Federal Workforce Problems

Chloe Booth and Kevin R. Kosar write at RealClearPolicy:

The Survey on the Future of Government Service, released last week by Vanderbilt University's Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, reveals significant problems with the federal workforce. According to the data, collected from 3,551 federal executives, the civil service is struggling to recruit and retain America's best and brightest — and agencies are plagued by underperforming employees who are difficult to fire.

We have seen the by-products of this malfunctioning personnel system for years. The Department of Veterans Affairs has lurched from one crisis to another. Government-wide improper payments reached a new height of $124.7 billion in 2014, fueled by mistakes made by the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Treasury. The General Services Administration, for its part, is unable to provide a correct inventory of the number of federal properties, let alone unload the unneeded ones.
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Even if agencies streamlined recruitment, they still would be stuck with low-performing employees who are nearly impossible to dismiss. Some 64 percent of respondents said subpar managers are rarely (if ever) dismissed, and 70 percent said the same for non-managers. Private companies face far fewer obstacles, with 52 percent of private-sector executives surveyed saying non-managers could be reassigned or dismissed within six months. Only 4 percent of public-sector executives said the same.)