Corruption

One of the things about most public servants in the world is that corruption is part of the system.

They often expect some lubrication in the form of money to move your situation along.

Now its so prevalent in many areas that they don't even have to ask or try to hide it, its sort of built into their salaries much like tips in our service industries.

The other form of corruption is cronyism, where the people given the jobs are only qualified because of how much they can pay or who they are related to.

Of course there is also the midnight requisition sort of corruption where public goods transfer ownership surreptitiously.

Now because corruption is such a problem we have in this country in many jurisdictions merit systems designed to prevent it.

How successful they are obviously varies but they are designed to make sure only qualified candidates are selected, that they are held accountable and that they aren't subject to political whims.

This of course creates rules and rules can be abused.

We saw some abuse of the system at the VA, where lies were told because the performance demanded could not be met.

Now clearly lying about performance in order to get a bonus or keep you position is corruption but it is perhaps a more subtle form.

Budget cuts were made at many federal agencies but performance demands weren't lowered.

Do more with less, eliminate waste or get rid of dead wood all sound good, but if it was that easy it would have been done.

Generally budget curs lead to decrease in moral and that leads to good people leaving.  The bad performers stay because they have no where to go.

Now this eventually leads to worse performance and scapegoats are found but often if it gets bad enough the new leaders are provided more adequate funding.

Now at the VA we see a change to make management more agile, allowing them to move senior leader in and out without the prior restrictions.  Now if that solves the underfunding and vacancy problem I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Let's see.