How States Can Lead in Restoring Merit and Accountability in Government
In today’s polarized culture, we focus a lot on whether government should do more or less and too little on whether those tasked with carrying out government policy do so efficiently and effectively. Where there is untold waste and inefficiency at the federal level, states have a genuine opportunity to lead the way and discover new ways of hiring, retaining, and rewarding talent to make government work better to the benefit of all taxpayers, those who receive government services, and even government employees themselves.
I have worked in a state government and the federal government. Conservatives are wrong when they suggest that civil servants are all lazy bureaucrats who sleep on the job, scroll social media all day, and use telework as an excuse to do no work at all. However, liberals are wrong to assume that there are no such people in government, as I have seen each of these examples—and much worse.
The truth that most people miss is that many people in government are exceptionally bright and hardworking, but there are also far too many bad apples who get away with ignoring assignments, engaging in abusive behavior, and working from a belief that their own political and policy views should take precedence over those of the leaders elected by voters.
The best government workers will quietly admit that these bad apples ruin it for everyone else, and it drives them crazy. But the hard workers are also skeptical of elected leaders who promise efficiency and accountability in government for a simple reason—they have never seen it actually work and worry, justifiably, that the inept tools government typically uses to separate high performers from low ones will inadvertently target them. This must be fixed.
A focus on merit and accountability in government can overcome these obstacles. States, and ultimately the federal government, should focus on three main areas:
First, staff government based on merit. While foreign service officers and air traffic controllers must pass an examination, the same stopped being true of other civil servants when the federal civil service exam was eliminated in the 1970s. Government should return to objective measures for hiring decisions but cast a wide net by allowing applicants to demonstrate competency through a number of different pathways that might include formal higher education, on-the-job learning, apprenticeships and examinations tied to broad aptitude or specific skills.
Second, reform staff evaluations to make meaningful cash awards and promotions available to the best performers. Under the current system, promotions often go to those who see the job notification first (often because they are tipped off about it), and those candidates who are obviously most qualified are often not even invited to interview.
Instead, reward employees who demonstrate competence—in the same way as new hires—as well as those who develop innovative solutions and do more with less. Employees could even be awarded bounties for tips that lead to the successful elimination of waste and fraud, a problem that may top half a trillion dollars annually, according to an April government report.
Third, there must be some way to eliminate perennial poor performers. Longtime government employees can tell you stories of people who do essentially no work for years, are finally fired after months or years of meticulous documentation, then turn around and sue (and often win) for “wrongful termination.” This is an abuse of taxpayer funds, erodes trust in government, and is horrendous for morale. Government employees deserve protection from political retribution and other basic rights, but it’s common sense to ensure that managers can remove people who refuse to—or cannot—do the job assigned to them.
It remains to be seen whether these ideas stand a chance of being carried out. The additional steps above are needed, but due to the influence of public employee unions and other special interests, not everyone may end up being on board.
Fortunately, governors have an opportunity to start on this work without delay. At the Cicero Institute, we have already helped 23 states remove college degree requirements from government jobs (something President Trump did in 2020, President Biden has continued, and Kamala Harris has endorsed). We are also working with state agencies and other partners to ensure that merit—not where you went to school or who you know—is what matters most in hiring, pay, and promotion decisions. States can go even further by adopting the steps described above. If they are successful, they can provide a model that the federal government can adopt for the betterment of the whole nation.