New York Metropolitan Chapter ASPA NEWS

Please see the Public Service Awards Banquet Flyer. Please make checks payable to "NY Metro Chapter ASPA" and mail along with your reservation to Christian Meyer, 1468 Midland Avenue #1B, Bronxville, NY 10708. For more information, please contact Carolyn Hubbard-Kamunanwire at 718-595-3571 or Christian Meyer at cmeyer868@aol.com.

The Chapter is seeking nominations for Chapter Officers (President and Vice-President) and the Chapter Council for the upcoming election. Officers are elected for one-year terms and Council members are elected for two-year terms. Four Council members are to be elected this year (joining four other Council members who will be in the second year of their current term). Nominations (including self-nominations) should be submitted to Clifford Kirsch, the Chair of the Nomination Committee. Send to:

Mr. Clifford Kirsch

U.S. District Court Executive

U. S. Court House

500 Pearl Street, Room 820

New York City, NY 10007-1312

Submissions must be received by close-of-business May 16, 2001.

On April 4, 2001, the NY Metro Chapter ASPA and the Baruch College School of Public Affairs co-hosted a Program event on the topic "Ethics in Government". The event, held in the Marble Room Lounge at the School of Public Affairs, was very well attended. Professor Dan Williams, who is on the faculty at the Baruch College School of Public Affairs and authored "Reinventing the Proverbs of Government", which was published in the November/December 2000 issue (Volume 60, Number 6) of the Public Administration Review (PAR), was the moderator.

The first speaker was Frank Anechiarico, a professor at Hamilton College and co-author, with James Jacobs, of the book The Pursuit of Absolute Integrity (University of Chicago Press, 1996). Professor Anechiarico was an author of a New York State commissioned report on corruption within the Department of Buildings. He said that it is difficult to gauge how much corruption may exist in government. He spoke of cycles of corruption being actively sought out followed by new regulations and laws written in response to these public scandals. The absence of scandals leads to the assumption that the rules are working. The amount of regulations and rules is so vast that there is no real inventory and often even those directly affected by the regulations are unaware of the full range of rules and regulations that are in effect. There is little or no impetus to ever review or rescind rules and regulations since no one wants to be responsible for any subsequent scandal.

As the need for administrative discretion grows so does the need for anti-corruption rules to work against the abuse of administrative discretion. Administrative controls are the price to be paid for administrative discretion. The cost of these controls include: over-centralization, processing delays, inadequate authority at mid-level management, defensive management and lack of innovation, and poor employee morale. The poor morale is partially the result of investigations that lead to public accusations but no subsequent clearing of the names of those falsely accused. The system gives rise to end-runs around rules and regulations by "fixers" who can bend ethical rules without breaking them.

Professor Anechiarico said that privatization schemes have not been without their own corruption problems. He suggested the use of community-based integrity in which citizen involvement plays a larger role. He used Santa Clara, California as an example. In that city, citizens are actively engaged in agency planning and performance plans for agency directors include standards for encouraging the citizenry to take an active role. He also mentioned the Netherlands, which has used coalition building to fight corruption. In closing, Professor Anechiarico said that absolute integrity is not a realistic goal; some degree of corruption should be accepted, much in the way that retail stores accept "shrinkage" as a cost of doing business.

The second speaker was Mel Dubnick, a professor at Rutgers University. He is the author of "The Case for Administrative Evil: A Critique" which was published in PAR (Volume 60, Number 5). He said that how much administrative discretion to allow and how then to control it has long been a topic for congressional action and constitutional review, at times reaching the point of constitutional crisis. One example would be the New Deal legislation that came before the Supreme Court. The delegation of legislative authority and administrative discretion are a reality of and necessity for the modern state. Professor Dubnick referenced a new book by David Rosenbloom that looks at the efforts of Congress in just a single year, 1946, to control the administrative state and control administrative discretion. He described the New Public Administration Movement, particularly the work of George Frederickson, as seeking to adopt values in the public good. In contrast, he saw the reinventing government movement as saying that values do not matter, rather the objective is to serve the customer.

Professor Dubnick went on to describe administrative discretion in terms of "space"; degrees of freedom in which to operate. There is constitutional space to provide boundaries. Legal space states what Congress has authorized administrators to do. Managerial space is the implementation and organization of discretion -- the ability to get things done. There is a built-in tension of both wanting administrators to have discretion and wishing to control that discretion. The decision-maker space is where decision choices are made. Much of the work of Herbert Simon is pertinent to this space. Finally, there is ethical space where reflection, judgement, and an ethically-engaged attitude are required. This is something to be internalized. Accountability may be viewed from the psychological level of an administrator dealing with ethical space (i.e., doing what is right). It is what makes a person act professionally.

The presentations were followed by a question-and-answer interaction with the audience. Professor Anechiarico was asked if he thought the New York City Police Department's use of COMSTAT was effective in fighting corruption. He replied that he did not think it was effective in bringing down corruption. In response to questions, Professor Dubnick expanded on the theme of his presentation. He said that Paul Appleby referred to administrative discretion and policy as "twins": policy is administrative discretion applied by those in the higher levels of the organization. Professor Anechiarico commented that he would add professional space to the model discussed by Professor Dubnick. In this space, a certain amount of authority is assumed based on the designation of "professional". Professor Dubnick stated that the ethical space could be constrained by the other spaces. He added that the understanding of how public managers think must be more fully developed before a prescription for the ethical space may be written.

The program concluded with the serving of some refreshments and the opportunity for the attendees to carry on the discussion informally among themselves and with the presenters.

By Stan Altman

Dean, Baruch College School of Public Affairs

A movement now under way in the City Council to overturn a term-limits provision twice passed by public referendum is both unwise and unnecessary.

Whether the revocation effort has a chance of succeeding, we should focus instead on fixing the flaws in this controversial law.

First, let's review what's at stake.

Term limits will bring revolutionary changes to New York City government. The mayor, public advocate, comptroller, four borough presidents and at least 36 members of the City Council are now ineligible to run for re-election in 2001. This stipulation guarantees a 73-percent turnover in current office holders.

But most New Yorkers -- who thought they were simply voting to limit officeholders to two consecutive four-year terms -- don't realize that term limits will have dramatic and unintended consequences.

New population data from the 2000 census requires that the City Council be redistricted in 2003. As a result, council members running this year will be elected to two-year terms. That means that, under the present term-limits law, some members will be eligible to remain in office for only six years while others will serve four terms over an 11-year period.

How did this variation happen?

The amended City Charter now provides for a councilmember to serve two terms, at least one of which must be a four-year term. Therefore, if a councilmember was elected in 1997 (to a four-year term) and is re-elected in 2001 (to a two year term, 2002-2003), he or she is not eligible to run again in 2003.

On the other hand, if a councilmember is elected for the first time in 2001 to a two-year term and again in 2003 for another two-year term, the councilmember is eligible to run again in 2005 for a four-year term because neither of the first two terms were for four years. Result: three terms totaling eight years in office.

To make matters even more confusing, terms in office won during special elections to fill unexpired terms are excluded from term-limit calculations. This exclusion means that the four councilmembers elected in the 1999 special election start with a clean slate in 2001. They will be eligible to serve a total of four terms and 11 years.

These sharp differences in term length create potential hardships for council districts around the city. For example, if a district is currently represented by a councilmember elected for the first time in 1997, that councilmember can only serve two more years. The new councilmember elected in 2003 will only be able to serve two terms for a total of six years. Both will be out after serving six years and two terms.

Worst of all, this is not a one-time problem. Because of redistricting, term-length turmoil will recur every 20 years as normal four-year council terms are split into two two-year terms. And since seniority helps determine power in the City Council, the distribution of power under term limits will be very uneven.

Is this really what New York City's voters intended? I doubt it. So it's easy to understand why some councilmembers are angry. Indeed, tempers have flared in public outside the council chambers. But throwing out term-limits law altogether is not the answer. The public has spoken twice on this issue. Their will must be respected.

Instead, we should fix the flaws in the present law, which, if left unchallenged, would almost certainly bring about a total and potentially disastrous turnover in city government in 2009. The revised law should specify that councilmembers are eligible to serve a minimum of eight years in office and a maximum of 11. This would help redress inequities caused by two-year redistricting terms and special elections.

In the long run, we need to replace the existing term-limits law with an orderly system of limited terms that ensures that no more than a third of the City Council turns over at any one time.

It's not too late to amend the term-limits law this year. Transitions in government should be orderly. Instead of a chaotic turnover in City Council seats, which has the potential for placing some communities in Queens and Brooklyn at a serious disadvantage, let's have a referendum this year to revise and improve the term-limits law -- not to throw it out.

New York urgently needs more rational rules for limiting terms in office.

In the 1870s the "Tweed Ring" dominated New York City politics. Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall gained control by taking care of the personal needs of immigrants. Corruption followed because voters were more concerned about their relationships with politicians than public policy. Tammany bosses promoted the view that any easy money they obtained was taken from the rich, who could well afford it. The Tweed Ring managed to charge New York City $20 million to build and furnish a courthouse, when the true cost was less than $4 million.

From the 1870s to 1900 good government advocates sought to toss the rascals out and replace them with honest folks. In 1901 they succeeded, electing the famously honest Seth Low mayor of New York. Unfortunately, actual government administration did not improve very much. In 1903, Low was replaced by a Tammany man.

These events are symbolic of the old way of thinking about government ethics. Good government was associated with good people, while bad government resulted from the election of bad people. However, a new view was incubating - competence was good and incompetence was bad. Low was a mediocre mayor, not because he was a bad man, but because he was leading a government of the unable.

In the old view, bad people had to be watched. There was little to justify letting officials have very much discretion since that would allow more bad behavior.

The new view turned this reasoning on its head. Competence was equated with technical skill. Legislators were part time amateurs. Skill was to be had through the administrators. But, to gain any benefit from the skill, administrators must be given discretion to make decisions without interference from, or constant deference to, the amateur legislators.

This new view led to a conflict in political thought. On the one hand, as a democratic republic, the people delegate their decision making power to the legislators. Administrators do what they are told. On the other hand, administrators must have discretion to be competent. This conflict has formed an important part of twentieth century thought on public administration. It is, at its core, a problem of values. What do we value? Competence? Democratic control of government? A balance between them?

Early twentieth century thinkers tried to resolve this problem by assigning some types of decisions to political control and others to administrative discretion. This unsatisfactory solution has persisted throughout the twentieth century. At the beginning of the century, it allowed the growth of professional public administration. Near the end, it has led to a growing transfer of public functions to the private sector. At the beginning of the century, proponents of legislative decision-making questioned the legitimacy of a government of technocrats. We echo that today, questioning the legitimacy of private persons making governmental decisions. The underlying value conflict over decision-making remains unsolved.

Public Service Recognition Week, celebrated the first Monday through Sunday in May since 1985, is a time set aside each year to honor the men and women who serve America as federal, state, and local government employees. Throughout the nation and around the world, public employees use the week to educate citizens about the many ways in which government serves the people and how government services make life better for all of us.

National ASPA held a very successful Annual Conference in Newark, NJ on March 10 - March 13, 2001. The Conference, entitled "New Century, City, Challenges", was held on the campus of Rutgers University and several other sites, including the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), in downtown Newark.

The membership of the New York Metropolitan Chapter played an active role in this Conference from the planning stage onward. Steve Rolandi was the Conference Chair and Cheryl Broom was the Budget Chair. Raymond Joseph served on several committees, including the Steering Committee and the Virtual Conference Committee. Jonathan Justice, Dawn Roberts, Wendy Murray, Jeanne-Marie Col, David Broom, Michael Massiah, Gregg Van Ryzin, Sybil Alexander, Charmaine Phillip, Lillian Gehshan, Clifford Kirsch, Paula Gerard, John Fava, Carolyn Hubbard, Ed Falterman, Susan M. Flaschenberg, and Christian Meyer were among the Chapter members and associates serving on one or more committees.

NY Metro Chapter Member John Fava was recognized at the Awards Ceremony as a Fifty-Year ASPA Member.

The Chapter welcomes our newest members: Nalani Aki, Joseph Andreano, Carol-Ann M. Cenac, David Chu, Eugene Corcoran, Otto G. Del Cid, Sarah Higgins, Kazuyuki Hizume, Suzanne Hurge, Peter Kahn, Joseph Lennon, Christian R. Menzel, Rashada K. Outlaw, Karen Randall, K. Freya Regis, Celeste Trinidad, Maite Villanueva, Deborah Ward, and Chrisitna Wray.

Chapter Web Site

We encourage all Members to visit our Chapter web site at: http://www.homestead.com/mvjnymetroaspa/index.html. Members may also wish to visit the National ASPA web site at: http://www.aspanet.org.

May 5 - 9, 2001: Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) 2001 Conference: Exploring the E-Frontier: Public Administration in a Knowledge Society (Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) (Contact: IPAC, 416-924-8787, e-mail: ntl@ipaciapc.ca.)

May 11, 2001: NCAC/ASPA Conference 2001: The Public Service in Transition -- People, Politics, Technology (Location: Washington, DC) (Contact: Suzette Kern, e-mail: Skern@doc.gov.)

May 22 - 24, 2001: e-Government Conference: Implementing an e-Government Strategy to Achieve Cost Savings, Improve Services and Increase Customer Satisfaction (Location: Sheraton Suites Alexandria, Alexandria, VA) (Contact: Mary Beth Luna, 312-362-9100, ext. 17, e-mail: marybeth@aliconferences.com).

http://www.homestead.com/mvjnymetroaspa/index.html

http://www.aspanet.org