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The Case of Indianapolis James Perry, Lois Recascino Wise and Margo Martin Review of Public Personnel Administration 1994; 14; 40 DOI: 10.1177/0734371X9401400205 The online version of this article can be found at: http://rop.sagepub.com

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Breaking the Civil Service Mold

THE CASE OF

INDIANAPOLIS* JAMES PERRY, LOIS RECASCINO WISE AND MARGO MARTIN

Asumption n underlying of the

as-

Deregulation means shifting responsibility for

Win-

ter

Commission

Report,

HRM from central

Hard Truths/Tough Choices, is that contemporary pub-

lic management reformssometimescalled &dquo;newpublic

ers.

management&dquo; (Hood,

It means giving man-

agers more flexibility in the way they perform their jobs so that they can manage more effectively. At

forthcoming)-hold the key to revitalizing state and local government organizations. A number of these globally popular re-

operational level, it enabling managers to interview and select job candidates without restrictive certification rules typical of civil service sysan

means

forms speak to issues related to human resource management

(HRM) and

au-

thorities to line agencies and within those agencies from staff to line manag-

connect HRM

policies to organizational productivity. But de- tems. It means authorizing managers to regulation and decentralization of pub- set pay levels for entry and incumbent lic agencies are everywhere put for- personnel based on managers’ assess-

/

ward as the main instruments for creat-

ments of

employee skills and market ing high-performance organizations. An forces. Responsiveness in government objective of the National Commission I/ can be linked to the on the State and Local Public Service is concept of strategic

/

to &dquo;create

sive

a more

efficient and respon-

government&dquo;; deregulation

is

a

major vehicle for achieving that goal (National Commission on the State and Local Public Service, 1993). Deregulation, responsiveness, and high perforkey components of the Winter Commission’s vision. mance are

40

human resource management (Perry, 1993), which seeks to integrate personnel activities into overall government management rather than isolate them from management through an excessive emphasis on technical issues, rules, and processes. Instead of putting up

barriers that hinder achievement of or-


ganizational goals, strategic human resource management shapes control systems to fit management’s needs. High performance organizations emphasize continuous improvement in quality and productivity. They seek to be responsive to the needs and preferof client groups. In this sense, high performance varies with the constituency. For exences

ample,

some

populations might

con-

sider low cost in the production of government services an outcome superior to outstanding quality of service. As the supporting studies for the Commission’s report document (Thompson, 1993), a tradition of centralized personnel administration developed in state and local government after the merit reforms of the late 1880s. A mind set focusing on the need to &dquo;police patronage&dquo; and control potential abuse of public offices worked in concert with an emphasis on central control and limited discretion. The result parallels the federal experience, producing what contemporary reformists would describe as a highly structured but politically neutral civil service system (Osbome and Gaebler, 1992). In this context, centralization and regulation are seen as an historical stage in the evolution of professional merit systems just as rejection of patronage is viewed as a stage preceding civil service sys-

FIGURE 1 Path to

tems. In this

framework, deregulation stage between service civil systems highly regulated serves as an intermediate

and high performance systems. Since the model assumes that regulation precedes deregulation, non-regulation would be an anomaly. Not all public jurisdictions, however, have followed this path. County governments, for example, have relatively little experience with formal merit systems and, although less common, some

major cities were never regulated

(Ban and Riccucci, 1993). Adoption of centralized civil service management might have also occurred as a response to a prevailing management fad or to give the appearance of reform mindedness (Tolbert and Zucker, 1983). This raises questions about the extent to which deregulation is a necessary predecessor of the sought-after stage of

high performance. This study seeks to examine the validity of the assumption that deregulation precedes flexibility and high performance using a large midwestern city, Indianapolis, the city’s uniformed services, and its contiguous county (Marion) and county sheriff authority. These three jurisdictions provide evidence for alternative model of HRM evolution public sector. We begin with a discussion of government structure for the Indianapolis metropolitan region. an

in the

High

Performance


41

Next we describe three distinct models of personnel policy operating in the region. Four factors are used to explain the variations across these models. We conclude by assessing the lessons of the Indianapolis case, and identify issues

for further research.

THE CASE OF INDIANAPOLIS The distinctiveness of personnel policy in Indianapolis is not readily explained by socio-economic factors. The India-

napolis metropolitan national

norms on

area

most

falls within

indicators, al-

though it has a lower share of minority group members than other similar-sized cities. What is unique about the Indianapolis case is the uncommon combination of politics, reformism, and personality. There is a particularly high level of partisan political activity. Fenton (1966) characterized Indiana’s political system as &dquo;job oriented.&dquo; He noted that the state institutionalized and accepted practices related to patronage and political contributions that were generally disapproved elsewhere. Former Governor Matthew E. Welsh (D) articulates the positive values of political loyalty systems in his book, View from the State House (1981): &dquo;... the parties must be able to offer the prospect of some rewards to their workers.&dquo; He further remarks: &dquo;I am fully aware of the shortcomings of the patronage system, but I was of the firm opinion it could be made to work if limited in scope and properly managed....&dquo; The idea that patronage

personnel systems are not compatible with high performance organizations would be rejected by many Hoosiers, even today.

UNIGOV An important aspect of governance in Marion County, Indiana is its consoli-

dated

city-county government, called Unigov. Unigov was created on January 2, 1970. The unified government merged 20 city and county departments and incorporated 16 towns into Indianapolis. Four small cities chose not to be included. School districts were not included and the county court system remained intact. For constitutional reasons the county offices of Auditor, Prosecutor, Sheriff, Coroner, Recorder, and Clerk remained separate. Largely independent units include the Health and Hospital Corporation and the Airport Authority (Owen and Willbern, 1985). Figure 2 shows the organizational structure of Unigov. The governments created by Unigov became much more centralized under the control of strong mayoral leadership. Six executive departments were created. These are the Departments of Administration, Public Safety, Parks and Recreation, Metropolitan Development, Public Works, and Transportation. A board of directors oversees each department. Department directors are appointed and removed by the mayor. The city currently employs between 1800 and 1900 employees, excluding people in police or fire services. A single budget, submitted to the city-

county council, Unigov’s governing body, replaced the fragmented system of each unit lobbying for annual funds. The unified legislative body has broad responsibilities in the entire jurisdiction once controlled by separate boards and councils (Owen and Willbem, 1985). The personnel system remained patronage-based for personnel actions such as


42

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