POLS 240 Test 2

Elements of the Partnership for Public Service's proposed 2014 plan to improve the government's human capital system

-collapsing the 15 levels/grades of the General Schedule (GS) into 5 work levels/grades -making it easier to hold workers accountable for their work and to discipline (or fire) workers for poor performance or misconduct when necessary -creating a pay system matched to occupations and markets that makes government pay more comparable with private-sector wages

Why is union membership on the decline?

-efforts to reduce government cost -change in the political balance of power

Forms of temporarily or permanently downsizing / "riffing" the government workforce

-furloughs -buyouts -bumping

Issues associated with rapid-fire turnover of politically appointed leadership

-lack of "continuity of focus" -mass exoduses during the last 18 months of a presidency -frayed incentive to obey political superiors

Four challenges of building human capital

-leadership -results-orientated culture -acquiring, developing, and retaining talent -strategic human capital planning

Four premises of the promotion system

1. Career Service 2. Face-to-Face Assessment 3. Flexibility 4. Chain Reaction of Promotion

Four basic principles about government civil service

1. Employees are hired by merit 2. Employees receive pay according to position 3. Employees have protection from political interference and dismissal 4. Employees have the obligation of accountability and to administer law as best they can

Kettl says all of the following are to blame for why the President's leadership responsibilities have increased EXCEPT:

An increased deference of the judicial branch to the President's executive orders, like DACA

According to Kettl, why is the number of political officials at the top of the U.S. bureaucracy so much larger than that in other Western democracies?

Because the American separation of powers and the U.S. two-party system (versus the parliamentary system) causes situations where presidents often face one or both legislative houses dominated by the other party and thus, seize politicization of appointments and centralization of the White House

According to W. Edwards Deeming, what is the relationship between quality, costs, and productivity? As quality increases ____________.

Costs decrease and productivity increases

Department with most employees/spending

Department of Health and Human Services

Department most recently created

Department of Homeland Security

According to Figure 7.1, which level of U.S. government spending is the highest, as a percentage of the economic GDP?

Federal

Critics have argument that "the broader movement to make government more entrepreneurial is dangerous; even if entrepreneurial behavior were a good idea,...the concept could never be applied to government because there frequently _____________."

Is little private competition in most public functions

As Kettl suggests, a consequence of the growing power of policy advisers in the White House has been that...

It has been difficult to separate policy advice from administration / administrative directives.

When different states attempt different reform ideas on the same policy area (like education, marijuana legalization, implementing green technologies, etc.), and the federal government waits to implement its own plan until it sees which reforms work best, we say that the federal government is using states as

Laboratories of democracy

Kettl suggests all of the following are reasons why it can be difficult for executive management to execute the law EXCEPT:

Legislative oversight has increased and commonly strips executive agencies of budgetary funds because of problems with agency heads.

All of the following are problems that may arise when superior's span of control is too large and the subordinate units too many EXCEPT:

Micromanagement among lower level heads can lead to discord

____________ focuses on radically redesigning work process. Matter of fact, process is the fundamental building block of (same word), with an eye to ensuring that organizations understand and meet their customers' needs.

Reengineering

Government has always tried to do very hard things, and ____________ has always been a coping strategy [for government] when results inevitably fall short of expectations

Reform

All of the following are problems associated with downsizing EXCEPT:

The "big ideas" at the core of downsizing initiatives increased state reliance on property taxes

What act established the four basic principles of the government civil service systems into law?

The Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883

All of the following are problems that may arise when superior's span of control is too small and the subordinate units too few EXCEPT:

The number of meetings and rules may be reduced beyond what is needed to maintain effective control

A major issue Kettl mentions that governors may have to deal with when their state's attorney general is elected, is that...

The state attorney general's election is often a stepping stone to a race for governor, which can complicate the attorney general and governor's relationship

Kettl says that in American public administration, "there is an enduring sense that public bureaucracy is a large, immovable object, and there is a fundamental belief that ________________."

Top executives need to produce deep, constant change

True or false, downsizing reduced the reservoir of future agency leaders and managers, consequentially also reducing the influx of new knowledge, ideas, and energy in the federal workforce.

True

True or false, government work is so broad and complex that uniform treatment of employees is both impossible and unwise.

True

What commission of 15 former top political appointees recommended in 1989 that presidential appointees be reduced from 3,000 to no more than 2,000 and suggested that an excessive number of political appointees may undermine the president's ability to govern?

Volcker Commission

Independent agencies

account for 1/10 of gov't employees and 1/5 of spending

Employees that can be hired and fired at any time, as long as discrimination does not occur and laws are upheld, are called:

at-will employees

According to the notes, positions above the GS-15 level are considered to ___________.

be senior executive level positions

All of the following are considered to the one of the 3 C's of the redesign of the work process except:

care

All of the following are examples of horizontal cooperation methods EXCEPT:

combining of service areas

A more gradual, continuous, bottom-up movement, grounded in the effort to motivate employees and produce better results is called

continuous improvement

Which of the following types of staff "helps top officials secure leverage over the organization"?

control staff

Kettl says, "The are often no easy, good, or lasting solutions. Most often, the problems [in public organizations] are new versions of the eternal search for better ________________."

coordination

Noting the critical problem of process-based organization, Gulick argued that "efficiency cannot be realized unless the compensating structure of _____________ is developed."

coordination

According to classical theory, which of the following staff roles should have NO power to command line officials because personnel performing this/these activities assist in the organization's mission?

core and auxiliary staff

Unresolvable problems in public administration can invite:

criticism (from the public) and political interference

According to Kettl, which of the following types of administrative reform has not yet "penetrated American government on a broad scale"?

delivery frameworks

Kettl says that some departments rely heavily on third parties, interweaving government with private and non-profit sectors. What are the two departments he mentions that especially exhibit this behavior?

education; health and human services

True or false, total quality management focuses more on top leadership than frontline workers and more on the organization and structure/process changes than the abilities of individual workers.

false

Conflicts can also occur "among organizations organized by ____________, when several agencies believe they each are primarily responsible for the same issue."

function

According to Kettl, the civil service system "creates strong incentives for ____________: a tendency for agencies to multiply the number of high administrative positions, shift professional specialists to administrative roles, or seek high classifications for existing positions" because higher classification of jobs allows supervisors to pay their employees more and hire or keep the workers they want.

grade creep

In general, the pay gap between STATE and LOCAL employees in the public sector versus those in the private sector is ____________.

greatest for those with the highest levels of education

"Finding the right people, for the right jobs, with the right skills, at the right time is an issue of _____________."

human capital

Which of the following types of horizontal coordination involves agencies negotiating specific boundaries "to clarify which agency will do what without interference from the other"?

interagency agreements/treaties

What is the name for "a closely linked network of interest groups, congressional committees, and public administrators that unite to protect their long-term relationships"?

iron triangle

Though this form of horizontal coordination does not work well at the federal level, federal agencies still require state and local governments to adhere to such practices as a condition of federal grant programs.

lead agency formula

This type of performance management system utilized in Canada and Australia is designed "to clearly demonstrate how an individual's performance contributes to the overall goals of the organization as well as to broader government-wide priorities." Many analysts also suggest such a system should be the foundation for reform in the U.S.

line of sight

Which of the following is NOT one of the 4 core functions of national governments?

managing and maintaining national infrastructure

A problem with focusing too much on urgent policy issues and forgetting to address organizational performance and operation is that officials can "busy themselves with policy puzzles" but _______.

not have the capacity to implement solutions effectively

Kettl says in the introduction to Ch. 6 that many organizational problems have their roots in _______.

politics

Which INDEPENDENT AGENCY accounts for most of the spending and employees within the federal government's independent agencies?

social security administration

Position classification rules, staffing rules, and compensation rules are the three fundamental elements of ______________.

the civil service system

According to Kay Coles James, director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in the George W. Bush administration, the biggest problem of the human capital crisis in government is in __________.

the hiring process-getting interested individuals in the door

What is the purpose of a "czar" in the U.S. bureaucratic system?

to coordinate subunits of various agencies that are all focused on the same important topic, like narcotics or homeland security

"Rather than have clear and constant purposes, departments focus on core activities _____________________________."

to which they - as well as their leaders and most important constituencies - pay the most attention

True or false, because no agencies want to willingly surrender control over its activities to another agency, coordination rarely happens naturally or easily.

true

True or false, in a survey conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, public employees were found to be significantly less happy than private employees

true

True or false, staff activities can - and often do - conflict with line activities.

true

True or false, the executive branch can propose the creation of a new cabinet- level department, but its creation and budget are both legislative decisions

true

According to Kettl, "The quest for neutral competence calls for the creation of a highly skilled bureaucracy insulated from the political interference that can _________________."

undermine efficiency

Cabinet

when chief executives gather the heads of their agency into a group

Citizens and elected officials believe that government is so inefficient, spending can be cut _____________.

without hurting the quality of services