OMB chief says appointees could be cut in workforce reviews

The Bush administration might cut the number of political appointees as part of its campaign to trim layers from the federal management corps, Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels said last week. In remarks to reporters following a speech to the Contract Services Association, Daniels said political appointees should not be exempt from OMB's de-layering review. In May, OMB ordered agencies to compile workforce analyses with an eye toward reducing the number of layers that separate citizens from their leaders. OMB is currently reviewing the workforce plans. "No layer should be immune" from the review, said Daniels. "That includes political appointees." Critics of the administration's drive to restructure the federal workforce, including Brookings Institution scholar Paul Light, had urged OMB to include political appointees in its streamlining review. Political appointees occupy between a quarter and two-fifths of the bureaucratic layers in individual agencies, according to Light.

Light had nothing but praise for the de-layering announcement. "That's the best news to come out of OMB since the $3 trillion surplus. It shows that Daniels and the administration mean business on delayering," said Light. "There will be a battle with the departments and agencies, but this is a terrific endorsement of the simple notion that a layer is a layer is a layer." OMB spokesman Chris Ullman played down the significance of including political appointees in the workforce review, noting that appointees represent a tiny percentage of the total federal workforce. OMB did not require agencies to submit information on political appointees in their workforce analyses because they are so few in number, he said. Ullman added that OMB has not set any numerical targets for reducing the number of political appointees. "We have not set any kind of numerical goals for the role they might be able to play in a de-layering effort, but to the extent they can be part of the solution of flattening the hierarchy, they should play a role," he said. Ullman would not speculate on whether cutting the number of positions for political appointees, which are often reserved for campaign veterans and party loyalists, would upset Bush supporters. "I know someone who worked on the campaign and is not in the administration," he said. "I didn't work on the campaign but I am in the administration, so everyone has their own situation."