In March 1996, Vice President Al Gore announced a new initiative to create "performance-based organizations" that would "dramatically change the way many agencies provide their services." But those agencies that have taken up the challenge are finding that the going is difficult.
"We're going to toss out the restrictive government rules that keep them from doing business like a business," Gore said last year. He said the administration would provide certain agencies that perform commercial-like activities with personnel, procurement and other management flexibilities. The PBOs would be assigned chief operating officers, who would be held accountable for improved performance and could be eligible for large bonuses if productivity rose.
In October 1996, President Clinton sounded his support, saying he wanted "hundreds of organizations to become performance-based, to be trailblazers in increasing productivity and making their customers happy."
But almost two years after Gore's original announcement, only three agencies are trying to become PBOs, and they're finding that blazing the trail can be a lonely task. The Patent and Trademark Office, the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) and the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corp. are running into barriers in the executive branch and on Capitol Hill.
While the patent office's legislative package, which would turn it into a PBO-like government corporation, has passed the House and been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the bill hasn't seen any action since last May. Still, the patent office remains confident that its bid to become a PBO will bear fruit early in 1998.
Meanwhile, the St. Lawrence Seaway Corp. and the Defense Commissary Agency have received little attention from Congress.
The General Accounting Office suggested in a report that the seaway would be a good candidate to test the PBO concept because it is so small. But so far, there have been no congressional takers. At a House hearing in July, a union representative at the St. Lawrence Seaway said employees there are concerned their rights will be stripped away. "I can convey to you categorically that my employees are not in favor of PBO," said Craig Bolick, the local union president.
The commissary agency's initial proposal included numerous flexibilities that have since been watered down by the Defense Department and the Office of Management and Budget. DeCA is hoping to get some of the provisions restored.
"I think it's reasonable to expect that at least 50 to 60 percent of our original initiatives are achievable," said the commissary director, retired Army Gen. Richard E. Beale Jr. "I don't expect to get all of them approved at one time. Maybe we'll get some this year, some next, some the following year, depending upon the political climate and the amount of support we get within the administration."
But administration support may be waning. While Gore's January 1997 manifesto, The Blair House Papers, included a section on PBOs, his recently released annual report of the National Performance Review, Businesslike Government, makes no mention of the PBO initiative.
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