
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, September 2, 1994                   TAG: 9409020077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: B11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Short

GOVERNMENT REFORM HASN'T GATHERED DUST

One year ago this week, Bill Clinton and Al Gore stood on the White House lawn and pledged to devise ``a government that works better and costs less.''

Their blueprint, which Clinton vowed would ``not gather dust in a warehouse'' listed 384 reforms that the administration claimed would save $108 billion by 1998.

So how are they doing?

Remarkably well, by most accounts. ``Probably better than even they expected,'' says Donald F. Kettl, author of a just-published appraisal by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

``Pretty soon people will notice the change for the better when they renew their passports, call the IRS or go to VA hospitals,'' vows Elaine Kamarck, Gore's domestic policy adviser. The IRS last season actually surpassed its goal of delivering refunds in 40 days; 38 was average, according to Robert M. Tobias, president of the National Treasury Employees Union.

Not everyone feels the lift of a driving dream. One old hand at Commerce reels off a half-dozen ballyhooed past reform efforts that failed.

``We're designing the information superhighway, but our computers are [mid-'80s vintage] 286s,'' grouses another.

Mutinous managers could easily destroy barely rooted reforms, Kettl warns.

by CNB