At the risk of singling out Jennifer when she doesn’t deserve it, the phrase “political will” raises my hackles whenever it’s used. Can we say “investing in building a coalition that will push reform through over direct resistance and competing priorities“ or something like that? Not as catchy, I’ll grant you. “Build the championing coalition”, maybe.
CA State Employee and MPPA graduate student here (read your book along with Abundance and Administrative Burden by Herd and Moynihan for an independent study class last summer).
Is it working? Did it do anything that actually mattered?
In my view, while the exam and minimum qualifications were changed a bit, the entire underlying system is still in place. Nothing fundamental about the hiring or firing process was changed. So at best this is probably putting some lipstick on the pig.
Thanks for the shout out. We’ll fix the about us page and list the author (PIA President Linda Miller)
At the risk of singling out Jennifer when she doesn’t deserve it, the phrase “political will” raises my hackles whenever it’s used. Can we say “investing in building a coalition that will push reform through over direct resistance and competing priorities“ or something like that? Not as catchy, I’ll grant you. “Build the championing coalition”, maybe.
Thanks Jen!
CA State Employee and MPPA graduate student here (read your book along with Abundance and Administrative Burden by Herd and Moynihan for an independent study class last summer).
I wonder for a future roundup if you'd be interested in touching on the civil service re-classification effort that was recently done in California. https://www.calhr.ca.gov/about-calhr/divisions-programs/personnel-management/generalist-class-consolidation/
Is it working? Did it do anything that actually mattered?
In my view, while the exam and minimum qualifications were changed a bit, the entire underlying system is still in place. Nothing fundamental about the hiring or firing process was changed. So at best this is probably putting some lipstick on the pig.