Published by The Daily Signal
By John York
Among the many sensible proposals President Donald Trump called for during his first State of the Union address, one certainly deserves more attention than it has received.
Tuesday, before a joint session of Congress, Trump said:
All Americans deserve accountability and respect—and that is what we are giving them. So tonight, I call on the Congress to empower every Cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers—and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.
These changes are long overdue. Federal employees are notoriously difficult to remove, suspend, or even demote.
A manager who wants to fire an employee has to follow a time-consuming and extensive process of documenting misdeeds, counseling the employee they wish to fire, and giving him or her ample opportunity to improve just enough to stave off a pink slip.
Federal employees that are fired often do not stay fired. They can appeal any such disciplinary action via four separate sets of procedures. In many cases, if an employee does not win their appeal in one venue, they can simply try their hand at another venue.
This grinding, litigious process of reviews, hearings, and appeals can take years.
While it is somewhat easier to remove employees for flagrant misconduct than run-of-the-mill laziness, the process still moves at an embarrassingly slow pace.
For instance, in 2014, a federal employee discovered to have 7,000 pornographic files on his work computer, and who often spent two to six hours a day watching porn at work, was placed on paid administrative leave for one year before the lengthy termination process even began.
Unsurprisingly, given the procedural hurdles, very few federal employees ever lose their jobs. In fact, a private sector worker is 200 percent more likely to be fired than a federal employee, according to a 2016 Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
While the process of removing a federal employee must eventually be razed and reconstructed, the president’s modest proposal is a good place to start. When news of an employee’s misconduct or poor performance reaches all the way up to a Cabinet-level secretary, the removal of that employee should be greatly expedited.
See the full story here.
Link: http://dailysignal.com/2018/02/01/trump-right-time-give-agency-heads-discretion-employees/
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