Chapter 10. Public Administration
Last
updated 11-23-2009
Copyright
2009 Carol S. Botsch and Robert E. Botsch
Dr. Carol S.
Botsch with Dr. Bob Botsch
The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man
who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility. Brooks Atkinson
OUTLINE
I. Introduction:
The Case of the Incompetent Administrator
II. Definitions
A. Public
administration
B. Bureaucracy
III. A Little
Background: A Brief History of Public Administration
IV. Public
Administration and Technology
V. Public and
Private Administration: Is There a Difference?
A. Similarities
B. Differences
VI. A World of
its Own: Specialties Within Public Administration
A. Public Personnel
Management
B. Public Financial
Management
1.
Taxation.
2.
Budgeting
C. Analyzing Public
Organizations
1.
Scientific Management
2.
The Human Relations school
3.
Organizational Humanism
4.
The systems approach
5.
Other approaches
D. Leadership: What
is a Good Manager?
E. Ethics
1.
History
2.
Definitions
3.
Laws
4.
Professional codes
5.
Difficult decisions
VI. A Closing
Word
TEXT
I. Introduction:
The Case of the Incompetent Administrator
Picture this: a man
reading a newspaper, sipping a cup of coffee, his feet propped up on his
expensive, wooden desk. He does not appear to have a care in the world, nor
indeed, any urgent business to do. If you should knock on his office door and
ask him a question, he will tell you that the person who needs to answer your
question is out to lunch. In an age where dissatisfaction with government is
rife and public confidence in government's ability to solve problems is
extremely low, this is how many Americans picture public officials.
Not too long ago, I
was asked to write a paper on bureaucratic ethics. The reaction of friends and
colleagues who asked me what I was working on was an incredulous, "Isn't
that an oxymoron?" (An oxymoron is a contradiction in terms--like
“family vacation” or “military intelligence.” :) )
Indeed, bureaucrats
are a favorite target of politicians. President Ronald Reagan was famous for
his comment that government is the problem? Although no politician has
found a way to reduce the size of government without reducing or eliminating
services that some interest group wants, nearly every candidate for
public office will tell you that we can solve the country's financial problems
if we get rid of the "fat" and "waste." Doubtless some of
both exist, but eliminating either one is unlikely to lower your taxes because
of all the other unmet needs that exist: rebuilding the infrastructure,
education, crime control, medical research, and so on. In addition,
"fat" and government waste, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
How do you feel about eliminating Pell Grants or waiting six weeks to have your
driver's license application processed? As a fall 1992 Newsweek
story stated in its title, "Benefits 'R Us," even though we take most
of them for granted.
While all the
political posturing about waste and savings is taking place, the hapless
bureaucrats must carry on the day-to-day business of the government. While
politicians may determine the overall direction of policy, they depend on
the nearly three million federal civilian employees and thirteen million state
and local government employees to implement programs. Government employees
pave the roads, put out the fires, operate the recreation programs, and process
the social security checks.
Getting anything
done would be unlikely if government workers were as inefficient as politicians
like to claim! Interestingly, studies by scholars show that despite the
complaints, a majority of people are satisfied with the services they receive
from government. This seems to be true whether we are talking about how welfare
clients are treated by caseworkers or what businessmen think of the quality of
the postal service.
Then
why all the general dissatisfaction with government? Part of it may be the frustration that results
because of unrealistic high expectations. Government can't solve
all the problems, and even if the money was available, we don't have all
the answers.
In part, it may be
the contradictions inherent in our demands for accountability. We want
to be sure that government employees aren't spending our money for a free
vacation in
Part of it may
simply be the result of human nature: the tendency to focus on the unusual
and dramatic. I pay no attention at all when my mail is delivered on time
and in good condition (which is nearly all the time), but if it is clear that
postal equipment ate most of a letter, you will be able to see the steam coming
out of my ears! We expect near perfection.
II. Definitions
A. Public
administration
The author of every
text on public administration will tell you that it is almost impossible to
define the term public administration. But those of us in the field like
to think of it as the "nuts and bolts" side of politics.
Public administration is about getting things done. Scholars who study
public administration want to find out how governmental activities are
carried out and what role politics plays in this process. Public
administration includes at a minimum the activities of the executive,
legislative and judicial branches at all levels of government, and how they
interact with a wide variety of other entities: the private sector, the public
at large, political parties, interest groups, the mass media and each other.
Public
administration is multi-disciplinary. It overlaps and synthesizes the
research of professionals from a number of other fields. If you enroll in a
public administration course, your professor will draw on resources from a wide
variety of fields, including sociology, psychology, political science and
business.
No one at a college
is quite sure what to do with the public administration program. Sometimes it
is part of a political science or business department. Some programs stand on their own. In most colleges and universities, if you want
to study public administration, you will have to wait until you have completed
your undergraduate work. Although some schools offer undergraduate courses
(usually through the political science program), public administration courses
are generally offered as part of a graduate program. Many universities offer a
terminal master's degree in Public Administration, Public Management, Public
Policy or some combination (A terminal degree simply means that there is no
higher degree offered at that school in that particular field). Many of the
students who are enrolled in masters in public administration programs
(typically called MPA programs) are already working in the public sector and
have returned to school to further their education. Others are recent
undergraduates who want to complete an MPA degree before starting a career in
the public sector. Sometimes an MPA degree is a stepping stone into the legal
profession or into business. Public administration is also offered as a
doctoral degree, sometimes as part of another program (generally a
concentration within a political science degree) and sometimes as a separate
Ph.D. degree program.
B. Bureaucracy
We have been using
the term bureaucracy quite a bit. Usually people use it in a negative sense.
Yet, despite its negative connotations, bureaucracy originally referred to a
style of organization that would improve on how things get done. In
reality, it refers to not only those in government,
but also to those who are organized along bureaucratic principles in private
organizations, like businesses and clubs.
So what are the
principles that define bureaucracy? One of the best statements can be found in
the writings of a German sociologist named Max Weber, who did most of his
ground-breaking work on bureaucracy around the turn of the last century. Bureaucracy
is defined by a number of characteristics.
We generally think
of a bureaucracy as a fairly large organization staffed by professionals, as
opposed to political appointees. A division of labor exists where each
person specializes in some specific task. For example, at the university where
I work, I teach classes, the secretary types letters,
takes messages and handles the mail, and the personnel administrator is
responsible for salary and benefits matters. In a small, non-bureaucratic
business like a "Mom and Pop" store, everyone does a little bit of
everything (waiting on customers, sweeping the floor, answering the telephone).
In a bureaucracy, a
structural hierarchy exists with levels of authority. Think of an
organization chart, with the CEO at the top. People at the top want to be sure
that people at the bottom carry out their orders, which are transmitted down
through the chain of command (chain of command means each person reports to one
other person).
Bureaucracies keep written
records ("red tape") and have written rules. The rules
tell the bureaucrats what to do and require them to be impartial or
"fair" in their treatment of clients or citizens. The records leave
evidence that something was indeed done in the way it was supposed to be done.
Hiring and
promotions are based on objective qualifications, such as tests, not who you know. Ideally, the
person who best meets those objective qualifications will bet the job.
Anytime you see
this combination of characteristics, you are looking at a bureaucracy. One
change that we are seeing in both public and private sector bureaucracies is
that they are no longer staffed primarily by full-time, permanent employees.
With the ups and downs of the economy, many employers are now more comfortable
hiring many part-time and temporary workers. This allows employers to have
workers on hand only when they are needed and reduces the need to pay for
benefits.
III. A Little
Background: A Brief History of Public Administration
Public
administration as a separate field dates back to the late 1800s when it began
to break away from the field of political science. In 1887, Woodrow Wilson,
then a college professor and later a president, wrote a landmark article called
"The Study of Administration."
However, the New
Deal and World War II changed the role that government plays in American life.
In a society where government has a greater responsibility for taking care of
its citizens and promoting the general welfare, much of what was then the
conventional wisdom no longer applied. There were too many details that had to
be worked out for politicians to make policies that covered all possibilities.
They had to leave more and more discretion (that is choice) in the hands of
those who carry out the policies—the bureaucrats.
Today, most
students of the field would argue that separating politics and administration
is impossible. It is almost impossible for administrators not to make
policy. Simply carrying out the work of government on a day by day basis
involves policymaking, and the administrator is the one on the spot. Most laws
do not spell out how to respond to every possible contingency, nor can they
anticipate every problem and scientific development that requires a response.
But in a sense we have come full circle—we have returned to the earlier
emphasis on efficiency in government and making government more like business.
Like its sister
discipline of political science, public administration was affected by the behavioralist movement after World War II. (“Behavioralist” is another term you should remember from the
beginning of the course!) While public administration began to move toward
empirical research, those in the field soon discovered that administration
can't always be quantified. Scholars like George Gordon have pointed out that
much decision-making is done on an informal basis, in secret. Inevitably, this
complicates the research process! You have a much harder time observing and
measuring things to which you have no access. Nor can you readily conduct the
kind of controlled studies that are widely used by physicists and biologists.
Denying a program to one group to see if it works is often morally
unacceptable, not to mention political suicide.
Public
administration's place and its relationship to political science remain unclear
today. It has moved towards developing a separate identity, with its own
professional organization, the American Society for Public Administration
(ASPA), [http://www.aspanet.org] and a separate accrediting organization, the
National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA).
As it struggles with growing pains, scholars and practitioners debate how best
to train future public administrators. Should the education of a public manager
focus on practical skills or should it be more theoretical? Or is there a happy
medium?
IV. Public
Administration and Technology
Technology is
changing the ways that government operates. Recently, scholars coined the term E-Government,
which they define as "government web sites, pages, e-mails, and service
delivery over the internet…digital access to government information or
electronic licensing and payments…" (Dean and Stage,
2000). The phrase E-Public Administration is yet more inclusive:
it refers to how we use technology to " ‘run’
E-Government" (Dean and Stage, 2000). The White House [http://www.whitehouse.gov]
the Congress [http://www.loc.gov] and all federal agencies have web sites
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/html/handbook.html] replete with information.
State and local governments [http://www.piperinfo.com/state/index.cfm] also
have an online presence. Everyone seems to have a web site.
Certainly
information technology is having a tremendous impact on all of our lives. Yes,
there are new problems. The downside is that as we become more dependent on
computers and other technology, system failures or problems with our individual
machines interfere with our ability to carry on everyday activities. We are
increasingly vulnerable to terrorists and hackers. The computer virus is as
much a part of modern life as the polio virus was for families prior to the
1950s. Maintaining ones privacy when it is so easy for government and the
private sector to gather information is a troubling and as yet unresolved
issue.
But the upside is
great. Citizen access to their government is becoming easier. They can get
information about services and often even utilize them on-line. With a few
clicks of the mouse, one can often get desired information, without the endless
phone calls previously required. The author downloaded the forms necessary to
get a copy of her birth certificate and to renew her passport, without making a
long distance call or standing in a long line. Many people are even filing
their income tax returns via the Internet, although the process is not yet
entirely "paperless." In several states motorists can register their
cars online (Byerly, 2000).
Technology is also
helping government agencies to perform their jobs more easily in other ways. In
some states, accused criminals no longer must be brought from a local jail and
transported many miles to a courtroom for a preliminary hearing. Rather, this
process can be accomplished via television. Employee training is being
conducted over the Internet and screening of potential employees is simplified
when resumes are posted on the Internet (King, 2000). The search for a new
chancellor at USCA in fall 2000 used television to do preliminary interviews
with potential candidates, saving literally thousands of dollars in travel
costs. Some governmental units are doing purchasing over the Internet (Marcote, 2000). Public and private universities, including
this one, are even offering courses over the Internet, saving many students a
long drive to campus or the juggling of their busy schedules.
Technology may
ultimately have more of an impact on streamlining government than any of the
myriad reforms to which we are periodically subjected. Perhaps one result will
be that we will begin to have a more positive attitude about government again.
V. Public and
Private Administration: Is There a Difference?
Students often ask
their professors if any difference really exists between administration in the
public and the private sector. On the surface many similarities exist.
In both cases, we are discussing managing an organization and its people and
setting policy directions for that organization. Both public and private sector
managers want to use their resources efficiently and accomplish the goals they
have set out. To some extent, politics has an impact on both the public and
private sector. Both also face the challenge of functioning in what is becoming
a global economy.
A. Similarities
The overlap
between the public and private sectors is increasing. Federal, state, and
local governments, all chronically short of money, looking for ways to
downsize, often contract out to the private sector many services
traditionally thought of as belonging in the public domain. Sometimes this is
called "privatization." Garbage collection and national park
concessions are two examples. How can political considerations not
affect the decisions made by a private sector manager who runs a prison for the
state? Private companies doing business with the government are also subject to
many of the same restrictions and regulations that exist for public managers.
The public sector
also shares many of the same concerns over increasing productivity and
satisfying "customers" as the private sector. Therefore, we see
public bureaucracies adopting some of the same management techniques which have
caught on in the private sector, such as TQM (Total Quality Management). Under
TQM, an organization provides incentives to its employees and recognition of
good quality work. TQM encourages teamwork and the involvement of employees in
accomplishing organizational goals. Many local governments are engaging in benchmarking,
or developing standards based on practices that work elsewhere, and performance
measurement. However studies of police, fire, garbage collection, and other
services found that it was difficult to develop comparable measures for
different government entities (Coe, 1999).
The Clinton
Administration developed an initiative based on TQM, called the National
Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR). Federal agencies are required to
determine what services their customers want, develop service standards, and
measure how well they meet those standards. This initiative has had some
striking success. In 1995, a private company that rates 800 number service
providers ranked the Social Security Administration number one in quality,
ahead of all private sector providers.
Although hundreds
of government organizations have adopted some version of TQM, some scholars
argue that it does not adapt well to the public sector. They note that the goal
of public organizations is providing services, not making products, and that
politics makes it difficult to ensure the kind of long-term leadership and
commitment that is needed (Gordon and Milakovich,
1998, 376). Government has many different "customers," and the wants
of one set of customers may conflict with the wants of another. Consider for
example, the customers of the U.S. Department of Agriculture: farmers, grocery
stores, and shoppers. Do you see any conflict between the interests of each of
these groups? But regardless of whether TQM or any other management technique
survives, both public and private sector organizations will continue to share a
common concern with productivity.
B. Differences
Although the
differences between public and private are not as great as they were in the
past, they still remain. Certainly, public managers must live with the scrutiny
of the public and the press to a greater extent than do private managers.
Public managers also in many cases have less flexibility in hiring,
promoting, and firing their employees because of civil service
restrictions. The kinds of problems they must solve are not always as easily
resolved as those faced by private managers.
For example, wiping
out poverty is much harder than building a new car. Managing a budget is
extremely difficult when you can't readily pass on increased costs to your
customers, the general public, by raising prices (taxes). You have to ask
politicians to do that for you. They would prefer to posture as heroes who take
valiant stands against taxes and blame the bureaucrat
for service reduction or problems unsolved.
Often, public
managers, unlike private ones, must answer to a number of different bosses
(politicians, other administrators, interest groups and the general public).
All these bosses have different axes to grind.
Government
officials and private sector administrators have different goals. In the
private sector, the ultimate aim is to make a profit. Any business that doesn't
do that will soon be out of business. The primary goal of a government
organization is to provide service. Governmental organizations don't cease to
exist simply because they aren't making money.
Finally, government
operates in an extremely legalistic environment today, and public
managers must constantly be aware of the legal implications of their actions.
Everyone and his brother seem to sue at the drop of a hat in this nation of
lawyers. Employees sue over personnel decisions and clients sue over changes in
program regulations. Even in universities, professors are told that their
syllabus is a "contract" with the students. So, we can conclude that
while management of public and private sector organizations has much in common,
many differences do exist.
VI. A World of
its Own: Specialties Within Public Administration
Public
administration actually consists not of one field, but of many subfields, as
does political science, biology and almost any other discipline. Let`s take a look at a few of these. Almost any one of
these subfields has its own journal and professional organization, as well as a
bevy of eager scholars who do their research in just one subfield. At the
graduate level and sometimes even at the undergraduate level, you can take
courses focusing on these specific areas.
A. Public
Personnel Management
One of the reasons
that making budget cuts in the public sector is so hard is because it is people-intensive.
Government employees repair roads, deliver the mail, teach school children,
provide disaster relief when a tornado or hurricane strikes, and process social
security checks. All of this depends on people, and few us of are willing to
accept a reduced level of services.
In
When the economy
goes into a recession, government experiences a reduction in revenue as more
people are out of work, and limit their spending. Scholars coined the phrase
cutback management to describe the problems leaders face when the budget is
shrinking.
But even in good
times, citizens are unwilling to pay more in taxes for most services. Sometimes
public officials have no choice but to fire employees or to freeze hiring. The
basis on which such decisions are made can be quite controversial. Employers
must also take into account the many laws that protect various groups of people
from employment discrimination on the basis of age, handicap, gender, and race.
Public personnel
administration focuses on the management of the people who work for government. Some of the most controversial issues that confront
our society, such as affirmative action and sexual harassment, have been dealt
with first in the public sector. Public personnel management examines questions
of how people should be hired, promoted, fired, and retired.
Among the questions
that arise in this subfield are what motivates
workers to be more productive? We know that money is only a partial answer,
and not a very good one for certain types of jobs. Esteem, respect, working
conditions, fringe benefits, supervisory practices, and a number of other
factors play a role in the complex relationship. We also know that some people
don't want to be promoted into management, and are happy, productive workers
doing routine jobs. Productivity has become a very important issue in public
management. With limits on growth in government and pressure to cut the size of
government organizations, there is a great deal of interest in how to make
government more efficient.
Every employer
wants to hire the "best" possible people, those who will work hard
and perform well. How can we predict which workers will perform well if they
are hired and which people will not? To some extent, the hiring process is
simply a shot in the dark.
References from
previous employers are not particularly useful in an age when everyone is
afraid of being sued. Most employers are very hesitant to say anything negative
about a former employee.
Personnel managers
often rely on employment tests, but drawing up a good test is extremely
difficult. After a lawsuit was filed, the federal government dropped its
general entrance exam for college graduates. The test was not considered valid,
because minorities performed poorly on the test but often were quite good
employees if they were hired despite their test scores. If you remember from
the module on Scientific Research, validity refers to whether or not a measure
actually measures what it is supposed to measure. A valid job qualification
exam will measure whether or not a person will be a good employee. For people
under consideration as managers, a standard paper and pencil test is useless.
Employers usually
rely very heavily on the interview process for such positions. When you apply
for your next job, keep in mind that most interviewers make up their minds
about the job candidate during the first five minutes of the interview. Studies
show that smiling a lot can make up for a host of shortcomings!
How can we attract
and retain good people for top level jobs in government? While salaries at the
lower levels are comparable to the private sector, most of the top level federal
managers can make a lot more money in business. Many choose to leave
government. Only when we begin to see a career in public service as a valued and honorable profession will this change.
The
cost of providing employee benefits is one of the biggest concerns of
most public employers today. What types of benefits should an employer provide
workers? Benefits are extremely expensive, and providing more benefits eats up
the dollars available to cover program costs. A standard benefits package
includes vacation, sick leave, and leave for jury duty, as well as federally
required benefits like Social Security and unemployment compensation. But most
benefits packages are geared to the vanished Ozzie and Harriet family of the
1950s, and don't account for modern day needs like day
care for children and parents, or flexible hours, or spouses with benefits that
may overlap. The federal government, the nation's largest employer, is now
requiring all federal agencies to develop a more "family friendly workplace."
But ironically, as a few battles are won in the long war to help families,
single people have begun to complain about discrimination. They often would
prefer other benefits like more vacation. Benefits for unmarried partners, both
homosexual and heterosexual, is a big issue. Many employers have only recently
begun to realize that a more flexible work environment pays off.
Most public
employers provide group health insurance, with an employee contribution
required. How can we deal with spiraling health care costs? Everyone wants the
best possible care, but it is very expensive. Currently we ration care to those
fortunate enough to even have health care coverage. Certain tests and
procedures are not covered, or are only partially covered. You have probably heard
horror stories from friends and relatives who had to fight with an insurance
company to receive coverage for some medical problem. Outdated ideas about
health care have resulted in much hardship. Many plans don't include
preventative care, even if money would be saved in the long run. Mental health
advocates have begun to lobby for parity in coverage of mental illness, now
that we know that most mental illness has some biological basis. Sometimes
health plans do not provide equity for the unique needs of men and women. The
Unlike
many employees in the private sector, most public employees are covered by retirement
plans. Many of the public sector plans are not fully funded. The Baby
Boomers will be starting to retire soon. How will government organizations pay
for the cost of their retirement? Many governmental entities are investing some
of their retirement funds in the stock market. But there is no guarantee that
the market will continue to rise indefinitely. If pensions must be paid from
general revenue, taxes will have to rise or services will have to be cut. Is
either of these alternatives acceptable?
While some public
organizations don't allow labor unions, in many states and communities, the
question of how great a role unions should play in making personnel
decisions is an extremely relevant question. Unions usually want promotions
and layoffs to be made based on seniority, but that may discriminate against
groups that only recently put their foot in the door. Nor does it allow
employers to make decisions based on merit. But unions also give employees some
leverage in protecting jobs and benefits. Although union membership is
declining in the private sector, it is increasing among public employees.
Should collective bargaining be allowed in the public sector? Should strikes by
public employees be illegal as they now are in many places?
Pay
equity, or comparable worth was a much debated
issue in public personnel management in the 1980s. We know that women earn only
about 75 cents for every dollar a man makes, and despite many laws passed
during the past thirty years requiring equal pay for equal work, women simply
haven't achieved pay equality in what is still a man's world. Figures released
in the spring of 2000 show that the pay gap still remains. The equal pay
laws only apply when men and women are doing the same jobs. On closer
examination, we find that most women are not engineers or accountants. Most
women are concentrated in about thirty job categories. You could probably name
half a dozen of them right off the top of your head (secretary, nurse,
beautician, teacher, seamstress, librarian). Women are
still socialized into thinking of themselves as passive and nurturing. In the
fields where women have made progress, like medicine and law, they tend to be
clustered in the lower-paying positions, including government employment. There
is still much resistance to hiring women in the professions. Attitudes change
slowly.
Feminists maintain
that if we do a thorough examination of occupations, we will find that salaries
are not generally based on the education, skills and responsibilities required,
nor on the worth of those jobs to society. The only
common factor seems to be that some jobs have traditionally been considered
men's jobs and some jobs have traditionally been considered women's jobs. Two
people with similar skills and similar responsibilities have different job
titles. One is classified as an administrative assistant. The other is called
an assistant manager. Guess which category has the higher pay? Guess which job
is typically held by women?
Comparable worth
remains extremely controversial. Business groups oppose it. They feel the value
of jobs should be determined by market demand. The International Personnel
Management Association endorses it. It feels that the market is rigged and not
at all free. While the issue remains unresolved, the controversy has forced
many people to take a closer look at the question of how we value jobs.
B. Public
Financial Management
Of all the areas in
public administration, public financial management is perhaps the most
significant. Questions of how and when to raise
money and which services should be provided are inherently political. Two
major subareas of study are taxation--how and when to raise money--and budgeting--which
services will be provided at what level.
1. Taxation.
Deciding what is a fair tax can be very difficult. Most people would
agree that taxes should be pegged to one's ability to pay. This includes having
the same tax for those with the same income, and imposing greater taxes on
those with greater incomes. Most people also agree that the amount of taxes
should be based on the cost of the services one receives or the benefits one
receives. Think for a moment about both these ideas. Do you see any
contradiction between these two generally accepted principles of taxation?
We also use
taxes to promote certain policies within our society. For example, you may
deduct the interest on your mortgage from your income tax return. In this way,
we promote home ownership. But like many policies, this has the unintended
consequence of reducing tax equity. Buying homes has become increasingly
difficult for young people, and among the poor, home ownership is usually not
an option. But who pays the real cost of the mortgage on rental property and
who gets the tax deduction?
State and local
governments also offer tax breaks to businesses, hoping to attract new
industries with new jobs. But as more and more states offer similar incentives,
they are forced to offer bigger tax breaks to win the bidding war. Scholar
Irene Rubin reports that the cost of tax breaks per job was $65,000 for the BMW
plant that located in
We also sometimes
use taxes to discourage types of behavior we consider undesirable. A tax on
alcohol may bring in needed revenue, but the higher cost may also be intended
to reduce the amount of drinking. Congress has toyed with the idea of higher
national taxes on cigarettes, but members from tobacco-producing states have
usually managed to defeat such proposals. These kinds of taxes are called taxes
on sin.
The tax revolt is
certainly nothing new, but voters want to have their cake and eat it too.
One political wag has said that voters view government as a machine into which
we can put 50 cents and then get $1 in services. For this reason, we often find
ourselves imposing new taxes but calling them something else, such as user
fees. Many citizens like the idea of user fees, which are paid
specifically by the people using a service, rather than by the general
public. Some examples are the fees you pay to camp in many state or national
parks, the charge for enrolling your child in a community basketball league,
the fee you pay for supplies if your child is enrolled in a South Carolina
public school, or the tuition you pay to come to a public university.
The problem with
these fees, of course, is that while they aren't an enormous hardship for most
middle-class persons, they really hurt the poor. For the working poor,
who earn too much to qualify for anti-poverty programs like Medicaid or Food
Stamps, a few dollars more in fees means a choice of whether to buy food or use
a particular service. For some services, such as the water and sewer bills,
people really don't have much choice. Balancing the family budget has been a
particular problem for many of the working poor who have left the welfare roles
for minimum wage jobs since 1966. They have found themselves financially worse
off. For them, the name of the welfare reform legislation, the Family
Independence Act, is a misnomer .
While most people
accept taxes as a necessary evil, they argue over what combination of the
"big three" (income, sales and property taxes) is best. Experts on
taxation feel that the best tax system is one that is balanced. That is,
a balanced tax system relies on a combination of taxes, rather than leaning
heavily on any one particular tax. This makes tax revenues not overly
dependent on a single tax that could be adversely affected by some short-term
trend. For example, an economic downturn can suddenly reduce sales and income
tax revenues. Perhaps the biggest problem we face in funding local government
is that the tax system is very poorly balanced.
Nearly everyone
resents the property tax, which isn't tied very closely to income level.
We depend on the property tax to fund most local services, but it may be an
outdated tax. In the days when most people lived on income-producing farms
or lived downtown where city services had a direct impact on their property's
value, this kind of tax made a lot of sense. Today most people live in a
non-income producing home that rises in value even when their income is
stagnant. There may be unintended social consequences that result. In areas
where property values are rising rapidly, like Beaufort, on the
The state income
tax is the least unpopular tax, followed by the sales tax. We really don't know
why people find the state income tax least objectionable, since it usually is
"piggy-backed" onto the fairly unpopular federal income tax. Perhaps
the explanation is that people see what services they are receiving for their
state tax dollars. They may feel that it is fairer because it is pegged to
income, at least to some extent. And of course it is lower than the national
tax they pay at the same time. In fact, public officials have found that if they
need to raise any kind of taxes, the best way to do it is through earmarking,
or designating that the tax be spent for a specific purpose. This is also the
approach that proponents of state lotteries use to gain voter support.
The
reasons for the relative popularity of the sales tax are more obvious. Everyone
pays it. It is also collected in relatively small chunks so that you
are unaware of how much you are paying, unless you are buying some expensive
item. But poor people also need to buy clothes and other necessities. They feel
this tax to a much greater extent than do wealthier people. That is why it is
considered to be regressive by most analysts. That is, the poor in
effect pay a higher percentage of their incomes on this tax than do those with
more income.
But the future
of the sales tax may be in doubt, thanks to technology. Forty-five states
use the sales tax as a source of revenue, collecting almost $200 billion every
year. Usually the retailer collects the tax, but the advent of e-commerce, or
Internet sales, presents states with new tax collection problems. Merchants who
have no physical presence in the state feel that they should not have to
collect taxes for each individual state. Web merchants note that catalogue
sales are not subject to state taxation, and feel that they should be treated
the same. Many politicians also feel that the Internet should be left alone to
grow, and for that reason, Congress imposed a temporary moratorium on Internet
taxes in 1998. On May 31, 2000, a commission studying the issue of taxing
e-commerce recommended a five year moratorium on Internet taxes. As of the
summer of 2000, e-commerce represents less than 1% of all retail sales, but it
is growing rapidly. Today states are losing billions in sales-tax revenue.
Politicians have
lined up on both sides of the issue. Those who favor internet taxes argue that
to exempt e-commerce discriminates against other merchants, and that it will
make sales taxes on those who are not online unenforceable. Economist Gary
Becker agrees, also arguing that government spending grows more when the money
is available (Becker, 2000). So how you feel about Internet taxes may also be
tied to your views about how much government should do. Opponents also claim
that this is not a new tax, but that rather, under current laws, taxes are
already owed on goods that have been sold. Opponents claim that taxing Internet
sales will hurt economic growth: one study estimated Internet sales would drop
by at least 25%, although some economists think this figure is high. The
response to the claim that government is giving online merchants a competitive
advantage over their brick-and-mortar counterparts is that more and more
merchants are adding an online presence, and that consumers will have to pay the
additional shipping and handling charges for online purchases. They also argue
that the federal government will end up telling states what they can and can’t
tax, and at what rate, since it would be necessary to develop a uniform system
of taxation. No one expects e-retailers to keep track of the different taxes
charged by over 6000 jurisdictions.
As politicians and
scholars debate the issue of taxing e-commerce, the search for alternative
sources of revenue has begun. Of course, this debate could be rendered
irrelevant if consumers met their obligation to pay a use tax on
purchases where a sales tax has not been collected. Consumers are supposed to
include this payment with their state income taxes. But unlike
2. Budgeting
Related to the tax
issue, of course, is the budget. A budget tells us how much money we
are spending. We budget for two reasons: so that we won't spend too much
money (most state and local governments are required to have a balanced budget)
and so that we can be sure we spend the money appropriately. Budgeting is not
merely a sleep-inducing process of numbers crunching. It is highly political.
The kind of budget techniques used tell us much about
a government's approach to carrying out its functions.
A line-item
budget, for example, focuses on control. Each expenditure,
from stamps to salaries, is listed on a separate line and can be used only for
that particular purpose. Most jurisdictions still use some version of this kind
of budget today, often in combination with other budgeting methods that provide
more information about what government is actually doing and how well it is
doing those tasks.
Newer techniques
allow the comparison of one governmental unit with another and one government
activity with another. These include
"performance budgeting," with its focus on the costs of performing
different kinds of activities, and "program budgeting," which is
concerned with whether government programs are accomplishing their goals.
"Zero-based budgeting" and its offshoot, "target
budgeting," require managers to prioritize government services, so that
difficult decisions can be made about which programs to cut if the money isn’t
there. Of course, demands from citizens and interest groups often make much of
this moot.
C. Analyzing
Public Organizations
At least since the
early 1900s, scholars have been studying organizations, trying to determine
which organizational structure is the best, and how people perform in
organizations. Questions range from how many people can a supervisor
effectively supervise (that's called span of control) to how much of a
message gets garbled in the transmission from "Fearless Leader" at
the top to "peons" at the bottom. (Do you remember the old telephone
game or rumor chain game where original messages get more and more garbled as
they are passed from one person to the other?)
None of the
approaches researchers found provided a complete explanation of what makes
organizations and the people who work in them tick, but each group of theorists
has built upon both the contributions and shortcomings of earlier research. As
you know, that is the nature of the scientific process, building and modifying
existing theory to make them more and more complete.
1. Scientific Management
We began research
in this area with many misconceptions about what really goes on within an
organizational setting. In the early 1900s, in the era of what is known as Scientific
Management, scholars were convinced that if we studied organizations, we could
determine the "one best way" to get things done. Frederick
Taylor, an engineer in a steel mill, thought we could break all work down into
its component parts, and build a more efficient organization. Employers would
save so much money, he reasoned, that they would be able to share some of their
extra profits with the workers! Of course, that doesn't seem to have happened,
but we still have such legacies of Scientific Management as time-and-motion
studies and the assembly line today!
2. The Human
Relations school
While the writers
of the early 1900's focused mostly on organizational structure, by the 1920's
scholars were beginning to get interested in how people behaved within an
organization and how this affected the organization. Mary Parker Follett broke
new ground when she suggested that organizations would benefit by focusing on
ways that employees and supervisors could work together, rather than on an authoritarian
approach. In 1932, after five years of research at Western Electric's
For example,
although everyone expected that workers being paid for each piece they produced
would work as hard and as fast as they could, once a certain level of output
was reached, nothing could increase it. This was due to peer pressure
from one's fellow workers not to produce too much, and risk layoffs by
management! Mayo also found that a group of women who were studied became
more productive anytime working conditions (such as amount of lighting or
number of rest breaks) were changed, whether better or worse. This
apparently resulted from the attention they were receiving as part of an
experiment (now known as the
None of this could
be explained by Scientific Management. As a result of these studies,
organization theorists of the 1930s and 1940s, called the Human Relations
school, began to examine the human factor in organizational life.
3.
Organizational Humanism
By the 1940's and
1950's, researchers had become interested in examining some of the areas
ignored by the Human Relations school. This research,
called Organizational Humanism, focused on what factors were involved
in job satisfaction and motivation.
Researchers of this
period found that work itself could be a source of satisfaction, apart from the
money or other benefits one received. Douglas McGregor argued that managers
should take a positive approach toward their subordinates, who could be
self-motivating and were interested in their work. He called this Theory Y.
He contrasted it with Theory X, the traditional approach that assumed
workers were lazy and required a heavy hand from management to force them
to work. Rensis Likert said
employee participation in management should be encouraged. Frederick Herzberg
found that people were motivated by such factors as the opportunity to work
on their own and be creative. Money was necessary to keep people from being
dissatisfied, but by itself it wouldn't provide job satisfaction. Abraham
Maslow developed a "hierarchy of needs" with levels of
satisfaction which had to be met before a worker would go on to the next level.
Food and shelter were seen as among the most basic needs for survival. To
achieve the highest levels of self-fulfillment, one must be able to work
independently, and creatively, and with a degree of responsibility found in few
jobs. (You may remember that some of these ideas sound similar to Marx's
insights concerning work alienation.)
Modern organization
theorists have pointed out some shortcomings in the work of the Organizational
Humanists. As we noted in our discussion of productivity, many workers don't
want independence, informality and creativity in their work. On the other
hand, for professionals, such as your college professors, all of that is a
valued and intrinsic part of what makes getting up each morning worthwhile.
But Robert Dubin found in a 1975 study that most manual and
lower-salaried workers get their satisfaction off the job rather than on
it. If you consider the variety of part-time or full-time jobs that you
yourself have held, you are probably not surprised at the finding that routine
or mundane jobs don't seem to provide a lot of satisfaction! However, this type
of research has been helpful to employers who can't do a lot to change the
nature of the work but who look for other ways to motivate employees. A
well-known example is McDonald's practice of recognizing an "employee of
the month" or the auto-assembly plants that have created work groups to
let a group of workers assemble a car completely.
4. The systems
approach
Modern organization
theorists, like other social scientists, try to study organizations
empirically and to draw general conclusions which can be applied to all
kinds of organizations. Most of them use some variation of a systems
approach. This includes inputs, some way to respond to the inputs, and
outputs. (Do you remember that from earlier in the course?) For a typical
organization, inputs might be demands made by clients for some kind of action,
and the resources to pursue its objectives. The ways used to respond to the
inputs could include the methods used to reach decisions and the past history
of the organization in terms of how it handled similar situations. Outputs
include the services delivered or denied by the organization and the rules and
regulations it uses to maintain authority ("system persistence").
5. Other
approaches
Other approaches
used today include organizational development (analysis of
organizational problems and development of solutions) and organizational
change (factors within an organization that promote or prevent change).
Many consultants earn a living by trouble-shooting for organizations that find
themselves in a rut where they are unable to accomplish their goals.
Another and
different perspective that arose out of the 1970s was the New Public
Administration. Many thoughtful people looked at our failure to solve our
social problems and raised questions about social equity and the distribution
of resources within our society. Proponents of this approach believe
organizations must reshape themselves in order to better meet the needs of their
clients. Thus the emphasis is once again on finding some ideal structure
that will deliver better services. Perhaps in a sense we have come full circle,
with this return to a focus on organizational structure!
D. Leadership:
What is a Good Manager?
How can we
determine who will be a good leader? Without a doubt this is a question that
was relevant even to the cave men who had to decide who would lead the attack
on the local wildlife and perhaps be eaten himself in the attempt. In more
recent times, early twentieth century scholars followed what is known as the
traits approach. This involved trying to determine which characteristics
made for a good leader. Typical traits included intelligence and ambition.
Some scholars developed long lists, sometimes including more than one hundred
characteristics. Unfortunately, leaders who were studied didn't seem to share
too many of the same traits. By the 1950's the stress on traits was abandoned.
However, some later research has shown people who do best at certain organizational
levels have certain characteristics in common. Certain kinds of people might be
very good middle managers, but one step higher in the organizational ladder and
they have reached their level of incompetence! Good leaders tend to have some
combination of a positive outlook, a lot of energy, good judgment,
creativity and intelligence. However, some of these characteristics, such
as creativity and judgment, may not always go hand in hand. Nor do they
necessarily predict success. (Remember that our theories are partial and
probabilistic.)
Most scholars today
believe that a number of different leadership styles can work, but that different
characteristics may be needed for success in different situations. You may
be familiar with the classic example of the engineer who worked for a large
corporation and did so well that he was promoted into management—where he was a
total failure. He possessed technical competence, an advantage for an engineer,
but often a disadvantage for a manager! In politics, a classic example is that
of Herbert Hoover, whose career amounted to one success after another until he
reached the presidency. Franklin Roosevelt, his successor, is known as one of
our great presidents. What characteristics did FDR possess which allowed him to
cope successfully with the difficult Depression era when
The situational
approach, which actually was first suggested by Follett in the 1920s (and
ignored at the time), provides us with an avenue of research and study of leadership.
The research of Fred Fiedler suggests that the most fruitful approach is to
examine the interaction of an individual's personal characteristics with the
particular situation and the demands it presents. Today we look at the
different roles leaders play in organizations—as innovator, as organizer, and
as crisis manager. We examine the relationships that develop between leaders
and their subordinates. We try to determine what kinds of people can be most
effective in each of these roles.
E. Ethics
1. History
In the earliest
days of the republic, public service was considered a high honor and an awesome
responsibility. Leaders like George Washington were reluctant to serve after
the many years they had spent away from home fighting in the American Revolution,
but it was an obligation they accepted, if a burden. However, by the 1830s,
public jobs were regarded as a reward for service to the winning political
party, and through the rest of that century, corruption was rife.
Many concerns
exist today about whether politicians and administrators are violating the
public trust. Polls show that the citizenry thinks public officials are
dishonest. Recent years seem to have brought citizens more and more ethics
scandals involving both lawmakers and administrators. In
In fairness one
must point out that the Reagan administration was also the first administration
to be greatly affected by the 1978 Ethics in Government Act. This law required
top level federal officials to reveal their financial interests and forbade
them from doing business with a firm they had regulated for one year after
leaving government, or going to work for such a firm for two years.
One could argue
that President Clinton’s guilt really lay in the realm of ethics, rather than
law. He was a supervisor who engaged in a personal relationship with someone he
supervised.
One also reads of
administrators who accept bribes for giving out contracts or who used public
monies to enrich themselves. Examples of this are all too numerous.
Until a few years
ago, ethics was rarely taught as a separate topic. As we reevaluate what public
service is all about, this has become an area of special study. But even today,
many introductory public administration texts pay little attention to this
topic
2. Definition
If asked for a
definition of ethics most of us would answer that it refers to morality or
values, knowing right from wrong. Determining what is right and what is
wrong are not always easy, though. Doctors, who are bound to save lives,
often find that to prolong the life of a terminally ill patient by artificial
methods means the patient will suffer greatly. We are taught that lying is
wrong, but just how much information is the press obligated to reveal about a
public official's private life? If lying is wrong, should a public official
always tell the truth about the government's intended actions toward other
countries, even if telling the truth means our citizens living abroad may
suffer? (Remember one of the lessons of the Secret Defense Budget Game!)
3. Laws
Some ethical
standards are written into our laws, but even law is not always an
appropriate guide. Terrible things may be done in a totalitarian society
and still be perfectly legal. Many of the people who did not want to return
Elian Gonzalez to
Nevertheless, we
depend on law as the basis for living in an ethical society. Most of the
states have some kind of formal ethics restrictions, many of which have been
tightened up in recent years. Enforcement mechanisms vary, as do the laws
themselves in terms of who and what is covered.
4. Professional
codes
Most professions
have adopted codes of ethics, the best known of which are those
pertaining to law and medicine. Sometimes law conflicts with ethics codes. A
number of journalists have been jailed for refusing to reveal their sources to
legal authorities. While someone may sometimes be expelled from a profession
for violating the ethics code, this does not necessarily mean that a law has
been broken.
Most of the
professional organizations to which government employees belong have codes of
ethics. The American Society for Public Administration adopted a nine point
code of ethics in 1981 after years of debate about whether it was necessary and
about its content. The International City Management Association adopted a much
cited ethics code in 1924. It has been revised a number of times since then.
Both codes include statements about serving the public interest and avoiding situations
where a public position may be used for private gain. Vague references are made
to terms like merit and morality, which may or may not help an administrator
faced with a questionable situation.
5. Difficult
decisions
Many
of the situations administrators face are far less clear-cut than a simple
bribe. Administrators must interpret laws which are less than clear-cut,
and have many different interests all demanding that laws be interpreted in
their favor. Consider some of the following situations and ask yourselves what
ethics dictates in each.
Most of the city
employees are white males, but a sizable African-American and Hispanic
population lives in the city. Organizations representing these groups have
asked that a percentage of city jobs equivalent to their percentage of the city
population be reserved for the minority group members.
A member of the
city council asks the manager to hire his niece, who has just graduated from
college. Remember that city managers hold their positions at the pleasure of
the council. This particular council member is one who has been very supportive
of the manager on a bitterly divided council. To make it even less clear cut,
suppose further that his niece is an honor student and the city has few women
in professional positions.
A county council
member has called the county roads department and asked to have the dirt road
to his farm jumped up on the priority list.
Same situation as
above, but now the council member is asking this as a favor for a constituent
instead.
Suppose that at
Christmas this council member sends a bottle of wine to each department head?
Is it a bribe? Can the head of the roads department accept it? Suppose the
council member merely asked the roads department head to go to lunch with him
to discuss road paving priorities? What happens when the bill is presented at
the table and the council member says he's going to take care of it?
What about the
college professor, who receives the gift of a box of candy from a student a few
days after the final exam, but before grades are
turned in? Would it make a difference if grades have already been turned in? Or
suppose a group of students want to take the professor out for dinner to
celebrate the end of the semester?
Now we have the
case of the government employee who was asked to make an unpaid speech before a
community organization. Can they pay for his dinner? Or his
travel expenses? Suppose they give him a small gift (a box of stationary
or a coffee mug) at the conclusion of his speech as a thank-you?
Same situation, but
suppose he works for an agency that regulates this organization's business
(e.g. a city planner who is speaking before the local contractors'
association)? Does that change anything?
Many organizations
have nepotism restrictions, which forbid the hiring of close relatives, or
sometimes forbid their hiring if the relative will supervise them. Is there
necessarily a conflict of interest if the individual is well-qualified, or even
the best qualified person for the job? Suppose this is a rural area and this is
the only organization within commuting distance that has jobs in that person's
field? Suppose you are a nuclear engineer and your brother marries a top
executive in the local nuclear power agency? Should you have to quit your job?
Suppose two people who already work for the organization and are in the same
department get married?
Your agency is constantly having to replace pencils and paper. Its
photocopy machines are constantly breaking down. You know that people typically
take these items for personal use and make copies of things for personal use.
Is this stealing? Should we put a dollar value at which it becomes stealing?
Should we fire or prosecute people? What about the employee who often works at
home? Should we penalize her if she lets her child use a pencil or pad she had
in her briefcase?
A homeless family
cannot get welfare or Food Stamps because they live in their car. Public
housing has a long waiting list. The father can't get a job because he has a
poor work record. When they have no more food, he steals a loaf of bread and a
jar of peanut butter from the supermarket to feed his children. Is his behavior
wrong?
It’s a slow morning
in the office, and one of the secretaries doesn’t have much to do right now.
She opens her email, writes a letter to her cousin, and sends it off. Is she
stealing from the public by engaging in personal business on government time?
As you can see,
many situations are not clear-cut. Unless we want to use simple absolutes, we
have little to guide us, other than our own consciences and our own sense of
morality. People may disagree about what behavior is appropriate in a given
situation.
For
administrators and politicians, the best advice that can be given is to
consider how an action would look if reported in the next day's newspaper—a
“media test.” If you think you
can successfully defend your actions there, then it's probably ethical.
Oftentimes, we will have to simply do the best we can.
VI. A Closing
Word
This
brief look at public administration is by no means complete. We have omitted a
number of areas, such as administrative law, planning, communication, program
evaluation, and policymaking (the latter is often treated as a separate area,
as we have in this course). But those of us who specialize in public
administration believe that when all the excitement of an election campaign
dies down, what happens at the administrative level determines whether anything
really gets done.
KEY TERMS AND
IDEAS
oxymoron
why government fat is hard to
cut
number of federal employees
number of state/local employees
why people are dissatisfied
with government
public administration
bureaucracy, characteristics of
Woodrow Wilson
how the New Deal and WWII
changed the role of
government
the American Society for Public
Administration
public/private administrative
similarities and differences
contract out
public personnel management
problems with job qualification
tests
pressures on benefits packages
comparable worth
public financial management
fair tax principles
taxes on sin
user fees
property tax
relative unpopularity of
different taxes
earmarking
regressive tax
balanced tax system
budget
line-item budget
span of control
Scientific Management
Human Relations school
theory y
theory x
hierarchy of needs
organizational development
organizational change
New Public Administration
traits approach
leadership styles
situational approach
why ethics in government is a
strong concern today
1978 Ethics in Government Act
codes of ethics
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Byerly, Tom. "Not So Strange Bedfellows," Government
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Coe, Charles. "Local Government
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Administration Review 59 (March/April 1999), pp.110-115.
Dean, Mahnaz
A., and Betty Roberts Stage.
"In the World of "E" – Where is E-Public Administration?" P.
A. Times (May 2000), p.3.
Dresang, Dennis L. Public Personnel
Management and Public Policy 3rd edition (New York: Addison
Wesley Longman, Inc., 1999).
Ferraioli, Leatrice. "Let the
Debate Continue." PA Times 23 (February 2000),
p.5.
Gleckman, Howard. "The Great Internet Tax Debate," Business
Week (March 27, 2000), pp. 228-236.
Gordon, George J., and
Michael E. Milakovich. Public Administration in
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Huddleston, Mark W. The Public
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King, Karen N. "IT
Changes Way Public Sector HR Managers Do Their Jobs," PA Times (May
2000), p.5.
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Copyright Carol S. Botsch 8/4/00