The Foreign Service Journal, November 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2014 7 ondrously complex is the State Department personnel edifice.The job of AFSA pres- ident offers a close-up gaze fromcertain angles and, after 14months on the job, here is my initial sketch. State has fivemajor personnel systems. The three career systems total roughly 75,000 employees, comprised of the Foreign Service with 14,000members, two thirds of whomare overseas at any one time; the Civil Service with 11,000, nearly all based in Washington; and Locally Engaged Staff with 50,000 in overseas missions.There are two non-career systems of political appointees numbering several hundred and contrac- tors whose numbers fluctuate widely. AFSA represents the Foreign Service, focusing on its welfare collectively and indi- vidually, but not in isolation.The Foreign Service works alongside employees from the other four systems. We havementors, colleagues and friends fromeach of them. We care about each other’s welfare and occasionally compete over who gets which positions. All this is normal activity inside the complex edifice. The new trend, frommy vantage point, is the recent expansion of political appointees both in overall numbers and in reach down to themiddlemanager level. One indication is the number of department employees hired under Schedule B author- ity, defined as limited-term appointments for individuals with specific foreign policy expertise. At the GS-14 and 15 levels (corresponding to FS-01), Schedule B employees more than tripled in number between 2008 and 2012, according to HR data, from26 to 89 positions. Why this sudden surge inmid-level limited-termemployees? I suspect it was partly an incoming administration defining new needs and looking to some extent out- side the career ranks in filling them. Part of it lies in a large pool of interested persons in think-tanks, NGOs and law firms who want a turn in government, and then a return to the private sector. Partly these are one-off needs for esoteric expertise not available at the time in the career ranks. At the senior level, there are currently 40 special advisers, envoys and representatives at State; only five are either Civil or Foreign Service. Five of the six under secretaries of State are political appointees. Non-career members in such groups can provide important outside perspectives. We should welcome that, and also respect the ability of every Secretary to pick her or his own leadership team. But the overall personnel balance in the edifice appears tome to have swung too far in one direction, to the detriment of both talent development in the career ranks and foreign policy effectiveness. An expansion of political appointees has been observedmore gener- ally in the federal government, not only at State.The American Society for Public Administration and National Academy of Public Administration issued a joint memo at the outset of the second administration of President Obama on this trend and advised as follows: “Judicious reductions in the number of political appointees will improve govern- ment performance by increasingmanage- rial capacity, decreasing harmful manage- ment turnover, and facilitating efforts to recruit and retain the best and brightest in government service.” The career cadremost affected by the growth of political appointees domestically is the Civil Service. At the top end of the lad- der, for instance, HR data in 2012 shows that non-career appointees occupied 83 percent of the assistant secretary of State positions designated Civil Service, while occupying none of those designated Foreign Service. In the equivalent overseas positions— chief of mission jobs—the traditional percentage of political appointees is about 30 percent. One of AFSA’s initiatives over the past year was to adopt and publicize a uni- form set of qualifications applicable to both career and non-career ambassado- rial nominees, which is now drawn on by the State Department in presenting the nominees’ qualifications to the Senate for confirmation. In short, I hopemy initial sketch of State’s personnel edifice doesn’t resemble something byM.C. Escher. AFSA is working closely with the department manage- ment on the issues raised herein, and this collaboration will, I believe, help right this picture over time. Be well, stay safe and keep in touch, Bob Silverman@afsa.org n PRESIDENT’S VIEWS W Robert J. Silverman is the president of the American Foreign Service Association. Righting the Personnel Balance at State BY ROBERT J . S I LVERMAN