRA model and new ideas related to enactment, design, and implementation of civil service reform have emerged. Furthermore, a new argument emerged in DHS and NSPS that had never before appeared in any public discourse on personnel management reform: the link between federal personnel management policy and national security.

Business Management Reform in the Department of Defense in Anticipation of Declining Budgets

Business management reform efforts have been part of the U.S. Defense Department agenda for decades. Current reform efforts have explicitly established the goal of generating, harvesting, and reinvesting savings from business management reform to buy more capital items; that is, they have focused on a measurable reallocation from operating and support costs to investment within a given budget top line. Recent increases in the defense top line, largely related to the war on terrorism, are not likely to persist; in addition, an examination of the factors affecting the top line suggests that a decline in the near term is likely. An examination of current and past defense management reforms suggests that efficiency-seeking business management reforms are not likely to generate sufficient resources to cover a budget decline. Instead, management reform should be sustained for reasons of stewardship and accountability.

Meta-Strategic Lobbying: The 1998 Steel Imports Case

In 1998, the domestic steel industry in the United States devised and executed a complex and sophisticated effort to achieve an effective non-market response to a sudden, persistent, and damaging surge of imported steel. This campaign lasted until 2002, when President George W. Bush invoked Section 201 of the U.S. trade laws to impose tariffs on imports of most steel products. This case of the steel industrys trade policy campaign provides an opportunity to examine selected models of protection-seeking industries and lobbying to ask why and how the steel coalition achieved this extraordinary governmental response. These questions are explored though a descriptive case of the steel industrys protection-seeking campaign followed by a comparative examination of previous models of protection-seeking firms, and lobbying to achieve protectionist policies. A comparison with selected models of the determinants of protection-seeking and factors affecting lobbying strategies show that most, almost all, were present in the steel case. In fact, a meta-strategic approach that transcends the customary understanding of lobbying is suggested in a complex policy environment. Such an environment can be characterized by: the need to influence multiple governmental entities legislative, regulatory, executive; the desire for multiple outcomes with varying levels of specificity laws or resolutions, administrative rulings, policy choices; interactions between different levels and branches of government; employment of coordinated interrelated lobbying techniques; and simultaneity of these factors.

Trade Policy Strategies and Enforcement Choices: An Examination of the 1992 Steel Antidumping Cases

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08853900390152818

Audited financial statements in the federal government: Intentions, outcomes and on-going challenges for management and policy-making

The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (and the subsequent Government Management Reform Act of 1994) mandated federal agencies to prepare corporate-style annual financial statements and subject them to independent audit. Over a decade later, it is reasonable to ask what the consequences of CFO Act financial statements have been. Accrual accounting produces auditable financial statements that establish accountability, contribute to the credibility of financial information, and identify long-term financial issues; but financial statements are not linked to the processes for resource-allocation decisions, nor do they produce information needed by managers. Some of these shortcomings are explained by contextual and sectoral differences.

Audited financial statements in the us federal government: The question of policy and management utility

The Chief Financial Officers Act and subsequent legislation require federal agencies to produce corporate-style financial statements. Arguments for financial statements drew on private sector analogies and suggested policy makers and managers would use the information to make better public policy and management decisions and improve accountability for financial management and program performance. Nearly all major government agencies have unqualified audit opinions and improvements in financial management are claimed. But benefits for policy making and management are not yet well understood. This paper examines the question by comparison with the private sector and by examining what agencies say about the uses and users of financial statement information. The emerging challenge in the evolution of federal financial reporting is to develop better government-specific analytical tools and other financial information for policy makers and managers.

Budgeting for national security: A whole of government perspective

There is a current argument that “national security” and “national defense” are no longer synonymous terms-that there is a new and broader definition for the activities that contribute to “the common defense.“ A whole of government approach is suggested as a means for integrating and coordinating national security policies and programs. To support this approach, recommendations have been made for an integrated national security budget. Focusing on the executive budget process, three approaches to an integrated national security budget are examined: organization-based, program-based and function-based. Though there are questions about the importance of budget structure and the effectiveness of program budgeting, a whole of government integrated unified national security budget could facilitate the fiscal trade-offs required between alternative means of pursuing national security objectives in the executive budget.