DATE: Sunday, April 20, 1997                TAG: 9704180022

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial

                                            LENGTH:   65 lines

A LOSS FOR VIRGINIA POLITICIZING THE BUREAUCRACY POSES DANGERS FOR GOOD GOVERNMENT.

I n the realms of business and government, directors serve at the pleasure of their boards. It's axiomatic that the two should get along, or at least have compatible agendas. When they don't, progress is impossible.

For that reason, the state Board of Higher Education chose to end the 20-year tenure of Gordon K. Davies as executive director of the Council of Higher Education. The relationship of director and board had become overlaid with tension and mistrust. Neither could be effective in that climate.

But Davies' firing was, nonetheless, a sad day for those who value meritorious public service and continuity in state government. Over the decades, Davies had built a reputation inside and outside Virginia as a creative thinker and leader in managing the complex and unwieldly systems that make up higher education.

It is doubtful that a replacement of his calibre will be found. It is certain that his successor will not have the institutional knowledge that has helped keep Virginia's colleges and universities strong in good times and bad.

Beyond personality, the larger issue in Davies' firing is the impact of increased political polarization on the day-to-day life of state government. For many years, the bureaucracy below the cabinet level remained largely intact as governors came and went.

To be sure, there was some turnover. But even when the political party of the governor changed, individuals with as stellar a reputation as Davies remained. The system contributed to Virginia's reputation for solidly managed government.

The board that fired Davies - without even giving the public a reason for the action - came to the job with a different mindset, born of a different political climate. Appointed by a governor who mistrusts government bureaucracies, the board immediately set about second-guessing the way enrollment projections were being calculated and other decisions were being made.

The board's actions, if not its words, suggested a fundamental mistrust of the way money is being spent on higher education. This came in the wake of 1995 legislative elections in which Gov. George F. Allen failed to win a Republican majority in the Assembly in part because critics claimed he was underfunding higher education.

As intense, two-party competition has grown in Virginia, so have the stakes over who controls the government apparatus. Governors, Cabinet secretaries and citizen boards who are pushing for fundamental change want to make sure that the bureaucrats who serve them talk the same language.

There are several dangers in this new system. One is that there will be constant upheaval. Each time the political party in control changes, heads will roll. It's a safe bet, for instance, that if Democrat Donald S. Beyer Jr. is elected governor this fall, there will be wholesale personnel changes in some departments. The fact that Virginia allows governors to serve only one term in a row adds to the instability.

A second danger is that, with each administration, the turnover will reach deeper into the ranks. As politically motivated department heads are appointed, they may want underlings who share their views. The result would be what some local officials and citizens say they are already seeing in state government: offices where no one has been around long enough to answer their questions.

Many private businesses thrive on change. But government is not a private venture in which only employees and investors suffer if failure occurs. Changes in direction in the ship of state should come gradually and thoughtfully. Partisanship that cannot accommodate an individual who has excelled in a demanding and charged arena for two decades ill serves Virginia.

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