To help President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration get ready, the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) released a new edition of The Prune Book during an evening panel discussion.
 
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The 40 toughest government management jobs
By Joe Davidson

Vice President Biden (right) and Jill Biden (second from right), stand with Vice President-elect Mike Pence and his wife Karen at the Naval Observatory in Washington on Nov. 16, 2016, when the Bidens hosted a luncheon for the Pences. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Vice President Biden is right.

“No administration is ready on Day 1,” Biden said after he, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and their wives had lunch at the vice president’s Naval Observatory residence Wednesday.

To help President-elect Donald Trump get ready, a herculean task given his qualifications and temperament, the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) released a new edition of The Prune Book during an evening panel discussion. It lists “the 40 toughest management jobs in government.”

Dan Blair, NAPA’s president and chief executive and a former acting Office of Personnel Management (OPM) director, said the lineup “offers a road map as to which jobs are management priorities and the skill sets to look for. The Academy’s Transition 2016 steering committee carefully reviewed hundreds of management jobs to synthesize the toughest ones which have a direct effect on citizens and will be critical for the success of a new president’s management agenda.”

Notice the emphasis on management, not policy.

“Policy without implementation is useless,” said Ed DeSeve, a former special adviser to President Obama and former deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). “It may even be counterproductive.”

But as Paul Posner, director of the Graduate Public Administration Program at George Mason University, added about policy versus management: “You have to do both at the same time.”

“It doesn’t matter what priorities you have,” said Posner, a former Government Accountability Office official. “You will fall apart if you don’t pay attention to the management concerns.”

So, if you are among the minority of voters who picked Trump over Hillary Clinton as the next president and if you want a big gig in his administration, here is the Prune Book’s list of government’s most powerful management positions, divided into five categories:

 

Governmentwide Managers

Director, OMB

Director, OPM

Deputy director for management, OMB

Administrator, General Services Administration

Deputy treasury secretary

 

Deputy Secretaries

Deputy secretary of agriculture

Deputy secretary of energy

Deputy secretary of interior

Deputy secretary of commerce

Deputy secretary of transportation

Deputy secretary of defense

Undersecretary for management, Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

Undersecretary for management, State Department

Deputy secretary of education

Deputy secretary of health and human services

Deputy secretary of housing and urban development

Deputy secretary of veterans affairs

Deputy secretary of labor

 

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Managing Natural Resources, Information, and Infrastructure

Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Director, U.S. Census Bureau

Director, U.S. Patent and Trademark office

Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration

 

Managing National and Homeland Security

Director, Central Intelligence Agency

Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Director, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Undersecretary of Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence

Undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics

Director, Defense Operational Test and Evaluation

Administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration

Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency

Administrator, United States Agency for International Development

Assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security and director of the office of foreign missions

 

Managing Health, Education, and Income Security Programs

Chief operating officer, Office of Financial Student Aid, Department of Education

Administrator, Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services

Commissioner of Food and Drugs, Food and Drug Administration

Director, Centers of Disease Control and Prevention

Undersecretary for health, Veterans Health Administration

Undersecretary for benefits, Veterans Benefits Administration

Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service

Commissioner, Social Security Administration

 

Certainly, there are others jobs that could have made the list. My suggestion — deputy attorney general.

“We had tough time debating on these top 40 jobs,” said Janice Lachance, an OPM director under President Bill Clinton.

She and others pointed to the importance of political appointees respecting career federal employees. After all, they were in place before the appointees and will be there when the appointees are gone.

“The sooner the political appointees can recognize the wealth of talent, information and experience of civil servants,” Lachance said, “the more successful they (appointees) will be.”

David Chu, a former undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, agreed, saying it is important for political appointees to demonstrate faith in staffers, particularly the top career managers. “A key issue for this transition,” he said, “is for agencies to signal that they trust senior civil servants.”

But with Trump’s promise to impose a hiring freeze in his first 100 days in office as a means of fighting corruption and his plans to fire feds faster in VA if not across the government, the question is — will most career workers trust him?

Read more:

[The faulty logic behind Trump’s plan to freeze federal hiring]

[To-do lists for an unprepared president-elect]

[Trump win stuns federal employee leaders worried about his policies]

 
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