AP
09/02/1993
   WASHINGTON (AP) -- An association of high-level civil servants denounced Vice
President Al Gore's effort to "reinvent government" Thursday, saying the group
had little input in the process.

   "There are a lot of management executives who make the government run and who
will help reinvent it but don't have the foggiest idea what is going on here,"
said Jerry Shaw, general counsel for the Senior Executives Association.

   Gore's National Performance Review will be unveiled Tuesday. He wants to cut
the number of government middle managers, the type of employees represented by
SEA.

   The group, consisting of about 3,000 employees who serve in key position just
below the top presidential employees, issued a news release that also criticized
Gore's plans for "imposing an arbitrary employee-supervisory ratio."

   Shaw said Gore's staff summarized his recommendations for union and
management associations Thursday, and proposed reducing the ratio of
employees-to-bosses from 1-to-7 to 1-to-15.

   Shaw said Gore's staff did not substantiate either ratio, which he said
grossly exaggerates the percentage of managers in federal government.

   He said that Gore's staff "junked" the SEA's recommendations during the
governmental review but embraced ideas offered by employee unions.

   Marla Romash, Gore's spokeswoman, said the ratios have been double-checked
and insisted that the SEA members have been consulted.

   "We have spent an enormous amount of time reaching out to people all across
the federal government. The NPR teams were made up of federal employees from
every level," she said.

   Gore's report will include 800 recommendations to reshape the federal
bureaucracy. Early drafts call for consolidating operations, making government
agencies compete with the private sector and treating taxpayers like customers.

   Rep. Bob Franks, R-N.J., said Thursday that without a permanent mechanism for
cutting unneeded programs, Gore's plan "will be short-lived and the budgetary
savings will be minimal.".

   He has introduced a bill in the House to set up a commission that would
include the four top leaders of Congress to evaluate federal government
performance. The commission would supervise self-study groups among federal
agencies and issue recommendations that Congress would be required to consider.

   Among the administration's proposals: merge the Drug Enforcement Agency with
the FBI and consolidate all food-safety regulations at the Food and Drug
Administration, allow companies to police themselves for health and safety,
allow private companies to compete for government printing contracts, allow
citizens to pay their taxes with credit cards and make it easier to fire federal
employees.