Beyond Civil Service: The Changing Face

Of Public Personnel Management

Donald E. Klingner

Associate Dean and Professor of Policy and Management

College of Urban and Public Affairs

Florida International University

Miami, FL 33181-3600

305/919-5768 phone, 919-5980 fax

Dahlia Bradshaw Lynn

Assistant Editor, Policy Studies Review

Institute for Public Management and Community Service

Florida International University

Miami, FL 33199

305/348-1299 phone, 348-1273 fax

Draft #3: Prepared for presentation at the national conference of the American Society for

Public Administration, Atlanta, July 1, 1996. Not to be copied, quoted or cited without the

express written consent of the authors.

Beyond Civil Service: The Changing Face of Public Personnel Management

Contemporary public personnel management differs from the past because it is characterized by two emergent alternatives to traditional civil service systems for delivering public services: alternative mechanisms, and flexible employment relationships. These options are not new, but they are more commonplace than before. And when new public programs are designed, these alternatives have largely supplanted traditional public program delivery by "permanent" civil service employees hired through appropriated funds.

Under these circumstances, it is reasonable to ask how competent are public personnel managers to deal with human resource management under these new conditions, given that most of their training and experience has been in working with traditional civil service systems and collective bargaining arrangements. This paper will (1) clarify the alternatives to traditional public personnel management, (2) discuss their impact on the role of the public personnel manager, and (3) evaluate the adequacy of training in this area based on information gathered from a focus group of local government personnel managers.⁽¹⁾

Alternatives to Civil Service.

Historically, the assumption was that public services would be delivered by a staff of career civil service employees, working within the structure of centralized public agencies budgeted with appropriated funds. Today, none of these are true -- public programs are more than likely performed by alternative organizations or mechanisms rather than by public agencies (international City Management Association, 1989); and when public agencies are used, they are more likely to be staffed by contingent workers hired through flexible employment mechanisms rather than permanent employees protected by civil service regulations and collective bargaining agreements (Kilborn, 1995).

Alternative Mechanisms for Delivering Public Services:

Purchase-of-service agreements with other governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are commonplace. For example, Metropolitan Dade County, Florida now provides fire and rescue services to almost every small - and medium-sized municipality in Dade County (the exceptions are the cities of Hialeah, Miami Beach and Miami). These arrangements were negotiated because they offer persuasive advantages for both the county and the participating municipalities. For Dade County, there is the opportunity to expand services within a given geographic area, utilizing economies of scale. For municipalities, the arrangement offers the opportunity to reduce capital costs, personnel costs, and legal liability risks. In addition, because fire fighters are heavily unionized, purchase-of-service agreements offers the opportunity to avoid the immediate political and economic costs associated with collective bargaining.

As another example, many local governments contract with individual consultants or private businesses to conduct personnel services such as employee development and training. The use of outside consultants and businesses (hired under fee-for-service arrangements on an "as needed" basis) increases available expertise and managerial flexibility by reducing the range of qualified technical and professional employees that the agency must otherwise hire to provide training. The costs of service purchase agreements may actually be lower than the same function performed by in-house personnel, in that the government agency pays no personnel costs or associated employment taxes, and reduces its own legal liability risks.

Privatization is the performance of a formerly public function by a private contractor. It differs from service purchase agreements primarily in philosophy and scope. While service purchase agreements contract for delivery of a particular service to a public agency, privatization means abolition of the entire public agency, replacing the infrastructure with an outside contractor who then provides all services formerly provided by the public agency. Privatization has become commonplace over the past fifteen years because it offers all the advantages of service purchase agreements, but on a larger scale. Privatization has become routine in areas such as solid waste disposal, where there is an easily identifiable "benchmark" (standard cost and service comparison with the private sector), and where public agency costs tend to be higher because of higher pay and benefits (Mahtesian, 1994). But privatization is spreading rapidly in other areas that have previously been almost entirely the prerogative of the public sector: schools and prisons.

In 1994, the school board of a faded, working-class Pittsburgh suburb was facing desperate problems. It had the highest tax rate in the county; only one of 40 students who

took the Scholastic Assessment Test in the year from June 1993 to June 1994 scored above the national average of 950 on math and verbal test results; and the number of high school graduates had plummeted from 225 in 1978 to 60 in 1994. It sent layoff notices to teachers at one of four schools, and hired a Tennessee company to pick its own teachers and run the school. Not surprisingly, it made this decision over strong opposition from unionized teachers and school administrators, who intimated that the purpose was union-busting rather than educational reform. A state court issued an injunction forbidding the contact; the district is considering an appeal (Applebome, 1995).

In 1990 a record of over one million people were incarcerated in federal and state prisons. Despite heavy increases in prison construction, most states have been at capacity for the past five years. Privatization is one option for increasing government performance while attempting to hold down costs. During the past five years, a number of private corporations have gotten into the business of managing prisons, halfway houses, boot camps, and detention facilities. These organizations offer elected officials an alternative to public construction and management of prison facilities, which is a soaring cost for most state governments (Sullivan and Purdy, 1995).

Franchise Agreements often allow private business to monopolize a previously public function within a geographic area, charge competitive rates for it, and then pay the appropriate government a fee for the privilege. Examples are private shuttle bus companies which are developing in many major cities, utilizing vans instead of buses. The vans

frequently duplicate public transportation services by "skimming" riders off of popular bus routes; however, municipalities often encourage the procedure because it reduces their own costs, provides some revenue in return, and results in a continuation of a desirable public service.

Subsidy Arrangements enable private businesses to perform public services, funded either by user fees to clients or cost reimbursement from public agencies. Examples include airport security operations (provided by private contractors and paid for both by passengers and airlines), some types of hospital care (for example, emergency medical services provided by private hospitals and reimbursed by public health systems), and some higher education programs. For example, a state may choose to subsidize a private university by paying it to operate a specialized program, rather than to assign responsibility and resources for it to a public institution. It is because of subsidy arrangements that the University of Miami, a private institution with a prestigious (and expensive) medical center, receives more appropriated funds from the state of Florida than does Florida International University, the state university in Miami. Or local housing authorities may choose to subsidize rent in public housing projects based on tenant income to encourage occupancy by low-income residents

Vouchers enable individual recipients of public goods or services to purchase them from competing providers on the open market. Recent public opinion has focused on educational vouchers as a possible alternative to public school monopolies. Under this

system, parents would receive a voucher that could be applied to the cost of education for their child at a number of competing institutions -- public schools, private schools, etc. Another variant is housing vouchers as a substitute for publicly constructed and managed housing. These vouchers would allow public housing recipients to purchase the best possible housing on a competitive basis from available private landlords.

Volunteers are widely used by a range of public agencies to provide services that might otherwise be performed by paid employees. These include community crime watch programs, which work in cooperation with local police departments. Volunteer teachers' aides provide tutoring and individual assistance in many public schools.

Self-Help is common in community development programs and correctional facilities. Community development programs frequently use residents on a volunteer basis to provide recreation, counseling, and other support services for a community. Frequently, such contributions are required to "leverage" a federal or state grant of appropriated funds. Contrary to the popular image of prisons as vacation resorts, prison inmates are usually responsible for laundry, food service, and facilities maintenance.

Regulatory and Tax Incentives are typically used to encourage the private sector to perform functions that might otherwise be performed by public agencies with appropriated funds. The Job Partnership Training Act (JPTA), for example, was a tax incentive-based national system for manpower training that replaced CETA. CETA (the Comprehensive Education and Training Act), was a federally-funded program that passed money through to

state and local governments for assessment, training, and job placement activities. Its successor, the Job Training Partnership Act, offered income tax deductions for corporations that hired, trained and retained disadvantaged individuals as employees. The intended effect -- human resource development and employment -- was the same as with CETA, only the mechanism was different.

Regulatory incentives include the zoning variances granted to condominium associations. Frequently, construction requires variances for roads, parking, waste collection and disposal. In return for these variances, the condominium association agrees to provide many services normally performed by local government. These "shadow governments" provide security (if the condominium has a gated entrance), waste disposal, public works (maintenance of common areas), etc. This may seem an unfair arrangement to the residents, who pay both maintenance fees to the condominium association and local property taxes for the same services (which are not provided by the municipality). But it does explain the increasing popularity among builders and residents of condominiums. The lower unit cost of these residences often makes them the only low or moderate housing available. Additionally, they would not have been approved by local planning councils or zoning boards unless the contractor had agreed in advance to require the condominium association to be responsible for services that otherwise would be the municipality's responsibility.

Flexible Employment Relationships for the Remaining Public Employees.

All of the above mechanisms are used for providing public services without utilizing public employees, and in many cases through other funding sources besides appropriated funds. Yet even in those cases where public services continue to be provided by public employees working in public agencies funded by appropriations, massive changes have occurred in employment practices. Chief among these are increased use of temporary, part-time, and seasonal employment; and increased hiring of exempt employees (those outside the classified civil service) through employment contracts. These two devices, along with the increased use of outside contractors, have markedly changed the face of the public work force (U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 1994).

Increasingly, employers reduce costs and enhance flexibility by meeting minimal staffing requirements through "permanent" employees, and by hiring "contingent" (temporary, part-time or seasonal) workers to meet peak workload demands. These positions usually offer lower salaries and benefits than career positions and employees can be hired and fired "at will" (without reference to due process entitlements of civil service employees, or collective bargaining agreements). Skill requirement of these jobs are reduced by job-redesign or work simplification. Where commitment and high skills are required on a temporary basis, employers may seek to save money or maintain flexibility by using contract or leased employees to positions exempt from civil service protections.

Exempt positions are classified, in that positions must be created and funded before they can be filled. But they are not classified within civil services systems, so their incumbents are not "permanent" (at least, not in the sense of having a property interest in their positions). Instead, the terms and conditions of these positions are specified through performance contracts specifying pay and benefits, and limiting the term of employment. While contracts may be routinely renewed with the approval of the employee and the employer, employees may also be discharged "at will" in the event of a personality conflict, a change in managerial objectives, or a budget shortfall. Frequently, once civil service employees become exempt, they lose their "bumping rights" back into a classified position in the event of a reduction in force (RIF). Increasingly, managerial and technical employees are hired into these types of contracts. Increasing the salary and benefits that can be offered to highly qualified employees also enhances managerial flexibility to trim personnel costs quickly should this be necessary, without having to resort to the bureaucratic chaos precipitated by the exercise of "bumping rights" during a RIF situation.

The impact of these two devices is accelerated by retirement "buyouts," which offer employees close to retirement age an incentive to retire early within a limited period of eligibility ("window"). In a typical example, employees with 17-20 years service (in a jurisdiction with a 20-year eligibility requirement for retirement) may be offered, for a limited time period of two months, the opportunity to resign and receive retirement benefits equal to those they would have received with three additional years service. And the employer may even "sweeten the pot" by offering to pay its share of the cost of employee and family health benefits during the early retirement period (before the employee is eligible for Medicare). If the plan is designed properly so that enough employees retire to save substantially, but enough stay to provide for organizational continuity and skills, both employer and employee benefit. The employee gets an option to retire early at close to current salary; the employer gets to fill the vacant position with an entry-level employee at a much lower salary. The major drawback for the municipality is unexpectedly large lump-sum payments for accrued annual leave or sick leave. For example, the City of Miami estimates that it will need to find $10 million to compensate 339 employees who elected early retirement. The highest payout is $87,000; the average is $20,000 (Cavanaugh, 1995).

Impact on the Role of the Public Personnel Manager

The emergence of alternative personnel systems has meant changes in the role of the public personnel manager, and the comparative importance of human resource functions. First, historical traditions emphasizes the technical side of personnel management, with less emphasis on policy-related analytical work, relationships with outside organizations, and decision making among conflicting values. In addition, both employees and line management are seen as clients, both being served through the merit system. The traditional department's work includes record keeping and the processing of personnel transactions, especially in smaller government agencies or units.

A more contemporary view emphasizes different activities and relationships. While the traditional functions continue to be important, they are relatively less important than the "brokering" or mediating of conflicts among competing personnel systems. For example, the modern personnel director might be called upon to prepare cost-benefit analyses of alternative pay and benefit proposals related to collective bargaining with employees in the solid waste department. At the same time, he or she might also be asked to evaluate the comparative feasibility, productivity, and cost of privatizing or contracting this entire function out (thus making the collective bargaining analysis obsolete). Or, since the majority of employees in department are minorities, the director might be asked to assess the impact of contracting out on the city's overall level of affirmative action compliance. Modern personnel directors do not work in isolation; rather, they work closely with other officials within their own agency (budget directors, attorneys, collective bargaining negotiators, affirmative action compliance officers, and supervisors) and outside it (legislative staff, union officials, affirmative action agencies, civil service boards, health and life insurance benefit representatives, pension boards, ethics commissions, and employee assistance programs dealing with substance abuse and other personal problems) (Klingner and Nalbandian, 1993).

Most public personnel departments have moved cautiously into the modern era because of their traditional reluctance to be identified with or become involved in "politics." Yet as their function is increasingly viewed as the development and management of human resource systems involving the reconciliation of value conflicts, they are overcoming this

reluctance and working outside the confining environment of the civil service system. This expanded role brings benefits as well as risks. Human resource professionals are able to bring their expertise to bear on a range of critical human resource issues in a variety of contexts -- issues traditional personnel managers might define as falling outside their area of responsibility. For example, they can work with legislators on privatization and benefits issues, with labor negotiators on alternative pay and grievance procedures, and with affirmative action compliance agencies on affirmative action proposals or minority business contracting procedures. By asserting their central role in the most critical issues of agency management, they are developing not only their own professional status, but the status of their profession.

Changes in Job Duties.

The use of non-governmental organizations reduces the absolute number of public employees, thereby diminishing the human resource functions of the personnel department -- especially those functions relating to acquisition, development, and sanction of public employees. However, it does increase the importance of planning, which is necessary to estimate the type and number of contract employees needed to provide a desired level of service; share in developing contract proposals for outside organizations; monitor contract compliance and evaluate responses to proposals by comparing costs and services.

The use of volunteers and self-help means that personnel directors work increasingly

with citizen volunteers and community-based organizations, much as personnel directors for not-for-profit organizations (community recreation programs, hospitals, and schools) have traditionally used volunteers to supplement paid staff. In these cases, public personnel managers need to become more skilled in recruitment, selection, training, and motivation of volunteer workers.

Flexibility in employment relationships is achieved primarily by the increased use of temporary, part-time, and seasonal employment; and by increased hiring of exempt employees (those outside the classified civil service) through employment contracts. Use of contingent employment relationships generally means less emphasis on planning and employee development, at least for these employees. These organizations are typically staffed for minimum workload levels and additional employees are added as needed based on fluctuations in workload.

Development of these employees (through training, performance evaluation, or motivation) is largely irrelevant. Contingent workers are hired with the skills needed to perform the job immediately. Performance evaluation is unnecessary -- if they do their jobs adequately, they get paid; if not, they get fired. Their motivation is financial, perhaps augmented by the chance of being hired into a civil service position if any vacancies become available.

Nor is the sanction function particularly important for public personnel managers with respect to these workers. Of course, employers are required to maintain a safe and healthy workplace; but compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act are not required for temporary, part time, or seasonal workers. Nor is it at all difficult, from the employers's perspective, to maintain the terms of the employment relationship -- "at will" employment means just that. Like political appointments, but unlike their civil service counterparts, "at will" employees have no right to retain their jobs. They are excluded from internal grievance procedures and can be discharged for any reason, or for no reason, without management having to justify the termination.

Changes in Job Objectives.

The evolution of public personnel management values and systems has meant corresponding changes in the fundamental objectives of public personnel management (Ban and Riccucci, 1991). During the development of public personnel management as part of the transition from patronage (Stage One) to merit systems (Stage Two), public personnel management functioned as the champion of merit system principles. The growth of public personnel management regulations and procedures occurred within the context of civil service systems whose development was characterized by a bipolar dynamic of competition between political patronage appointments (the "spoils system") and civil service appointments (the "merit system") (Heclo, 1977; Freedman, 1994). In this context, the public personnel manager was viewed as a moral guardian responsible for protecting employees, applicants and the public from the evils of the spoils system. This required knowledge of civil service policies and procedures, and a willingness to apply them in the face of political pressure.

During Stage Three (1933-1964), public personnel managers sought to maintain

compliance with civil service rules and regulations and limit patronage appointments,

while legislators and chief executives sought to maintain bureaucratic compliance, efficiency and accountability through budgetary controls and position management. Through such devices as personnel ceilings and average grade level restrictions, it became the role of public personnel management to control the behavior of public managers and to help assure compliance with legislative authority. In effect, it was the responsibility of public personnel managers to synthesize two distinct values (bureaucratic compliance as the operational definition of organizational efficiency) and civil service protections as the embodiment of employee rights). There was tension between them because they were both symbiotic and conflicting (Fischer, 1945; and Sayre, 1948). Taken to extremes, either would diminish the other; in moderation, both supported the concept of an qualified and effective public service that was at the heart of bureaucratic theory and scientific management.

During Stage Four (1964-1992), due to a variety of political and economic pressures, the focus of public personnel management shifted to work management as managers and public personnel specialists continued to demand flexibility and equitable reward allocation through such alterations to classification and pay systems as rank-in-person personnel

systems, broad pay banding, and group performance evaluation and reward systems. This trend coincided with employee needs for utilization, development, and recognition (National Performance Review, 1993). In addition, because this period was characterized by a dynamic and self-correcting equilibrium among four competing values, the role of the public personnel manager involved political (mediating and conflict resolution) skills in addition to technical knowledge. During this period, public personnel managers functioned as interpreters and mediators of four conflicting values. Intuitively, maintaining an acceptable balance among four conflicting pro-government values was difficult, yet it gave value to the profession because of the political, professional, and technical skills it demanded of personnel managers (Klingner, 1979; Nalbandian, 1981; Nalbandian and Klingner, 1987).

Because the current period (Stage Five) has emerged so recently, the ways in which it is changing the role of the public personnel manager are not yet entirely clear. But it is possible to predict the probable impact.

Public personnel managers will still be required to be good managers under Stage Five, but the definition of "good management" is narrow by previous standards. First, public personnel managers are required, more than ever, to manage government employees and programs in compliance with legislative mandates for cost control. Given the common legislative presumption that the public bureaucracy is an enemy to be controlled rather than a tool to be used to accomplish public policy objectives, public personnel managers in the future may have less opportunity to exercise professional responsibilities in balancing conflicting values. The scope of their authority may be diminished by legislative micromanagement, or the value of cost control may be so dominate as to preclude other considerations -- even concern for employee rights, for organizational efficiency, or social equity.

Second, "good management" may in time comprise skills that are more directed to minimizing maximum loss (such as risk management and contract compliance) than to maximizing human development and organizational performance for permanent employees. "People skills" will continue to be important. For example, public personnel managers will increasingly be responsible for developing and managing a range of public employment systems for contract, temporary, and "at will" employees. They may be required to work increasingly with volunteers and community-based not-for-profit organizations that increasingly constitute the social safety net by which the value of community responsibility is carried out. Civil service and collective bargaining continue to be important, for many public employees (particularly school teachers and administrators, police and firefighters) are still covered by union contracts and collective bargaining agreements. But risk management, cost control, and management of other types of employment contracts will become more important than ever. In this sense, substituting a calculating perspective for an optimistic view of the joint possibilities for organizational productivity and individual growth represents a narrowing of the public personnel manager's perspective.

It is noteworthy that the search and screen process for the personnel director of a mid-sized Florida city resulted in the highest ranking being given to a person with no previous civil service personnel experience. Instead, this person was a labor attorney with extensive private-sector experience negotiating and administering employment contracts with outside vendors and contractors.

The impact of changing values and public personnel systems on the role of the public personnel manager can be seen in Table 1 below. The dominant values and systems represented by Stage One through Stage Four repeat the information given in Figure 1; the left-hand column summarizes the above analysis of the public personnel manager's role in each stage.

Table 1:

The Role of the Public Personnel Managager in the United States

It is evident from this analysis that the field of public personnel management is turbulent and transitional. Some traditional public personnel departments continue to function as technical staff agencies within an environment characterized by agreement on values. This role is most common for personnel departments or civil service boards operating within civil service systems in homogeneous political environments. More progressive departments might be called upon to take a more active role in designing, implementing, or evaluating human resource management systems within an agency that operates in an environment characterized by disagreement on personnel systems and values.

A good example of this type of environment is the personnel systems found in some state court systems. First, state judges are elected, and appoint their primary administrators. Second, some court administrators are appointed "at will" to exempt positions by the Chief Judge. However, these are not political appointments, in that applicants must meet stringent qualifications. Third, some court employees may be covered by county civil service systems (including probation officers). Fourth, some court employees (such as process servers) are officers of the court because they discharge official functions, yet they are paid on commission by private attorneys. Fifth, family law cases are often assigned to court-appointed mediators selected at random and paid by the court as independent contractors.

It is important to recognize that the court administrator is the chief administrative officer, responsible among other things for budget and personnel management. This means dealing with multiple levels of government, multiple funding sources, and multiple personnel systems simultaneously.

These activities usually require the use of analytical human resource management information systems. For example, they might conduct analyses like the cost of absenteeism, sick leave abuse, and fringe benefits for the agency. They might distribute and evaluate ratings on employee performance evaluation systems to measure their effect on productivity. They might experiment with new techniques for selecting employees (such as assessment centers), or new techniques of job design intended to meet employee needs and increase employee productivity (such as job sharing or flextime). They might be responsible for developing policies and procedures for substance abuse testing; for developing proposals for establishing EAPs (employee assistance programs) to help employees maintain productivity while resolving personal problems; or for encouraging QCs (quality circles), groups of employees responsible for proposing and implementing changes in procedures to make the organization more productive. They might be called upon to monitor the frequency of turnover in various departments, "cost out" proposed changes in pay and benefits, and monitor the compliance of benefits contractors with previously negotiated contracts.

Changes in Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities.

Traditional public personnel management requires that personnel directors know the laws and regulations that control practices within a particular system, as well as the techniques used to perform personnel functions within that system. For example, traditional civil-service-oriented personnel management requires knowledge of civil service rules and regulations (such as competitive examination procedures, or how to select from a list of eligible applicants), as well as how to develop and administer examinations, write job descriptions, administer pay and benefit programs, and process personnel actions.

Contemporary public personnel management requires these skills and more. It requires a knowledge of public personnel management techniques, an understanding of historical developments in the field, and the ability to resolve ethical dilemmas among competing values under conditions of change and uncertainty. Personnel rules and procedures are not value-neutral; rather, they are the implicit or explicit implementation of a particular public personnel system (or compromises among several such systems). This means that each selection or promotion decision must be viewed not merely as a technical exercise, but as a case that reflects and exemplifies this historical conflict over alternative values, power, and public personnel systems.

Public personnel directors must be sensitive to the need for administrative systems to be responsive to legitimate political values and public participation in governance, especially in local government. These kinds of changes inevitably challenge the shield that the rhetoric of "merit" has provided the traditional manager. Now there is no escaping the political pressure personnel managers must face. They work under consent decrees and with unions that traditionally have set barriers to hiring women and minorities. At the same time, they are expected to respond to their political leaders while maintaining the integrity of the civil service system they oversee. Yet they have no guidance from within the traditional civil service system for how to integrate these increasingly insistent and conflicting demands.

3. How Well are Public Personnel Managers Prepared for these Changes?

Given that the emergence of two new alternative public personnel systems has brought about changes in the duties, objectives, and skills required of personnel managers, it might be useful to assess how well prepared they consider themselves to function in this new environment. What follows is the results of a focus group discussion held among 19 public managers and officials, primarily public personnel managers, to discuss their use of alternative systems, their actual and desired extent of involvement in choosing these strategies, the amount and source of their information about these systems, and desired topics for further training. A complete focus group questionnaire and copy of the responses is provided at the end of the article.

Of the 19 participants, the typical participant was a local government personnel director with a graduate degree, working for an agency with over 500 employees.

All of the participants' employers use some alternatives to traditional civil service systems, with purchase of services from outside vendors being universal. Most use purchase of service from other government agencies, privatization, volunteers, self-help, and regulatory and tax incentives. Some use franchise agreements and subsidy arrangements. Almost none use vouchers.

In the future, most respondents predict about the same usage of part-time civil service and exempt employees, less usage of civil service employees, and more usage of full-time exempt and contract employees.

The typical respondent reported that they had shared responsibility, though not primary responsibility, for choosing these alternatives to civil service. This was consistent with their expectations. Most reported that the most important decision-maker had been elected/appointed officials, followed in second place by managers and budget directors, with human source directors ranked third.

Most participants reported that they needed some or much information on these alternatives to function effectively. There main sources of information are professional associations and journals, classes and seminars, and other human resource professionals. This is as they think it should be. But a majority reported having received no formal training on the subject during the past two years. Those who reported receiving formal training indicated that it was for the most part self-initiated, and paid for by themselves rather than their employer.

When asked what topics should be covered, they responded as follows. Because civil service at some level will always be present, some comparison of benefits and costs with those of alternative personnel systems. Public personnel managers should be taught how to deal with political and union opposition to changing a civil service system, including getting rid of it as an option. Elected and appointed officials should also be trained on civil service systems and alternatives.

Beyond civil service, personnel managers need training in how to select outside contractors and administer outside contracts. Training should include more detail on actual

case examples. Closer to home, more attention should be given to alternatives for performing the human resource function itself.

Outside vendors should be trained in how to prepare responses to RFPs (requests for proposals) developed by government agencies.

Most importantly, this issue should be looked at from all angles with a view toward long term objectives for a viable system, not a bandaid or quick fix.

Conclusions and Recommendations.

These findings are quite preliminary, consisting as they do of the results of one focus group in one locality. However, some conclusions seem evident, at least as working hypotheses for further study. First, local governments' use of alternatives to civil service delivery of public programs is already widespread, and expected to become more prevalent in the future. Second, as they expect, public personnel managers have considerable involvement in the choice of these alternatives. Third, because formal training in public personnel management is usually based around civil service systems and collective bargaining, public personnel managers do not consider themselves adequately trained in this area. Fourth, existing organizations and mechanisms (particularly other human resource managers, professional associations, training, and professional journals) are considered sufficient for this training, though most have not had training in this area.

Beyond this, it is clear that public personnel managers themselves are aware that the

change to alternative personnel systems is a significant choice for public agencies (Walters, 1992; and Osborne and Gaebler, 1992). They wish that elected and appointed officials, those they consider as having the primary role in making these decisions, had more training and insight into the comparative advantages and disadvantages of alternative public personnel systems, including civil service (Cohen and Eimicke, 1994; and Peters and Savoie, 1994).

Alternatives to Civil Service

Focus Group Work Sheet1. What is your position?

_7___ Personnel Director/staff _3___ Elected/Appointed Official

_0___ Budget Director/staff _7___ Other ____________________

_2__ Program Manager

* (risk management coordinator, benefits administrator, consultant, administrative assistant,

county administrator, department police chief, police manager)

2. What is your level of educational background?

_4___ BS/BA __5__ some graduate course work

_9___ MPA/MBA/MA/MS __1__ law degree or other professional degree

3. What professional associations do you belong to?

IMPA (7), NPELRA (2), FPPA (3), FRMA (1), ICMA (1), SHRM (6), NHRW (1), IPMA (3), SCBA (1), FPCA (1), ASPA (2), GMCC (12), NACSC (1), PRIMA (1), FAC (1), NFRPA (1), ABA (1), NACO (1)

4. What level of government are you employed by?

_ 0__ State Government _7___ County Government

_ 0__ Federal Government _0___ School District

_10__ City/Town/Village Government _1___ Other ___________________

5. What specific agency do you work for?

see sign up sheet

6. How many employees does your agency have?

_2___ fewer than 50 employees __2__ 350 - 500 employees

_1___ 50 - 200 employees _14__ over 500 employees

_0___ 200 - 350 employees

7. Does your government use any of these NeverSometimes Often

mechanisms for delivering public services?

(If "sometimes or "often," please give an example):

a. purchase of services from outside

vendors? example:__________________________ __0__ __8__ _9___

b. purchase of services from other government

agencies?_________________________________ __4__ __10__ _3___

c. privatization?______________________________ __2__ __13__ _1___

d. franchise agreements?_______________________ __6__ __6___ _2___

e. subsidy arrangements?______________________ __6__ __6___ _1___

f. vouchers?________________________________ __7__ __2__ _0___

g. volunteers?_______________________________ __1__ __9___ _6___

h. self-help?_________________________________ __2__ __7__ _5___

i. regulatory and tax incentives?______________ __2__ __8___ _3___

j. other?____________________________________ __0__ __1___ _0___

8. To what extent have you been involved in decisions about choosing any of the alternative strategies to civil service?

_0___ We don't use alternatives

_4___ I have played no part in these decisions

_3___ I was told to implement the decisions

_6___ I shared responsibility

_4___ I had a major role

_2___ I developed the policy

9. What is your expectation of involvement in decisions regarding the choice of any alternative strategies to your present system?

__5__ A great deal

__9__ somewhat

__2__ not too much

__1__ none at all

10. Please rank the three most important decision makers regarding alternatives to the civil service in your organization: (Indicate your choices with 1, 2 or 3) #1 #2 #3

_____ elected/appointed officials 12 2 1

_____ budget director 0 5 3

_____ risk management 0 1 0

_____ managers 3 5 0

_____ legal counsel 0 1 5

_____ human resource professionals 1 2 8

_____ other 0 1 0 (unions)

11. What percentage of these employees were/are/will be in each of these categories?

Five Years Ago Now Five Years From Now

a. temporary employees 0 0-10 same

b. part-time civil service employees 0 0-10 same

c. part-time exempt employees 0 0-5 same

d. full-time civil service employees 0 30-95 fewer (15-95)

e. full-time exempt employees 0 0-30 more (10-30)

f. seasonal employees 0 1-10 same (1-10)

g. contract employees (individual) 0 0-20 more (5-35)

h. contract employees (off-site company) 0 0-10 more

Total 100% 100% 100%

12. How much information on alternatives to the civil service system do you think you need to do your job well?

_9___ a great deal

_7___ some

_1___ not too much

_2___ none

13. Please rank the three main sources of your information regarding alternatives to civil service: #1 #2 #3

_____ elected/appointed officials 3 2 0

_____ professional associations/journals 6 3 5

_____ lawyers 0 2 1

_____ seminars/courses/classes 5 7 3

_____ risk managers 0 0 0

_____ budget director 0 2 2

___ other human resource professionals 6 2 5

14. What do you think should be the three main sources of your information regarding alternatives to civil service: #1 #2 #3

_____ elected/appointed officials 3 0 1

_____ professional associations/journals 5 3 3

_____ lawyers 0 0 1

_____ seminars/courses/classes 5 6 1

_____ risk managers 1 0 0

_____ budget director 0 4 0

___ other human resource professionals 6 2 7

15. In the past two years, have you received any formal training on this subject? (If any of the following, specify length of training in hours)

11: none, except for this training seminar

Hours: 41 training seminar (on-site _____ or off-site all )

Hours: 12 professional association conference

Hours: 0 other (specify:________________________________________________)

16. If you have had any formal training in this area, please answer the following: six responses

a. paid for by my employer ___3_____ orI paid for it _3____

b. self-initiated ______6_________ ormandated by my employer

c. who has provided this training to you? professional associations

what were the most important topics covered by the training? privatization, contracting out or outsourcing, purchasing of services from other government agencies/sources and collective bargaining

17. What topics should be covered besides those included in this training seminar?

- Dealing with political and union mindset in changing a civil service system

- Budget impacts

- How to get rid of civil service!

- contract administration; contract selection process

- This was very good

- Assumption -- civil service at some level shall always be present. As such, discussion of basic tenets of a merit system.

- More detail on actual case examples.

- Elected official training.

- Am looking at this from the perspective of what Henderson Mental Health center could offer government (HRS, etc) vs. the other way around.

- A little more discussion of alternatives to civil service within the HR function itself.

- A whole day can be devoted to focusing on the problems with civil service, and why alternatives are needed.

- Topic covered well.

- Education of elected and appointed officials to the existing civil service system and the alternatives.

18. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about this issue?

- It should be stressed that this issue should be looked at from all angles with a view toward long term objectives for a viable system, not a bandaid or quick fix.

- More elected and appointed officials should come to this work shop.

- Our civil service systems makes workers very unproductive because they know even if their work is unsatisfactory they will not be fired.

- Not at this time.

- Keep the faith!

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Note.

1. . The authors wish to express their appreciation to the Institute of Government in the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Florida Interntional University for sponsoring the training session at which the focus group data were gathered, and for consenting to their use in this article. The training session was held on May 31, 1996.