Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 8, 1993 TAG: 9309080034
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Fort Worth Star-Telegram
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Forty-three, according to the Clinton administration's six-month study into the massive inner workings of the federal government.
The 168-page report portrayed the $1.5 trillion bureaucracy as largely out of touch with the taxpayer and encumbered by paperwork, inefficiency and dead wood.
Although the National Performance Review focused on proposed solutions - including a streamlining aimed at eliminating 252,000 jobs over five years - the report brimmed with vignettes to support its claim that the federal government is "broken."
Among the examples:
The Department of Energy assigned 43 employees to carry out procedures for changing a light bulb used in a warning device at a facility in Colorado. Estimated time to change the bulb: 1,087.1 hours.
As outlined in a memo first reported in The Denver Post, the regulations required these steps:
A planner meets with six others at a "work-control meeting." Talks with other workers who have done the job before meeting again. Obtains signatures from five people at that work-control meeting. Gets the project plans approved by separate officials overseeing safety, logistics, waste management and plant scheduling. Waits for a monthly "criticality-beacon test." Directs electricians to replace the bulb. And then tests and verifies the repair.
The Department of Interior, acting under congressional orders, spent $100,000 to train beagles to sniff out brown tree snakes in Hawaii.
An audit of the Internal Revenue Service showed that a video display terminal that cost $752 was mistakenly listed at $5.6 billion on IRS records. Other audits blamed the Army and Air Force for $200 billion in accounting mistakes.
Navy personnel processed enough forms in 1991 to create a mountain of paper 3,000 feet high - six times the height of the Washington Monument.
More than 50 percent of people who receive unemployment compensation for on-the-job injuries still receive those benefits even though they were convicted of fraud in getting the benefits.
The study, which Clinton ordered in March, was compiled by a 200-member task force headed by Gore.
Clinton enthusiastically embraced the plan and promised to move swiftly to adopt many of the recommendations. The president can implement about two-thirds of the measures with executive orders; congressional approval is required for the remainder.
"Make no mistake about this," Clinton said. "This is one report that will not gather dust in a warehouse." He drew laughter by calling the plan an "oxymoron - a government report that's fun to read."
The report cited political pressure as one of the underlying problems behind the bloated bureaucracy, contending that lawmakers often protect questionable government agencies or services just to benefit constituents back home.
Gore's task force cited scores of examples that perpetuate the bureaucracy's longstanding reputation for arcane rules and senseless procedures.
The Resolution Trust Corp., for example, refused to reimburse employees for travel expenses unless they signed their vouchers in blue ink. Gore said the government uses 10 pages of regulations for buying an ashtray - described in the manual as "ash receivers, tobacco (desk type)."
by CNB