The Phase III Report of the U.S.Commission on National Security/21st Century Part 4

Rense.com
The Phase III Report Of
The U.S.Commission On
National Security/21st Century
Part 4
http://www.nssg.gov/phaseIII.pdf
4-20-1

IV. The Human Requirements for National Security

As it enters the 21st century, the United States finds itself on the brink of an unprecedented crisis of competence in government. The maintenance of American power in the world depends on the quality of U.S. government personnel, civil and military, at all levels. We must take immediate action in the personnel area to ensure that the United States can meet future challenges.

In its Phase I report, this Commission asserted that "the ability to carry out effective foreign and military policies requires not only a skilled military, but talented professionals in all forms of public service as well."80 We reaffirm here our conviction that the quality of personnel serving in government is critically important to U.S. national security in the 21st century. The excellence of American public servants is the foundation upon which an effective national security strategy must rest-in large part because future success will require the mastery of advanced technology, from the economy to combat, as well as leading-edge concepts of governance. We therefore repeat our conclusion from the Phase II report, that the United States "must strengthen government (civil and military) personnel systems in order to improve recruitment, retention, and effectiveness at all levels."*81

In this light, the declining orientation toward government service as a prestigious career is deeply troubling. The problem manifests itself in different ways throughout various departments, agencies, and the military services, yet all face growing difficulties in recruiting and retaining America's most promising talent. These deficits are traceable to several sources, one of which is that the sustained growth of the U.S. economy has created private sector opportunities with salaries and advancement potential well beyond those provided by the government. This has a particular impact in shaping career decisions in an era of rising student debt loads. The contrast with the private sector is also organizational. In government, positions of responsibility and the ability to advance are hemmed in by multiple layers, even at senior levels; in the private sector, both often come more quickly. Rigid, lengthy, and arcane government personnel procedures- including those germane to application, compensation, promotion, retirement, and benefits systems-also discourage some otherwise interested applicants.
Another source of the problem is that there is no single overarching motivation to entice patriotic Americans into public service as there was during the Cold War. Careers in government no longer seem to hold out the prospect for highly regarded service to the nation. Meanwhile, the private and non-profit sectors are now replete with opportunities that have broad appeal to idealistic Americans who in an earlier time might have found a home within government service. Government has to compete with the private sector not only in salary and benefits, then, but often in terms of the intrinsic interest of the work and the sense of individual efficacy and fulfillment that this work bestows.

At the same time, the trust that Americans have in their government is buffeted by worrisome cynicism. Consistent criticism of government employees and agencies by politicians and the press has magnified public dissatisfaction and lowered regard for the worthiness of government service. Political candidates running "against Washington" have fueled the impression that all government is prone to management and services of a quality below that of similar organizations in the private sector. This is not the case, but virtually every Presidential candidate in the past thirty years has deployed campaign rhetoric criticizing "the bloated bureaucracy" as a means of securing "outsider" status in the campaign. Neither critics nor their audiences often differentiate between performance failures based on political maneuvering and the efforts of apolitical professional public servants striving to implement policy. The cumulative effect of this rhetoric on public attitudes toward the government is demonstrated in a 1999 study highlighting American frustration with "the poor performance of government" and "the absence of effective public leadership."*82

A final reality is that today's technological age has created sweeping expectations of speed, accuracy, and customization for every product and service. Government is not immune to these expectations, but its overall reputation remains that of a plodding bureaucracy. Talented people seeking careers where they can quickly make a difference see government as the antithesis to best management practices, despite many government improvements in this area. Part of the recruitment and retention problem, therefore, flows from the image of overall government management and must be addressed by making government more effective and responsive at every level.

The effect of these realities on recruiting and retention problems is manifest. The number of applicants taking the Foreign Service entrance exam, for example, is down sharply and the State Department shows signs of a growing retention problem. The national security community also faces critical problems recruiting and retaining scientific and information technology professionals in an economy that has made them ever more valuable. The national security elements of the Civil Service face similar problems, and these problems are magnified by the fact that the Civil Service is doing little recruiting at a time when a retirement wave of baby-boomers is imminent.

For the armed services, the aforementioned trends have widened the cultural gap, between the military and the country at large, that continues to be affected by the abolition of the draft in the 1970s. While Americans admire the military, they are increasingly less likely to serve in it, to relate to its real dangers and hardships, or to understand its profound commitment requirements. With a total active strength of 1.4 million, only one-half of one percent of the nation serves in the military. Military life and values are thus virtually unknown to the vast majority of Americans.

The military's capabilities, professionalism, and unique culture are pillars of America's national strength and leadership in the world. Without a renewed call to military service and systemic internal personnel reform to retain quality people, the requisite leadership and professionalism necessary for an effective military will be in jeopardy. For this reason, the Commission asserted in its Phase II report that the "United States must strengthen the bonds between the American people and those of its members who serve in the armed forces."*83 We reaffirm that assertion here.

A. A NATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR SERVICE TO THE NATION

To remedy these problems, the Commission believes that a national campaign to reinvigorate and enhance the prestige of service to the nation is necessary to attract the best Americans to military and civilian government service. The key step in such a campaign must be to revive a positive attitude toward public service. It has to be made clear from the highest levels that frustrations with particular government policies or agencies should not be conveyed through the denigration of federal employees en masse. Calls for smaller government, too, should not be read as indictments of the quality of government servants. Instead, specific issues should be addressed on the merits, while a broader campaign should be waged to stress the importance of public service in a democracy.

Implementing such a campaign requires strong and consistent Presidential commitment, Congressional legislation, and innovative departmental actions throughout the federal government. We know this is a tall order, but we take heart in previous examples of such leadership. The clarion call of President John F. Kennedy, encompassed in but a few well-chosen remarks spread over several speeches, had enormous impact and inspired an entire generation to public service. We also remember how President Ronald Reagan reinvigorated the spirit of the U.S. military after the tragedies of the Vietnam War and subsequent periods of low funding and plummeting morale. What the President says, and how he says it, matters. Moreover, only the President can shape the Executive Branch agenda to undertake the changes needed in U.S. personnel systems.

While the President's involvement is central, other leaders must help build a new foundation for public service. Congress must be convinced not only to pass the legislative remedies proffered below, but also to change its own rhetoric to support national service. It must work with department heads and other affected institutions to ensure that a common message is conveyed, and that Executive departments and agencies have the flexibility they need to make real improvements.

Rhetoric alone, however, will not bring America's best talent to public service. The Commission believes that unless government service is made competitively rewarding to 21st century future leaders, words will surely fade to inaction. Section II of this report highlighted the urgent national need for outstanding science and technology professionals. So, too, does government need high-quality people with expertise in the social sciences, foreign languages, and humanities. The decreased funding available for these programs from universities and foundations may threaten the ability of the government to produce future leaders with the requisite knowledge-in foreign languages, economics, and history to take several examples-to meet 21st century security challenges.

Therefore this Commission proposes a complement to the National Security Science and Technology Education Act (NSSTEA) presented in recommendation 11 of this report. As in the case of the NSSTEA, which applies to math and hard science majors, we would extend scholarship and debt relief benefits to those social science, foreign language, and humanities students who serve the nation. We therefore make the following recommendation:

· 39: Congress should significantly expand the National Security Education Act (NSEA) to include broad support for social sciences, humanities, and foreign languages in exchange for military and civilian service to the nation.*84

The current National Security Education Act (NSEA) of 1991 provides limited undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships for students to study certain subjects, including foreign language and foreign area studies. The Act also allows the use of funds at institutions of higher learning to develop faculty expertise in the languages and cultures of less commonly studied countries. Recipients of these funds incur an obligation either to work for an office or agency of the federal government involved in national security affairs, or to pursue careers as educators for a period equal to the time covered by the scholarship.*85

An expanded Act would increase the subjects currently designated for study, offering one- to four-year scholarships good for study at qualified U.S. universities and colleges. Upon completion of their studies, recipients could fulfill their service in a number of ways: in the active duty U.S. military; in National Guard or Reserve units; in national security departments and agencies of the Civil Service; or in the Foreign Service. To prepare students to fulfill their service requirements, the scholarship program should include a training element. One model of this training might be a civilian equivalent of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) or Platoon Leader Course (PLC).*86

The Act should also provide for those who choose government service after completing their education. In those cases, the Act could offer several sorts of incentives in lieu of scholarships foregone. One such incentive would be the deferral of educational loan repayment while individuals serve in government. Another would reduce school loan principal amounts by a set percentage for every year the individual stays in government service up to complete repayment.*87 In such cases, the government would assume the financial obligations of the graduate, so that neither financial nor educational institutions suffer. The Commission believes the combination of the NSSTEA for math and science, and for other majors this significantly expanded NSEA will prepare Americans for many forms of service and more generally help recruit high-quality civil service and military personnel.

B. THE PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENTS PROCESS

A concerted campaign to improve the attractiveness of service to the nation is the first step in ensuring that talented people continue to serve in government. However, fundamental changes are also needed to personnel management systems throughout the national security agencies of government. Not least among the institutions needing reform is the Presidential appointments system.

The problem with government personnel starts at the top. Unlike many other countries, the United States staffs the high levels of its national government with many outside, non-career personnel. The most senior of these are Presidential appointees whose positions require Senate confirmation. While career personnel provide much-needed expertise, continuity, and professionalism, Presidential appointees are a source of many valuable qualities as well-fresh ideas, experience outside government, specialized expertise, management skills, and often an impressive personal dynamism. They also ensure political accountability in policy execution, by transmitting the President's policies to the departments and agencies of government. Indeed, the tradition of public-spirited citizens coming in and out of government is an old and honorable one, serving the country well from the days of George Washington. This infusion of outside skills is truly indispensable today, when the private sector is the source of so much of the country's managerial and technological innovation.

What a tragedy, then, that the system for recruiting such outside talent has broken down. According to a recent study, "the Founders' model of presidential service is near the breaking point" and "the presidential appointments process now verges on complete collapse."*88 The ordeal to which outside nominees are subjected is so great-above and beyond whatever financial or career sacrifice is involved-as to make it prohibitive for many individuals of talent and experience to accept public service. To take a vivid recent example: "The Clinton Administration . . . had great difficulty filling key Energy Department positions overseeing the disposal of nuclear waste because most experts in the field came directly or indirectly from the nuclear industry and were thus rejected for their perceived conflicts of interest."*89 The problem takes several forms.

First, there are extraordinary-and lengthening-delays in the vetting and confirmation process. On average, the process for those appointees who required Senate confirmation has lengthened from about two and one-half months in the early 1960s to an extraordinary eight and one-half months in 1996-suggesting that many sub-cabinet positions in the new administration will be fortunate to be in place by the fall of 2001.*90 As Norman Ornstein and Thomas Donilon point out: "The lag in getting people into office seriously impedes good governance. A new president's first year-clearly the most important year for accomplishments and the most vulnerable to mistakes-is now routinely impaired by the lack of supporting staff. For executive agencies, leaderless periods mean decisions not taken, initiatives not launched, and accountability not upheld."*91 The result is a gross distortion of the Constitutional process; the American people exert themselves to elect a President and yet he is impeded from even beginning to carry out his mandate until one-sixth of his term has elapsed.

Second, the ethics rules-conflict of interest and financial disclosure requirements-have proliferated beyond all proportion to the point where they are not only a source of excessive delay but a prohibitive obstacle to the recruitment of honest men and women to public service. Stacks of different background forms covering much of the same information must be completed for the White House, the Senate, and the FBI (in addition to the financial disclosure forms for the Office of Government Ethics). These disclosure requirements put appointees through weeks of effort and often significant expense. The Defense Department and Senate Armed Services Committee routinely force nominees to divest completely their holdings related to the defense industry instead of exploring other options such as blind trusts, discretionary waivers, and recusals.*92 This impedes recruiting high-level appointees whose knowledge of that industry should be regarded as a valuable asset to the office, not reason for disqualification.
The complexity of the ethics rules is not only a barrier and a time-consuming burden before confirmation; it is a source of traps for unwary but honest officials after confirmation. This is despite the fact that the U.S. federal government is remarkable for the rarity of real corruption in high office compared to many other advanced societies. Yet we proliferate "scandals" because of appearances of improprieties, or inadvertent breaches of highly technical provisions. Worse, these rules are increasingly matters of criminal rather than administrative remedies. It appears to us that those who have written these conflict of interest regulations themselves have little experience in such matters.

Third, and closely related, are the post-employment restrictions that a new recruit knows he or she must endure, particularly appointees subject to Senate confirmation. We will simply cease to attract talented outsiders who have a track record of success if the price for a few years of government service is to forsake not only income but the very fields in which they had demonstrated talent and found success. The recent trend has been to add to the restrictions. However, we applaud the recent revocation of Executive Order 12834 as an important step in removing some unnecessary restrictions.*93

A fourth dimension of the problem is the proliferation of Presidential-appointee positions. In the last 30 years, the number of Senate-confirmable Presidential-appointee positions throughout the federal government has quadrupled, from 196 to 786. Within the Defense Department, the figure has risen from 31 to 45 during the same period.*94 The growing number of appointees contributes directly to the backlog that slows the confirmation process. It also makes public service in many of these positions less attractive; as the Defense Science Board noted in the case of the Defense Department, "an assistant secretary post may be less attractive buried several layers below the secretary than as a number two or three job."*95 Moreover, Presidential appointments can hardly serve as a transmission belt of Presidential authority if multiple layers of political appointees diffuse accountability and make departments and agencies more cumbersome and less responsive. And it runs glaringly counter to the trend in today's private sector toward flatter and leaner management structures.
Finally, the appointments process feeds the pervasive atmosphere of distrust and cynicism about government service. The encrustation of complex rules is based on the presumption that all officials, and especially those with experience in or contact with the private sector, are criminals waiting to be unmasked. Congress and, especially, the media relish accusations or suspicions, whether substantiated or not. Yet the U.S. government will not be able to function effectively unless public service is restored to a place of honor and prestige, especially for private citizens who have achieved success in their chosen fields.

We need to rebuild the present system nearly from the ground up, and the beginning of a new administration is the ideal time to start. Our recommendations support those made in the Defense Science Board's Human Resource Study, in the joint survey undertaken by the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation, and by Norman Ornstein and Thomas Donilon. We therefore recommend the following:

· 40: The Executive and Legislative Branches should cooperate to revise the current Presidential appointee process by reducing the impediments that have made high- level public service undesirable to many distinguished Americans. Specifically, they should reduce the number of Senate confirmed and non-career SES positions by 25 percent; shorten the appointment process; and moderate draconian ethics regulations.

Reducing non-career positions would, as the Defense Science Board has noted, "allow more upward career mobility for Senior Executive Service employees and provide greater continuity and corporate memory in conducting the day-to-day business affairs of the Defense Department during the transition between administrations."*96 Recommendation 43 below to create a National Security Service Corps should help ensure that career employees develop the qualifications to be eligible to hold senior positions throughout the government.

The aim of reducing the number of Presidential appointees is not to weaken Presidential political authority over the bureaucracy, but to eliminate the excessive layering that clogs the government's functioning in addition to slowing the appointment process. That said, an exact balance between political and career appointees cannot be specified in the abstract. Both groups include skilled and talented people. But Presidents should be held to a qualitative standard-that political appointees, whether for Ambassadors or for policymaking positions in Washington, should be chosen for the real talents they will bring and not the campaign contributions they brought. [See recommendation 23]

To streamline and shorten the current appointment process, the President and leaders of the new Congress should meet as soon as possible to agree on the following measures.

· CONFIRM THE NATIONAL SECURITY TEAM FIRST. By tradition, the Senate foreign relations, armed services, and intelligence committees hold hearings before inauguration on the nominees for Secretaries of State and Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence, and vote on inauguration day. This practice should continue. Future Presidents should also present to the Senate no later than inauguration day his nominees for the top ten positions at State and at Defense and the top three posts at CIA. Leaders of the relevant committees should agree to move the full slate of appointments to the full Senate within 30 days of receiving the nomination (barring some serious legitimate concern about an individual nominee).*97

· REDUCE AND STANDARDIZE PAPERWORK REQUIREMENTS. The "Transition to Governing Project" jointly undertaken by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution is developing software that will enable appointees to collect information once and direct it to the necessary forms. The new President should direct all relevant agencies and authorities to accept these computerized forms and to streamline the paperwork requirements for future appointees.*98

· REDUCE THE NUMBER OF NOMINEES SUBJECT TO FULL FBI BACKGROUND CHECKS. Full field investigations should be required only for national security or other sensitive top- level posts. Most other appointees need only abbreviated background checks, and part- time or lesser posts need only simple identification checks.99 The risks to the Republic of such an approach are minor and manageable, and are far outweighed by the benefit that would accrue in saved resources and expedited vetting.

· LIMIT ACCESS TO FULL FBI FILES. Distribution of raw FBI files should be severely restricted to the chairman and ranking minority member of the confirming Senate committee.100 Nothing deters the recruitment of senior people more than the fear that their private lives will be shredded by the leakage of such material to the national media. To significantly revise current conflict-of-interest and ethics regulations, the President and Congressional leaders should meet quickly and instruct their top aides to make recommendations within 90 days of January 20, 2001. This Commission endorses retention of basic laws and regulations that prevent bribery and corrupt practices as well as the restrictions in the U.S. Code that ban former officials from lobbying their former agencies for one year. We also endorse lifetime prohibitions against acting as a representative of a foreign government and against making a formal appearance in reference to a "particular matter" in which he or she participated personally and substantially, or a matter under his or her official responsibilities. However, the Commission recommends two important actions:

· Conduct a comprehensive review of the regulations and statutory framework covering Presidential appointments to ensure that regulations do not exceed statutory requirements.

· Make blind trusts, discretionary waivers, and recusals more easily available as alternatives to complete divestiture of financial and business holdings of concern.

The conflict of interest regime should also be decriminalized. Technical or inadvertent misstatements on complex disclosure forms, or innocent contacts with the private sector, should not be presumptively criminal. The Office of Government Ethics should be enabled and encouraged to enforce the disclosure and post-employment statutes as civil or administrative matters; to decide questions expeditiously; and to see its job as clearing the innocent, as well as pursuing wrongdoers.

These recommendations can be accomplished through Executive Branch action, such as that which rescinded Executive Order 12834. Other recommendations, however, will require Congressional concurrence and action. We therefore urge the new President to take the initiative immediately with Congress to agree on future statutory reforms.

C. THE FOREIGN SERVICE

An effective and motivated Foreign Service is critical to the success of the Commission's restructuring proposal for the State Department [see Section III above].Yet among career government systems, the Foreign Service, which is set apart from other civilian personnel systems by its specialized entrance procedures and up-or-out approach to promotion, is most in need of repair.

While some believe the Foreign Service has retained much of its historical allure and cachet, many close observers contend that the Foreign Service no longer attracts or retains the quality of people needed to meet the diplomatic challenges of the 21st century. Overall educational competence in areas crucial to a quality Foreign Service-including history, geography, economics, humanities, and foreign languages-is declining, resulting in a shrinking pool of those with the requisite knowledge and skills for this service.*101 The proposed revision to the National Security Education Act [recommendation 39 above] is one response to this deficit.

Data indicate that recruitment is currently the Foreign Service's major concern.*102 There are now 25 percent fewer people taking the entrance exam as there were in the mid-1980s. Other careers, in corporations and non-governmental organizations, now offer many of the same opportunities on which the Foreign Service used to hold the monopoly: living overseas, learning foreign languages, and developing negotiating experience. These other opportunities generally pay better, do not entail the same level of austerity and danger often faced by Foreign Service officers posted abroad, and do not impose the same constraints on two-career families.

Beyond this lack of flexibility, many of the State Department's own policies are detrimental to attracting and keeping the highest quality people. The recruiting process is exceedingly slow, often taking two years from written exam to the first day of work. At a time when potential officers have many other career choices they may elect, this is a fatal weakness.

The oral exam also works at odds with the goal of attracting those with the range of knowledge (foreign policy, economics, cultural studies) and skills (languages, leadership, technology) necessary to an effective Foreign Service. The exam's "blindfolding" policy, whereby the examiners who decide who enters the Service know nothing about an applicant's background, has the admirable goal of ensuring a level playing field. But it runs completely counter to common sense in selecting the most qualified applicants.

The lack of professional educational opportunities currently afforded Foreign Service officers is also a problem both for the quality of those who stay and as a reason for those who leave. While the Foreign Service certainly needs more training in languages and emerging global issues, recent studies find an additional problem involving the lack of effective management and leadership throughout the State Department.*103 We therefore recommend the following:

· 41: The President should order the overhauling of the Foreign Service system by revamping the examination process, dramatically improving the level of on-going professional education, and making leadership a core value of the State Department.

In order to revamp the exam process, changes must be made to shorten the hiring process dramatically without compromising the competitiveness of the system. The Commission is encouraged by the use of the shorter Alternative Examination Program (AEP) which allows applicants (now limited to current government employees) to advance to the oral examination on the basis of their professional experience. Contingent upon evaluation of its success, this program should be broadened and other innovative approaches encouraged. If the written exam is retained, it might be administered by computer, allowing applicants to sit for the test at different times throughout the year.

In addition, the oral exam's blindfolding policy should end. While we sympathize with the aim of fair consideration for all, and with the State Department's eagerness to avoid legal harassment, this approach seriously damages the effectiveness of the examination process. It omits consideration of the professional and other experiences candidates may bring to the Foreign Service. It also makes it impossible for examiners to counsel applicants on the appropriateness of their backgrounds to particular cones (political, economic, consular, public diplomacy, or administrative). There is no legal requirement for this practice.

A successful Foreign Service also requires officers who are consistently building new knowledge and skills. As we recommend below for the Civil Service, the Commission endorses a ten to fifteen percent increase in personnel to allow for that proportion of the overall service to be in training at any given point.104 Current State Department professional development, focused mostly on languages, must be greatly expanded to ensure a diplomatic corps on the cutting edge of 21st century policy and management skills. We agree with the recommendations of McKinsey and the Overseas Presence Advisory Panel that call for a full range of mandatory educational courses in functional topics, languages, leadership, and management. Training milestones should be met in advance of promotions or advancements to supervisory positions.
Beyond problems with the exam process and the lack of professional development programs, all levels of the State Department suffer from a lack of focus on leadership and management. Improvements will require a cultural shift that must flow from the top. We urge future Presidents and Secretaries of State in selecting senior State Department officials to consider management strengths and departmental leadership abilities in addition to substantive expertise. Our proposal for restructuring the State Department [recommendation 19] is also aimed at fostering better management skills.

At lower levels, too, the State Department must develop sound talent management practices. We endorse many of the McKinsey report's findings: allow leaders more discretion in making key talent decisions; reduce time-in-grade requirements to allow the best performers to advance more quickly; and improve feedback to allow managers to gain from insights provided both from above and below.

Most of these problems can be handled effectively by the State Department without additional legislative mandate; yet some of these changes, particularly promoting professional education, require Congress to appropriate additional funds. The Department of State estimates that it would cost $200 million annually to create a ten to fifteen percent training float. The Commission endorses such an investment. Additionally, the Commission believes we must restore the external reputation of those who serve our nation through diplomatic careers. As a means of achieving this, we recommend changing the Foreign Service's name to the U.S. Diplomatic Service. This rhetorical change will serve as a needed reminder that this group of people does not serve the interest of foreign states, but is a pillar of U.S. national security.

D. THE CIVIL SERVICE*105

While there is disagreement as to the extent of the crisis in Civil Service quality, there are clearly specific problems requiring substantial and immediate attention.*106 These include: the aging of the federal workforce; the institutional challenges of bringing new workers into government service; and critical gaps in recruiting and retaining information technology professionals and those with less-common language skills. Most striking is how many of these problems are self-inflicted to the extent that departmental authority already provides some remedy if only the institutional will and budgetary resources were also available. Fixing these problems will make a major contribution to improving recruitment and retention.

A prominent problem confronting all of the Civil Service is its aging workforce. The post-World War II baby-boomer generation heeded President Kennedy's call to government service in unprecedented numbers, but the first of this age cohort will turn 55 in 2001. A retirement wave that will continue for the next eighteen years will reach crisis proportions in many departments. Nearly 60 percent of the entire civilian workforce is eligible for early or regular retirement today.*107 Within that overall figure, 27 percent of the career Senior Executive Service (SES) is eligible for regular retirement now; 70 percent will be eligible within five years.*108 This growing retirement wave is exacerbated by the small numbers of employees in their twenties and thirties in most agencies. When agencies such as the Department of Defense and those within the Intelligence Community chose to downsize through hiring freezes, they contributed to this trend.

While some have argued that the "Generation X" cohort is less inclined toward government employment, our analysis suggests that this cohort does see government as one of several desirable career tracks. If recruiting were resumed, many within this age group would seek federal jobs. This is suggested by the fact that the one current mechanism for bringing graduate students into government-the Presidential Management Internship program-has remained highly competitive.*109

Yet there are still two major problems in converting interest in government positions to actual service. First, many young adults have completed or are enrolled in graduate school, and thus carry a much heavier student loan burden than their predecessors. Our recommendations for expanding student loan forgiveness programs [recommendations 11 and 39] should help mitigate this problem.

Second, the length and complexity of most application and security clearance processes is devastating in an economy where private sector firms can make on-the-spot offers. In a survey of employees from the Departments of Commerce and the Treasury, fully 54 percent of Treasury respondents and 73 percent of Commerce respondents reported that it took at least four months to receive an offer from the time they submitted an application.*110 Departments must shorten the appointment and security clearance process.
Yet a third major problem for the civil service is the difficulty of attracting and retaining information technology (IT) professionals who are in great demand throughout the economy. To meet expected demand, the nation will need an additional 130,000 new IT workers each year through at least 2006. The federal government will also need more IT capability, requiring constant hiring to keep up with requirements. The strong demand for IT professionals in the private sector will insure a continuing pay gap between public and private opportunities, making it even more difficult for the government to attract needed talent. This is compounded by a growing "speed-to-seat metric"-a measure of the time taken to recruit, hire, and place an employee. It means that some government IT projects with compressed life-cycles, including some too sensitive to contract out, may expire before a new hire can even start the project.*111

Beyond recruiting difficulties, the federal government faces significant IT retention challenges. Deficiencies in governmental occupational structures and position descriptions contribute to the loss of IT personnel to the private sector. Corporations can alter the role of IT personnel rapidly as technology advances, while government position structures are comparatively sluggish. As a result, IT position descriptions in the government often do not match those in the private sector.*112

These trends pose particular problems for the national security community. IT professionals are needed not only for crucial support functions but also to help run sophisticated intelligence platforms. Lengthy security clearance processes and less competitive compensation packages make recruiting high-quality IT personnel for these purposes very difficult. There are also retention problems as younger IT civil servants are lured away by the private sector. The National Security Agency (NSA) reports growing attrition rates particularly among young professionals, the group most skilled in new technologies and most in demand.*113

There is a corresponding problem, though of lesser magnitude, for less common ("low density") languages. The United States faces a broader range of national security challenges in the post-Cold War world, requiring policy analysts and intelligence personnel with expertise in more countries, regions, and issues. The people most likely to bring these skills are native speakers of other languages with direct cultural experiences; yet members of this group often face the greatest difficulties in getting a security clearance. We therefore recommend the following:

· 42: The President should order the elimination of recruitment hurdles for the Civil Service, ensure a faster and easier hiring process, and see to it that strengthened professional education and retention programs are worthy of full funding by Congress.

The federal government must significantly increase recruiting programs through programs like the National Security Education Act [recommendation 39], which will link educational benefits to a service requirement. To anticipate the coming bow wave of retirements, the government needs to adopt a range of policies that make hiring and promotion practices more flexible. Some progress has been made, particularly in the IT field, in shortening the length of the hiring process. This is crucial to improving government competitiveness. Organizations like the Central Intelligence Agency (for its non-clandestine employees) have authorized recruiters to negotiate on-the-spot offers-including compensation packages-contingent upon successful completion of background investigation and polygraph requirements. These programs should be generalized throughout the national security community, not least for critical science and technology personnel.
The security clearance process itself must be revamped to provide for more efficient and timely processing of applications. There are several ways to go about this. One is to re-code intelligence community positions to allow some employees to start work before receiving the most sensitive security clearances. A bipartisan Executive-Legislative commission could be helpful in examining other methods of streamlining the security clearance process, while maintaining the rigor required for national security positions.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and individual agency personnel offices have designed many incentive programs to recruit and retain quality employees.*114 But many departments and agencies have not used these programs for lack of funds. Because all incentive programs are drawn from the same pool of money as that for salaries, administrators must trade off incentives for some employees against the ability to hire additional personnel. Additional funds must be provided to maximize agencies' options in recruiting and retaining high-quality personnel.

Similarly, existing authorities provide funds for professional education. Such opportunities are crucial in maintaining a knowledgeable cadre of national security professionals. Supporting employees' desire for professional development is also a means of ensuring retention. Yet the degree of downsizing in national security agencies has yielded a system whereby the workload of an employee on training must be split among others in the office, creating a powerful disincentive for managers to allow their best employees to pursue these opportunities. As a complement to proposals made for the Foreign Service, the Commission would apply the recommendation of the U.S. Overseas Presence Panel to all national security departments and agencies: that "the workforce structure and resources available for staff should take into account the ten to fifteen percent of employees who will be in training. . .at any given time."*115 Thus "full staffing" of a department or agency should be defined as a number ten to fifteen percent greater than the number of available positions.

We also need to give special priority to measures to secure and retain information technology (IT) talent in the most mission-critical areas while finding ways to outsource support functions.

For the mission-critical areas, this means using existing and seeking additional authorities to allow direct-hiring and to provide for more market-based compensation. While the government cannot completely close the pay gap with the private sector, higher salaries, signing bonuses, and performance rewards can narrow it. Some agencies have begun this effort by paying senior IT professionals market-based salaries.*116

Further, the Commission endorses the recommendation of the CIO Council, a group of departmental and agency Chief Information Officers, to use and expand existing OPM authorities to lift pay cap restrictions on former Civil Service and military employees.*117 For entry-level talent, we recommend expanding the newly authorized Cyber Corps, akin to the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, whereby the government would pay for two years of a student's schooling in exchange for two years of governmental IT service.

Efforts to retain young IT professionals should recognize that their career plans will likely not include a 30-year or even a ten-year stint in government service. OPM developed departmental flexibility for Y2K programs, including temporary appointments (one to four years) within the competitive service.*118 We believe such authorities should be instituted and expanded for IT professionals. In its own interest, the government needs to maximize the ease with which transitions can be made between government service and the private sector. Young employees' interest in staying may be prolonged through performance-based retention bonuses and through the establishment of a unique and adaptive career path for IT professionals that includes rotational assignments and better opportunities for education and responsibility. Such an effort might also permit the government to move IT capabilities more fluidly across departments and agencies.

Where appropriate, outsourcing IT support functions is still needed. NSA has already turned development and management of non-classified technology over to a private-sector contractor, allowing NSA to focus its in-house IT talent on developing and overseeing core intelligence technologies. More programs like this can be used to supplement the other steps outlined here.

The implementation of these proposals for the civil service will require a multifaceted approach. We believe the endorsement of these recommendations by the President would set a proper tone of importance and urgency. Because many recommendations will affect many departments, an interagency coordinating group should be convened to help OPM develop new provisions. From there, heads of departments and agencies can take steps to implement them. We know that some recommendations, such as improving the recruitment and retention of IT professionals, cannot be fully implemented in the near term. In such cases, we urge departments to set timelines for reaching goals and, for those issues that cross agency lines such as IT needs, departments and agencies should work collaboratively.

These recommendations also presuppose greater Congressional appropriations devoted to making these changes possible. The preceding analysis demonstrates that, in order to allow for critical professional education, agency end-strengths must be increased by ten to fifteen percent, requiring a significant increase in personnel funding.

Beyond training, an aggressive recruitment campaign will require additional funds as well. In proposing the information technology "cyber corps" program, the Clinton Administration requested $25 million annually to pay for two years of college for 300 students. IT positions that pay close to market rates will have considerably higher salaries than is currently the case; however, this group would be relatively small. Finally, IT outsourcing proposals are likely to save the government money on a net basis since the cost of contracted labor is less than that of paying civil servant salaries, benefits, and retirement contributions.*119
The national security component of the Civil Service is faced with an additional problem: the need to develop professionals with breadth of experience in the interagency process, and with depth of knowledge about substantive policy issues. Both elements are crucial to ensuring the highest quality policy formulation and analysis for the United States across a range of issues. They are also key to maintaining a robust national security workforce as professionals seek a diversity of experiences along their career paths.

The Commission's Phase II report argued that "traditional national security agencies (State, Defense, CIA, NSC staff) will need to work together in new ways, and economic agencies (Treasury, Commerce, U.S. Trade Representative) will need to work closely with the national security community."*120 Better integration of these agencies in policy development and execution requires a human resource strategy that achieves the following objectives: expanded opportunities to gain expertise and to experience the culture of more than one department or agency; an assignment and promotion system that rewards those who seek broad-based, integrative approaches to problem solving instead of those focused on departmental turf protection; and the erasure of artificial barriers among departments.

The current Civil Service personnel system does not achieve these objectives because career civilians in the national security field rarely serve outside their parent department.*121 We therefore recommend the following:

· 43: The Executive Branch should establish a National Security Service Corps (NSSC) to enhance civilian career paths, and to provide a corps of policy experts with broad- based experience throughout the Executive Branch.

Such a National Security Service Corps would broaden the experience base of senior departmental managers and develop leaders skilled at producing integrative solutions to U.S. national security policy problems.
Participating departments would include Defense, State, Treasury, Commerce, Justice, Energy, and the new National Homeland Security Agency-the departments essential to interagency policymaking on key national security issues. Members of the NSSC would not hold every position within these departments. Rather, each department would designate Corps positions. Members of the participating departments could choose to stay in positions outside the NSSC without career penalty. They would continue to be governed by the current Civil Service system. In order to preserve the firewall that exists between intelligence support to policy and policymaking, intelligence community personnel would not be part of the NSSC. A limited number of rotational spots, however, should be held in selected interagency intelligence community centers (such as the Non-Proliferation Center and the Counter-Terrorism Center) to allow members of the Corps to understand better intelligence products and processes.

While the Foreign Service will remain separate from the NSSC, an organic relationship between the Foreign Service and the NSSC needs to exist. Members of the Corps would be eligible to compete for all policy positions at the Department of State's headquarters while Foreign Service officers would be able to compete for NSSC positions in all the participating departments. In addition, NSSC personnel could fill select positions in some overseas embassies and at military unified commands. Over time, the difference between the Foreign Service and the NSSC could blur.

A rotational system and robust professional education programs would characterize the NSSC. In designating positions for Corps members, departments will need to identify basic requirements in education and experience. Rotations to other departments and interagency professional education would be required in order to hold certain positions or to be promoted to certain levels.*122 Of course, a limited number of waivers could be granted to allow departments to fill particular gaps as necessary.

While the participating departments would still retain control over their personnel and would continue to make promotion decisions, an interagency advisory group will be key to the NSSC's success. This group would ensure that promotion rates for those within the NSSC were at least comparable to those elsewhere in the Civil Service. They would help establish the guidelines for rotational assignments needed for a Corps member to hold a given position and for the means of meeting the members' educational requirements. Such guidance and oversight will help ensure that there are compelling incentives for professionals to join the NSSC. For this type of interagency program to be successful, employees must see it as being in their own best interest to meet these new requirements.

The Commission believes such a Corps can be established largely through existing departmental authorities and through new regulations from OPM. Specific legislative authority is not necessary.

E. MILITARY PERSONNEL
Today the military is having even greater difficulty recruiting quality people than the civilian sector of the government. Despite significant post-Cold War force reductions in recruiting goals, the Services have missed their quotas in some recent years.*123 Moreover, recruiting costs have risen by nearly one-third over the last four years, while DoD quality indicators of those enlisting have declined by 40 percent.*124 Some Services, struggling to fill ROTC programs with officer candidates, will continue to fall short for the next three years despite a much larger college population and reduced quotas for officer accessions.*125

Even more ominous are the problems in retaining quality personnel. Increased operational commitments are being carried out by a smaller number of military forces, which- along with aging equipment, stringent budgets, depleted family benefits, healthcare deficiencies, and spousal dissatisfaction-has engendered an atmosphere of widespread frustration throughout military ranks.*126 Job satisfaction has declined significantly, and increasing numbers of quality people are leaving military service well in advance of retirement, or, in other cases, are retiring as soon as they are eligible.*127 Moreover, data indicate that it is not just the junior officers who are leaving; retention of senior non-commissioned officers (NCOs) has declined as well.*128

The Commission believes retention in the Services is a growing problem in part because the triple systems of "up-or-out" promotion, retirement, and compensation do not fit contemporary realities. The Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA) of 1980 *129 mandates retirement at a specific time in an officer's career depending on rank,*130 or, in many cases, separation before retirement in cases of non-promotion up until the grade of O-4. This system itself stems, in part, from a 1947 assumption of a virtually unlimited pool of manpower geared for total war mobilization. The current environment, however, is very different. The supply of incoming personnel is limited and the skills required more specialized. Moreover, older people are not "unfit" for many of today's critical military tasks, and the country cannot afford to squander the investment in training and experience that military professionals possess. The military services do not need to retain everyone, but they do need most of all to retain superior talent for longer periods.
Without decentralizing the career management systems, introducing new compensation incentives, and providing an array of institutional rewards for military service, the Commission believes that the United States will be unable to recruit and retain the technical and educated professionals it needs to meet 21st century military challenges.

These problems call for four sets of changes. First, the enhancement of the professional military must proceed hand in hand with the reinvigorization of the citizen soldier. Indeed, confronting many threats to our national security, including those to the American homeland will necessarily rely heavily on reserve military components, as we have specified above in Section I, recommendation 6 in particular.

Second, we must change the ways we recruit military personnel. This means putting greater effort into seeking out youth on college campuses and providing grants and scholarships for promising candidates. The military must also innovate in such areas as rapid promotion, atypical career paths and patterns, and flexible compensation to attract and retain talented candidates. The Services must also offer a greater variety of enlistment options, including short enlistments designed to appeal to college youth, and far more attractive educational inducements.*131 This may include scholarships, college debt deferral and relief, and significantly enhanced GI Bill rewards in exchange for military service.

Third, we must change the promotion system. Promotion has been, and remains, a primary way to reward performance. But the rigidity of the promotion system often has the effect of either taking those with technical specialties away from the job for which they are most valuable, or failing to provide timely and sufficient incentives for quality personnel to stay in military service. In the Commission's view, the promotion system needs to be more flexible. Current law states that promotion rates must comply with Congressionally-mandated grade tables, which specify the number of personnel permitted in each grade by Service.*132 This denies needed flexibility. Moreover, promotion should be only one of many rewards for military service. The Services need the flexibility, beyond new forms of fair and competitive compensation, to provide institutional benefits, including more flexible assignments, incentive retirement options, advanced education, alternative career paths, negotiable leaves of absence, and rewards for career- broadening experiences. Promotion is an important tool to shape the force and enhance professionalism, but it should not be the only tool.

The fourth set of changes must address the military retirement system, which is centered on a twenty-year career path. If one serves fewer than twenty years or fails promotion to minimum grades, no retirement benefits are forthcoming either for officers or those in the enlisted ranks.*133 In this "all-or-nothing" system, junior personnel have to commit themselves to a long- duration career. For those who make a twenty-year career choice, the system induces them to leave the military in their early forties.134 In other words, the current system either requires separation at mandatory points for each grade, or actively entices all personnel who do make it to twenty years of service to leave at or just beyond that point.*135

Talented people in uniform, generally in their early forties, thus confront a choice between working essentially at "half pay," or beginning a second career at a time when they are generally most marketable.*136 To those with particularly marketable skills (e.g., pilots, information technology professionals, and medical personnel), the inducements to leave often prove irresistible. But such cases are only the most visible portion of a widespread problem that induces high performers of every description to abandon the military profession. Thus the armed services lose enormous investments in training, education, and experience at the very moment that many mid-grade officers and mid-grade and senior NCOs are poised to make their most valuable contributions.

We urge the President and the Congress to give the Services the flexibility to adapt and dramatically reshape their personnel systems to meet 21st century mission needs. The 1947/1954/1980 legislation*137 that defines military career management, coupled with legislation that governs military retirement and compensation, gives the Services too little authority to modernize and adapt their personnel systems at a time of accelerating change.138 Mandatory promotion rates, officer grade limitations for each Service, required separation points under "up- or-out," rigid compensation levels, special pay restrictions and retirement limits, collectively bind the Services to the point of immobility. Similar restrictions and disincentives apply to enlisted careers and particularly affect senior NCOs and technical specialists.

Earlier in this section we strongly recommended a major expansion of the National Security Education Act (NSEA), as well as the creation of the National Security Science and Technology Education Act (NSSTEA), to provide significantly better incentives for quality personnel to serve in government-civil and military. The Commission believes that these Acts are especially relevant to the recruitment of high-caliber military personnel. In particular, programs offering either college scholarships or college loan repayments in exchange for service after graduation will make uniformed service more attractive to all segments of the population.

National Defense Authorization Act 1999 (Public Law 106-65; U.S. Code, Title 10, §1409 (b) which restored to the military service members who entered military service after July 31, 1986, 50 percent of the highest three years average basic pay for twenty years of active duty service, rather than 40 percent under REDUX. Also, it provided for full cost of living adjustments (COLAs) rather than the Consumer Price Index (CPI) minus one percentage point under REDUX.

In addition to the enactment of an expanded NSEA and the creation of a NSSTEA, we propose the following complement:

· 44: Congress should significantly enhance the Montgomery GI Bill, as well as strengthen recently passed and pending legislation supporting benefits-including transition, medical, and homeownership-for qualified veterans.

The current version of the Montgomery GI Bill (hereafter GI Bill) is an educational program in which individuals first perform military service and then are eligible for educational benefits. While in military service, participants must authorize deductions from their salaries, to which the government then adds its contribution.*139 To receive benefits while still in service, service men and women must remain on active duty for the length of their enlistment. To receive benefits after service, one must receive an honorable discharge. The GI Bill is both a strong recruitment tool and, more importantly, a valuable institutional reward for service to the nation in uniform. Another important source of reward for military service is Title 38, which provides a range of veterans' benefits including medical and dental care, transition training, and authorization for Veterans Administration (VA) homeownership loans. Collectively, VA benefits are an institutional reward for honorable military service and integral to the covenant between those who serve in the military and the nation itself. Given the historical value, relevance, and proven utility of these programs, we recommend restoration and enhancements to them as a way of rewarding and honoring military service.

GI Bill entitlements should equal, at the very least, the median education costs of four- year U.S. colleges, and should be indexed to keep pace with increases in those costs.*140 Such a step would have the additional social utility of seeding veterans among the youth at elite colleges. The Bill should accelerate full-term payments to recipients, extend eligibility from ten to twenty years, and support technical training alternatives. The GI Bill's structure should be an institutional entitlement that does not require payments or cost-sharing from Service members. It should allow transferability of benefits to qualified dependents of those Service members who serve more than fifteen years on active duty. In addition, it should carry a sliding scale providing automatic full benefits for Reserve and National Guard personnel who are called to active duty for overseas contingency operations.

We also believe that funding for these GI Bill institutional entitlements is not sufficient and should be separated within the Defense budget to give the department more flexibility.*141 Additionally, Title 38, should be modified to reinforce medical, transition, and VA homeownership benefits for career and retired service members. We support recently proposed legislation on this and other veterans benefits, but believe that additional measures are still needed. Taken together, such changes would fulfill the nation's promise of real educational opportunities and place greater value on the service of military personnel. In addition, those in uniform are likely to serve longer to secure these greater benefits.

The laws that make military personnel systems rigid and overly centralized must be altered to provide the required flexibility to meet 21st century challenges. The Commission recommends the following:

· 45: Congress and the Defense Department should cooperate to decentralize military personnel legislation dictating the terms of enlistment/commissioning, career management, retirement, and compensation. Specifically, revised legislation should include the following acts:

· 1980 DEFENSE OFFICER PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT ACT (DOPMA): Provide Service Secretaries increased authority to selectively exempt personnel from "up-or out" career paths, mandatory flight assignment gates, the double pass-over rule,*142 mandatory promotion and officer/enlisted grade sizes, the mandatory retirement "flowpoints" by grade, and active duty service limits. The individual Services should be funded to test alternative career and enlistment paths that are fully complemented by modified compensation, promotion, and retirement/separation packages.

· 1999 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT: Permit testing of a conversion of the defined benefit systems to a partial defined contribution system, as well as early vesting schedules and other progressive alternatives to the current military retirement system. Allow the Services to shape modified retirement plans to complement alternative career paths and specialty service.

· U.S. CODE TITLE 37 (Compensation): Correct immediately the pay compression of senior NCOs in all the Services and test merit pay systems and alternative pay schedules based on experience, performance, and seniority.*143 Allow Service Secretaries discretion concerning continued flight pay for pilots undergoing non-flying career-broadening billets by modifying the 1974 Aviation Career Incentive Act.

· SYSTEM INTEGRATION: Reconcile a new DOPMA system (active duty) with ROPMA (Reserves), with the Technician Act (1968), the Guard AGR Act (National Guard), and with Civil Service personnel systems to facilitate and encourage increased movement among branches.
This Commission understands that implementing these recommendations will take time and require the support of the President, Congress, senior military officers, and Defense Department civilian leadership. We urge the creation of an Executive-Legislative working group that would set guidelines for service-centered trial programs. The working group should also evaluate new forms of enlistment options, selective performance pay, new career patterns, modified retirements for extended careers, and other initiatives that may support the Services. The group should undertake to estimate the projected costs as well as assess any unintended consequences that may result. At the same time, the Congressional Budget Office should further define and detail the costs of our proposed enhancements to the GI Bill and other veterans' benefits.

These recommendations will cost money. Treating the GI Bill's benefits as an entitlement, indexing tuition allotments with rising education costs, extending benefits to dependents, and enhancing veteran benefits to include medical, dental, and homeownership benefits will incur substantial costs. But we believe that the cost of inaction would be far more profound. If we do not change the present system, the United States will have to spend increasingly more money for increasingly lower-quality personnel. Moreover, balanced against the initial costs of an enhanced National Security Education Act and a National Security Science and Technology Education Act would be long-term gains in recruiting and retaining quality personnel that would more than offset these costs. A 1986 Congressional Research Service study indicated that the country recouped between $5.00 and $12.50 for every dollar invested in the original GI Bill enacted after World War II.*144 We believe this would also be the case under our proposed legislation. Moreover, there will be significant budgetary savings associated with reducing this high first-term attrition, as well as with improving the retention of both mid-level enlisted personnel and junior officers, particularly in technical specialties.*145

In sum, the Commission recommends major personnel policy reforms for both the civilian and the military domains. For the former, we emphasize the urgent need to revamp the Presidential appointment process for senior leadership, to attract talented younger cohorts to government service, to fix the Foreign Service, and to establish a National Security Service Corps that strengthens the government's ability to integrate the increasingly interconnected facets of national security policy. With respect to military personnel, our recommendations point to increasing the attractiveness of government service to high-quality youth, providing enhanced rewards for that service, and modernizing military career management, retirement, and compensation systems. Each of this Commission's recommendations aims to expand the pool of quality individuals, to decrease early attrition, and to increase retention. The need is critical, but these reforms will go along way to avert or ameliorate the crisis. In a bipartisan spirit, we call upon the President and Congress to confront the challenge. Let it be their legacy that they stepped up to this challenge and rebuilt the foundation of the nation's long- term security.

Continued in Part 5

Appendix & Footnotes

MainPage
http://www.rense.com

This Site Served by TheHostPros