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FOIA Number: 2006-0458-F
FOIA
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This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the William J. Clinton
Presidential Library Staff.
Collection/Record Group:
Clinton Presidential Records
Subgroup/Office of Origin:
Communications
Series/Staff Member:
Don Baer
Subseries:
10135
OA/ID Number:
FolderiD:
Folder Title:
Vice-President
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. August 5, 1996
MEMORANDUM FOR SEE DISTRIBUTION
. ELAINE C.
FROM:
,SUBJECT:
KAMARC~
STATUS REPORT
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As you know, we publish a report each year to illustrate the progress of our reinvention
initiatives. This year's report is scheduled to be published o/a September 7. Its WOJ;"king title is
"The Best Kept Secrets In Government: A Report to President Bill Clinton from Vice President
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Al Gore."
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Attached is a draft of the report. Please lpok it over and send me your comments, suggestions, or · ·
· advice no later than the close of business? August 7th.
Thanks. We've tried to make it as enjoyable a read as the government can be·.
Attachment
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PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER
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·lack Gibbons
Kumiki Gibsori
Marsha Hale
Skila Harris
Alexis Herman
Kitty Higgins
John Hilley·
Harold Ickes
Ron Klain
Tony Lake
Jack Lew
Mike McCurry
Katie McGinty
Mack McLarty
Bob Nash
Leon Panetta .
Jack Quinn
Carol Rasco
Greg Simon
Doug Sosnik
Gene Sp~rling
George Stephanopoulos
Joe Stiglitz ·
Laura Tyson
Lorraine Voles
Mag~ie Williams
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�Draft Index for Introduction, 4 Chapters, and Conclusion
AFDCS6
Agriculture Dept. (USDA) 3, 17, 30, 38, 43
Agency for International Development (AID) 17
Alameda, California 41 fn
Air Force 17, 19
American President Lines S1
Antonucci, Robert V. 58
Anny 11
Atlanta 30, 38,
Baltimore 26
Bean, L.L. 19, 25, 31fn
Belzoni, Ms. 12
Blue Pages 322
Bobrowicz, Gregory 41 fn
Bodde, David, Jordan and Kelly 35
Boston 24, 30, 46
Brooks Act 11
Brown, Ann 44
Brown, Jesse 16
Browner, Carol SO, 55
Brownfields 50-51
Bureau of Labor Statistics 29
Bureau of Land Management 30
Business Anit-Smuggling Coalition (BASC) 47
Business Week Magazine 19, 25
California 19, 21
Camden, New Jersey 48
Cameron, Sue S1-52, 53, 54
Chicago 29, 30
Childs, Bill 21
Childs, Elizabeth (Beth) 21-24, 32
Childs, Sydney 21
Cisneros. Henry 48
Civil Service 13. 26
Circuit City 10
Cheng, Joe 27
Clackamas County, Oregon 52
Cleveland, Ohio 51
Clinton, President 1. 3. 4, 11, 25, 29, 35, 36, 43, 44, 49, 55, 56, 57, 61
Clinton-Gore Administration 1, 10, 34, 38, 43, 48
Coast Guard 29
Cohen, Jack Phd. 41 fn
Colombia 5
�Colorado 55, 59
Commerce, Dept 17, 20, 30,46
Community Empowerment Board 55
Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) 57-58
Congress 10, 14, 15, 27, 28, 30, 52, 54, 55, 58
Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) 32, 44
Customs Service 3, 5-9, 11, 46, 61
Dalbar Financial Services 25 fu, 31 fh
DeBroekert 14
DeVillars, John 40
Dallas-Lak.eJune 26
Decoster Egg Farms 42
Denver 14
Defense Agencies 17, 19
Defense Dept. 10, 11, 17, 19
Detroit 23, 27
Disney 19, 28
EO-Flex 59
Education, Dept. 17, 29, 58
Edwards, Michelle Craddock3
El Paso 23
Electronic Benefits Transfer System 32, 33
Elkton, Virginia 41
Empowerment Zones (Ezs) 48,49-51
Energy, Dept. 17
Enterprise Communities (Ecs) 49-50
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 17, 20, 29, 40, 46, SO, 55
Executive Orders 12
Setting Customer Service Standards 12862 25
Export Assistance Centers 30, 46
Export-Import Bank 30, 46
Farm Bill 54
Fairhall, Chris 1 fn
Family Friendly Workplaces 15
FedEx 11,28
FedWorld29
Federal Acquistion Streamlining Act of 1994, 12
Federal Acquistion Reform Act of 1996, 12
Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 54 fn
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 17, 28, 30, 31, 34, 35
Federal Personnel Manual 3, 14
Federal Supply Service (FSS) 20
Fidelity 3 1 fn
Food and Drug Administration 31, 36-39, 40,41
Food Safety and Inspection Service 31
�Ford28
Fortune 500 62
Franchise Funds 20
General Store 45
Geological Survey 32
Georgia36
General Electric (GE) 15, 31
General Services Administration 17, 18, 33
General Store 30, 46
Gillette 40
Goals 2000 58-59
Gore, Al13, 48
Government Executive Magazine 18 fn
HACCP (Hazard analysis critical control point) 38-39, 43
Hammer Award 19
Hannes, Peter J. 12
Health Care Financing. Administration 42
Health and Human Services, Dept. 17, 55
Hildner, Jono 52-53, 54
Hollis, Frank 37
House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families, House Committee on Economic
and Education Opportunities 58 fn
Housing and Urban Development, Dept. 17,48-50, 58
Houston 30, 45
Income Tax 46
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) 7, 21, 22, 23, 32
Indiana welfare reform plan 56
Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996 12
Interior, Dept. 17. 19, 20, 30
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 26, 28, 29, 32, 46, 60
Internet, 32, 46
ISO 9000 19
Jockey International, Inc. 12
Justice, Dept. 1. 17, 57, 58
Jones, Ray 36-39
Kansas City, Kansas 46
Kansas 46
Kelman, Steve 10
Kemp, Jack 48
Kennedy Administration 1
Kentucky 60
Labor, Dept. 17. 41. 42,
Labor Management Partnerships 14
Light, Paul 16 fn
Logan Airport 24
�Maine 24,41
Maine20042
Maryland 59
Massachusetts 27, 58, 59
Mattei, Inc. 4 7
Medicare 46
Mesquite, Tx 26
Merck & Co. Inc. 41
Metro-Dade A vaiation Dept. 8
Miami, Florida 46
Miami International Airport 5, 8, 18
Mexico 26
Mint 14,29
Montana26
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 13, 17
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 32
National Park Service 29
National Partnership Council 14
National Performance Review 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 55, 60,61
fn
National Science Foundation, 17
National Weather Service 26
Navy 17,36
New York 18, 29, 30
Northern California 40
Northridge Earthquake 19
Occupational, Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 29, 32, 41, 42,45
Office of Management and Budget 28
Office of National Drug Control Policy 58
Office of Personnel Management (0 PM) 13, 14, 17
Ohio 590ne Stop Capital Shops 46
Operation Safe House 58
Oregon 59
Oregon Benchmarks 53-54
Oregon Option 49. 53-54
Owens. Roy 45
Pacific Northwest 43
Paperwork Reduction Act 28
Passport Service 32. 33
Patent and Trademark Office 27
PEBES homepage 32
Pentagon 13
Performance Appraisals 15
Performance Partnership 53-55
Personnel Reform 13. 15
�Philadelphia 46, 48-5I, 60
Postal Service I fn, 28, 29, 46
Preston, Colleen I 0
Procurement Reform I 0-I3
Red Cross 35
Reinvention Labs I8, 23
Rendell, Ed 48-51, 60
Roland, Tommy 5-9, 12, I8, 20, 46
Sacramento 22, 24
Saint Simons Island, Georgia 36
San Diego 26, 47
Santa Monica Freeway I9
Savannah, Georgia 38
Scios, Inc. 40, 4I fn
SeaPak 36-39
Seattle, Washington 51
Secret Service 27
Shwayder. Patti 55
Small Business Administration (SBA) I7, 30, 45
Smith, Bruce 40 fn
Social Security Administration (SSA) 2, I7, I9, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 31, 32, 46
South America 6
South Florida 9
Standard Form 17I I4
Star Track 40
State, Dept. 17, 33
State of the Union Address 1
Sunar-Hauserman 51
Superfund 51
Tampa, Florida 57
Tea Taster I
TeleTax 32
Texas 59
Thickening of Government 16 fn
3-M Corporation 46
Tennessee 56
Tillamook County, Oregon 51, 60
Transportation. Dept. 17, 19
Treasury, Dept. 17. 20, 42. 46, 58
US General Store for Small Business 45
US Conference of Mayors 48
United States Information Agency, (USIA) 17
USWest 25, 31
Vermillion, Oh 34
Vermont 59
�Veteran's Affairs, Dept. (y A) 16, 18, 20, 27, 28, 32, 61
Visa cards 11
Wal-Mart25
Washington DC 1, 23, 28, 29, 30, 36, 49, 52, 56, 57, 59, 60, 62
Weise, George 8, 46
Welfare and Health Care Reform 56-57
White House Conference for Small Business 44
Wikberg, Greg 14
Witt, James Lee 30
World Wide Web 14, 29, 31, 32, 45,61
PEBES Homepage 32
US Business Advisor 44
Wyckoff 51
Zuriarrain, Amaury 8
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R:EVI:EW
8/2/96
DRAFT
NATIONAL PERFORMANCE REVIEW
1996 STATUS REPORT
FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY
DO NOT RELEASE
�. I
INTRODUCTION
"The era of big government is over."
- Bill Clinton, 1996 State of the Union Address
When President Clinton said the era of big government is over, he wasn't
just making a promise, he was reporting on his progress. The Clinton-Gore
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administration has made government smaller by nea.!'lY a quarter of a
million jobs. This reflects the largest, swiftest government-wide cut in the
history of the United States. It's not just a post-Cold War defense
reduction; every federal department except Justice has become smaller. The
federal government workforce is now the smallest it's been in more than
thirty years, going all the way back to the Kennedy administration.
[Insert chart on the employment trend.]
The cuts were long overdue. People had long since grown tired of new
government programs initiated each year, with none ever ending. They
were tired of stories about senseless sounding government jobs, like the
Official Tea-Taster, tired of larger and larger bureaucracies in Washington
interfering more and more with their lives. For years, presidential
candidates have been promising to make government smaller. But until Bill
Clinton, none delivered.
The workforce cuts are saving lots of money. The average government
worker costs more than $44,000 2 a year, not including office space and
supplies. Cutting a quarter million jobs, therefore, can save well over $10
billion annually. But that's not the half of it. The savings from all the
common sense reforms we've put in place total $TK. Put that together with
the benefits of our healthy economy, and you'll see that the Clinton-Gore
Administration has come up with another one for the record books: four
straight years of deficit cuts for a stupendous total reduction of $TK.
[Insert chart on deficit reduction.]
1
The Postal Service is not included. They have grown some because they have more mail to deliver, but
they are financed by the sale of stamps, not from taxes.
2
Source: Chris Fairhall OMB 395-4836.
�•
Even though big cuts in government were long overdue, and even though
they are a crucial step in getting the country out of the red, there is a right
way and a wrong way to cut government. The right way 'is to show some
consideration for the workers. It's wrong to just hand out the pink slips and
let government employees fend for themselves -workers who have
devoted their careers to public service and who have families to support.
We've made the cuts the right way, with layoffs as a last resort. First, we
slowed down hiring. The government used to hire well over 100,000 people
each year just to replace those who retired or quit. We brought hiring down
to fewer than 50,0003 a year. We didn't stop hiring altogether because
many government jobs, like air traffic controllers, just have to be filled.
Next, we encouraged our current employees to retire or quit by offering
them buyout payments. The offers ranged from a few thousand dollars up
to $25,000, depending on the workers' salaries and how long they had
worked. It was a good deal for the workers and for the taxpayers. Even at
$25,000, a buyout costs less than the paperwork and severance pay that goes
4
with a layoff. More than 112,500 workers took buyouts.
By slowing down hiring and speeding up retirements5, we've managed to
limit layoffs to a tiny6 proportion of the workforce. We are helping those
who have been laid off to find jobs with private companies. It's tough, but
we're trying. It's all part of making cuts the right way.
Another part of cutting government the right way is to be selective and cut
out just the parts we don't need any more- not the parts we do need. It's
wrong to cut activities and services that most people depend on - things
like ensuring that our food and water are safe, that our neighborhoods are
free from drugs and crime, that tax refunds and social security payments
arrive on time. Our plan from the beginning has been to focus the
reductions on jobs we don't need anymore: jobs in headquarters, layers of
management, hundreds of outdated offices scattered around the country, and
3
Source: OMB turnover report from CPDF transaction file.
GAO Report (GGD-96-62) on Federal Downsizing, page 3 of the draft executive summary.
5
Source: OMB turnover report from CPDF transaction file.
6
About 0.7% of the workforce has been involuntarily laid off. Source: OMB turnover report from CPDF
transaction file.
4
2
�..
infamous red tape mills like the one thathas made government procurement
so costly and ridiculous. In contrast, the personnel reductions have
occurred pretty much across the board, because we were trying to avoid
layoffs. We'll have to retrain and reassign some people to get them into the
right jobs.
A lot of the credit for cutting goes to the very federal workers whose jobs
were at stake. For example, it was a procurement specialist, Michellee
Craddock Edwards, who suggested that we change the law to make small
purchases so simple that we don't need a procurement specialist anymore.
Those small purchases used to generate 70 percent of the paperwork in a
typical procurement office. Michellee says, "I don't think any government
employees would cling to senseless work just to protect their jobs. I
certainly wouldn't. For me, it's more important to keep in mind the bigger
picture and promote change where it makes sense. We're all taxpayers too,
you know."
This might be surprising, but lots of government workers think like
Michellee. Why else would teams of personnel specialists have worked so
hard to scrap the 10,000 page Federal Personnel Manual, and then gone on
to cut out most of a typical personnel office's day-to-day workload by
letting employees use self-serve computer kiosks? Why else would U.S.
Customs Service employees have come up with the plan that eliminated an
entire layer of regional Customs headquarters that was full of high-paying
jobs? Why else would Agriculture Department workers have recommended
closing 1,200 of their own small, inefficient, field offices? Even
Washington's infamous regulation writers are tossing out 16,000 pages of
regulations, and removing the bureaucratic jargon from another 28,000
pages. Behind virtually every bit of our successful downsizing and
streamlining are the ideas and the enthusiasm of federal workers. More than
anyone, they have the know-how and the desire to make government cost
less. Our hats are off to them.
A cheaper, smaller government was only half our goal. President Clinton
and I were determined to make it work better too. And so we have. The
government is beginning to produce more results and less red tape. I'll be
the first to say that there is still plenty of room for improvement, but
Americans are beginning to see the results in the form of fast, courteous
3
�•
service. Business owners and local government leaders are noticing the
change, too, as the federal government becomes their partner instead of an
adversary.
No one can explain the improvements better than the people who are on the
receiving end. So in the following chapters you'll hear from a front line
federal worker, a housewife, a business executive, and a mayor. They'll
discuss their bad experiences with government in the past. And, frankly,
they'll tell that there is still some bad stuff going on. After all, putting
common sense into government is a big job, and it's "still a work in progress
- probably always will be. But these individuals will talk about a change
the likes of which they've never seen before- a change very much for the
better.
'
President Clinton and I are just as proud of making government work better
as we are of making it smaller. It isn't good enough yet, or small enough
yet, but we sure have things headed in the right direction. We are
rebuilding a government that all Americans can be proud of.
AI Gore
4
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•
CHANGE ONE:
BRINGING COMMON SENSE TO
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
"Whatcha got, Bootsie?"
"Coke, looks like about 10 pounds, taped to his chest."
-"
Tommy exchanges high-fives with Bootsie, one of his undercover rovers, as
she explains how she picked the unlikely-looking drug mule from among
the hundreds of incoming passengers on a flight from Colombia. (Don't
worry, we won't give away her trade secrets.) A couple more of his rovers
quickly team up to check out the smuggler's records, book him, and look for
any connections to other passengers or luggage. Within minutes, the troops
are back out on the floor, working the next wave of passengers.
It's not Miami Vice, and Tommy Roland is not Sonny Crockett. But he's
doing something that any TV cop would envy - running one of the most
successful drug-busting operations around. Tommy supervises the
inspection team for the U.S. Customs Service at Miami International
Airport. "I'm proud of the rovers," he says. "The stuff that they're doing
now is defining where Customs is going. I'm thrilled to be a part of that.
They use their intuition, their creativity, their imagination on the job. It's
really beautiful to watch them. I feel like the coach of some awesome
basketball team."
But Tommy says it wasn't always this much fun. "In the 'olden days,' the
whole philosophy of what a Customs inspector was supposed to do and how
he was supposed to do it was completely different. First of all, we all wore
our uniforms, so we were easy for the smugglers to spot." Today, Tommy
is working in jeans and sneakers, and wearing an earring. "We stood in our
little enclosures waiting for passengers to come to us with their bags. We
didn't know anything about them until we saw the whites of their eyes. We
just stood there in our uniforms waiting. A tough way to win a drug war.
5
�"We were looking for needles in haystacks -looking for that nervous
passenger, just doing 'behavior analysis.' Everyone who walked off a plane
was a suspect. Every suitcase was suspicious. We were unfocused and
wasted a lot of time. And at the end of the day, we had dug through a lot of
underwear and socks, but hadn't found much dope. What we were
exceptionally good at was infuriating the legitimate travelers - hundreds of
thousands of honest, decent American citizens and foreign tourists and
businessmen each year." Passengers sometimes waited in line for over
three hours. Occasionally, a fist fight would break out.
Today, cocaine seizures are up by 54 percent. Heroin seizures up by 42
percent. Passengers seldom wait more than a few minutes. This is
reinvention.
Tommy says it all started with flowers. "We used to handle cargo the same
way we handled passengers -just stabbing in the dark. We knew dope
was coming into the country in boxes of flowers. So we probed flower
boxes. We used these big metal flower probes and poked away from
midnight 'til 8:00a.m. This was an all night thing, night in and night out.
Thirty thousand boxes of flowers came into the airport each night, and we
would probe each one once or twice. That's a lot of probe holes. I totally
hated Mother's Day and Valentine's Day. Finally, we realized that this was
a really stupid way to look for dope- and the flower shippers didn't much
like it either. So we sent our own inspectors to South America to look at
every single aspect of the whole process.
"We went to the flower farms to see where the flowers were grown. We
looked at how the flowers got trucked from the farm to the market, and then
to the airport to see how they were staged to get on the plane- who put
them on the plane, who hired the people who put them on the plane - and
the same on the other end - who took them off the plane and who hired
these folks. Looking at the entire process, we saw just how vulnerable a
shipment of flowers is all along the way. That's when it hit home. If we
were gonna make a dent in the dope, we couldn't do it alone- we had to
be partners with the airlines.
"Now the airlines have their own people checking the flowers. Instead of
Customs inspectors probing flower boxes here, the boxes are x-rayed before
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�they get on the planes. The airlines have contract security people watching
the x-rays. And we video the watchers as a counter deterrent. They're not
our own people so we still check them, but they are our allies, not our
enemies. If we had started this earlier, I probably would have saved my
back. All that bending over probing flowers wrecked my back."
Partnership with the airlines and shippers has turned out to be the key to
success, but, according to Tommy, it didn't come easy. "Tell the airlines
our secrets and have them work together with us to find drugs?
Unimaginable. Consider the Immigration Service an·ally? No way. Ask
- the skycaps for their suggestions? Never. Back then everything was a
secret and everyone was the enemy. 'Ifi told you, I'd have to kill you.'
That was more like it. Basically, we didn't trust anybody.
"It wasn't just that we didn't trust the folks outside the system. We didn't
trust the folks inside the system that much more. A perfect example was all
the stupid paper work we had to fill out. An hour or two before the end of
every single shift, we would have to come into the office and fill out a shift
report. It seemed like we spent more time writing these reports detailing
every single thing we did during the day than we spent looking for dope. It
was a real big waste oftime and money. And it made me feel like I couldn't
be trusted. I really hated that. But, things have really changed in the last
few years. We got rid of a lot of wasted motion. The guys that work for me
don't fill these out anymore. They're paid to look for dope, not to fill out
forms.
"I remember lots of hassles I'd have to go through just to do my job. For
example, when you're looking through cargo, you might need to drill
through a box to see what's inside. But if I wanted to drill, I had to go to a
senior inspector who would go to a supervisor who would go to the chiefs
office where the one drill we had was locked up. Like I wasn't responsible
enough to be given the tools to do my job or the authority to make decisions
by myself. Now, when inspectors come on board, we give them their own
drills. Makes sense to me.
"Even the way the agency was structured sent a loud and clear message
about trust. There were just so many layers of bureaucracy to deal with. We
used to have regional offices. They were like speed bumps. The guys there
7
�had been away from the field so long that you always had to slow down and
explain the real world to them. Getting rid of the regions was like a
miracle." [What Tommy attributes to a miracle was really the work of a
team of employees that Customs Commissioner George Weise chartered to
reinvent the U.S. Customs Service. They also cut the size of the
Washington headquarters by a third, and eliminated a half dozen district
offices.]
"In my book, George Weise gets an awful lot of credit. Not just for cutting
out some layers of management, but for really having· faith in us down here
-trusting us to figure out how to do the job better. It takes some
leadership to tum an organization around the way Customs has. He should
be proud."
[Part of the tum-around came from employing modem tools and
techniques.] "They assigned me start looking through the computerized
cargo manifests and analyzing information from the airlines," Tommy
explains. "This was the first time I had to work with computers looking for
dope, and they kinda had to drag me to it kicking and screaming. But in
about six weeks, I seized 3,000 pounds of coke using manifest review
techniques and targeting.
"Once we realized the power of targeting freight with computer analysis, we
wanted to get into pre-analysis of passengers, too. It made sense. If we
could get passenger lists when the planes took off, we could start working
hours before the plane arrived. We got the majority of the airlines to
cooperate. They want to get the dope off their planes. They certainly don't
want us seizing their multi-million-dollar 747s. Now, we screen their
passenger lists and we know who we're looking for- we go right up to the
plane and start working. We don't just stand there in our uniforms waiting
for the drugs to come to us. We go out and find it . I hate to use a
Washington term, but I guess you'd say we're proactive."
The changes at Miami International Airport are tangible. "These
partnerships are changing the whole environment here. There's an energy at
this airport that I've never felt in my 22 years here," says Amaury
Zuriarrain, deputy director of the Metro-Dade Aviation Department, which
runs the airport. "The passengers are noticing the improvements, too."
8
�"It's kind of funny," Tommy adds. "Life is a lot easier for most passengers.
They don't have to wait in lines for hours and be treated like suspected
criminals. But you know what? Some passengers have written to us that
we're not doing our job because the process is so easy for them now. They
shouldn't be fooled by that. Just because they don't see me doesn't mean
I'm not watching them."
Tommy's dead serious about keeping drugs out of South Florida. "This is
where I live. This is where I'm raising my family. Arid I continually ask
myself, 'Is it good to have dope in the schools?' Hell, my kids are in those
schools. I don't want dope in my schools. When I say 'my school' I don't
just go to school for Career Day. I go on field trips with these kids. They
come to my home. I know every kid's name in my son's fifth grade class.
This is my idea of family values.
"It may sound funny but this experience here at work really has had an
effect on my family life. It used to be where if one of my kids did
something wrong, my wife and I would automatically decide how to handle
the situation. After all, we're the parents. We're the 'managers' in our
family. But we've started to look at things a little differently. We're
sharing the decision-making with the boys - asking for their input.
They're involved in the decision-making process."
Tommy Roland is a new style "manager" at home and on the job, and it's
not just the jeans, sneakers, and earring. He works with energy, creativity,
and teamwork, and he produces results. He sums it up simply: "I'm not a
bureaucrat. I've got a job to do."
That's obviously the kind of attitude we want in all federal workers. We
always have. And most young workers have that attitude when they first
sign up. But the government's systems- procurement, personnel, and
management- sapped the energy, creativity, and enthusiasm out of the
people who work for the government. Luckily for us, people like Tommy
stick with it anyway because they want so much to do something that really
matters- to do something good for America. Let's take a look at the
systems that de-motivate people, and what the National Performance
9
�Review has been doing to change things since the beginning of the ClintonGore administration.
Procurement Reform
Most Americans have known for years that government procurement is a
mess. But to get a full appreciation, it helps to work here. Before the
reforms launched in 1993 by the first report of the National Performance
Review, the typical federal worker wasn't trusted to buy so much as a $4
stapler for the office. Only trained procurement specialists were allowed to
buy things - only a trained specialist could understand the rules - and
they would make the buy only if you came to them with the forms properly
filled out and signed by several bosses up the line - and even then, only if
they thought you deserved whatever you thought you needed.
[Insert Dilbert comic strip on procurement.]
Buying anything associated with a computer was even worse. Federal
workers told us about having to get a dozen signatures, and then waiting a
year or more to get a simple PC. When it arrived, it was already obsolete,
and it cost more than the new, higher-powered models at Circuit City. To.
cap off their frustration, federal employees would read in the papers along
with the rest of America, that "the procurement system," which didn't trust
them to buy anything, had gone out and paid $600 for a hammer.
The government's procurement system was enough of a challenge that we
decided to double-team it. We got long-time critic and former Harvard
professor of procurement, Steve Kelman, to lead some government-wide
changes, and brought Colleen Preston in from the Congressional staff to
lead reform at the Defense Department. Rather than try to explain all the
ins and outs of the regulatory changes backed by the National Performance
Review - changes that the administration has made on its own authority,
and changes we have persuaded Congress to enact in law - let's look at
some results. First, results that benefit the entire government and, of course,
the taxpayers who foot the bill:
10
�• ,Last March, we signed a contract with FedEx for overnight package
delivery. A three pound package, retail- $27. For the government$3.62.
• · Long distance telephone calls: Someone who shops around can make
peak-hour long-distance calls for about 10¢ per minute. The government
pays 2¢ per minute.
• The government used to do at least $50 worth of paperwork for every
small purchase - even for something like a $4- office stapler - and
there are tk million small purchases each year. Now, we've gotten rid of
the paperwork and we use special Visa cards. What's special? The
average American pays from 12 to 18 percent interest, and a yearly fee
of up to $50. The government pays no interest, no annual fee, and we
earn cash rebates for paying on time.
• Just last July, President Clinton signed a new law and an executive order
that fixes one of procurement's biggest nightmares: buying computers
and other information technology (IT). That cumbersome IT ball and
chain, the Brooks Act, is gone. Under the President's order, agencies
will invest in IT for the payback, not just to be hip, and they won't be
moving slower than technology with big contracts that last longer than
the technology; it will be "buy a little, test a little, fix a little, and do it
quick."
Now for the Defense Department:
• Remember the $600 hammer? How about a $500 telephone - one
especially designed for an aircraft carrier. What was so special? It
worked even after the ship had sunk. We dropped that requirement, and
now taxpayers get the phones for 30 bucks.
• Let's look at socks and underwear (it reminds us of the old days in
Customs). If you were ever a soldier, your GI socks probably fell down
because there was no elastic at the top, and they made everything in the
washing machine with them tum olive drab. The reinvented Army now
issues ordinary, color-fast socks with elastic. The sad-sack socks cost
$1.99 a pair- the nice, new ones cost $1.49.
II
�• ·Concerning underwear, we think this letter speaks for itself:
June 7, 1996
For many years, Jockey International, Inc. declined to bid on
government business. We took this position because the solicitations
asked us to manufacture a T-shirt to unique government
specifications. The solicitations also asked us to provide sensitive
pricing data so the government could determine· a fair price....
When we saw the latest solicitation for T-shirts we were excited. The
government was asking for our standard product, style 9711, without
all the headaches of a custom design. Moreover, our current catalog
price was the basis to negotiate a fair price. It is with great pleasure
that we were able to accept the T-shirt award....
The T-shirt will be made in the USA. The production is at our
Belzoni, Mississippi plant, an economically depressed area. This
plant was closed in 1993, but reopened in 1995 on a temporary basis.
With a pick up in business and the award of this military contract we
now have 175 employees ofthisfacility....
Peter J. Hannes
President, Special Markets Division
Jockey International, Inc.
As you can see, the procurement system only needed a little trust (that
workers like Tommy Roland won't steal us blind), some common sense
(that Jockey can make decent T-shirts without government instructions),
and some shrewd bargaining (just try to find a long distance carrier who' 11
charge only 2¢ a minute). That's the heart of the procurement reforms that
the National Performance Review recommended in 1993, and that became
the basis for three major legislative changes that have been signed by the
President: the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994, the Federal
Acquisition Reform Act of 1996, and the Information Technology
Management Reform Act of 1996. President Clinton has gone even further
with the reforms by issuing Executive Orders on [need list from Kelman].
12
�Trust, common sense, and shrewd bargaining might not sound like a
revolutionary formula to fix government procurement. But added all
together, our procurement reforms are saving taxpayers$ tk every year.
Pretty good, huh?
Of course, that's not all just from socks and undershirts- the same
principles apply to big items, too. When the Pentagon eliminated the
detailed military specifications for their new cargo plane and let
manufacturers use more standard commercial parts, the price tag got marked
down by $3 billion. NASA's doing the same thing fOr-space gear.
By the way, we're not just buying smarter, we're selling smarter too. The
government actually used to give away the incredibly valuable rights to
broadcast on certain frequencies. Radio, TV, cell phones - you get the
picture. Now, we auction them to the highest bidder. So far, we've taken in
$20 billion.
Personnel Reform
"Filling out the prescribed government job application used to
discourage a lot ofpeople. For many, it was their first dose of red
tape. It was almost like saying to somebody who wanted to work for
the federal government, 'Welcome to the fun house'."
- Vice President AI Gore,
in a speech to the Office of Personnel Management
In 1883, two years before the first gasoline-powered automobile and six
years before the White House had electric lights 1, the U.S. Civil Service
laws were written. Not only is the civil service system old, our first
National Performance Review report called it "elaborate, complex, and
over-regulated, preventing agencies and their managers, employees, and
unions from designing effective and mission-supporting human resource
management programs." No one argued with us about that.
We've done what we could to fix it. We've done quite a bit.
1
According to The People's Chronology, President and Mrs. Harrison were afraid to touch the light
switches, so a civil servant was assigned to switch the lights on in the evening, let them bum all night, and
return in the morning to switch them off.
13
�Common Sense Job Applications
We scrapped the Standard Form 171, that 10-foot-longjob application form
that said "Welcome to the fun house." Now you can send in a regular
resume, like regular people do for regular jobs. Even better, the Office of
Personnel Management has a toll-free phone service and a World Wide
Web site that lets peofle find out what's available, and even apply by phone
or fax for many jobs.
..
Less Red Tape
We've junked all but a few parts ofthe 10,000 page Federal Personnel
Manual that specified everything down to the color of file folders. We
actually hauled it out to a dumpster in a wheel barrow. Mainly it's symbolic
until Congress does the same with lots of law books, too. But the end of the
Federal Personnel Manual gave agencies a little more freedom to tailor
things to fit their own operations.
Labor-Management Partnerships
CEOs who had reinvented big corporations told us we couldn't succeed
without a true partnership between management and labor. The President
signed an executive order in 1993 establishing the National Partnership
Council. Now, there are more than 200 partnership councils, and labormanagement relations are improving all across government. One of the
most successful is at the U.S. Mint in Denver, led by Greg Wikberg,
president of the local union, and Jack DeBroekert, the manager of the mint.
Since the partnership started, disputes have nearly vanished, costs have
dropped by $10 million and, in 1995, they set an all-time record by
producing $10.3 billion worth of coins. How's that for a money-making
partnership?
Family-friendly Workplaces
2
OPM lets each agency do its own hiring now, but many agencies choose to hire through OPM's phone-in
center.
14
�Government workers should have a life, too. Moms and dads need time
with the kids, with their own parents, and with each other. So, the National
Performance Review is pushing job sharing, part-time work, alternative
:work schedules, telecommuting from home and from satellite locations,
leave banks, and child-and-elder-care services. Top business leaders will
tell you it has a payoff.
Performance Appraisals
lo
Every year, everyone who works for the government is be formally and
individually judged by his or her boss. The process can cause tension and is
widely viewed as ineffective. Most government work depends on team, not
individual, effort. And often, a worker's teammates and customers are in
better positions than the boss to judge that employee's effectiveness.
Several agencies are experimenting with different evaluation methods that
enhance teamwork and give more influence to the customers. One is called
a 360-degree appraisal, an evaluation from all directions- the boss,
subordinates, colleagues, customers, and suppliers. The other new kind of
evaluation is not of the individual, but of the team. It's based on
measurable results, and everybody who contributes to the results gets the
same grade. Several variations of the new systems are being tried, and all
have pluses and minuses; the hope is to find better, more productive means
of gauging worker performance.
New Civil Service Legislation Needed
Right now, we can't be as flexible or innovative as we'd like to be because
the personnel system applies a single set of rules to all federal employees,
from patent attorneys to park rangers. No corporation would operate this
way. General Electric makes light bulbs, secures mortgage loans, and leases
cars. G.E. doesn't try (tk) to squeeze such a diverse cadre of workers into a
single personnel system, and neither should the federal government.
We've got legislation moving through Congress that will get us out of the
one-size-fits-all system, while preserving basic common values like
veterans preference and merit. It will allow each agency to set up its own
method of examining and rating applicants, classifying jobs, assessing and
rewarding performance, and dealing with poor performance.
15
�Management Systems and Structure
Just a few years ago, the front line federal workers had more layers of
supervisors than they could shake a stick at - as much as they would like
to. For example, a nurse in a veterans hospital would have had to
3
communicate through a reporting chain of 63 bosses before word reached
the Secretary of Veterans Affairs - and, of course, Secretary Brown would
have to do the same to get an answer back. Did you eyer play the party
game called "telephone," where a half dozen players·Hned up and whispered
a simple message from one to the next? It invariably came out garbled.
Imagine what 63 players could do. Imagine 63 layers of management
transmitting that nurse's good idea about how to save money on, say,
sphygmomanometers. Every new idea needed high-level approval.
By the way, that long line of managers wasn't just waiting to convey the
front-line workers' ideas to the top boss. They were busy producing rules
and regulations spelling every detail of what front-line workers should and
should not do.
[Insert drawing from the cover of the Authority Book.]
Back in 1993, when we started this whole reinventing government thing, we
discovered that one out of every three government employees was not
delivering any particular service to any particular customer. We found that
one-third of our employees had been assigned to keep the other two-thirds
from ever doing anything wrong. They were writing and promulgating
internal rules, administering internal rules, and auditing compliance with
internal rules. That occupied almost 700,000 workers, who cost taxpayers
around $35 billion a year, plus office space and lots of paper. But at least
nothing ever went wrong .... Right? ... Wrong!
Big headquarters and big rule books have never kept the government from
making big mistakes. In fact, they often keep front line workers from doing
things right. So we asked agencies to cut headquarters, layers of
3
The Thickening of Government by Paul Light, page tk.
16
�supervisors, and other controlling jobs by 50 percent. Here's how they've
done so far:
Streamlining Changes to Date (Fiscal Years 1993 to 1996 (est.))
Agency
Supervisors
Agency for International Development
Agriculture
Commerce
Defense (total)
Air Force
Army
Navy
Defense Agencies
Education
Energy
Environmental Protection Agency
Federal Emergency Management Agency
General Services Administration
Health and Human Services
Housing and Urban Development
Interior
Justice
Labor
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Science Foundation
Office of Personnel Management
Small Business Administration
Social Security Administration
State
Transportation
Treasury
United States Information Agency
Veterans
Average
-3
-21
-18
-16
-13
-14
-19
-19
-24
-53
-38
-20
-28
-29
-37
-29
+4
-28
-40
-24
-6S
-3S
-25
-8
-22
-10
-22
-28
-20
Percent Reduction in:
Headquarters
Management
Control
+S
-14
-IS
-11
- .- . -20
-16
-8
-10
-8
-8
-17
-8
-7
-8
-3
-8
-12
-11
-16
-27
+4
-10
+17
-22
-18
-21
-II
-IS
-17
-36
-32
-27
+9
-S
-14
-IS
-16
-34
+8
-18
-41
-53
-2S
-29
-14
-23
-1
-7
-17
-25
+4
+4
-17
-1S
'
-6
-19
-9
-14
Since we've been offering buyouts and putting the brakes on hiring, the
reductions haven't been concentrated in management control positions to
the extent the National Performance Review recommended. But twelve
agencies are at least half way to the goal on supervisors, and seven have cut
headquarters by 25 percent or more. In addition, bureaus and agencies
within selected departments are also making big progress that isn't reflected
17
�•
in their departments' overall figures. Overall, it's fair progress, but we've
still got a long way to go.
Numbers aren't everything. Many bosses are changing the way they do
their jobs -encouraging innovation and customer service instead of just
making workers toe the line. Many management organizations are taking
on a new role - less headquarters that does all the thinking, and more
hindquarters with the primary job of support. One sign of the change is the
reduction in the sheer volume of internal regulations. ln response to a
National Performance Review recommendation, ageticy headquarters have
scrapped 300,000 pages ofthe kind of regulations that drove Tommy
Roland crazy. Ultimately, we have to bring down the number of people in
management jobs and headquarters, but this shift in attitude is every bit as
important.
Reinvention Labs
The first thing we did to encourage a change of attitude at headquarters and
to move more authority and accountability to the front lines was create
"reinvention laboratories," where front-line workers and managers could try
out their ideas for a change. Now, there are around 250 reinvention labs.
They're leading the reinvention revolution. They have been called "islands
4
of innovation in a sea ofbureaucracy." The place Tommy Roland works,
Miami International Airport, is one of the reinvention labs. Here are some
other examples:
• The New York Office of Veterans Benefits radically changed its
organization and increased customer and worker satisfaction, reduced
claims processing costs by 12 percent, and cut backlogs in half. They
serve customers so fast now that they don't need their waiting room
any more- they're turning it into a museum of VA memorabilia.
• General Services Administration reinvention laboratories established
the first electronic shopping mall for Federal customers and cut the
cost of real estate sales by 50 percent while generating revenue of $46
million.
4
Government Executive, May 1996
18
�• The Air Force medical organization prototyped an automated system
for maintaining patients' records, and expects to save millions and
improve care as the new system spreads throughout the Defense
Department.
• A joint effort between the Defense Contract Audit Agency and the
Defense Logistics Agency cut the government's and contractors'
overhead expenses by substituting international_quality control
standards (ISO 9000) for the government standard. Quality rose and
government costs have fallen by over $150 million so far.
Reinforcing Success: The Hammer Award
From the start of the National Performance Review, we've spotlighted the
people and teams that were showing the way to reinvention by giving them
a "Hammer Award" - a $6-hammer wrapped in ribbon and mounted on an
aluminum frame. It symbolizes the dramatic change from the days when
government paid a bit more for hammers. The awards are highly prized,
and teams are eager to publicize initiatives that, in the old days, they would
have kept quiet about because they were afraid of criticism. More than 400
Hammer Awards have gone to such teams as:
• the Interior Department team that converted its rules into plain
English;
• the Transportation team that, along with their California teammates,
figured out how to get the Santa Monica Freeway back into operation
in record time after the Northridge earthquake;
• the Social Security team that Business Week identified as having the
best 1-800 service in America - better than L.L. Bean or Disney.
Franchise Funds
19
�Our government has long opposed private monopolies while creating public
ones. A federal manager needing some administrative service - like help
from personnel, legal, procurement, financial, or computer specialists - had to go to the departmental monopoly in charge of that service. This
approach was thought to offer economies of scale.
Today almost everybody understands that monopolies provide poor services
at high costs. So the original National Performance Review report
recommended subjecting government administrativt: ~ervices to competition
by freeing government agencies from the requirement" to buy supplies from
the General Services Administration, and by establishing "franchise" funds
that allow selected agencies to offer their common administrative services
to other agencies. GSA's Federal Supply Service gave up its monopoly on
office supplies in 1994, and has been competing successfully for
government business ever since. Their motto is "Better, faster, cheaper, or
not at all."
Congressional approval was obtained in May 1996 for franchise funds in
Interior, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency,
and Commerce. The funds will allow these agencies to sell other agencies
such services as mainframe computing, records storage, personnel and
accounting systems, background checks, apd travel management.
What's the Point?
The government is filled with good people like Tommy Roland. The
problem is that for years, we've kept these good people trapped in bad
systems. We are changing the systems so all our people can devote more of
their time, intelligence, and energy to what they signed up for in the first
place - serving you, the people of America.
20
�CHANGE TWO:
SERVING PEOPLE BETTER
"1 stumbled from the office dazed and confused, completely
disoriented by what had just happened."
- Elizabeth Childs, describing her feelings after
coming into contact with the federal government.
Beth Childs lives in the shadow of the government - literally. Her neat,
cozy, second story apartment opens onto a porch overlooking a federal
office building in Sacramento. They are separated only by a hedge of white
flowering oleander, the kind in the median strips of the California freeways.
Beth has lived there for eight years with her husband, Bill, a drug and
alcohol counselor in a nearby local high school, and Sydney, her junior-high
aged daughter, who has taken up playing the flute, following in the
. footsteps of her self-taught mother.
"The government is a rude neighbor," Beth complains mildly. "They get
out here sometimes on Sunday mornings around 7:00 making all kinds of
noise with leaf blowers and garbage trucks. But I guess they might feel the
same way about us, considering Fred." Fred is their gray cat- they also
have a calico. "Fred's learned how to open their electronic doors and he
goes into the cafeteria kitchen. The health inspector caught him in there
once. Caused quite a stir." Beth's smile shows that Fred is making up for
the Sunday morning noise. But being the government's neighbor is not
what made her feel "dazed and confused, completely disoriented" as she
wrote in a recent letter. That came from one of the times she visited a
government office - one of the times she needed something only the
government could supply.
"My twin sister, Tami, just adopted a Russian baby while she and her
husband were living in Belgium. The baby's named Amy, and she's
absolutely beautiful. Tami had to fill out lots of forms in Russian, Flemish,
and French. At the last minute, Tami realized she needed a form in English
from INS (the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.) It's just a one-
21
�page form- a single piece of green paper. I offered to pick the form up at
the INS office." ·
The INS office is in a nondescript concrete and smoked glass building on J
Street, one of the main drags in Sacramento. Its address is the only thing
printed on the facade of the building, seven-eleven. But it is no
convenience store.
"There was a sign on the wall that said the capacity 'Yas 250, but there had
to be 500 people in there. I finally figured out I was ·supposed to take a
number -like in a bakery. But there were different windows -like one
for cookies, another for cake, another for bread - and there were different
numbers and a different number dispenser for each window. One was for
forms, but I wasn't sure which one I needed so I took a number for the
'information' window. There was a sign on the window that said, 'Now
Serving 143.' My ticket was number 327 and it said right on the ticket there
would be a 72 minute wait. So I went out and had some lunch and bought a
book. When I got back almost an hour later, the 'Now Serving' sign said
145 - I had only advanced by two.
"I decided to skip the 'information' window and took a numbered ticket
from the 'forms' window dispenser. It was number 79 and the ticket said I
would only have a two minute wait. Three and a half hours later, I was
getting near the window. The reason it was so slow was that clerk kept
getting interrupted with questions from people who were dropping
appointment forms in a box right by his window. I was impressed by the
number of different languages he spoke, and he seemed rude in every one of
them. Finally, the clerk had called number 75, so I and a couple others
moved up close to the window. Then the lighted sign over the window
changed from number 75 to 320! They had switched from 'forms' to
'information.' When we protested, the clerk snapped that he had to do what
his supervisor told him, and that he would switch back to forms in 40
minutes.
"With that, he called out number 320, but no one showed. After a second
call and no answer, he went to 321 and a young woman stepped up to the
window. Well, an elderly woman with 320 had been struggling through the
crowd and finally made it. In broken English, she tried to explain that she
22
�couldn't get to the window in time. The clerk reprimanded the old woman
and refused to help her until she had turned around and apologized to
woman number 321. He was really on a power trip.
"I was so mad that I decided to call Washington. I demanded to speak with
someone in charge, and got put on hold. I was on hold long enough that the
window switched back to dispensing forms. So I hung up and got back in
line. When I got to the counter, the clerk said 'Well now, that wasn't so
bad, was it?' I had waited a total ofjive hours. All that time, I could see the
forms on the shelf behind the clerk. Why did I have to go through that? He
wouldn't even give me two copies of the form in case Tami made a mistake.
To'get another copy, I would have had to come back another day and wait in
line again." [Beth's bad experience at the INS office happened less than a
year ago. INS is doing something about it. First, they have a new easy
way to get forms. Just diall-800-870-3676 and tell them what you need.
A few days later, the forms come in the mail. But that's not all- INS has
designated two offices -one in Detroit and one in El Paso - as
"reinvention labs," where the workers can try out their own new ideas to
improve customer service- ways that all INS offices will be using soon.]
Even Beth Childs' outrageous experience with INS wasn't what left her
"dazed and confused, completely disoriented by what had just happened."
She was used to abuse by now. It was a more recent and more unusual
encounter with government that dazed Beth - this one on February 22,
1996. Beth Childs gave her daughter an extra hug as she left for school that
day. This time Beth was ready for the long, unpleasant journey ahead. She
had made all the necessary plans others make when they go out of town on
business for an indefinite stay. Her best friend had agreed to pick up
Sydney after school and to keep her at her home until Beth returned. Not
knowing when she would return, she wore comfortable, casual clothes and
packed her cross stitching.
To prepare herself psychologically, she closed her eyes and tried to
concentrate. She consciously lowered her expectations. She had learned
not, to expect things to run smoothly or efficiently. Prepared for the
humiliation, frustration, and anguish she had experienced before, Beth got
in her car and, without looking back, drove away. She was on her way to
face the government again - this time, the Social Security Administration.
23
�When Beth entered the Social Security office on Fulton Avenue in
Sacramento that day, she was shocked. She expected an office filled with
long lines of people with screaming children. She wondered if she'd gone
to the wrong building. The place was quiet. The clerks were smiling. As
Beth remembers it, "A strange vortex opened up at the Social Security
office and bureaucracy was suspended. I was in shock. I was totally blown
away by the service I received. Everybody was just so nice. They almost
offered to carry my bags. I felt like they were fanning me with feathers
while I filled out this form." Beth was so moved by her experience that she
wrote the following letter:
Sir/Madam:
I had cause to visit your office on February 22, 1996.... I was greeted
by an efficient, friendly, helpful staff in a timely manner and was able
to complete my business in one visit. I then stumbled from the office
dazed and confused, completely disoriented by what had just
happened. I wandered the parking lot for a while before regaining
my composure and returning home to relay my experience to family
and friends. They were spellbound. Thankyoufor giving us all a
new perspeCtive ofgovernment agencies and their employees.
Beth's not the only one who's getting a new perspective on government.
Just listen to what happened when Beth's twin sister, Tami, brought newlyadopted Amy home to the United States this past July. "We got into Logan
airport (Boston) at 5:30 in the evening. Amy was still on European timealmost midnight - so she was a bit cranky. When we got to the
Immigration counter, we showed the man Amy's Russian passport and her
application for citizenship- you know, to get her green card. He told us
that the photo on her application was too small. I thought, oh boy, here we
go. But he was so upbeat and friendly. He had a camera in his office, he
took Amy's picture, and gave us the right size. Then he noticed that our
address on the application was a post office box- we'd been living
overseas. He said we'd need a house address to get Amy's green card in the
mail. I couldn't remember my parents' ZIP code in Maine, so he asked me
their phone number, picked up his phone, and called them. He let me chat
a minute to let them know we were safe and sound, got the ZIP code, and
24
�sent us merrily on our way. As we left, he called out: 'Your tax dollars at
work'."
They certainly are your dollars, and that certainly is how government should
work for you. Thanks to strong leadership from President Clinton, and the
hard work of federal employees who've been wanting a chance to do this all
along, government is beginning to serve the people better.
President Clinton's Marching Orders
Based on a recommendation from the National Performance Review, in
1993 President Clinton gave the executive order, and he gave it loud and
clear: Every agency that deals with the public should deliver service equal
to the best in business. That goal is easy to understand. Government
telephone operators as fast and courteous as the ones at L.L. Bean or
USWest. 1 Front-line federal employees as eager, able and happy to serve
you as the folks at Wal-Mart. A government that serves its people the way
America's best companies serve their customers.
PRESIDENT CLINTON'S EXECUTIVE ORDER 12862
"Setting Customer Service Standards"
Embark upon a revolution within the Federal Government.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Identify customers who are, or should be, served by the agency.
Survey customers to determine the kind and quality of services they want and their level of satisfaction
with existing services.
Post service standards and measure results against them.
Benchmark customer service standards against the best in the business.
Survey front-line employees on barriers to, and ideas for, matching the best in business.
Provide customers with choices in both the sources of service and the means of delivery.
Make information, services, and complaint systems easily accessible.
Provide means to address customer complaints.
The standard of quality shall be equal to the best in business.
Bill Clinton
1
The Social Security Administration is that good, according to Dalbar Financial Services and Business
Week magazine.
25
�America's best companies didn't get that good overnight, and neither will
the government. But, we are making progress and we're measuring our
progress the same way top companies do. Their # 1 rule in customer service
is that you're not making the grade unless the customers say you are.
According to letters from some of our customers, we're headed in the right
direction:
This is from a recently retired businessman in Mesquite, Texas.- "Years
ofless than ideal contact with a host ofgovernment agencies had made a
'civil service basher' ofme - not particularly kind on· my part, but based on
experience. And so, on April 8, 1996, I visited the Dallas-Lake June Social
Security Office with some trepidation. The waiting room was crowded but I
waited only 12 minutes. It's hard to describe what a pleasure that
encounter was. Throw out the stereotype of the Civil Service employee.
These people were so friendly and helpful that you would have expected that
they would be asking favors of us, not the other way around. I can only say
that I would hate to be going head to head against you in business. You
would win in a walk. "
And this is from a lawyer whose client had some unpaid taxes and a
delinquent return.- "With a few telephone calls (no unending busy signals
or being put on indefinite hold) to the Baltimore IRS office, I was able to ·
have an installment agreement put in place, the levy released by telecopier,
and my client's life able to go on. In 24 years ofprivate practice, I can't
recall an easier resolution of what I had anticipated to be a procedural
nightmare. "
From a San Diego resident who works in Mexico and used to spend hours
waiting in line to come home. - "What a relief it has been, not to worry
about long border lines ... I'm not sure how to quantify anxiety, stress, and
frustration levels, but the dedicated commuter lanes have minimized these
levels significantly. Who knows, maybe I will live longer. " Another
frequent border crosser notes, "I don 't get the stomach aches that I used
to."
From a Montana sheriff who had to deal with a derailed train with tank cars
leaking deadly chlorine gas; he had to know which way and when the wind
would blow.- "Brenda and [the National Weather Service] staff were
26
�there for us, in the field, at all hours, and under all conditions. [Their
involvement] goes a long way toward dispelling the stereotype of
bespectacled scientists in a windowless room grouped around gauges and
radar screens (or a crystal ball©)."
From an inventor in Massachusetts. - "Joe Cheng [an examiner at the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office] went out of his way to clarify the specifics of
patent law. It is people like Mr. Cheng who make it possible for small,
independent inventors like myself to survive... " _ .
From a Detroit police officer who worked security along with the U.S.
Secret Service when some international bigwigs visited Mo'town (all those
movies and TV shows how pleased the local cops are to see the feds show
up). - "In the past, when local and federal agents came together, it would
seem like the clash of the titans, but not in this case. It's really hard to put
into words, how wonderful and refreshing it was, everyone working
together with one common goal ... [and] no finger pointing. Your people
are the world's greatest."
This is part of a letter from World War II veteran who had gone to a VA
clinic four years ago and "was extremely disappointed by the lack of
courtesy and coordination within the clinic." Recently, he went again.
"What a pleasant surprise! I was impressed by the cleanliness and
organization. The clerks were very polite and helpful. Congratulations on
a job well done. As my daughter says, we deserve it. "
We agree, you do deserve it - all Americans deserve much better service
from government agencies. But it doesn't come easy. Just listen to what's
been going on behind the scenes to make the customers notice a difference.
Customer?
We had to start with the basics. Some agencies had never thought in terms
of customers before, so the National Performance Review conducted
workshops for agencies to figure out who their customers were. In private
business it's easy- the customer it the person with the money, the person
who might go to your competitor. But most agencies don't have
competition, and they saw Congress as their source of money. We even had
27
�complaints from taxpayers saying they were the government's owners, not
its customers. They are right about being the owners, but they are
customers, too -just like a Ford stockholder who buys a Ford.
Ask Customers What They Want
The National Performance Review's next step was to get agencies to ask the
customers what they want. Just asking turned out to be harder than you
might imagine. In 1980, Congress passed the Paperwork Reduction Act to
protect people from having to fill out too many forms. Diligently, the
Office of Management and Budget in Washington had written tough
regulations giving the agencies high hurdles to clear to mail out any new
forms - for example, surveys to find out what their customers wanted. But
when the President ordered, OMB jumped, and now agencies can ask their
customers.
Once agencies began surveying customers, they got some surprises. For
example, the Internal Revenue Service had assumed that what people
wanted most was to get their tax booklet in the mail as soon as possible
after New Year's Eve; but what the customers said they wanted most was
little or no contact with the IRS. The Department of Veterans Affairs
assumed that vets welcomed long delays in the waiting room so they could
2
swap war stories; their customers told them, "Wrong." The Federal
Emergency Management Agency assumed that disaster victims wanted
help to arrive much faster; they were partly right - but the victims
FEMA surveyed also said that they'd like someone to take a little time,
listen to their problems, and reassure them.
Setting Standards
Once customers have said what they want, it's good business to tell them
what to expect- the way FedEx promises they will deliver a package by
10:30 the next morning- or Disney World has signs posted along the line
for Space Mountain saying how much longer you'll have to wait. Making
firm promises was new territory for government agencies that were used to
hedging. At first, only three agencies- the U.S. Postal Service, the IRS,
2
The VA regional office in NYC has now virtually eliminated long waits for their customers. In fact, they
are turning the old waiting room into a museum of VA memorabilia.
28
�and the Social Security Administration - were willing to stick their necks
out and say how fast or courteous they would be. The next year, after the
President's order and more National Performance Review workshops, 150
agencies took the plunge. Now, 214 agencies have published specific
customer service promises. The National Performance Review compiled a
book of them, 3 organized it according to customer- not agency - and put
it on the World Wide Web for all to see.
STANDARDS THAT TOUCH MILLIONS
•
lntemal Revenue Service: tax refunds due on complete and accurate paper returns in 40
days; 21 days for electronic returns.
•
Social Security Administration: new and replacement cards mailed within five days;
we'll tell you the Social Security number in one day if it's urgent.
•
Coast Guard: search and rescue on demand, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
•
EPA: in our voluntary programs, publicly recognize the achievements of our business.
•
Education Department· special education customers will be seen within 10 minutes.
•
OSHA: inspectors will be respectful and helpful, and focus on the most serious hazards.
•
FedWorld: on-line transactions completed in seven seconds.
•
Mint: orders taken 24 hours a day, seven days per week.
•
National Park Service: Great Smokey Mountains visitor center open every day but
Christmas.
•
Bureau of Labor Statistics: data any way you want it: from a live person, by recorded
message, fax, microfiche, diskette, tape, Internet, or TOO.
Making promises is risky, but it does force improvement. The U.S. Postal
Service promised local delivery overnight for first-class mail; but then they
didn't make it in key cities. Only 50 percent of the mail was being
delivered overnight in New York and Washington; in Chicago, mail burned
under bridges. The media covered it all. But since 1993, on-time delivery
3
"Putting Customers First" GPO document# tk.
29
�in Washington, New York and Chicago has improved steadily to better than
85 percent. The national average is up to 90 percent.
Organizing for the Convenience of the Customer
After they asked customers what they wanted and set standards, a lot of
agencies had to reorganize so they could deliver what they promised.
Here's just one example: The Federal Emergency Management Agency
had been a national disaster all by itself. Congress was seriously
considering scuttling the agency because, when emergencies struck, FEMA
wasn't much help to anyone. Part of the problem was the way FEMA
was organized - it had divisions for man-made disasters like riots or
nuclear war, and divisions for natural disasters like floods or earthquakes.
Each division had its own people and equipment that couldn't be used for
another division's disaster. FEMA Director James Lee Witt put an end to
that, reorganizing FEMA into an "all-hazards" team. Lots of other
agencies had to change the way they were organized once they started to
concentrate on their customers' needs instead of their own.
The National Performance Review stimulated, or at least applauded, some
reorganizations for the convenience of customers that involved lots of
agencies. We call them one-stop shops, and the idea is for the government
to get together so the customers don't have to wander around. Houston\
Boston , and Atlanta now have government "general stores" offering
almost any service from the federal government in one place - with local
5
government there, too. There are 88 U.S. Export Assistance Centers
where anybody who wants to sell goods overseas can find a team from
Commerce, the Small Business Administration, the Export-Import Bank,
and state agencies ready to make it happen. For firewood in the
Northwest, you can stop by the local convenience store and buy a permit
that's good for federal wood, whether it's from an Agriculture
Department National Forest or an Interior Department Bureau of Land
Management preserve. We figured' it out so you don't have to.
Phones and Computers
4
5
The Houston store specializes in helping small businesses.
Stop in or call 1-800-USA-TRADE.
30
�Workers need good equipment to give good service. Let's stick with
FEMA as the example: FEMA's main equipment used to be tents and tons
of paper. After a flood, FEMA would set up a tent on dry ground and all
the victims would have to get there somehow to fill out forms. FEMA
inspectors would stop by the tent, pick up a batch of forms, slog out to
the damaged houses to check them out, then slog back to the tent to
exchange those forms for the next batch. To give better service, they
needed better tools, and they got them. Now, flood victims can call a 1800 number to apply for aid, and inspectors have !land-held computers
with modems that receive claims and call in their evaluations without any
slogging. Lots of other agencies needed and got modem equipment to give
better service, too, and the National Performance Review helped make
sure that stuff got high priority in the budget.
Telephones are top priority customer service equipment. More Americans
contact the government by phon~ than any other way - at least they try to.
The people at the Social Security Administration were judged the best in the
6
business at handling calls -once callers got through. The service was
world-class, but the access wasn't. This year, SSA transferred staff to the
call centers, converted data centers to handle calls, put in technology so that
all claims representatives could handle overflow calls on the busiest days,
and installed a 24-hour automated system for frequently asked questions.
Now, less than half as many callers get busy signals, and 90 percent of all
callers get through in five minutes.
FEMA and SSA aren't the only ones who see phones as the key to better
servtce:
• The Food Safety and Inspection Service has a 24-hour, seven-day-aweek 1-800 number with safety tips and information on recalls of meat
and poultry;
• The Food and Drug Administration has a 24-hour phone line and a
World Wide Web site with information on food, drugs, and cosmetics;
6
An independent private sector survey by Dalbar picked SSA as the country's best 1-800 service based on
customer reactions. SSA beat G.E., L.L. Bean, Fidelity and USWest. But SSA wasn't satisfied- it took
too long to reach an operator.
31
�~'When
•
OSHA offices get a worker's complaint about safety hazards, they
don't send long, legalistic letters to the business owner anymore; they
pick up the phone and get the problem fixed;
• Travelers worried that a new passport won't arrive before the flight
leaves can dial the Passport Service's new 1-900 number and find out
where it stands.
• ··The Consumer Product Safety Commission's 1-800 hotline also runs
around the clock. Callers can report hazards or ~'!ear about recent product
recalls. For auto safety information, they will transfer callers to the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's hotline.
• · The Immigration and Naturalization Service now has a toll-free number
for forms (so you don't have to suffer what Beth Childs did). They also
have a gizmo that employers can attach to their phones to call the INS
computer and verify the legal status of job hunters.
• IRS is always on the phone. This year, three million taxpayers called in
and filed their returns without paper. The TeleTax system checked their
math and got their refund to them within three weeks. Next year's goal
is 20 million.
• Computers make phone calls too. If you'd like to know what you'll
get from Social Security when you retire, dial up the PEBES homepagl
on the World Wide Web. One person who did wrote in the customer
comment block, "This is too easy. Is this a trick or something?'
• Students and teachers have been enjoyin~ "Ask-a-Geologist," the U.S.
Geological Survey's new Internet service . Sorry kids, they'll answer
questions but they won't write your reports.
Some computers have just been waiting for government to discover them.
The comer ATM machines and supermarket checkout stands used by most
Americans already hold the technology needed for a national Electronic
Benefits Transfer system. This grand reinvention plan, announced in 1994,
will deliver food assistance, social security, veteran, and local assistance
payments using a single debit card distributed to each qualified beneficiary.
By 1999, about 25 million Americans will be using the card and $11 0
7
8
PEBES stands for tk, and the address is tk.
Send your geology questions by e-mail to: ask-a-geologist@usgs.gov.
32
�billion per year will be transferred this way, instead of by check or food
stamps.
All states are planning Electronic Benefit Transfer systems. Thirteen states
are already delivering some benefits this way, with about 1.4 million of
their citizens using the card. Checks aren't being mailed or carried around
so there is less chance of theft. Electronic records make it easier to spot
fraud patterns. And when the program is completely up and running, it will
save about $120 million per year in administrative CQSts.
Number, Please
The government is providing more and more services over the phone. So
what's the phone number? Try 411- information. Ask the operator
about a government service, like getting a passport. The information
operators hate calls like these because, like the rest of us, ~ll they have to
work with are the government listings in the phone book. The low-tech
puzzle that must be solved before reaching the high-tech government is·
the blue pages.
The blue pages aren't like the yellow pages. Yellow pages list things and
services. Blue pages list names of organizations. The information operator
would have to know that the question about passports would be answered
by the State Department (listed under "S".)
The General Services Administration has set out to fix the blue pages. GSA
handles phone services for the government, but each agency creates its own
listings in each phone book around the country, so changing the blue pages
is a big. coordination job. Nonetheless, as a start, GSA and the agencies
have promised to have new blue pages in at least five cities9 for 11 million
people this fall. Soon, if you want a passport, you will look under "P" for
passport.
..
Txatntng
9
The lucky cities are: tk
33
�Finally, there's training- for all the front line workers who actually see
and talk to customers. All the clerks waiting at the counter. All the
.-operators poised for your call. And the managers too; they have to learn
what the best companies in business know - that employee satisfaction is
the key to customer satisfaction. The National Performance Review
arranged for some of the nation's top experts in customer service to teach
at a dozen customer service workshops.
The trick was to pull together all of the new awareness of who the
customer is, and all the information about what the customer wants, with
all of the capability of the new organization and the new equipment.
FEMA's "all hazards" organization can get plenty of resources on the job
quickly, and FEMA's inspectors can move a lot faster and cover a lot more
territory with their new 1-800 service and hand-held computers. But they
had to be trained to spend some of that extra time just listening to people's
troubles and reassuring them, like the customers said they wanted.
It's a big job to get an entire government turned around from focusing on
red tape to focusing on results that customers want. The Clinton-Gore
National Performance Review is leading the way and we think we're
getting there. But the only opinion that really counts is the customer's:
DearFEMA,
The morning ofAugust 9th [1995] completely changed our lives.
Vermilion, Ohio, had five inches of rain in under one hour. Our
basement began to fill with water and when the pumps failed we knew
we were in for some problems. The basement windows burst in with
incredible force and within an hour and a halfwe had 8 feet ofwater in
the basement and 5feet on our first floor. We were completely helpless,
and had just enough time to rush our two small children to safety. We
lost nearly everything we owned. I cannot begin to explain the feeling
ofwatching the water come up in the door ands windows. Frantically
we tried to move things but the water just came in too fast. It was truly
terrifying and so incredibly sad that everything we worked so hard for
was now 5feet under water. It is a feeling that will never ever leave
me. We were at that moment without a place to live, no clothes other
34
�that what we had on, and a realization that we had no flood insurance
(we were not in a flood plain area). It was very devastating.
Then the Red Cross and FEMA arrived. I must tell you that you people
working for you are some ofthe nicest, most caring individuals we have
ever met. They were so willing to do anything in their power to help.
They were so wonderful, each and every one ofthem. They treated each
person that walked through the door as if they were their own fomily ...
They were so unbelievably organized, whatever they said they would do
- it was done. They had answers and got right back with us. They
were always right on time and were so helpful.
Thanks to you, and only you, we were able to get back on our feet. Our
children were truly traumatized by the flood and you enabled us to get
things back to normal, and get into a home again. We owe you and the
President more thanks than we can ever express. IfI had the chance to
tell the President one thing it would be that FEMA is the answer to
prayers.
In closing there is nothing I could say as to how FEMA could work
better to help its customers... »
Sincerely,
David and Kelly Bodde, jordan and David
35
�CHANGE THREE:
PARTNERSHIPS WITH BUSINESS
•
•
•
•
All Regulators Will:
Cut obsolete regulations
Reward results, not red tape
Get out of Washington - create grass roots
partnerships
Negotiate; don't dictate
-"Clinton's Regulation on Regulators," presented by
President Clinton to all of Washington's top regulators.
The relationship goes way back. In the early 1800's, the US government
drew on the resources of Saint Simons Island off the southern coast of
Georgia- its tough live oaks made the sides of the US Frigate Constitution
withstand cannonballs like iron. Almost a hundred and fifty years after
Saint Simons made "old ironsides" famous, a group of island entrepreneurs
turned the tables and drew on the resources of the US military - they leased
large freezers from the local Navy base which was closing and became
SeaPak, the nation's first commercial producer of breaded shrimp. Today,
half the nation's retail frozen breaded shrimp, millions of pounds of breaded
fish filets, onion rings, French toast sticks and cheese sticks come from
Rich-SeaPak, whose corporate office are still on Saint Simons Island. The
long relationship with the government has had its ups and downs.
"The seafood industry traditionally had very adversarial dealings with the
FDA (Food and Drug Administration)," says Ray Jones, SeaPak's
corporate director of quality assurance and regulatory affairs. "In the early
days, it was all small, independent producers - basically fishermen - who
didn't want anything to do with the government. It was a matter of getting
away with whatever you could. So, when bigger companies like SeaPak
started to be formed, the residue of that adversarial relationship was still
around.
36
�"When I came here nine years ago, our lawyers were telling us, 'Don't talk
to them, don't give them anything.' We could do that legally. The law says
that we have to let FDA come into the plant and go anywhere they want.
But, we don't have to give them our production records or consumer
complaints or let them take pictures. So we didn't.
"One of the things the food industry has always feared is giving FDA access
to customer complaints. Most customers give us good, legitimate feedback
on what they think about our product, but there are _some complaints that we
get that may not be legitimate - such as where a customer alleges they
found something in a package of shrimp or fish. We were afraid that FDA
might misinterpret or over react to the complaints, so we chose not to let
them see them. They would come in, ask for the customer complaint file, or
some other records, we'd refuse, and things would go downhill from there.
We'd end up with a big write up about how bad we were - even though
maybe the only 'bad' thing we'd done was give them a hard time.
"The thing FDA did that hurt us the most was taking samples of our
product. They would take the samples and send them off for analysis.
Sometimes it could take weeks to get the results back. We were not
required to hold the product off the market until the testing was finished, but
we almost always did. So sometimes we might have to hold two or three
days production until we got the results back. Even if we were sure the
product was in compliance, we did not want to risk the possibility that FDA
might find a problem and then we would have to recall the product if we
had already shipped it. So we would hold the product and wait.
"Keep in mind that, all this time, SeaPak was running a clean operation.
We're very careful about the wholesomeness of our product. Not just when
the FDA shows up, b1:1t all the time. The only thing that was coming
between us and them was a bad attitude. Ours, at least as much as theirs.
"In 1992, I sat down with our CEO, Frank Hollis, and looked at our latest
inspection report. We agreed it was ridiculous. We had set high standards
of quality for ourselves- that's what our customers demanded. We
exceeded the regulatory requirements as we understood them. So why were
we always at odds with the FDA? We were as ethical or more ethical than
37
�anybody else we knew in the business. FDA should have had us up on a
pedestal as an example. But it was the pits.
"I said we complied with the rules as we understood them because one of
the problems was that FDA would never tell you exactly what the rules
were. The Agriculture Department would- they'd approve your plan
before you did anything. But FDA's position was, 'Take your best shot,
and then we'll tell you whether you did things right.'
"At any rate, we got tired of the old adversarial relationship at just about the
same time Clinton and Gore started pushing the agencies to try partnership.
It all worked together in parallel. We called the FDA and said wed like to
talk. So we went up to Atlanta (FDA's regional office) and all the players
were there - including our local inspector from Savannah. We asked them
what we had to do to change things. They said, 'How about knocking off
all these refusals when we ask for files and records.' We said we would if
they would work with us to solve any minor violations they might find. We
wouldn't expect them to ignore real food safety issues- we didn't think we
had any of those anyway - but we didn't want them to punish us for minor
paperwork problems we could quickly fix, or force us to recall a product
due to an obviously phony customer complaint.
"Well, no more than thirty days after we got back from Atlanta, they came
to inspect us. I guess they wondered if we were for real. We let them see
everything they asked to see. Our lawyers almost had a heart attack. The
key to this whole approach is one-to-one relationships. I told their inspector
'Look, my job is on the line here. We got to have trust on both sides.' We
came out of that with the best inspection report we ever had. And they've
been back three times to inspect us since and it keeps getting better."
What does Ray Jones see in the future? One word: "HACCP." Ray's not
clearing a fish bone. He's talking about the administration's new scientific
way to insure the safety of our food.
"It means 'hazard analysis critical control point,' and basically, it's the
same method the Japanese used to beat the pants off our auto industry in the
seventies and eighties. You build in quality all along the line- don't wait
'til the end and just spot check the product. It's a much better way to insure
38
�food safety. In simple terms for the seafood industry, it means making sure
cooked fish stays hot enough long enough that no germs could possibly still
be alive- and for raw fish, that it stays cold enough until you're ready to
cook it, that no germs can grow. The FDA will be looking at our production
control records to make sure we get things hot enough, or keep things cold
enough. They'll check the product randomly to verify the other checks.
But the quality's built in. We think it's great. In fact, I'm training to
become a certified HACCP instructor so I can teach our suppliers and even
our competitors the new techniques."
Ray explains why SeaPak welcomes a new regulation that gives FDA
access to p~oduction records. "We think it will improve the consumer's
confidence in seafood. Seafood's taken a bad rap because of things like raw
oysters. But shrimp and breaded fish filets are the safest foods you'll ever
eat. This new scientific inspection will boost confidence. Five years ago,
we would have been worried about letting more government in the door.
But were not afraid of that any more. We trust each other. We have the
same goal- top quality food for our customers. We're partners."
Forming Partnerships
Can federal regulators really be partners with industry? We're not naive.
We know that not everyone is going to play by the rules. There will still be
bad actors who won't comply. For them, we reserve every penalty and
sanction that the law allows. And, because regulatory time and effort isn't
being wasted on the good guys, agencies can better focus their attention on
the few cheaters.
But, experience shows that the vast majority do play by the rules- if they
can figure them out, that is. In dealing with that majority who want to do
the right thing, partnership can achieve very good results. Agree on the
goals, allow room for innovation, and help each other all you can, because
that will increase compliance.
With that in mind, we called together all of the top regulators in Washington
for repeated meetings to reach consensus on a new approach - a way to
39
�make the rules make sense - a way to get the vast majority of businesses
into compliance - a way that works better and costs less.
The Environment
EPA used to focus on cleaning up pollution. Now, the idea is to prevent
pollution, and to use partnership as a mainstream approach. EPA has found
that when they let companies volunteer to cut pollution without the
government dictating how they had to do it, thousands of companies jumped
at the chance. Since 1992, EPA has more than tripled membership in its
"Partners for the Environment" program, with over 7, 100 companies now
. .
.
I
parttctpatmg.
One of these partnerships was forged by EPA's Regional Administrator in
Boston, John DeVillars, with Gillette, a company with a good track record
of compliance. Under a program DeVillars calls "Star Track," An
independent firm audits Gillette's compliance with environmental
regulations, and makes the audit reports public. Gillette pays the cost of the
audit and gets amnesty to fix non-criminal violations without being fined.
EPA makes no other inspections and Gillette makes no other reports.
EPA's partners have found smart ways to get well over 4 billion pounds of
planetary poisons out of circulation last year. And since the companies did
it their way, not Washington's way, they saved $360 million in the process.
It's such a clear winner that EPA expects to sign up 10,000 new partners in
the next four years.
[Insert chart on growth ofEPA partnerships.]
Medicine
FDA has been cultivating partners in the drug industry too. Their new goal
is to make safe and effective drugs available to Americans, drugs from the
most conventional processes or from the newest biotechnology. FDA will
never compromise on safety, but that isn't stopping them from cutting out
bureaucracy. Scios, Inc., a northern California pharmaceutical
manufacturer, recently wrote the agency thanking it for its new approach, in
1 EPA data from Bruce Smith at NPR 7/24 chart
40
�which inspectors work with companies to identify and correct problems,
2
rather than just issue reports and fines. Citing a recent visit to its facility
by an FDA inspector, a company vice president noted the frustrating
history of industry relations with the agency, noting that, "... since the late
80s, relations between FDA and its regulated industries have been on a
steady and disheartening decline." However, the new approach being taken
by the FDA inspector was a refreshing change. "Our goal is to get safe and
effective therapies on the market as soon as possible; you've contributed to
this effort," he states in commenting on the new and welcome change in the
FDA.
FDA has been working in partnership with researchers to create safe,
effective new drugs against cancer and other killers, and get them to market
fast. For example, they worked with Merck and Co., Inc., to make an
important new tool in the fight against AIDS available faster. Knowing that
scientists at Merck's Elkton, Virginia, lab were nearing a breakthrough on a
new drug to treat AIDS, the FDA set up advance teams to ensure quality
and reduce delays in the approval process. As a result, Crixivan, one of a
new class of protease inhibitors offering significant new treatment in the
fight against AIDS, was cleared for the market in forty-two days, the fastest
approval ever of a new drug by the FDA.
Worker Safety
You may have heard this Occupational Safety and Health Administration
story- it's one of our first and the best proofs of the power of partnership.
For years, Maine had had the nation's worst record of worker injuries.
Meanwhile, the OSHA office there was winning awards from the Secretary
of Labor for inspecting the most factories, finding the most violations, and
laying on the biggest fines- as if worker safety didn't count. But the
OSHA team knew better. So, they told the 200 most dangerous companies
in Maine that, if the companies would run a good safety program of their
own, OSHA would leave them alone. Naturally they bit,, and worker safety
in these companies had soared. Some of the companies told us their
2 5-29-96 Letter from Jack Cohen, PhD., Scios vice president, Quality & Compliance to Gregory
Bobrowicz, FDA district director, Alameda, CA.
41
�productivity went up a bunch too. As we announced last year, OSHA is in
the process of establishing similar programs nationally.
Here is an example to show that, even though we believe the partnership
approach has a big payoff, we will never lose sight of the government's
basic responsibilities, and never give up the ability to enforce the rules.
One of the original Maine 200 companies, Decoster Egg Farms, reneged on
its commitment and subjected its employees to extremely unsafe and
unsanitary conditions. OSHA stepped in quickly, cited them for numerous
violations, and fined the company $3.6 million.
Pensions
The Labor Department and the Treasury are simplifying the rules and
regulations that make sure company pension plans are financially secure.
Under the new rules, companies file a lot less paper and have to do less
mind-numbing math. But more small businesses will be able to start
pension plans covering more workers. And the workers can feel more
secure than ever that their money will be there when they reach retirement
age.
Health Care
The Health Care Financing Administration is shifting from red tape to
results so doctors and hospitals can focus more time and attention on
their patients. For example, doctors will no longer have to sign an
additional form for each patient attesting to the fact that all of the
medications and treatments they ordered were proper; that alone frees
up 200,000 hours of doctor time each year. And instead of holding
frequent inspections to make sure procedures are being followed, and
all the paperwork is in order, HCFA will check to see how the
patients are doing. And they will publish the results to help
consumers make informed choices. They will inspect laboratories
more selectively, focusing on those with past problems, and they will
stop wasting money regulating lab tests that are done by machines
that don't make mistakes.
42
�Meat and Poultry
Every year, Americans consume over 43 billion founds of beef, pork, and
poultry -- that's more than 160 pounds a person. Ensuring that it's safe for
American families to eat that meat is an important governmental mission.
For most of the last century, federal inspectors have carried out that mission
by using the old "poke and sniff' system, in which an overworked cadre of
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspectors physically checked 95%
of all that meat, using their eyes, noses, and hands to try to detect any
problems. In 1993, that system's weaknesses became tragically clear. Five
hundred people mysteriously were struck ill and four young children died in
the Pacific Northwest. The source of all this was traced to E-coli
contaminated hamburgers served at a fast food restaurant. This terrible
situation triggered a renewed focus on improving the old way of inspecting
meat and poultry. Fortunately, it coincided with the focus of the ClintonGore Administration on reinventing government regulation.
In July 1996, President Clinton announced the overhaul of USDA's meat
and poultry inspection process. The new system is HACCP, the same
scientific methods that are making seafood safe. The government sets the
goals, but gives each company the flexibility to design a plan to meet them.
It replaces a reliance on outdated procedures with new scientific testing that
will keep diseases out of the food supply far better than the old inspections
ever could. Under agreements reached between government and industry,
most of the investment in new technologies and equipment will be made by
the companies, not the government. These changes will add an estimated
one-tenth of one cent to the cost of a pound of meat - and will save an
estimated $1 billion a year in the cost of food-borne illnesses. Not much of
a price to pay for a system that will far better assure the safety of our food
4
supply.
Consumer Products
3 "Livestock Slaughter 1995" Summary USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. March 1996
4 Food Safety and Inspection Service, USDA (Washington Post citing FSIS Administrator Michael R.
Taylor, 7-9-96)
43
�The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is a government agency
that touches virtually every American. It has the responsibility within
government for ensuring that nearly 15,000 consumer goods under its
jurisdiction do not pose undue risks to their users: Under Chair Ann Brown,
the CPSC is a model of partnership with industry to achieve goals.
Working with industry, the agency has developed over 300 voluntary
standards, while promulgating only 50 mandatory, traditional rules- a six
to one ratio. This approach yields results faster, and -at less cost. For
example, in April 1994, the CPSC presented information to manufacturers
of children's clothing that drawstrings on jackets, coats, and sweatshirts
posed a significant risk, and were, in fact, killing children. Working with
industry, the CPSC crafted a voluntary agreement to remove the dangerous
drawstrings from most of the 20 million children's garments manufactured
annually in the US, without having to issue any new regulations. The
problem had been addressed in the span of four months -less time than it
would have taken to even draft typical government regulations.
Similarly, the CPSC worked with manufacturers to address the hazard that·
window blind and drapery cords posed to small children. Since 1981, over
140 children between the ages of eight months and four years had died after
being caught up on such cords. When she took over the CPSC, Chair
Brown saw the need to deal with this tragic situation. Working together, the
agency and industry devised a program to eliminate the hazard. This was
accomplished in six months, and, again, without going through the
expensive and time-consuming regulatory process. Most importantly, it
will save an estimated 35 children over the next five years.
Helping our Partners
The US Business Advisor, at http:\\www.business.gov, gives business one
electronic stop to all the agencies that deal with business.
The Advisor was designed the way a commercial software product would
be. Originally shown as an "alpha product" by President Clinton at the
White House Conference for Small Business in 1995, with the President's
44
�direction it was done and redone based on user groups of business
customers.
These users from big and small businesses around the country worked with
the product and told us what to change. They loved the idea of one
electronic stop, but wanted to change just about everything else. So we did.
A central theme in their thinking was that government is drowning them in
information - they said make it easy to find what we need and then let us
do business. They wanted to carry out transactions, like applying for
permits, or find out how to solve problems, like getting rid of a health
hazard.
The new Advisor, released this past spring, lets business search 106,000
federal World Wide Web addresses for information by typing in simple
English queries, like "show me the regulations for cutting Christmas trees
on federal lands." The President asked it that, and it answered. Results are
returned in seconds, with a key passage highlighted.
The Advisor provides several ways to get quickly to agency home pages
that are critical to business. The SBA' s home page is often mentioned as
one of the Web's most popular and is always adding new, "cool" stuff.
Responding to business's requests for on-line transactions, SBAjust put
their fast-track loan applications on-line to be filled out and submitted
without paper.
Another Advisor link takes business to the OSHA home page. Employers
can get "how to" advice there. Think you need to get rid of asbestos in your
building? OSHA has an expert system that helps you decide if you have a
problem and what to do about it. Similar electronic tools address cadmium,
lead, and the hazards of work in confined Spaces.
The Advisor is a modem, state-of-the-art, electronic one-stop shop .. We've
made some out of good old bricks and mortar, too. Houston's U.S. General
Store for Small Business dispenses nearly any service or information that a
small business owner needs from the federal government in one place with local government there, too. So far the General Store has had about
4000 customers. An independent survey says they love it. One customer,
Roy Owens, got help with a loan, tax advice, and even contract leads with
45
�the Post Office. Roy says he's got more work than he can handle, and he'll
"go anywhere, any time to tell anybody that the store is the best thing he's
ever seen from government." Business owners can get the same kind of
one-stop service at the new General Store in Atlanta. There are also 88 U.S.
Export Assistance Centers where companies that want to sell goods
overseas can find a team from Commerce, the Small Business
Administration, the Export-Import Bank, and state agencies ready to make it
happen. And SBA has "one-stop capital shops" up and running in Boston,
Philadelphia, and Kansas City.
The Treasury Department and other federal agencies have teamed up with
state and local governments and private organizations to reduce the
paperwork burden reporting and depositing payroll taxes on the nation's 6.2
million employers. Reports will only have to be filed with one agency,
which will distribute the information to all federal, state and local agencies
that need it. This goes for withholding artd reporting income tax, social
security, unemployment insurance and Medicare information. There's even
an electronic version in the works that will be on the Internet. And federal
tax deposits are now being made electronically too. The law says I ,500 big
businesses have to deposit payroll taxes electronically, but IRS made it so
easy that 64,000 more companies do it voluntarily.
The biggest help that many small businesses need to get off the ground, or
to expand, is a loan. The SBA has cut way, way back on the amount of
paperwork and time it takes small entrepreneurs to get the backing they
need and boosted the amount of private capital available. The results speak
for themselves: SBA arranged 55,000 small business loans last year, more
than twice the number for 1992, for a total of$7.8 billion- a real shot in
the arm for small business and the economy.
Who's the Enemy?
Some of the new partnerships are going so well that, frankly, it's a little
embarrassing. The 3M corporation just gave EPA an award, for goodness
sake. The international trade community in Miami named Customs
Commissioner George Weise their Man-of-the-Year. It's like Tommy
Roland said, some people might think we're not doing our job because
we're not hassling everybody anymore. Well, hassling never was our job
46
�and corporate America never was the enemy. The enemy is pollution,
poison food, workplace and product hazards, and the small percent of
people. who smuggle drugs, cheat on taxes, and deliberately pollute our
environment. Our job is to stop all of them, and we're doing it better than
ever- along with a new bunch of partners eager to help get the job done.
One of the latest alliances between business and government to defeat a
national enemy is the Business Anti-Smuggling Coalition, which started last
August in San Diego and is spreading to other ports. Led by Mattei, Inc. in
cooperation with the Customs Service, BASC is stopping drug smugglers
from using shipments of toys and other goods from overseas. It is purely
voluntary, but Mattei executives are having no problem recruiting dozens of
other patriotic business leaders to join the alliance. They all know who the
enemy 1s.
47
�CHANGE FOUR:
PARTNERING WITH COMMUNITIES
"And there's something else we can do together. We can reinvent
government. We can switch from red tape to results. We can put
the days of almighty, holier-than-thou, mister-know-it-all
Washington behind us. We can become partners."
- Vice President AI Gore,
Remarks to U.S. Conference of Mayors,
Austin, Texas, July 23, 1995
"Clinton and Gore are trying to change this huge bureaucracy. It's like
climbing a three-mile-high mountain, and they've made it to mile post one.
Nobody's ever gotten to the one mile post before. But there's still a long
way to go." So says a big city leader with a national reputation for straight
talk- a successful city government reinventor, Philadelphia's mayor, Ed
Rendell.
"Most of our dealings with the federal government are with HUD (Housing
and Urban Development). HUD would get an A+ from me, across the
board 1• Jack Kemp was a very good secretary ofHUD. Henry Cisneros is a
great Secretary of HUD - he's the embodiment of the Administration's
policy to cut regulations and red tape, and to give local government the
maximum amount of flexibility to use money most effectively.
"Empowerment Zones are an example," says Rendell. Philadelphia and
neighboring Camden! New Jersey, share one of 105 new flexible federal
grants to revitalize both urban and rural communities.
The biggest grants, worth $1 00 million, along with tax breaks to attract new
businesses, go to so-called Empowerment Zones (EZs) in six big cities and
three rural areas. Two more cities receive supplemental grants of over $1 00
million each. There are tax breaks and smaller grants for 94 other areas (64
1
To learn more about HUD partnerships with Philadelphia and other cities, visit the HUD homepage at
http://www .hud.gov.
48
�urban, 30 rural) called Enterprise Communities" (ECs). All told,
Washington is providing more than $1.5 billion in flexible grants, and more
than $2.5 billion in tax incentives.
[Insert map ofEZ's and EC's.]
Deciding what to do with the money is pure grass-roots. To qualify, the
community residents themselves, with help as needed from city and county
governments, drew up plans to solve what they, not Washington, saw as
their biggest problems. Most communities that got grants need more
businesses, more jobs, and better low cost housing, and they plan to
stimulate all of that not with handouts, but with low cost loans so the money
will be replenished. As in the Oregon Option, the EZ plans have specific
measurable goals, like increasing adult literacy and reducing teen
pregnancy. and a time schedule for getting there.
Rendell continues, "The Empowerment Zone really lets the people in the
communities take control and be responsible for the outcome. But that was
kind of easy for HUD to implement without lots of red tape, because the law
itself had the right spirit. I'm more impressed with things like HUD's
housing regulations. They've gotten rid of some of the most onerous,
inflexible requirement on cities, like the 'one-for-one' rule on public
housing. That rule said that if we tore down an abandoned high rise that
had 580 units, we had to construct 580 new units, even though there hadn't
been anybody living in there for five years. It was the same thing with
single units. You can go to some blocks in Philadelphia where everybody's
done a great job with their houses -put money into rehabilitating their
houses- and right in the middle of the block there're two HUD scattered
housing units that are terrible - places for drug dealing, places where kids
got into trouble, a big-negative on the neighborhood. But in the past, we
couldn't demolish them without plans to build two new ones. So they'd sit
there without ever being demolished or rehabilitated, doing nobody any
good. HUD's shown the common sense to eliminate that rule. So we've
brought down a number of high-rises and scattered units." Philadelphia is
not the only city that has been able to get rid of those high-rise nightmares.
In the past few years, 30,000 units have been razed, more than in the
previous 12 years. And President Clinton recently set a goal to tear down
49
�another 70,000 in the next four years- a total of 100,000 urban eyesores
gone.
"That's a wonderful change," according to Mayor Rendell. "And it's the
same story on HUD money for economic development. They've given us
all kinds of flexibility to use that money most effectively. It's a night and
day difference from the old way. They've done an excellent job. They
haven't gotten rid of all the regs and all the burdens, but they've gotten rid
of a tremendous share of them."
What about getting rid of all of them? Wouldn't the mayor welcome the
kind of complete freedom some in Congress advocate in the form of block
grants? "It's not freedom, it's baloney," says Rendell, "First of all, freedom
from federal rules would have to get to us by going through the state. And
the state government is, if anything, less sympathetic to the cities than the
feds are. So we'd never see all that freedom.
"But the main thing is that even if we got freedom from rules and red tape,
we could only operate maybe 10 or 15 percent cheaper. They're talking
about 25 percent cuts. You might be able to be just as effective if you had
freedom and 10 percent less money. But no way are you going to be
effective with 25 percent less. No way."
Rendell moved on to discuss the Environmental Protection Agency. "Under
prior administrations, EPA was the single worst bureaucracy, promulgating
regulations that avoided risks of one-in-a-trillion and had huge price tags to
local governments. They've gone from that absurd starting point to ... fair.
For example, they wanted to put out of business a scrap dealer he.re who
handles old refrigerators. There's an EPA regulation that you have to put a
red tag on them describing the safe disposal of freon. He employs a ton of
people in jobs that pay $20 an hour, and they wanted to fine him millions of
dollars, which would put him completely out of business, because he didn't
have the tags right. We argued it with them at the local level, the regional
level, even the Carol Browner level. I think we got it worked out, but they
were going to put our guy out of business.
"But on the plus side, EPA's Brownfields effort makes a lot of sense."
[Brownfields is EPA's new way of getting abandoned industrial sites
50
�cleaned up and put back into the economy. The first success was in
Cleveland Ohio, a 20 acre eyesore owned by Sunar-Hauserman. It had been
sitting in Superfund limbo land for years, prospective buyers and developers
afraid to touch it- not so much because the actual pollution, but because
the clean-up liability was unlimited. Now it's the cleaned up home of four
new businesses that contribute $1 million to the local tax base, and 180 new
jobs. Here's a recent example from the West coast: The creosote-soaked
site of the old Wyckoff wood treatment plant on Seattle's waterfront is
about to become a world-class port facility for American President Lines. If
EPA hadn't changed its ways and become a partner, the 1,000 jobs that are
coming would have. gone south -literally - and the land would have lay
there stinking while the lawyers wrangled in court for years. But EPA,
American President Lines and Seattle worked out a common sense deal that
is good for everybody. One of the latest Brownfields project is right inside
Philadelphia's American Street Empowerment Zone. EPA has agreed that
the site of a small, abandoned gasoline tank farm can be sealed, paved over,
and developed by businesses that are attracted by the EZ' s tax incentives
and low-cost loans.
"Look, there's clearly plenty of work to do yet- two more miles of
mountain to climb." says Rendell going back to his original metaphor. "But
things are sure headed in the right direction."
Cities. Counties. States -
Partners
Each year, the federal government removes nearly a quarter of a trillion
dollars from the pockets of Americans, attaches strings to it, and gives it to
state and local governments. The strings that are attached make the state
and local governments go through strange motions that frustrate citizens
and state and local governments alike.
Tillamook County, Oregon, is on the end of some of those strings. The
head of their health department, Sue Cameron, can give you some good
examples of the motions they go through. "We get federal money to
immunize kids. That's a great idea, but it's not that simple. There are seven
different kinds of federal immunization money. One kind is for diphtheria.
Another is for hepatitis-B, but only for teenagers. There's a different one
for hepatitis-B for infants. Not a different shot -just different money. But
51
�that's not all. For the best protection, babies should get their first shots
within two weeks of the day they're born, and most babies are born in
hospitals. So, common sense tells you to have the hospital nurses give the
shot while the babies are there. But the rule says it has to be done here in
the public health clinic. That rule keeps some babies from ever getting their
shots.
"And the bookkeeping! With each different kind of money for each
different kind of thing - not just the seven kinds o(immunization, but
mental health, and teen pregnancy, and so on - we have to keep separate
records. That means that everybody who works here - from the
receptionist to the doctor - is keeping track of which federal program they
were working on each minute so we can fill out time sheets for
Washington."
Ask around Washington about all that red tape and you'll find out that all
the programs and all the rules are based on good intentions. All the strings
were attached for good reasons. It's true; everybody in Washington is
trying to achieve good government. But, as Gandhi said, "Good
government is no substitute for self government." Somehow, we have to
give government back to the people.
So, how about having the feds cut all the strings and just hand the money
over? Congress has been talking about doing just that- they call it block
grants. Here's what one of the potential recipients ofblock grants says.
He's Jono Hildner, (that's pronounced John-0) and he is the essence of
Oregon - tall, fit, and outdoorsy, he runs wild rivers for fun. He also runs
everything from public housing to the dog pound in Clackamas County,
Oregon. Never heard of it? In the 1800s it was the end of the Oregon Trail.
Today, it's the beginning of Christmas- the nation's most prolific
producer of Christmas trees. "Block grants are tempting, but I don't think
the feds should just leave the money on a stump for us. I've seen that tried
before. The money disappears and you're never sure what you got for it."
52
�The Oregon Option
So where' s the happy
medium? We don't want all
The Oregon Option
December, 1994
these crazy Washington rules
anymore. But we do want to
Oregon's Governor and numerous mayors and county
make sure we get good
commissioners signed an agreement with Vice President Gore
and seven Cabinet Secretaries to pilot a redesigned system that resu!ts for all that money will be:
all your money, that is.
• structured, managed, and evaluated on the basis of results; Well, Sue Cameron and Jono
• oriented to customer needs and satisfaction;
Hildner are up to their necks
• biased towards prevention rather than remediation of
in the happy medium right
problems;
• simplified and integrated as much as possible, delegating
now in something called a
responsibilities for service design, delivery, and results to
"performance partnership".
front-line, local-level providers.
In Oregon, the partnership is
known as the Oregon Option, and it's the wave of the future.
We government reinventors believe in the adage, "Lead, follow, or get out
of the way." In the Oregon Option and other performance partnerships,
we're following. Through surveys in the early nineties, the people of
Oregon sorted out which issues were most important to them - like
cleaning up rivers, increasing adult literacy, and reducing teen pregnancy and they set some number goals - like going in three years from 18
pregnant teens in a thousand to only 10. They called the goals Oregon
Benchmarks. And they started tearing down the old-fashioned state and
local bureaucracy that stood in their way. In 1994, they invited the feds to
join them- to follow their lead. We followed proudly.
53
�Sample Benchmarks from the Oregon Option
Benchmarks
Pregnancy rate per 1,000 females ages
10-17
Percentage of children living above 100%
ofthe federal poverty level
Percentage oftwo-year-olds who are
adequately immunized
High school graduation rate
Percentage of displaced lumber and wood
products workers re-employed within 24
months and earning at least 90% of
previous income
1992
17.9
1995
9.8
2000
8
84%
88%
92%
47%
80%
100%
74%
36%
83%
60%
100%
70%
"The feds don't make us fill out those stupid time sheets anymore." says
Sue Cameron. "And the seven different immunization funds have been
consolidated." Jono Hildner adds, "The biggest improvement is
communication. I've got somebody in Washington who knows me now,
who I can talk to, who understands our problems and helps us get them
fixed. I think the feds should be doing a lot more of this."
Performance Partnerships
We agree, Jono. Based on National Performance Review recommendations
and the success of the Oregon Option, President Clinton has asked Congress
to combine 271 separate grants and programs, that now have lots of strings
attached, into 27 performance partnerships that are focused on resultsjust like Oregon's benchmarks. Each ofthe President's performance
partnership grants would consolidate funding streams, eliminate
~verlapping authorities, create financial incentives to reward results, and
reduce micro-management and wasteful paperwork. So far, Congress has
approved performance partnerships for rural development and the
environment. The recently enacted Farm Bilf created three new rural
development performance partnerships in which a large number of rural
utilities, economic development, and housing programs will be administered
together flexibly as consolidated grants focused on results.
2
The Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act of 1996, April 4, 1996.
54
�And last May, EPA signed the first environmental performance partnerships
with Colorado and Utah. The agreements set broad goals and let the states
decide their most pressing environmental needs and how much to spend on
each. The new, one-step grants replace up to 13 separate agreements the
states used to have to negotiate and allow the states to shift money as
priorities change
"The new grant agreement is particularly
without timeimportant to Colorado because it permits
Coloradoans to set priorities for state
consuming appeals to
environmental efforts and to allocate federal
EPA. Gone are the 13
funds
toward those state needs."
separate reports;
- Patti Shwayder, Executive Director of the
there's just one report
Colorado Department of Public Health and
under the partnership
Environment
grant. It is just the
kind of change in government that we envisioned in the title of the first
National
"These partnerships are based on a shared vision of
Performance
environmental protection that is based on trust, respect, and
Review report:
a commitment to changing the way we do business. These
grants are one of the top 25 [environmental) initiatives for
"From Red
reinventing government that President Clinton announced
Tape to
last March 16 [1995)"
Results."
- EPA Administrator Carol Browner
We're eager for Congress to complete their work in other areas where the
President has proposed performance partnerships, and we and the states are
ready to move as soon as Congress does. The Department of Health and
Human Services, for example, has met with over 1,000 folks around the
country - from states, localities, and consumer groups -to work together
to identify the public .health results we all want and to decide how best to
measure progress. We've also got partnerships going with states and cities
everywhere we could think of, in every way the current laws allow.
President Clinton has also established a Community Empowerment Board
of the major federal domestic agencies to support community-driven
economic revitalization. The Community Empowerment Board helps break
down the bureaucratic walls that sometimes keep agencies from responding
effectively to state and local partners. The President has directed agencies
55
�to eliminate unnecessary regulatory and legal impediments. Basically,
we're moving control and responsibility back to the people- providing
top-down support for bottom-up reform.
Welfare and Health Care Reform
One of the best pieces of evidence that Washington i_s changing its ways becoming a partner with communities instead of a know-it-all- is its
willingness to clear the way for welfare reform. We all have the same goal,
to make welfare a hand up to a decent life, instead of a hand-out for life.
But there are dozens of different ways to get there. While Congress had
been debating the different ways for the past few years, the President had
been letting states try them to see what works best. President Clinton
approved 67 welfare demonstration projects in 40 states.
The new, national welfare reform legislation, signed by President Clinton
on August 3, 1996, incorporates many of the good ideas being tried by the
states. Under the new law, the states still have the option of continuing their
current demonstration projects.
The Indiana welfare reform plan, which is typical of the scores of
demonstration projects approved by the President, puts 12,000 able-bodied
welfare recipients on "placement track" where they get special help
finding a job- including subsidies for employers. Parents have to keep
their kids in school and get them immunized. Adults get no more than two
years of special help finding a job, then their AFDC benefits run out.
Children's benefits continue, but no new benefits for more children
conceived on welfare.· The President approved Indiana's plan late in 1994,
and between March of 1995 and March of 1996, Indiana's welfare rolls
dropped by 22 percent.
a
President Clinton's done the same thing for states wanting to try health care
reforms. Tennessee, for example, has gotten the go-ahead to expand health
care coverage to over 400,000 people who were. previously uninsured. To
date, the President has approved 12 comprehensive health care reform
demonstrations similar to Tennessee's- working in partnership with
56
�•
•
states to increase the use of managed care, improve the quality of care, and
expanding coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. Many of the
welfare reform projects include health care reform, too.
These are not Washington's latest bright ideas being imposed on
communities. They're ideas from the communities themselves- from the
people who understand the problems best, and who will live with the
results. To be fair, Washington does have some experts with a wealth of
experience to share and, of course, the financial resources that communities
need. But now, communities don't have to follow Washington's rules to get
Washington's money. It's the people's money and Washington is becoming
the people's partner.
Fighting Crime
Some of our partnerships are making America's streets safer, too.
Legislation that President Clinton fought for is putting 100,000 community
police on the streets, and crime in our cities is now at its lowest rate in
years. But it isn't just a matter of brute force. The Justice Department has
teamed up with state and local police on some innovation that really works.
It's called, appropriately enough, COPS, for Community Oriented Policing
Services. Just look what it did for Tampa, Florida: A few years ago, Tampa
had a tough crime problem. Then, with a $3.8 million partnership grant
3
from the Department of Justice, a 15-officer COPS squad joined forces
with the local police and made a 23 percent dent in every crime category,
with drug busts up by 51 percent.
How? First, COPS got out of the patrol cars and mixed in with the
community. The Tampa COPS immediately investigate crimes themselves,
instead of relaying the information and responsibility to a detective. COPS
keep kids in school and off the streets, a tactic that has drastically reduced
crime during school hours. COPS hold auctions where kids bid community
service hours in exchange for impounded, unclaimed bicycles. COPS
organized the area's first Girl Scout troop and they're starting a Boy Scout
chapter. COPS organized Crime Watch Groups made up of volunteers who
canvas their community and help eliminate crimes such as vandalism,
3
Justice cut all the red tape associated with COPS. Communities need only fill out a one-page application.
57
�street-drinking, curfew violations, and prostitution. For every COPS officer
in the community, there are dozens of watchful citizens who take pride in
the cleanliness and safety of their community. This is government in
partnership with the people.
Another crime fighting partnership, Operation Safe Home, teams local and
state law enforcement with the resources ofHUD, Justice, Treasury, and the
Office ofNational Drug Control Policy. Since 1994, Operation Safe Home
has made a nation-wide improvement in the safety of public housing with
results like 8,000 arrests and the confiscation of 1,000 weapons and $5
million in drugs and drug money.
"Over the last two years, the Congress
and the U.S. Department of Education
have made tremendous progress in
transforming the federal relationship
with the states on education. It has
changed from one based on regulatory
compliance to one based on
accountability and performance. •••
These important reforms••• have
established the right framework for the
!federal government to support
Massachusetts and our local{schoolj
districts in implementing our state's
Education Reform Act."
- Robert V. Antonucci, Massachusetts
4
Commissioner ofEducation
Education
Some of the most impressive
examples of the way government is
changing to partnership are in the
Department of Education. In Goals
2000, the Education Department led
states to set challenging academic
standards for their students, and
then the reinvented Department of
Education let them get to work.
States don't have to submit their
plans to the experts in Washington for approval any more; they just have to
have a plan, a schedule for progress, and a way to measure progress. And
they don't have to report their progress to Washington either; they report it
to the people. If some federal law or regulation stands in the way of
progress, the Secretary of Education will waive the rule- he's waived
more than 100 already.
4
Robert V. Antonucci, Massachusetts Commissioner of Education, The Federal Role in Education
Reform, Testimony before House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families, House
Committee on Economic and Education Opportunities, June 21, 1995.
58
�•
And states that really want to get on boardstates that are willing to waive their own rules and
let local school districts be accountable - can
waive federal rules without even asking
Washington for permission. The deal is called EdFlex. The measure of success is simple academic performance of the students. Eight states
have signed up and there is room for four more 12 is the legal limit, for now.
Ed-Flex States
Kansas
Oregon
Massachusetts
Texas
Ohio
Vennont
Maryland
Colorado
The National Education Goals
By the Year 2000:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
All children in America will start school ready to learn.
The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90
percent.
All students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated
competency over challenging subject matter in the core academic
subjects.
U.S. students will be first in the world in mathematics and science
achievement.
Every adult American will be literate and will possess the
knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy
and exercise the rites and responsibilities of citizenship.
Every school in the U.S. will be free of drugs, violence, and the
unauthorized presence of fireanns and alcohol and will offer a
disciplined environment conducive to learning.
The nation's teaching force will have access to programs for the
continued improvement of their professional skills and the
opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to instruct
and prepare !ill American students for the next century.
Every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental
involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional,
and academic growth of children.
Since the goal of all this academic freedom is better academic performance,
let's look at some results: Maryland, one of the Ed-Flex states, reports a 52
percent leap in schools whose students are doing well at the third grade
level. They're up by 13 percent at the fifth grade level and by 32 percent at
59
�the eighth grade. Forty percent of all students statewide met the state
5
standards- that's a 25 percent gain over 1993.
It's no surprise that flexibility, local control, and measured accountability
produce good results. Kentucky's been doing it since 1990 with great
success, and we copied the idea from them. Kentucky schools manage
themselves through councils that include teachers, parents, and community
members. They set goals and measure success by looking at things like
student test scores, dropout rates, success at getting jobs, and how many go
on to college. Schools that make their goals get bonuses that school staffs
decide how to spend. Schools that don't make the grade get special help
from the state.
Results? Grades have been going up steadily the last two years, especially
for fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders. The fourth graders were best of all
- their grades went up about 10 percentage points overall, and a whopping
16 points in reading. Way to go fourth graders! Way to go Kentucky!
From teaching kids how to read to fighting crime in the streets, from big
cities like Philadelphia to rural counties like Tillamook, from both coasts
and places in between, people in governments closest to the people are
seeing the change for the better. The National Performance Review is
leading the shift away from Washington's well-intentioned efforts at good
government, toward the grassroots power of self-government. Ed Rendell is
about right- we're at the one mile post up a three-mile mountain. Let's
get a good grip and keep climbing.
5
Maryland State Department of Education, High Expectations Producing Better Schools, State School
Superintendent Grasmick Says, Baltimore, MD: Press Release, December 12, 1995.
60
�CONCLUSION
I haven't tried to compile an exhaustive list of all the problems the President
and I have faced trying to reinvent government, or of all the successes
we've scored- there just aren't enough pages in an easy-to-read book to
be fair to all the hard-working government reinventors that are helping us. I
have invited the cabinet secretaries and heads of some of the larger
government agencies to tell you what they are proudest of. having
accomplished - they fill the following pages. But, if you'd like an even
more complete story about how the federal government is getting its act
together, tum on a computer and call up our World Wide Web site. 1 There
are hundreds of success stories there.
The point of this short book is just to show you that we "get it" - President
Clinton and I understand what's wrong with how the government's been
doing things- and we're turning things around. The battle against the old
forces of big government, central control, and mistrust isn't won yet, but we
got them on the run. So now we are going to press home our advantage.
First, we are turning some oftoday's agencies into smaller, sleeker
organizations that won't look like government at all. They'll be like private
companies, with a real CEO on contract to cut costs, and a free hand when it
comes to the remaining government rules about procurement, personnel,
and the like. The British government did this a few years ago and costs
have been dropping steadily. We'll borrow their good idea.
On customer-service, we'll stick our necks out even further. The top boss of
every agency that touches millions of Americans - like the IRS and VA
and Customs - is on the ·line to make dramatic improvements in service
2
this year. There's even a Web page where you can read their specific goals
and let them know what you think.
Regulatory agencies are on orders to make partnership with businesses their
mainstream way of operating. We've tested it long enough to know it
1
The National Performance Review homepage address is "http://www.npr.gsa.gov". Look in the
Newsroom section under (tk).
2
Point your browser at "http://www.info.gov/Info/htmVcustomer_service.htm".
61
�works great and is a whole lot better than hassling everybody. No more
pilot programs for partnership.
The same goes for federal grants to state and local governments. No more
having to follow the federal rule books to get federal funds. We'll focus on
results and create performance-based partnerships. And to dispel the last
vestiges of nameless, faceless bureaucracy, we will give each of our
community partners a single, live federal employee, complete with name
and face, who will help them with any and all business in Washington,
regardless of which agency's turf it is.
~
Finally, we're going to do better by our workforce. Any Fortune 500
company would be lucky to have a workforce like the federal government's.
We need to invest in it: better tools and training, closer partnership between
labor and management, more opportunities and challenges for our senior
executives.
All of the progress we've made, and all of our plans for the future are
focused on one goal - restoring the American people's faith in their own
system of self-government- the people's belief that we can solve our
national problem by working together through the institutions of selfgovernment. Faith in government is at a low point and it threatens the·
nation's future. National problems like drugs, violence, poverty, and
pollution can only be solved by Americans working together through our
system of self-government. If we lose faith in that, we abandon the future
to chaos.
Reinvention restores our faith. Americans find government service
improving over the counter and over the phone. Business leaders find
federal regulators ready to use common sense and to look for common
ground. Communities find the walls coming down between agencies and
levels of government, and beyond the old walls, they find partners ready to
do whatever it takes to solve problems. Reinvention is securing the future
of self-government in America.
AI Gore
62
�OFFICE
OF THE VICE
PRESIDENT
WASHINGTON
April 30, 1996
MEMORANDUMFORDONBAER
BILL CURRY
JOHN EMERSON
BRUCE REED
MELANNE VERVEER
FROM:
GREG SIMON
SUBJECT:
VP'S SPEECH TO NCTA
Attached is a copy ofthe Vice President's remarks prepared for
delivery at the National Cable Television Association's annual convention
yesterday in Los Angeles. Please note especially the section about children's
television, beginning at the top of page three.
�\
FAX
Harvard School of Public Health
CENTER FOR. HEALTH COMMUNICATION
\'-
c"\\
~trW-~
Date:
April19, 1996
To:
DonBaer
~,_
Phone:
202-456-2640
13 ;lt
Fax:
202-456-1213
JayWinsten
Phone:
617-432-1038
Center for Health Communi~ation
Harvard S~hool of PubUe Health
677 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
FAX: (617) 731-8184
~
}Sf\) c,e_ \<' Qd>
Page(s) (including cover letter): 4
From:
Cv' r\/
~
M-1-
kr
.
~~
r r~
y/9-
�CENTER FOR HEALTH COMMUNICATION
Harvard School of Public Health
Jay A. Winsten, Pll.D., Director
Release: IMMEDIATE
I
Contact: Beverly Freeman
617-432-3863
"
V.P. GORE VISITS DISTRICT SCHOOL ON APRIL 25
FOR DIALOGUE WITH TEENS ON URBAN VIOLENCE
A five-city Harvard-MetLife Forum arrives in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, April25, to gain
insights from urban teenagers on ways to curb youth violence. Vice President AI Gore will
conduct a dialogue on stage with teenagers from Anacostia High School and Jefferson Junior High
School. The program also will include Courtland Milloy (The Washington Post), Colde Roberts
(ABC News and National Public Radio), and Tim Russert (NBC News) interviewing a panel of
policymakers and administrators on the policy impljcations of the teenagers' observations.
Panelists will include David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., Director, U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention; Judge Reggie B. Walton, Superior Court for the District of Columbia; and
Mrs. Vera M. White, Principal, Jefferson Junior High School.
The program is sponsored by The Harvard School of Public Health's "Squash It!" Campaign to
Prevent Youth Violence, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the Honorable Eric H.
Holder, Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and the Washington Bullets.
This Harvard-MetLife FOrum. will bring together an audience of leaders from government,
business, philanthropy, education, community groups, health, religion, and the media to hear and
learn from the street-wise perspectives of District teenagers. Jay A. Winsten. Ph.D., Associate
Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, will host the event. ltPolicymakers hear frequently
from leading experts on this issue, but seldom from urban teenagers themselves," said Winsten.
The event will be held at Jefferson Junior High School, 801 7th Street, SW (at H Street, near
L'Bnfant Plaza) from 12: 15 to 2:00 p.m. Jefferson Junior High is an example of a school that
"works": scholastic records are impressive, over half the students have mentors, and teacher
commitment and community ties are strong.
Back;gmund
"Squash It! " is a phrase used by inner city youth to signal decisions to disengage from
confrontations. The "Squash It!" Campaign is a youth violence prevention initiative conducted by
Harvard in collaboration with Hollywood studios, television networks, leading recording artists,
and collegiate and professional sports leagues. The Campaign's goals are to help empower young
people, promote positive alternatives to violence,. and lend social legitimacy to teenagers' decisions
to disengage from potentially violent confrontations. "Squash It! " receives major funding from the
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and the Joyce Foundation. with important in-kind
contributions from entertainment companies.
ffT7 Huntington Avenue,
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
Tel. (617) 432-1038
�April. 18, 199(,
PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE
By Morton M. Kondracke
At Last; Media
1lying to Stop
YoutlfViolence
~ latest anti-violence
campaign is. brought
to you by the -same
people who brought
C
'designated driver' into
the English language.
an a media blit% help bring surging
. youth violence under control? The
same people who mounu:d the succeSsful "designait.d drivef' campaign against
dronlc:driving are working on it, and nCx,t week
they are due to get scimc help from the ClintonAdmlnislnllionandMembcrs ofCongress.
Following up on various anti-violence ini·
liadves by President CUnton and the Justice
Department, VJ.Ce President AI Oore is sched·
uled to conduct a dialogue with DC young
peOple as part of the "Squash It!" campaign
launched by the Harvard University School
of~bUc Health three years ago.
Aeeording to H~ associate· dean Jay
Wmsten. the manager of the. program, Sen.
Paul Si.Jhon (D.Dl)andRep. Charles Schumer
(D-NY) are urging colleagues tri attend and
CllJJtOn has been worlcing behind the scenes
to get media executives to contribute:
".A&rdoing much to cnwe a climate making
viotco;nce~glamorous, top executive-S of~ap
Dil.Bic CXJ~l1P,~Dlles andlV studios. the M1V cable ~Ode; and teading rap grOups now have·
pneduptopmmote.tbeideatbatit'sjustasumchD to' walk a~y fi"Qm ·a cordiontation ··to
fight.~ 111" is S1Ret lingo for '\:aol it'' .
Ifthe eainpdgn is imag&<:leansingfor tnc> .
dia~es, thcAdministtadon's and-vio-. .'
•
leoce eft'orls are an example of how Clintoo
can use executive power t.O get done what be
can't through legislation- and win political
points on the crime issue..
·
The last national pOll on the crime issue, a
Gallup 8UlVe)' in Februal)', showed mat rbe
public trusts Conpsional RepubUams on
1he crime Issue only slighdy more than Clln.ton.44to40percent, a~rebangeftom tra,didonal GOPteadership on the issue.
Clinton bas made inroads by acceptingand then claiming fatherhood of- the 1993
crime blll that increased federal aid for local
police. prisoQ construction, and crime pre. veulioo, and banned assault weapons.
Rqm~ whilesupportiveofprisonc:on.
sbuetion and longer senCence$. for o&ender5.
have tried to repeal gun QJntrol and cut funding
forpo~ Ointbn has made incleased funding
for~eaps pmgram a zmVor part of his budget
demands, along wi1h ffi911e)'for environmental
~Medicare. ai1d Medicaid.
As part ofbis effort to'pcrsuade voters that
Ufe in 1he coprmy is better than it was four
yean; ago~ CliniDn touts falling crime Sl8!i&-
�Roll CaJI
Aprill8, 1996
(cont.)
tics- but he has to admit that youth crime is
a major exception to the trend.
According to the Justice Department, the
.nwnber of arrests of juveniles for murder bas
tripled over the past ten years, to 26,000 in
1994. and the number of handgun murder ar. rests has quadrupled. The problem is due to
get much worse because of an expected 31
pereent bulge in the youth population overtbt
next IS years and because aceess to guns is
essentially uncontrolled.
CUnton has sought to cope with the problem by enc:oW8ging US auomeys to trea1
youth gangs as they·would adult org8nized
aime groups and to support anti-violence efforts in schools.
Harvard's Wmsten atknowledges that publie se.Mce ads from tap stars and NBA players- some of whom eouJd use ''Squash It!"
training of theirown -are only a supplement
to gun CQntrol, tougher enforc:ement. better
schools and job opportunities.~ mentoring
programs.
Still, an aU-out media cam~ sUcceeded
in reducing die n1.1Dlberofalcohol-related tmf.
tic fatalities fn:nn 23,600 in .1987 and 1988 to
16,600 in 1994 by persuadmg
Persoo in
a group of drinkerS to limit their drinking and
drive the others hbme. ·
. Acconfuig to w~. Modlers Agiinsr
Drunk Driving (MADD) focused nationalattentkm on drunk driving in the early 1980s,
but the novelty had worn off and drunk dri·
ving fatalities had stopped dropping when ·
Harvard came up with the designalt.d-drlver '
campaign.
.
·
Winsten ~uaded former.CBS president
one
Frank Sr.anton and fonner NBC enLertainment
czar Grant Tinker to promote the designateddriver idea. The result has been $100 million
worth of free network advertising since 1988
and 160
mentions, or entire episodes
on prime-time programs ranging
•cpaJlas" to "Cheers.~·
"We created anew social ne~·· says WUisten.In.fact. "designated drivet'·is now an .enby in the Random House dictionary, and in
1991 a Roper Poll ~that 40 percent of
the alcohol-drinking adult population reported having served as a deslgnated driver,
Wmstenadmitsthat•:Squashltl.. ~chal- ·
leriges that the alcohol campaign did not The
cultural climate surrounding youth violence
is vastly tougher than that surrounding middle-dassdrinking, and accidents~ by al-.
cohol ow undesirable while violence often is
seen i:rJ jnner cities as necessal)' for sunivaL
~till, ~ is some evidence- not yet in .
crime statistics, but in polling-that dle message is getting.dlrougb:.''Squash Itr' has been
.un<f.ezwayfortwo yeam andhBsbeenfeatured
QJi suchprogmmsas.UC's ·op~y Matters"
and ~·s "Beverly Hills, 90210." MTV bas
prciducedpublic5efllic:eadsfeaturing'rapstm,
including COollo and Naughty By Natun=.
seenes,
nom
. '. ~ofthecmnpeignhasbeenthl!invendoa
of a ~ sign -a •T• for time-out using a
. ~~over a fist- wbich polls indicate is
· .ca(Cbing on ·among inn~-city kids.
W'IpSten thinks there's hope in Harris poll
·findings lb:at tWo-dilids of inner..city young
people personally believe it takes strength to
. waiJ!; away from a fight. The cballenge lies in
: the faet that. 70 pezcent say their peers· con·si~ it impOssible to wallc away.
TOTAL P.04
�10:
OONBAER
FR:
WRRAINE VOLES AND KIM 1llLEY
DT:
FEBRUARY 14, 1996
RE:
VICE PRFSIDENTIAL ACI1VIIY AMPI.lFYING STA'IE OF 1HE UNION
The purpose of this memo is: (1) to highlight the Vice President's and Mrs. Gore's
participation in Presidential message events from February 15, through March 15; and, (2) to
illustrate how the Vice President plans to dedicate substantial time to amplifying the
President's State of the Union message.
L
VPIMEG IN POlUS MESSAGE EVEN1S
Feb. 15
The VP accompanies the POTUS to the ed-tech event in Union City
Feb. 23
White House Conference on Empowerment POTUS announces new
EZ.s, VP Announces EO and ed-tech initiative
Feb. 29
VP participates in TV Violence meeting with media executives
.Mar. 7
VP and Mrs. Gore participate in Conference on Youth Violence and
Drug Abuse
Mar. 8
VP introduces POTUS at PCSD event
Mar.9
VP participates in NET Day in California with POTUS
-----~=~~-
---
---------~~--
�. MEMORANDUM
,1
,... ·
TO:
cc: .
FROM:
. Date:
RE:··
Mike McCurry, Evelyn Leibennan
Ron K.J,ain, Lorrie McHugh
Don Baer, Lorraine .Voles, Doug Sosnik .
June 4, 1996
July9, 1996
..
•••
·. ·,
•,}
.....;
JULY 9,1992
').';
·-I·
July 9, 1996 is the. fourth anniversary of the day the President chose then Senator Gore to
be on the Democratic ticket as Vice President. The choice and the manner in which it was made
have· always been positives for the P~sident.
' :1·:
.THE PITCH
We propose two stories: one to a television magazine show --e.g 48 Hours-- and one to a
news magazine -- e.g .. Newsweek --for the week of July 9th. The pitch to the news outlets would
be a segment focusing on the Presidept's choice and decision making process, the unique
relationship between the POTUS and VPOTUS, and what the choice has meant to the Clinton
Administration. The story will present a timely contrast to Senator Dole and the selection
·
process he will be going through at the time.
In addition, their relationship,' both personally and.professionally,·has.been a positive
aspect of many news stories during the last four years, but has never been singularly highlighted
. ·
·
in a magazine or television piece.
. We would have to offer them some .special access to meetings or events with the two
principals, White House photos,. an interview with the Vice President, possibly interviews With .·
either the First Lady or Tipper, arid a short stand-up interview with the President. . ' .
. ·
... ADVANTAGES
The V .P. selection was seen as a huge positive for then Governor Clinton.. 'He ·
han~:lled the selection in a ~lassy way, went around conventional wisdom, and
·
·
··
created a youthful· d)'Ilamic. teani~
P.uts some pressure on the Dole orgaruzatiori to make ~ equally universal
affirmative choice .
.. I
~
\n
.•,
~ '·
Highlights the youth and vitality of th~ Clinton~Gore ticket
Has the President in front of very large audiences with minimal impact on his ·
time.
.,·,
�. Gets' some attention for some Clinton inspired Gore initiatives: REGO,
telecommunications, environment, etc. ··.
OTHER OPTIONS
The other options that we have discussed are the POTUS and the VPOTUS on Larry
King 1;-ive on the 9th or on Jim Leher. The downside withbothnfthese options is not reaching
the right audience.
·
ACTION
Obviously we need to move on this project quickly if you like any of the above ideas. We
will follow up with you before the end of the week.
.,
.
._; .
-
•,,;
:
i
·:
�
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Don Baer
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Office of Communications
Don Baer
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1994-1997
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<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36008" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431981" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
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2006-0458-F
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Donald Baer was Assistant to the President and Director of Communications in the White House Communications Office. The records in this collection contain copies of speeches, speech drafts, talking points, letters, notes, memoranda, background material, correspondence, reports, excerpts from manuscripts and books, news articles, presidential schedules, telephone message forms, and telephone call lists.
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
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537 folders in 34 boxes
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Vice-President
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Office of Communications
Don Baer
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2006-0458-F
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Box 16
<a href="http://www.clintonlibrary.gov/assets/Documents/Finding-Aids/2006/2006-0458-F.pdf" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431981" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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42-t-7431981-20060458F-016-022-2014
7431981