Ready, Aim . . . Fire

...To be sure, this is a technique to be used with caution-pocket-padding contractors can be more expensive and dangerous than languid bureaucrats...

...Ready, Aim . . . Fire Once you've decided which city employees are pointees and 3,800-odd probationary civil servants unnecessary, then comes the hard part...

...Again, Mayor Dixon should convince the Council to eliminate or at least loosen these restrictions...

...Inside the District government, to help the staff member solve workplace problems this is also known as Pass-the-Trash...

...And even after the employee It's not as easy to pry people out of government jobs is entrenched, the regs only require giving 30 days' as it should be, but there are some helpful tricks: notice--during which a manager must make an effort Turkey farming...

...Most people in city govfue with impunity the city's nearly 200 political a p ernment do something important-but they may spend only a fraction of the day doing it...

...The library still sits in the building, but the cost is hundreds of thousand of dollars less, and the administrators’ grave problem-impolite librarians-was solved...

...Another way to close an ineffective office with a valuable function is to contract that function out...

...The usual ver- and order an independent review of the case by a sion of turkey farming is only a local solution, doing "disinterested designee...

...Nowadays, an employee who receives an outstanding evaluation gets four years of seniority points along with his performance bonus...

...Katherine Boo...

...Even a whole office that seems fairly pointlessD.C...

...Congress, which with all those intimidating civil service rules...

...The grumpiest Same with being drunk or stoned on company time, front-office counselor in D.C.'s Department of Em- gambling on the job, or even committing a criminal ployment Services might just be brilliant at some job act off-hours that "discredits the D.C...

...Census Bureau: Administrators there thought the library was a million-dollar drain on their budget and the librarians a drain on their patience...

...Here, D.C...

...People technically must approve any such changes, has always blame the regulations for keeping a deadbeat rarely overturned Council actions...

...suspend the pointless duties, memos, and meetings...

...Since documenting a case move would be to simply abolish the job...

...If you had a single clerk whose you can get rid of someone if you're willing to take job consisted of doing absolutely nothing, your best the heat and do the work...

...The worker you wind up with may be just the oldest, not the best...

...And second, you must transfer the “separated” staff instead of firing or demoting them...

...nothing for overall efficiency: Office A wants to get The catch is that the District's iron-clad personrid of Bureaucrat Boob, so it passes him off to Office nel "penalty guide" severely circumscribes what, B, issuing its glowing recommendation with an inter- precisely, a manager can fire someone for...

...While reduction in force (RIF) procedures, which reduce the work force by a given percentage or a set number, allow the cleanest cuts, they have one substantial built-in flaw: They operate by seniority, which means the office’s freshest blood is the first to be let...

...Contracting out...

...and splice the worthwhile functions together into fewer job slots...

...out what, if anything, he does well...

...First, the office must not be one specifically created by City Council mandate-the trade-school monitoring office of the Educational Licensure Commission, for example, would require a Council vote to be abolished...

...So they simply contracted the whole thing out and transferred or fired the unpopular staff...

...He should also try to place good workers from the folded unit in other, more productiire operations...

...managers do have the discretionary power to business school textbooks...

...Right nal wink and a grin...

...But the virtue of legitimate contracting is that the courts have consistently upheld the manager’s right to use it to cut staff...

...s Office of Inaugural Expenses, sayusually performs at least one essential function, like making sure that public money isn’t squandered on private extravaganzas...

...But without any penalty at all exist only in parodies or D.C...

...cide that they don't have the patience for the in- Problem is, the jobs and offices that could be slashed evitable accusations, appeals, and even lawsuits...

...Take the library at the U.S...

...The new administration’s task will be to identify the meaningful tasks a worker performs...

...administrator, "but Consolidation...

...But turkey farming can be a use- now, the worst punishment an employee can receive ful tool...

...If you have an employee doing nothiig and for supplying false information to superiors or the you'd like to empty out his desk, the trick is to find City Council or Congress is a five-day suspension...

...government...

...around,"says one veteran D.C...

...Incidentally, in the District you can do this without a RIF, with two crippling caveats...

...Outstanding ratings can, of course, be handed out to cronies as well as to great employees...

...If you had for termination may take months, many managers de- an office that was doing nothing, you'd dissolve it...

...So the new mayor and her team have to keep an eye on who’s getting them and why...

...An aggressive manager will abolish the agency and salvage that legitimate function by assigning it to a better-defined unit, cutting out half a dozen managers in the process...

...in back where he doesn't have to deal with the public...

...Of course, if that employee's the city's other civil service regulations, and lobby just plain incompetent, you can get rid of him, even the City Council to pass them...

...But the mayor can propose revisions to this and all Old-fashionedfiring...

...has already borrowed a tip from the feds: To give managers more flexibility in keeping the bright young things, it has revised its civil service manual...