Why Public Administration? (originally posted February 8, 2011)
In its report released in December 2010, the “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” (aka the Bowles-Simpson Commission), the authors contend that our nation faces a “clear and inescapable” challenge. If left unchecked, implementation of current federal law will lead to national debt equal to more than 80 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2040. The Commission believes, however, that if its recommendations are implemented, national debt will amount to around 30 percent of GDP by 2040 (http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/sites/fiscalcommission.gov/files/documents/TheMomentofTruth12_1_2010.pdf).
More recently, in Omaha, Mayor Jim Suttle narrowly survived a recall election. Recall proponents presented many arguments in support of recall, but one of the primary arguments was that Mayor Suttle not only failed to decrease expenditures, but also used “unfair taxes” to raise revenue. Recall supporters said that Suttle’s new taxes singled out the restaurant industry with an entertainment tax, and they said his “wheel fee” for out-of-town commuters working in Omaha was also unfair. In effect, recall supporters argued not simply for reductions in expenditures, but also for a more equitable (in their view) tax structure. The debate was, among other things, an emotional conversation about ways and means.
Omaha is certainly not alone in the area of fiscal struggles. Many cities and most of the states face impending budget crises. Professor David Skeel of the University of Pennsylvania has even proposed constitutional changes to allow states to declare bankruptcy in order to restructure debt, rather than face a continuing cycle of expenditure cuts and revenue increases (http://www.npr.org/2011/01/30/133348392/Budget-Strapped-States-Might-Prefer-To-Be-Bankrupt).
In spite of these challenges, or perhaps because of them, there remains a dedicated group of people who choose careers in public service. The future they face working in government and non-profit agencies is, to say the least, uncertain. How should these “street-level bureaucrats” respond to budget difficulties? More to the point, how can the American university system prepare these people to face such challenges? Certainly the majority of public service practitioners will not possess graduate or even undergraduate degrees in public administration, yet if we fail to continue to equip a growing core of public servants with this kind of education, we are failing our citizenry.
As Mark Moore emphasizes, to actually mean something to our citizens, public policy must create “public value.” In the area of public administration, this cannot simply translate to what is cheapest. Often, however, policy seems to be of limited value because it has been created to meet temporary political exigencies, or because it has been unrealistically funded, or because it is being poorly administered. It is popular to blame elected politicians and “bureaucrats” for the failure of policy to achieve intended goals. It seems equally popular for elected officials and appointed public practitioners to deflect blame. In reality, however, those of us who call ourselves professional public administrators are not blameless. In my experience, one of the areas in which professionals fail is in the area of preparation. Preparation is the purview of the university.
Continued and thorough preparation of a new generation of public service leaders will not solve all of our problems. However, a failure to produce these leaders will exacerbate our difficulties. We all need to continue to be a part of the group of people who prepare these leaders to contribute to the greater good.
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