Stephen E. Condrey

Civil Service Reform Examining State and Local Government Cases

Because of the splintered nature of public human resource management in the United States, civil service experimentation at lower levels of government, particularly the states, may be influencing personnel policy at the federal and local levels. Four models of human resource management service delivery are utilized as an organizing point for discussion of six state and local cases. The article draws implications for the design and reform of civil service systems and suggests that strategic modernization of civil service systems may be more effective than radical reform.

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 Assessing its Implementation in America's Largest Cities

The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) has been heralded as the most comprehensive piece of federal legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. To date, research on the ADA has been largely speculative and anecdotal. The present research helps to fill this gap by analyzing and reporting results from a survey of municipal governments encompassing all cities in the United States with a population of 50,000 or greater. The study assesses the state of implementation of the ADA across these larger municipal governments, with an emphasis on the personnel-related provisions of the act.

Reinventing State Civil Service Systems The Georgia Experience

This article explores the first 5 years of the State of Georgia’s reform of its centralized civil service system, including an assessment of the environment leading to the reform. Additionally, the article explicates three organizing models for the delivery of public human resource management services and suggests that the state should have moved toward a strategic model that shared real personnel authority between the central personnel agency and the respective departments. The article concludes that the Georgia reform is an anomaly, not a trend.

State Government Human Resource Professionals’ Commitment to Employment at Will

This article examines the attitudes of a key set of state government officials—state human resource (HR) professionals—toward employment at will (EAW) in state government. It presents original survey data obtained from HR professionals in four southern states: Georgia, Florida, Texas, and Mississippi. Drawing on these data, the article creates an index measuring respondents’ commitment to EAW, as measured by their attitudes toward arguments used to advocate for EAW. The index is used as the dependent variable in an exploratory regression analysis indicating the importance of respondents’ experiences with the exercise of EAW discretion, years of public sector service, educational background, and state context to explaining variation in commitment to EAW. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings’ implications for the future of civil service reform in the United States.

Municipal government strategies for controlling personnel costs during the fiscal storm

Fiscal stress has spurred city governments to search for ways to reduce costs. Human resource professionals and municipal budget officers have been searching for ways to reduce personnel-related costs because this is where the greatest savings can be realized. This paper identifies and examines different personnel cost-containment strategies pursued by a national sample of 90 large U.S. cities. It focuses on hiring, wages and hours, employee benefits and other HR-related actions. Results indicate that jurisdictions whose municipal fiscal conditions are considered to be fair or poor are more likely than cities whose fiscal conditions are perceived to be good to excellent to use many of the cost reduction strategies. Other demographic and organizational variables had some limited relationship with the use of strategies, but were not as significantly associated with costcontainment actions as city economic climate.

Employees amidst welfare reform: TANF employees' overall job- and organizational-role satisfaction.

SUMMARY The impact of welfare reform on organizational functioning at the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) is measured between 1999 and 2000 using a longitudinal survey method, a large sample of employees, and multiple regression analysis. During this one year period the agency experienced a change in leadership as well as had to contend with the evolving requirements associated with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). The findings indicate that a trusted leadership and an organizational climate that is receptive to and fosters effective communication can improve the chances of successfully implementing large-scale organizational change like that created by the PRWORA.

Reforming public management in Ukraine

Ascertains the viability of adapting the American university‐based public service concept to countries of the former Soviet Union. Toward this end, a heuristic model is presented. The model for university‐based public service and outreach shows initial viability in the Ukrainian examples. While the range of administrative and societal problems facing the Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union is formidable, it appears that university‐based public service activities can play a part in reform activities aimed at their amelioration.

Welfare Reform: Assessing its Political, Economic, and Social Effects

Books reviewed: Rebecca M. Blank, It Takes a Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty Anne Marie Cammisa, From Rhetoric to Reform?: Welfare Policy in AmericanPolitics Martha Shirk, Neil G. Bennett, and J. Lawrence Aber, Lives on the Line: American Families and the Struggle to Make Ends Meet Robert M. Solow, Work and Welfare

The Great Government Pay Debate

The three statements that follow were provided by individuals who have public positions that are likely to influence how government pay systems are planned and managed. Government pay and benefits have become political issues and the goal is to provide a forum prior to the election where three distinct positions can be stated, followed by comment and rebuttal. The first statement, by the two independent members of the Federal Salary Council, Stephen Condrey and Rex Facer II, joined by a colleague Jared Llorens, argues for a variation on the existing program model. As background, the Council makes annual recommendations to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the President’s Pay Agent on needed adjustments to the federal white-collar salary system. The second was drafted by Andrew Biggs and Jason Richwine, prominent critics of government pay practices and occasional spokespersons on this subject for the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, respectively. Their comments are posted occasionally on the websites of their respective organizations. The third statement was provided by Michael Filler, who serves as a presidentially appointed member of the National Council on Federal Labor–Management Relations and Director of the Public Services Division, International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The Teamsters has over 260,000 public and professional employees across North America. Following each statement are comments by the two other “sides.” This article is intended to highlight the issues that are contentious as well as those where there is agreement. A key point is the general agreement that government pay should be aligned with market levels although there are differences in exactly what that means. 462333 CBRXXX10.1177/08863687124623 33Compensation & Benefits ReviewRisher 2012