EDITOR'S NOTE: In a Comment on Bertone's PA TIMES Online article "P ublic Administration and the Prevailing Political Regime" published March 12, 2012, a reader wrote:
"Political priorities" unoperationalized has no meaning–the lack of examples implies to me no consideration of the ethics of specific situations–the role of public employees is to execute government processes according to law and regulation. Where the political leadership has lattitude on policy emphasis, satisfying competing constituencies, performing or not performing a discretionary function, and funding, they must articulate their goals and objectives in specific ways and those affected by those decisions choose their appropriate action. In my opinion, we are personally responsible for every decision/action we execute or avoid.
Below is Bertone's response.


Thomas Bertone

I understand the Comment to say that, if political appointees operationalize political priorities by making them specific and communicating them to civil servants, the civil servants will then execute the operationalized priorities by using established procedures in accordance with laws and regulations. Thus, there is no problem worthy of an essay, unless the operationalized priorities pose an ethical issue for the civil servants. In that case, the civil servant must make an ethical decision and be held accountable. To the extent that there is an issue, it is one of ethical choice.

This article is part two of two. To read part one (and other articles by this author), see the Related Articles box below. To comment on this, or any article, click on Post a Comment below the article.

Thomas L. Bertone

Our Federal Government Operates Within An Economic Conservative Regime. Morton Keller's third American regime has lasted from 1932 until today. In terms of this essay, it is an Economic Conservative regime. Since the Progressive Era, when the second regime began to change into the third regime, the battle between our two parties has been over the role of government in our economic system, the degree to which the market needs assistance from government.

This article is part one of two. Watch for part two to be posted this Thursday, March 15, 2012.

Thomas L. Bertone

In four previous Online PA TIMES essays, I advance a single argument, as follows. Professional public administrators are educated to have neutral competence in maximizing efficiency, effectiveness, and economy in governmental organizations. However, public administration occurs within a larger system that is directed and controlled by political operatives whose highest priorities do not usually include maximizing efficiency, effectiveness, and economy. As a consequence, public administrators should maximize efficiency, effectiveness, and economy in support of but subordinate to the higher political priorities. Specifically, I argue that:

This article is part two of two. To read part one, click on the link in the Related Articles box below. To comment on this article, click on the Post A Comment link below.

Rich Callahan, Mark Pisano


Process for Testing the Findings
The preliminary findings where discussed in detail with experienced city managers, local elected officials, and researchers from the California Research Bureau and the P ublic Policy Institute of California. The data and observations we gathered from the four case studies and our discussion with a panel of reviewers reinforced the validity of the premises of the turbulent fiscal context for local government.

This article is part one of two. Watch for Part 2, which includes the research findings, this Thursday, March 1, 2012.

Rich Callahan, Mark Pisano

An argument could be made that the central challenge for leaders in the public sector is how to create fiscal sustainability at the local, state, and federal levels of government. The tool of strategy has been developed for addressing complex conditions over the past 50 years in the private sector and more recently in the public sector. For career, appointed, and elected officials the question that emerges is: can leaders apply strategy to advance fiscal sustainability in government. We developed a research team to search for cases where leaders applied strategy in local government to develop fiscal sustainability.

This is the final piece of a three part article. To see parts one and two click on the Related Articles box below. If you would like to respond to Busi's articles, click the Post A Comment link at the end of this article.

Don Busi


What Can be Done by HR, Management and Supervisors?
There are several things that HR can do to make the job evaluation process “less onerous” than perceived by all parties. HR management needs to stress to every HR professional that they must understand, not only HR policies and procedures, but the work flow and processes of the organization. The HR professional should not only be an expert in HR processes or practices but should also be able to intelligently discuss the work processes and work challenges facing employees of the organization.

This is the second piece of a three part article. To see part one click on the Related Articles box below. Watch for part three (What Can Be Done) to post on Monday, February 20th. If you would like to respond to Busi's articles, become a registered reader by clicking the link in the top right corner of any page.

Don Busi

It Isn’t Pay, But It Can Uncover Skeletons
Aside from the particular gripes from supervisors and employees, the job evaluation process is not a pay or compensation system. The job evaluation process does ignore, for the most part, outside market and competitive forces. The process does make sense intuitively because the “more” a job requires, the more the pay—the “tougher jobs” get paid more than the easy jobs.

This article is Part 1 of 3. Watch for Part 2 to post this Thursday, February 16th.

Don Busi

An overlooked and frankly ignored tool that could improve the productivity of any large organization, especially for the Public Sector, is a robust job evaluation process. A job evaluation process or system attempts to measure the difficulty, complexity, and demands of a job and assigns points to the “work” based upon established criteria. (Most of the time the criteria are described as “Factors.”) Points are assigned to a job based upon someone analyzing the duties and responsibilities of a position. The more points a position has in relation to other positions in the organization, the higher the base salary. A position merits more points than another position, because the duties and responsibilities require more knowledge, keener judgment, or more difficult decisions than another position. While a job evaluation system may not make sense for every company or government entity, it lends itself to large, bureaucratic organizations—federal and state governments and mid-sized to large corporations, particularly where a number of employees perform the same duties and responsibilities.

This is the second piece of a two-part article. To read part one, or other articles written by this author, see the Related Articles box below.

Tom Bertone

Conservative Democrat/Iron Triangle Model Combination: the Chief Executive as Dedicated Manager and Sometime Defender of the Less Powerful.
The objective of the American Conservative Democratic philosophy is to establish and maintain a society in which power is widely distributed so that the will of the majority prevails but the ways of life of minorities are protected. Accordingly, the heart of government is the legislature, where interest groups negotiate and compromise their differences to produce acceptable public policy. The chief executive is expected to execute faithfully that policy, and a dedicated manager is preferred. The legislature exercises close political control, through the Iron Triangle, to ensure that s/he does.