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O’Loughlin, Michael George

BUREAUCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY: CASE STUDIES UNDER THE COMPREHENSIVE EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING ACT

The Ohio State University Ph.D. 1984

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BUREAUCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY: CASE STUDIES

UNDER THE COMPREHENSIVE EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING ACT

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of The Ohio State University

By Michael George O'Loughlin, B.A.

*****

The Ohio State University

1983

Reading Committee: Approved By Randall B. Ripley

James B. Noble

Paul J. Quirk "-"Advisor Department of Political Science ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This dissertation depended heavily on the support of the Ohio State University's CETA Project/ under the direction of Professor Randall B. Ripley. As a research associate with the Project, I benefitted greatly from the work undertaken, including studies of the local CETA planning system for

Title I programs, the implementation of the Help Through i Industry Retraining and Employment Program (HIRE II), and the implementation of the Private Sector Initiative Program

(PSIP). In effect, this dissertation grew out of these projects.

As chairman of my committee, Professor Ripley also gave me both guidance and freedom with the study. At the outset,

Professor Ripley helped define the scope of the study and the comparative case study methodology used in the study.

Finally, throughout the research and writing processes, he helped me maintain a central course of direction and, in effect, helped expedite the dissertation's completion.

I would also like to thank Professor Paul Quirk for his diligence paid towards the project. Professor Quirk forced me to examine more closely the theoretical aspects of accountability and my methods for measuring it in the study. In addition, his editorial demands also pressed me to write more clearly and concisely. Professor James B. Noble deserves my gratitude for

his contributions to the beginnings of the study. The problem of bureaucratic accountability and democracy first

emerged for me in his course on democratic theory. In

addition. Professor Noble provided me with the basic theoretical approach to science which guided the progress

of this project throughout.

Many members of the CETA Project must also be

acknowledged for their support in the development of this project. In particular, Lance DeHaven-Smith deserves a special word of thanks for his help. We spent many

afternoons and evenings discussing the various questions and problems associated with the project. Other members who should receive acknowledgment include: Grace A. Franklin,

Mary Marvel, William Strangfeld, Carl E. Van Horn, and John Wichita.

Special gratitude must go to all the respondents in the four CETA sites who willingly and, usually, cheerfully put up with my seemingly endless inquiries. Their cooperation was essential.

Finally, my special, outside consultant, and spouse, must also receive due credit for aid in the theoretical development of accountability and in the editing of the dissertation. Her advice and support were essential for its completion.

111 VITA

March 6, 1951 Born - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

1973...... B.A., University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

1975-1976 . . Departmental Teaching Associateship Department of Political Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus Ohio

1977...... Research Associateship, Mershon Center, "Policy Making Research Group", The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1977-1980 . . Research Associateship, Mershon Center, "CETA Project", The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

FIELDS OF STUDY

American Politics: Policy Analysis Executive and Bureaucratic Politics Political Participation and Voting Behavior American Foreign Policy

Political Theory: Explanation History of Political Thought: Hegel to the Present

Additional Field: Politics of the Middle East TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... ^

VITA ...... iv

LIST OF TABLES ...... vii

LIST OF FIGURES...... ix

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Chapter 1. BUREAUCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY: A THEORY AND METHOD FOR RESEARCH ...... 3 Growth of Bureaucracies: Bane or Blessing for Democratic Society? ...... 3 Accountability Relationships ...... 9 Necessary Condition for Effective Accountability...... , . . . 14 The S t u d y ...... 19 The Methodology ...... 25

2- INTERBUREAUCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY: THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND THE LOCAL CETA A G E N C I E S ...... 41

Overview of the Interbureaucratic Accountability Forums...... 46 Chronically Weak Accountability Relationships...... 57 Growth in the Strength of Accountability Towards the Department of Labor. .... 89

3. THE SPORADIC NATURE OF ACCOUNTABILITY BETWEEN LOCAL POLITICAL OFFICIALS AND LOCAL CETA AGENCIES ...... 134

Overview of Accountability Relationships 139 City of Acre: Local Accountability Context...... 140

v Choptank County: Local Accountability Context...... 157 Lake City: Local Accountability Context...... 177 The Briar Consortium: Local Accountability Context...... 200

4. LOCAL CETA AGENCY ACCOUNTABILITY TOWARDS LOCAL INTEREST SECTORS...... 218 Overview of the Local, Formal Accountability Forums...... 222 Local Public Actors: The Participant Population...... 243 Local Public Actors: The Press ...... 250 Local Public Actors: Organized Labor . . 262 Local Public Actors: Service Deliverers 268 Local Public Actors: The Business Sector 295 5. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CETA STAFF ACCOUNT­ ABILITY RELATIONSHIPS AND THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS...... 323

Comparative Analysis of CETA Staff Accountability Towards Seven Other Actors in the Employment and Training Policy S y s t e m ...... 324 Bureaucracy, Democracy, and Accountability ...... 348 Towards the Democratization of Bureaucra­ tic Accountability...... 353

APPENDIXES

A. EXPLANATION OF METHODOLOGY...... 363 B. SITE SUMMARY ASSESSMENTS OF CETA STAFF ACCOUNTABILITY TOWARDS SEVEN PUBLIC ACTORS 376

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 380

vi LIST OF TABLES

Table Page 1. Summary of Major Reports Supplied to the Labor Department by the CETA Staffs ...... 60 2. Scope and Detail of Information Required in the Master Plans with Regard to Program Mix Policy Making Processes and Policy Outcomes ...... 66

3. Scope and Detail of Information Required in the Master Plans with Regard to Service Deliverer Policy Making Processes and Policy Outcomes . . 67

4. Scope and Detail of Information Required in the Master Plans with Regard to Target Group Policy Making Processes and Outcomes ..... 68 5. Scope and Detail of Information Required in the Master Plans with Regard to Target Occupation Policy Making Processes and Outcomes...... 69 6 . Scope and Detail of Information REquired in the Master Plans with Regard to the Public Planning System ...... 70

7. Scope and Detail of Information Required in the Master Plans with Regard to Administrative Structure (Fiscal Years 1975 and 1980)...... 71 8. Chronology of Major National Initiatives in Employment and Training Policy within the CETA Structure (1973-1979)...... 103

9* CETA Program Titles: Original Legislation of 1973 and Its Reauthorization of 1978...... 106 10. Programmatic Status of Prime Sponsors (As of July 1 9 7 9 ) ...... 109

11. Interview Respondents by Sector and Field Site. .364 vii Table Page

12. Lake City: Summary Assessment of CETA Staff Accountability to Seven Public Actors...... 376

13. Acre: Summary Assessment of CETA Staff Accountability to Seven Public Actors...... 377 14. Choptank County: Summary Assessment of CETA Staff Accountability to Seven Public Actors. . . 378

15. The Briar Consortium: Summary Assessment of CETA Staff Accountability to Seven Public A c t o r s ...... 379

viii LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1. Inter-Bureaucratic Organizational Structure: The Department of Labor and the Local Prime Sponsors...... 42

2. Overview of Accountability Forums Operating in the Relationships Between the Department of Labor and Local CETA Prime Sponsors (1975-1980)...... 47

3. Program Status Summary...... 51 4. Financial Status Report ...... 52

5. Quarterly Summary of Participant Characteristics. 53 6 Annual Program Activity Summary ...... 54

7. Annual Report of Detailed Characteristics .... 55

8. Quarterly Progress Report ...... 61

9. Quarterly Summary of Client Characteristics . . . 63 10. Administrative Structure of Acre's CETA P r o g r a m ...... 142

11. Administrative Structure of Choptank County's CETA Program...... 158

12. Administrative Structure of Lake City's CETA P r o g r a m ...... 178 13. Administrative Structure of Briar's CETA P r o g r a m ...... 201

14. The Briar Consortium: Local Public Accountability Structure (1975-1979)...... 228

15. The Briar Consortium: Local Public Accountability Structure (1979-19??) ...... 229 16. Acre City: Local Public'Accountability Structure (1974-1977)...... 230

ix Figure Page

17. Acre City: Local Public Accountability Structure (1978-19??)...... 231 18. Choptank County: Local Public Accountability Structure (1974-1978)...... 232 19. Choptank County: Local Public Accountability Structure (1978-19??)...... 233

20. Lake City: Local Public Accountability Structure...... 234

21. Lake City: Local PUblic Accountability Structure (Beginning 1979)...... 235

22. Acre City: Administrative Structure for Service Delivery...... 274 23. Lake City: Administrative Structure for Service DElivery...... 276 24. Choptank County: Administrative Structure for Service DElivery...... 278 25. The Briar Consortium: Administrative Structure for Service Delivery...... 279 26. Choptank County Continuum of Accountability: Comparison Across Sectors ...... 326 27. The Briar Consortium Continuum of Accountability: Comparison Across Sectors ...... 326

28. Acre Continuum of Accountability: Comparison Across Sectors...... 327 29. Lake City Continuum of Accountability: Comparison Across Sectors ...... 327 30. Aggregate Continuum of Accountability: Comparison Across Sectors and Sites ...... 329 31. Interview Guide for Chief CETA Staff...... 366 x INTRODUCTION

Few observers of social and political development would dispute two major contemporary trends: the development of governmental bureaucratic organizations and the growth in democratic aspirations in most industrialized and non­ industrialized societies. My concern with bureaucratic accountability arises from the debate over whether or not these two trends are ultimately incompatible. In other words# can democratic societies flourish alongside increasingly bureaucratized, state organizations? After identifying some of the basic concerns regarding this question, I begin with the premise that some form of democratic control of bureaucracies is possible and argue that accountability relationships between bureaucratic governmental agencies and other governmental and non-governmental organizations may be critical to that control. Thus, an exploration of the nature of accountability in a bureaucratic context becomes the major focus of this study. This inevitably demands an explanation or theory of bureaucratic accounta­ bility, including an explanation of the bureaucratic barriers that impede effective accountability, and some insight into how those barriers can be overcome.

1 I anchor this larger theoretical debate in an empirical analysis of the accountability relationships involving four employment and training agencies in the United States as they implemented the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973 and its reauthorization of 1978. In this analysis,

I attempt to provide substantive insight into the nature and problems of accountability relationships within the specific realm of the employment and training policy system within the United States. Thus, in the bulk of this study, I set out to answer several major empirical questions: For what policy decisions were the agency staffs most accountable? To whom and to what extent were they account­ able? And, what factors explain the variations in the accountability relationships that we discovered?.

Finally, we then test the value of the study with regard to its usefulness in illuminating the larger and cloudier questions at issue: Do bureaucratic organizations pose serious problems for democratic decision making? If so, why? Finally, and most importantly for this study, what role, if any, can accountability structures and processes play in building and preserving democratic processes in the midst of bureaucratic organizations? CHAPTER 1: BUREAUCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY: A THEORY AND METHOD FOR RESEARCH

Growth of Bureaucracies: Bane or Blessing for Democratic Society?

In the twentieth century, American Government has experienced tremendous growth in the number, size, and diversity of its bureaucratic organizations. In 1900, the national executive.branch was composed of sixteen depart­ ments and bureaus.^- These organizations employed approxi­ mately 200,000 people and administered a budget of about

$600 million. In contrast, by the late 1970*3, the national executive branch had grown to include fifty-six independent agencies and commissions, twelve major executive departments, and twelve councils and offices directly serving the Presi­ dent. This conglomeration of agencies employed over 2,500,000 persons, (150,000 in the Department of Health, Education and

Welfare alone,) and spent approximately $460 billion in 1978.^

Similarly, state and local governments had increased the num­ ber of employees 300% from 2.5 to 12.2 million persons between 1929 and 1976 and expenditures from $7.8 billion in 1929 to $299.8 billion in 1976.4

This growth in government is indicative of two other im­ portant changes in the nature of governmental authority and

3 4 power. First, government has extended its influence into areas of life heretofore reserved for other "agencies" such as the family and the church. Governmental responsibility now includes public services such as occupational training, individual counseling, and the management of water systems 5 for almost half the nation's population. As of early 1979,

58% of the American population were using at least one di­ rect service provided by governmental agencies.^ Second, while legislative bodies have increased their responsibil­ ities and authority, assuming the burden of solving the country's Unemployment, medical, and energy problems, they have simultaneously delegated new responsibilities and au­ thority to newly created bureaucracies, e.g., the Federal Energy Administration, and long standing bureaucracies, such as thfe Department of Labor. In most cases, broad authority and discretionary power have been granted to these bureau­ cracies. As a result of this delegation of authority, some analysts believe the core of policy making has shifted to the bureaucracies. As Francis Rourke writes:

'It is in the crucible of administrative politics today that public policy is mainly hammered out, through bargaining, negotiation, and conflict 7 amoung appointed rather than elected officials. Part of the explanation for this development lies in the nature of contemporary social problems. Today's gov­ ernments face chronic social problems. Environmental pol­ lution, energy shortages, and hard core unemployment resist immediate remedies. Consequently, legislatures have 5 established bureaucratic agencies with long term mandates to manage these challenges on a daily basis.

The complexity of social problems has also propelled the movement of policy making towards bureaucratic insti­ tutions. Legislatures have lacked the capacity to absorb and integrate the necessary information. While legislatures have expanded their own staff resources in efforts to cope with this gap, they have grown increasingly dependent on the bureaucratic institutions as the primary reservoirs of tech­ nical knowledge and solutions. Thus, bureaucratic organiza­ tions have become increasingly powerful in shaping the legis­ lative agendas. Complexity has also led to the recognition of the need for bureaucratic discretionary decision making authority. Legislatures are faced with problems that cannot be adequately addressed without asking agencies to handle their day to day aspects. , Legislatures have simply looked towards the bureau­ cracies for efficient and effective resolution of contempor- Q ary social problems.

For some analysts, the expansion of bureaucratic power directly benefits democratic society. As Anthony Downs argues:

...Comparing present-day life in the United States with that of past decades, we can hardly doubt that bureaus exert a growing absolute level of control over individuals...Nevertheless, it would be a gross error to conclude from this that bureaus have re­ duced individual freedom of choice...Today's citizen ...enjoys a much greater range in choice of possi­ ble behaviors than his predecessors did...Increased bureaucratic regulations are actually one of the causes of his greater freedom...Without increased 6

bureaucratic regulation, such forces as techno­ logical change, urbanization, and more intensive division of labor would either be impossible or would lead to greater social disorganization and a narrower range of choice for the individual.9 However, other political thinkers are less sanguine

about the effects of the increased bureaucratization of

society. They maintain that the public is steadily losing control over regulatory policies and the decision making

process. For instance, Sanford Lakoff attempts to override

Downs’ analysis by arguing that Downs ’’evades the problems bureaucracy poses with respect to political freedom."10 Lakoff asks a different questions Regardless of the impact

of a decision, who controls the decision makers and the

decision making process?

To increase the number of outlets available to a rat in his maze may give him more “behavioral options" but it does not give him any greater control over the design of the experiment he is compelled to participate in. Similarly, when bureaucracies succeed in imposing such additions to human behavioral options as "bet,ter highways" and "supersonic aircraft"...it is no wonder that people adversely affected by these decisions should feel frustrated and resentful over their inability to affect the decisions by which their options are determined.H

In other words, the movement of policy making authority

from elected representatives to unelected bureaucrats may pose a serious challenge to representative democratic

government. The democratic character of the government lies partly in the assumption that the electoral process provides a key mechanism for the public to affect the important policy makers. 1 ^Yet, under these changing conditions, the public's

influence through the electoral process is undermined. 7

The power held by bureaucracies poses further problems

for the democratic process. The power is derived mainly from the extent of expert knowledge contained within the

bureaucracy. This knowledge takes two forms: professional

knowledge of a particular policy area, such as employment

and training policy, and bureaucratic knowledge of the mech­ anics of administration. ^ Working with specific legislation and regulations, bureaucrats develop expertise in both of

these areas. Detailed knowledge and understanding of a

policy area tend to become monopolized in a particular bu­

reaucracy. Bureaucrats then become the primary source of information necessary for a full understanding of the govern­ ment's role in a given policy area. This allows them:toset

the decision making agendas, define the issues to serve their

own interests, and, in general, manipulate the amount and quality of the information distributed to the broader public.

According-to E.E. Schattsneider, the ability to define

issues is the "supreme instrument of power." As he writes:

Political conflict is not like an intercollegiate debate in which the opponents agree in advance on a definition of the issues. As a matter of fact, the definition of the alternatives is the supreme instrument of power; the antagonists can rarely agree on what the issues are because power is in­ volved in the definition. He who determines what politics is about runs the country.14

Implicitly expanding on Schattsneider1s theme, Ralph

Hummel argues that the control of information enables bu­ reaucracies to maintain a "competitive advantage over rival

organizations"This competitive advantage, gained through

a monopoly over critical information, can be lost once the 8

information is disseminated. Thus, protecting their

decision making prerogatives, bureaucrats may politely bombard outside actors with mounds of largely irrelevant information or define issues in a way that steers outside viewers away from the bureaucracy's main interests. The potential bureaucratic monopoly over personnel with

technical skills is a related source of power that can also present problems for democratic control of policy. To the

extent a monopoly over skilled personnel develops, an im­

balance in power resources is biased in favor of the bureau­ cratic agency. Even if an outside actor wants to change policy, he or she might be handcuffed by the fear of losing irreplaceable staff. Therefore, potential sanctions, such as firing administrative personnel or shifting program re­

sponsibilities to other agencies, will be ineffective in

influencing an organization in which the staff recognizes

its monopolistic status. In Robert Miewald's view, even revolutionaries face the possibility of being unable to re­ place the administrative structure. As he writes,

Revolution against a modern governmental bureau­ cracy has become technically very difficult if not impossible. A complete overhauling of such a government is very nearly out of the question, since it would involve the interruption of public services essential to the community. Modern gov­ ernmental bureaucracy holds, therefore, a monopoly of power. Democratic society suffers from this domination of in­ formation and knowledge if public actors are deprived of access to information necessary for judging and questioning policies critically. Without this information, the public cannot press bureaucratic agencies for full explanations and will be less able to influence policy intelligently.

In summary, a dilemma emerges between the organization­ al needs for effective treatment of social problems and demo­ cratic control of those "problem solving" organizations.

Expert knowledge and significant levels of discretionary decision making authority in an administrative organization are necessary for solving complex and chronic social problems.

However, oligarchical, unresponsive bureaucracies may be one result of this delegation of authority and development of expert knowledge. Without significant democratic control of policy making, who controls the controllers? Yet, ineffective administration may be the result of the intervention of numerous and uninformed citizens and legislators. The dilemma raises the following question: Can democratic society keep the benefits that stem from bu­ reaucratic independence and specialization without sacrifi­ cing healthy public control over policy making?

Accountability Relationships

In the bureaucratic context, effective accountability relationships between bureaucratic agencies and other repre­ sentative governmental and non-governmental institutions and organizations may provide a partial solution to the dilemma.

Accountability relationships involve three basic characteris­ tics: (1) participant recognition of a distinction between discretionary and non-discretionary spheres of decision 10 making? (2) bureaucratic explanation and justification of

actions and decisions; and (3) the potential for outside

actor influence over bureaucratic decision making. The simultaneous protection of both the democratic character of the decision making process and justified bureaucratic dis­

cretionary decision making authority is the goal of these 17 relationships. Accountability relationships assume the need for making a distinction between discretionary and non-discretionary spheres of decision making. The non-discretionary sphere includes the major policy decisions that should involve sig­ nificant influence from representative, non-bureaucratic actors. For example, in employment and training policy, these decisions include programmatic questions, such as the choice of target groups who will receive services and the choice of program operators who will be responsible for sup­ plying the services. In both cases, the consequences are

long term and wide ranging. Bureaucratic and public recog­ nition and respect for this sphere will protect democratic control over policy. The discretionary decision making sphere includes those decisions that should be left to bureaucratic judgement, with little, if any, outside influence. Administrative day-to-day oversight decisions of program operators might be an example of decisions that would fall into this sphere. Bureaucratic and public recognition and respect for this type of decision will also help to protect discretionary authority necessary 11 for effective administration.

In sum, accountability relationships are built, in part, on the recognition that certain decisions should be reserved for the democratic process and others should be reserved for bureaucratic discretion. Accountability only exists when those in the relationship recognize this dis­ tinction and attempt to deal with decisions accordingly.

The explanatory character of these relationships serves both goals. As mentioned above, explanation plays a critical role in preserving the democratic character of decision making by democratizing access to information and under­ standing. Theoretically, a bureaucracy's chief source of power, its monopoly over expert knowledge, can be dissipated through a process of outside questioning and scrutiny in which bureaucrats must explain and justify their actions, decisions, and intentions. Under the right conditions, ex­ pert knowledge becomes common knowledge. If this aspect of the relationship is accompanied by the potential for influ­ ence, then the democratic character of the decision making process can be protected.

Yet, the explanatory process can also help to preserve the bureaucrat's authority. If participants in the relation­ ship recognize the need for some discretionary authority, then the explanatory forum can provide the opportunity for bureaucrats to justify the need for discretionary authority in certain areas of decision making and build support for that authority. 12

Explanation and influence are central characteristics of accountability in a number of fields of study. In most cases, expansion of public understanding and influence are the goals of accountability relationships. For R.W. Ennis, a student of public administration, accountability is simply the "...liability to render account for the way in which power and duties...have been discharged...111® E.L. Normanton supports this view as he writes, "To be accountable means to give reasons for and explanations of what one does."^ He emphasizes the importance of the need for more elaborate ex­ planations in financial accounting. He disagrees with those in his field who accept a "formal statement of money dealing" 20 as sufficient for accountability > In his view.: ...A certified financial account rarely provides explanations and it never gives reasons. It does not as a rule even contain much detail of what actually has been done...It is not...an adequate public record of policy and transactions during the period concerned, In the fields of judicial politics and educational admin­ istration, accountability is central to the arguments aimed at limiting the discretionary power of judges and school ad­ ministrators. In the former, the judges discretionary au­ thority over sentencing decisions is a major issue.22 in

Gerald Robin's view, the present judicial system is best characterized as "...a unilateral, undocumented, and unguarded exercise of judicial authority.2® To make the sentencing de­ cisions less arbitrary and more just, he argues that judges should be forced to provide documented reasons for their individual sentencing decisions. 13

Commenting on the conflict with school administrators/

Lesley Browder writes:

In a sense/ teachers/ students/ and minority groups have pressed for more rights in deter­ mining how the system will operate and less restrictions on their own manner of operation within the system. Where possible, the favored form of appeasement to group demands is some form of compromise. The resulting accommodation usually limits aspects of administrative dis­ cretion related to the control of the school's operation.24

In political science and public administration, influ­ ence is considered an essential dimension in accountability relationships. In Normanton's work, the influence relation­ ship is a key part of the accountability relationship between a legislature and an executive. As he writes: The legislature had an absolutely prime interest in effective accountability. This was not simply a matter of preventing financial scandals which could be politically embarrassing. Far more was it a question of power itself...Firm restriction of the executive to the financial limits set by law was the vital key to legislative influence over policy as well as over the cost of everyday administration.25

For both Normanton and Ennis, influence over budgets is a legislature's major source of power. As Ennis puts it:

It is to this power of the purse and to its power to bring the whole executive machinery of the coun­ try to a standstill that the House of Commons owes its control over the executive.25

In sum, accountability relationships involve the sepa­ ration of bureaucratic decisions into discretionary and non- discretionary spheres, bureaucratic explanation of decisions, and the potential for outside influence on bureaucratic decisions. 14

NECESSARY CONDITIONS FOR EFFECTIVE ACCOUNTABILITY

The full development of these elements of accountabil­ ity in turn rests on three other conditions surrounding the relationship. They are: (1) a favorable distribution of power resources among outside actors in relation to the bu­ reaucracy; (2) ideological values identifying bureaucratic obligations towards outside actors; and (3) explanatory forums for the communication of bureaucratic explanations to outside actors.

Distribution of Power Resources When major policy disagreements emerge between bureau­ crats and outside actors, the latter must reach for leverage through some power resource, such as information, funding, organizational infrastructure, or constituency support, if they hope to influence policy. The outside actors* leverage or influence is exercised through both sanctions and incen­ tives. Sanctions are potential punishments that other organ­ izations and individuals can impose on an agency. Incentives are potential rewards than can be offered to an agency. As such, sanctions and incentives are simply specific applica­ tions of power resources. They secure influence by providing other organizations with the tactical ability to force or in­ duce bureaucrats to explain past actions, and, if desirable, to change policy. 15

Ideology In this analysis/ Robert Mclver's definition of ideology is used.

A political and social ideology...is a system of political, economic, and social values and ideas from which objectives are derived. These objectives form the nucleus of a political program... [It is concerned with] how government ought _ to be conducted and what it should try to do...2 In the context of employment and training policy, social and economic equality may be a primary "social value" for a CETA director. In addition, he or she may believe that government has a primary responsibility to pursue this equality. Consequently, the director may view CETA as a proper programmatic vehicle for moving towards that equality.

With regard to accountability, an ideology will entail an understanding concerning bureaucratic explanatory obliga­ tions and toleration of outside influence. Authoritarian ideologies will tend to place weak explanatory obligations on bureaucrats and even more tenuous obligations to allow outside influence in decision making. In contrast, democra­ tic ideologies will require strong obligations on both counts. In this thesis, I examine the impact of ideological values on accountability in terms of the content, strength, and direction of accountability. Content refers to the sub­ stantive policy areas for which staff were accountable.

Strength refers to the depth and vitality of the relationships.

Finally, direction refers to the orientation of accountabil­ ity, i.e., to whom were staff accountable. 16

Many political thinkers, such as Francis Rourke and

Carl Friedrich, have viewed ideology as a critical and

independent factor in the shaping of bureaucratic account­

ability. For example, for Friedrich, the administrator's

value commitment or his "inward personal sense of moral ob­

ligation" 29 plays a role in determining administrative re­

sponsiveness. Healthy responsiveness can only develop from strong bureaucratic commitment to democratic principles.

Viewing accountability relationships from a broader social and' historical perspective, Normanton emphasizes ideology's importance in influencing the direction of account­

ability. He argues that the ideological values and prevail­

ing norms for guiding and legitimizing the direction of

accountability have changed dramatically in the course of

history. In primitive and medieval societies, the prevailing ideology included the belief that the public should be ac­

countable to a king or sovereign. He writes: "...the state

[was] a hierarchy and all accountability [was] to the head."30

With the onset of revolutionary periods, popular movements challenged the legitimacy of this hierarchical structure and

reversed the direction of accountability. The new ideology no longer legitimized accountability from people to king, but instead, demanded accountability of the king to the public through legislative assemblies.

Explanatory forums

Explanatory forums are necessary for insuring both explanations and influence. Formal public hearings, informal 17 meetings, and written reports and plans are examples of

forums that provide opportunities for communication be­ tween bureaucrats and outside actors. These forums act as part of the concrete mechanisms through which both ide­ ological factors and power resources have effect. Different forums offer varying degrees of opportunity for explanation and influence. For example, meetings allow for a quick exchange of questions and responses as well as an immediate examination of agency policy. However, letters and formal reports, such as annual plans and budget reports, can offer more systematic, detailed, and rigorous explana­ tions of actions and decisions. Fully developed answers with supporting evidence can be provided in a more compre­ hensive package through these forums than in oral presenta­ tions .

Either explicitly or implicitly, experts have also included these forums as an additional condition for effective accountability. Ennis and Normanton emphasize the importance of small legislative committee hearings as well as the larger session, the Questioning Period, in the British Par­ liament in insuring executive accountability towards the legislature. In their view, legislators depend on these forums for the opportunity to grill government leaders for explanations of past, present, and future policies.31

Working within the American Governmental context,

Aaron Wildavsky identifies the budgetary process, especially the committee hearings, as a device for articulating the 18

“ demands and counter demands of both bureaucratic agencies

and legislators alike. The budget "emerges as a network

of communications in which information is continuously

being generated and fed back to the participants..." •32

Interestingly, the budget acts as an explanatory mechanism for both executive and legislative actors.

Finally, Gerald Robins cites the importance of forums

for insuring judicial accountability over sentencing policy. He argues that judges should be required to submit written

explanatory statements on their sentencing policy and that sentence review councils should also be established to in­ sure judge accountability.33

To summarize: bureaucratic accountability entails a

relationship in which bureaucrats must provide explanations

for their actions and be open to influence from outside

actors. It also entails a recognition by all actors of an

explicit or implicit delineation between spheres of discre­

tionary and non-discretionary decision making power. In the former areas, the bureaucrats have relative independence; in

the latter, outside actors are more fully involved in deci­ sion making.

Three other conditions are necessary for effective accountability relationships. Outside actors must have

access to important resources of power that enable them to

influence bureaucrats. Explanatory forums must be present

and operational if explanations are to be forthcoming and

useful for outside pressure. Finally, the prevailing 19 ideology bathing the atmosphere of both bureaucrats and out­ side actors must tilt towards democratic values. Bureaucrats must believe they owe the public full explanations of their actions and acknowledge that the public has a right to influ­ ence policy. Similarly, the outside actors must believe that they are owed these explanations and that they have a right to influence policy.

THE STUDY

New Federalism, CETA, and Bureaucratic Accountability As part of the New Federalism movement in government, CETA provides an appropriate case for the study of bureau­ cratic accountability. New Federalism, encompassing general and special revenue sharing programs, was a reaction to the growing fiscal crises of state and local governments, caused by the growing demand for services without the local finan­ cial resources to meet t h e m . 34 However, the reassertion of local governmental authority and the federal government's desire for greater bureaucratic accountability were also important motivating forces for these programs. As Walter Heller comments:

...It would be a mistake to assume that the case for federal support rests wholly...on...relentless fiscal pressures and handicaps...it is from the realm of political philosophy— the renewed interest in making state-local government a vital, effective, and reasonably equal partner in a workable federalism — that much of the impetus for more generous levels and new forms of federal assistance has come.

Accountability was a major theme in President Richard Nixon's arguments for the programs. As he commented: 20

.o.Giving state and localities the power to spend certain Federal tax monies will increase the influ­ ence of each citizen on how those monies are used. It will make government more responsive to taxpayer pressures. It will enhance accountability...

Thus, given this partial justification for these programs, the question becomes: In CETA, was accountability achieved?

To answer this question, I examine both the intended account­

ability relationships and the actual relationships that finally developed.

As stated in the original regulations, CETA's purpose was to:

...provide job training and employment opportunities for economically disadvantaged, unemployed and under­ employed persons, and to assure that training and other services lead to maximum employment opportunities and enhance self-sufficiency.37

In the spirit of the New Federalism philosophy, these goals were achievable through the decentralization of administra­ tive functions and the decategorization of employment and training programs. Decentralization meant moving the princi­ pal authority for administering employment and training pro­ grams from national bureaucratic offices to state and local political jurisdictions. During the 1960's, resources for these programs were authorized under the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962 and the Economic Opportunity Act of

1964. The authority for administering these resources had essentially bypassed state and local political authorities and had been placed in the hands of several other organiza­ tions: the Department of Labor, the Office of Economic Op­ portunity, and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare 21

at the national level; the state employment service offices, the vocational education schools, community action organi­ sations, and other local community based agencies at the

state and local levels.^® Through CETA, principal authority passed into the hands of local political jurisdictions.

Seventeen programs were ended, with their purposes merging under one umbrella in the new legislation.39 This was the

hallmark of decategorization. Rather than specifying the o utlines of programs at the national level, CETA granted

flexibility to the local levels of government to organize

and administer their own programs.

More specifically, political jurisdictions of 100,000 or

more persons— cities, counties, state governments, or con­ sortia of towns, cities, and counties— assumed the authority

for prime sponsorship in administering CETA. To administer the programs, prime sponsor staffs had to be developed.

Choice of staff structure was left to the discretion of the

local political officials. In general, the organizational structure assumed two forms. Either the program was admin­

istered by an "in-house” governmental agency or it was sub­

contracted to existing organizations, such as the Urban League, the Employment Service, or the National Alliance of

Business, and coordinated by a small CETA staff working out of the political jurisdiction's own bureaucracy.

While more specific elaboration of the legislative intentions for accountability relationships is articulated

in later chapters, the general outlines are the following. 22

For Titles I, XI, and VI, the local CETA staffs were to be accountable to the local political officials, the Depart­ ment of Labor, and the employment and training advisory councils. Particularly in Title I, the block grant author­ izing "comprehensive manpower services for the unemployed, underemployed, and economically disadvantaged," the legis­ lative intent was clear as to the placement of primary au­ thority over programming.

The Secretary [of labor] may make financial assistance available to a prime sponsor to enable it to carry out all or a substantial part- of a comprehensive manpower program. 40

Local political official control over the major decisions in employment and training programs was one of the primary in­ tentions of the original legislation. Implicitly, the scope of staff discretionary power was to be determined by the local political officials and the nature Of staff explanation about the programs to the political officials was to be di­ rect and comprehensive.

Oversight responsibility was the intended role for the Department of Labor. Originally, the main forum for account­ ability was the annual plan submitted to the Department of

Labor. The plans were to outline the general nature of the programs, including such items as a description of services and performance g o a l s . 41 While the Department of Labor was to receive comprehensive program explanations, its influence over important programmatic decisions was meant to be limited.

For example, in the choice of client group service, the orig­ inal legislation allowed a wide flexibility for local prime 23 sponsors. Title I allowed them to work with a broader pop­ ulation than those below the poverty level. In addition, while the prime sponsors were urged to give consideration to service deliverers in operation, including the Employment Service, they were to have flexibility to shape new deliv­ ery systems without necessarily including the old service 42 deliverers.

Similarly, while the advisory councils were to be a source of public input into the decision making process, their role was not intended to be a dominant one. The coun­ cils were to include representatives from (1) client groups, (2) community organizations, (3) the Employment Service, (4) local educational agencies, (5) business, (6) labor, and, where appropriate, (7) agriculture.4"^ Substantively, the councils were to "submit recommendations regarding plans and basic goals, policies, and procedures," to "monitor and pro­ vide for objective evaluations of employment and training programs," and to "provide for continuing analyses of needs for employment and training related s e r v i c e s .

For the public service employment programs, Titles II and VI, the Department of Labor's role was slightly more re­ strictive in defining the client group by stipulating that prospective participants were to be without employment or underemployed for a minimum of thirty days. In addition, special consideration was to be given to several specific groups, including the most severely disadvantaged, former trainees, and Vietnam veterans.45 In Title VI, project funds 24

were for all prime sponsorships and the client group was

also specified more narrowly than in Title 1.46 Titles III and IV were categorical programs

authorizing the Department of Labor to administer programs.

In Title III,, funds were available for programs for groups in particular need/ including native Americans/ migrant and

seasonal farm workers, and youth. In addition. Title III

funds were to be used for research, evaluation, and demon­

stration projects, all under the authority of the Secretary of Labor. Title IV simply authorized the Secretary of Labor

to continue the operation of the Job C o r p s . 47

Finally, the federal government created the possibil­

ities for a strong accountability relationship with the local

private sectors through Title VII, as articulated in the re­ authorization legislation of 1978. This legislation granted substantial decision making authority to newly created

Private Industry Councils, with the expectation that CETA staff would be accountable to them. 48

In this context, the empirical questions for this study are the following: For what important decisions were local

CETA agencies accountable? To whom were they accountable?

How strong were the accountability relationships? Finally, what factors best explain the content, strength, and direc­ tion of the staff accountability? 25

THE METHODOLOGY

Case Study Research

Focusing on four CETA prime sponsorships, I analyze the accountability relationships between the local CETA bureau­ cracies and seven other actors, including the Department of

Labor, the local political officials, the participant groups, organized labor, the local press, the traditional service de­ liverers, and the local private sector. I chose the case study approach for its usefulness in examining influence re­ lationships. Case study research effectively generates the contextual information necessary to describe and explain the often subtle and inconspicuous ways in which influence is exerted. For example, an institution's influence may be pres ent without its direct participation in the decision making process.- Staff members may simply perceive certain actors to be important and respond to them in anticipation of their desires without receiving any direct inquiry or request from them. A case study approach is useful for tapping this type of information because it allows for a closer focus on the nuances of social and political relationships.

Prime Sponsorships: Choptank County, City of Acre, Lake City and Briar Consortium 4Q , Choptank County^5 served a relatively homogeneous popu­ lation of approimately one million. The population was pre­ dominantly white, with blacks and Latinos making up the minority populations. The prime sponsorship was composed of many small to medium sized towns, geographically connected. 26

The county government was the governmental institution that assumed prime sponsorship status. However/ the local

Community Action Agency operated the CETA program under a subcontract with the county government. With minor excep­ tions/ the Community Action Agency staff administered all of the CETA programs. Choptank County's labor force was relatively evenly dis­ tributed among various sectors of private industry and govern­ ment. Approximately 30 percent of the labor force was in wholesale and retail trade, with 18 percent in the service industry. Government employed approximately 12 percent of labor force. Unlike Choptank County, the city of Acre served a smaller, more heterogeneous, urban population of approximate­ ly 460,000. Whites comprised approximately 80 percent of the population, while blacks, the only significant minority, made up the remaining 20 percent.

The city government assumed the prime sponsorship. How­ ever, unlike Choptank County, the city administration set up its own CETA staff within its division of personnel. In the operation of the program, the staff coordinated and monitored the efforts of several subcontracting agents in addition to operating some programs itself.

While the city of Acre was once dominated by major manufacturing industries, services, retail and wholesale trade, and government had become the primary areas of employ­ ment. For example, in 1960, retail and wholesale trade 27 industries absorbed approximately 17 percent of the labor force compared to 26 percent in the manufacturing industries. However, as of the 1970 census, employment in manufacturing declined to 21 percent of the labor force while retail and wholesale trade employment rose to 22 percent of the labor force.

Lake City served a heterogeneous population of approx­ imately 625,000. As in Acre, the urban center included a majority white population and a large black minority.

Originally, Lake City was a part of a consortium com­ posed of three governmental jurisdictions. The consortium assumed the prime sponsorship. A consortium staff, made up largely of Lake City employees, was organized to operate the program. Staff accountability was to a consortium board, composed of nine political officials, three from each of the political jurisdictions. However, Lake City assumed its own prime sponsorship after the collapse of the consortium. The analysis draws from both periods.

Lake City's labor force, like Acre's, was spread across several areas of employment. While manufacturing absorbed approximately 22 percent of the labor force, wholesale and retail trade, services, and government accounted for approx­ imately 21, 19, and 19 percent respectively.

In contrast to the other prime sponsorships, the Briar

Consortium included a homogeneous population of approximately 180,000 scattered in a rural and sparsely populated territory.

Ninety-nine percent of the population was white, with 28

native American population comprising most of the remaining one percent. The Briar Consortium included three county governments.

It established a CETA agency/ accountable to the Consortium

Board, which was composed of the nine county commissioners from the three county governments. The staff administered all the programs.

In contrast with the two urban prime sponsorships, the bulk of the Briar labor force worked in non-manufacturing sectors. Manufacturing and government each took up ten per­ cent of the remaining work force.

Measurement Strategy

I combined a process strategy with an institutional strategy for the analysis and explanation of the account­ ability relationships. The process approach focuses on the actual participation of various actors in an ongoing decision making process. Its underlying assumption is that influence is exerted in the decision making process and that this in­ fluence can be observed by noting who participates in the process and whose views are reflected in the decision's out- come. 50 In one of the original applications of this approach,

Harold Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan argue that "power is par­ ticipation in the making of decisions: G has power over H with respect to the values K if G participates in the making of decisions affecting the K politics of H." 51 29

In the institutional approach, the underlying assump­ tion is that power is derived from an individual's position

in an organization or an organization's position in society. In either case, position entails access to power resources

that enable the individual or organization to be influential. Thus, the potential for influence is identified and measured

by noting the individual's or organization's access to power resources.

While the process strategy rings true as a common sense approach to influence analysis, use of this approach alone

may lead the researcher to ignore several important aspects of an influence relationship. The process approach has three major deficiencies. First, it tends to focus exclusively on

individuals in the decision making p r o c e s s . Consequently,

resources of influence and power assume the form of individ­ ual rather than organizational or institutional attributes. Bargaining skills and the ability to persuade become the only

important resources of power. Identifying the specific indi­ viduals actively taking part in the decision making process and their organizational interest becomes crucial.5^ As

Mokken and Stokman point out, groups and organizations serve only to characterize persons involved in the process. Im­ portant institutional attributes of power, such as the func­ tional relationship among organizations, are left out of the analysis.54

Second, with its focus on individuals, this approach also tends to restrict the manipulation of power or influence 30

to intentional behavior. Unconscious or irrational uses of

power are excluded from the analysis. As Mokken and Stokman comment:

...Motivated and purposeful applications of power and influence are among the most important phenomena in any society. We would overstep our mark/ how­ ever/ if we were to restrict power and influence to this area...Evidently irrational applications of power are equally a part of the social reality to which we want to relate our concepts. Many of these applications relate to the impact of positions of power of which the wielders of that power are unaware, either because they do not sufficiently know the range of their power, or, perhaps, because they are not able to master it fully... It can... apply to the subjects to which their power in fact extends: closing down certain works may effect the level of employment and welfare of the population of a whole region.

The institutional approach protects against this myopia by guiding the researcher to follow the movement of important resources that reside in relevant organizations, even though actors from those organizations are not active in a decision making process. For example, the CETA program can be uninten­ tionally affected by the independent policy decisions of another governmental bureaucracy. If Heath, Education and Welfare decides to cut back severely its Social Security disability program, it may unintentionally force another group of people onto the job market and enlarge the number and type of people that will come to CETA programs for help.

Faced with a larger clientele, CETA staff may recalculate its target group proportions. An institutional approach helps the researcher to be cognizant of important organiza­ tions and factors such as these that can and do have important influence on decisions under study. 31

Finally, the two writers argue that the process approach

tends to rely solely on manifest indicators of influence.

For example, Dahl argues that once important issues have

been identified, the researcher need only get full accounts

of the decision making process among actors and note the

specific outcomes of the conflict to identify who is influ- c c ential and why. However, this can ignore the agenda set­

ting process in which power limits the scope of the decision making to a certain set of issues. As discussed earlier,

this is one of the potential control strategies for bureau­ cracies.

Measuring Accountability Content and Strength

Guided by these two approaches to the analysis of in—

„ fluence, I developed indicators for measuring the strength and content of accountability and the factors that determine them.

Following Dahl's guidance, I first identified the key

decisions made in local CETA programs. Among CETA praction-

ers, these decisions were generally known as the basic plan­

ning decisions around which everything else revolved. These

decisions included the following:

(1) Target group identification: Who is to receive services and in what proportion to the rest of the target population? (2) Target occupation identification: In what occupations should participants be trained? (3) Program mix identification: What types of programs and services should be offered? (4) Service deliverer selection: What organizations and institutions should provide the services and ad­ minister the programs? 32

(5) Administrative decisions: Who should make the decisions about the structure of the agency and the organization and recruitment of the staff? (6) Public planning system decisions: How should the public be included in the planning structure and process? How much authority should the public have?

In this context, I identified the content and strength of accountability by assessing both the explanatory and in­ fluence character of the relationships. An issue regarding staff explanations is whether or not outside actors received enough information to make intelligent judgements about the planning decisions for the program. In other words, "compre­ hensiveness" was used to incorporate both quality and quanti­ ty of information.

I assessed the comprehensiveness of explanations by analyzing written and oral explanations. The written forums included plans, reports, and letters given to outside actors.

The basis for assessing oral explanations included respondent assessments and advisory council minutes. Finally, in this part of the analysis, I focused on the concept of "scrutiny." Regardless of the initial staff efforts in offering explanations, did the forums present opportunities for close questioning of staff and did outside actors take advantage of the opportunities? Some of the in­ dicators used for these judgements include frequency of com­ munications between staff and outside actors and intensity of outside actor questioning of staff explanations as exhib­ ited either in writing or in meetings. The sources for these 33

judgements included both staff and outside recollections/

staff reports and outside actor written responses, and council meeting minutes.

I used three strategies to measure the strength of out­ side actor influence. First, I examined the interaction patterns between outside actors and CETA staffs, noting who participated in the decision making process and whose views were best represented in the actual decisions. Second, I noted whether or not actors applied either sanctions or in­ centives in the process and with what effect.

Finally, I analyzed each staff’s anticipatory decision making processes. The process occurred when staff seriously considered the views of an outside actor and attempted to forecast potential reactions. Based on their forecasts, staff may have either changed policy or prepared strategies in defense of their decisions. This measurement strategy was often useful for identifying possible influential actors who were absent from the formal decision making processes.

Anticipatory decision making is a common mode of deci­ sion making in bureaucratic settings. For bureaucrats, maintaining control over the definition of issues and the scope of the agenda is important for preserving stable areas of discretionary power. To avoid losing discretionary power, bureaucrats anticipate the reactions of powerful out­ side actors. Failure to do so may open the door for a re­ duction of discretionary power not only on one issue, but on other issues as well. 34

I also analyzed various types of documents as a sup­

plemental source of information. In general, these in­ cluded staff reports and memoranda, outside actor corre­

spondence with staffs, advisory council meeting minutes, and local press clippings.

Outline of Chapters Two Through Five

In Chapters Two through Four, I apply the theory of bureaucratic accountability as developed in this chapter to each of the seven accountability relationships, as they emerged in four CETA prime sponsorships. Chapters Two and

Three focus on the staff relationships with the Department

of Labor and the local political officials, respectively.

Chapter Four analyzes five relationships in the local po­

litical arena, including the participant groups, labor unions, traditional service deliverers, and the private

sector. In each of these three chapters, I describe the patterns and the variations in the accountability relation­ ships as they developed.

Chapter Five finishes the empirical analysis by drawing some conclusions about the strengths of accountability across the seven relationships. Overall, to whom were CETA staffs most and least accountable? What factors are most important in explaining the variations in the strengths of the accountability relationships?

Finally, I return to the broader questions raised in this chapter. In the light of the empirical analysis of 35 the nature of bureaucratic accountability as experienced in four local CETA bureaucracies, what tentative conclusions can be drawn about the possibilities of building or main­ taining democratic reins on bureaucratic institutions? What role can accountability mechanisms play in this demo­ cratizing of bureaucratic institutions? And, what can be said about the nature of bureaucratic agencies? In the final analysis, are bureaucracies a blessing or a bane on democratic,societies? 36

NOTES

^■Catalogue of United States Public Documents, #61-72, 1900* Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1900- 1901, p. 2. ^Statistical Abstracts of the United States, U.S. Bureau of the Census, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., p. 1107. 3Dorothy James, The Contemporary Presidency (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company,Inc., 1969), p. 169. 4Samuel Patterson, Roger Davidson, and Randall Ripley, A More Perfect Union (Hometown, Illinois: The Dorsey Press, 1979), p. 573. 5"U.S. Plans a Campaign For Water Fluoridation," New York Times, August 3, 1979, p. 15. See also Theodore Lowi, The End of Liberalism (New York: W.W.Norton and Company, 1969), p. 32. As Lowi states: "...the overwhelming propor­ tion of government responsibility is administrative oper­ ation of facilities and services that a century ago were left primarily to family, neighborhood, local church, guild, and individual initiative. Public schools have expanded... toward subjects and types of training never thought of as the province of school or anything else very public— sex, hygiene, family finance, psychological and occupation guidance, and so on." ®John ■ .Montgomery, "The Populist Front in Rural Develop­ ment: Or Shall We Eliminate the Bureaucrats and Get on with the Job?," Public Administration Review,(January - February, 1979), p. 58. ^Francis Rourke, Bureaucracy, Politics, and Public Policy (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969), p. VIV. See also, Peter Woll, American Bureaucracy (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1977), p. W. Woll argues that this development is common in other societies as well: "The power of the bureaucracy in our government is not unique. In modern industrialized societies, regardless of the particular forms of government in operation, the bureau­ cracy or the administrative arm of the government seems to 37

be assuming more power at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches and has reduced in many instances the influence of the main executive bodies of these gov­ ernments. Bureaucracy can never be dismissed as simply part of the 'executive branch' of the government controlled by the President or Cabinet."

®In his discussion of the controversy over delegation of authority to newly created agencies during the New Deal, Robert Miewald captures the thinking of the Congress: "...Congress could not write detailed legislation to cover every contingency which might arise in the regulation of a complex area of the economy. The members only knew that they wanted certain problems solved and that some experts claimed they could provide solutions..." In Robert. Miewald, Public Administration: A Critical Perspec­ tive (New York: McGraw Hill, 1978), p. 242. Max Weber summarized the argument for this dependence: "The development of the modern form of the organization of corporate- groups in all fields is nothing less than identical with the development and continual spread of bu­ reaucratic administration...However many forms there may be which do not appear to fit this pattern, such as collegial representative bodies, parliamentary committees, soviets, honorary officiers, lay judges and what not, and however much people may complain about the 'evils of bureaucracy,' it would be sheer illusion to think for a moment that con­ tinuous administrative work can be carried out in any field except by means of officials working in offices. The whole pattern of everyday life is cut to fit this framework. For bureaucratic administration is, other things being equal, always, from a formal, technical point of view, the most rational type. For the needs of mass administration to-day, it is completely indispensible. The choice is only that be­ tween bureaucracy and dilletantism in the field of adminis­ tration. The primary source of the superiority of bureaucratic administration lies in the role of technical knowledge, which, through the development of modern technology and business methods in the production of goods, has become completely indispensible. In this respect, it makes no dif­ ference whether the economic system is organized on a cap­ italistic or a socialistic basis. Indeed, if in the latter case a comparable level of technical efficiency were to be achieved, it would mean a tremendous increase in the impor­ tance of specialized bureaucracy." From: Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, ed. Talcott Parsons (New York: The Free Press, 1964), pp. 336-7.

^Anthony Downs, Inside Bureaucracy (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1967), p. 259 lOlbid., p. 259. 38

1 ^-Sanford Lakoff, Private Government (Glenview: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1973), p. 234.

12james Madison, in "Federalist 51," emphasized the importance of elections in relation to the House of Repre­ sentatives: "As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under con­ sideration should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people. Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured." From Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison, The Federalist Papers, (New York: The New American Library, 1961), p. 327. Reflecting on Madison's argument, Woll notes that the growth of bureaucratic power distorts the original design of the Constitution and poses a possibility for the development of more arbitrary government: "...For Madison...the electoral sanction was considered to be of central importance in the control of government. In this respect the development of a bureaucracy that is not elected and that exercises broad political functions has ap­ parently resulted in the breakdown of a primary constitu­ tional check on arbitrary governmental power..." (Woll, p. 29).

13Ralph Hummel, The Bureaucratic Experience (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978), p. 16.

l^E.E. Schattsneider, The Semi-Sovereign People (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1960), p. 12.

ISHummel, p. 7.

l^Miewald, p. 118.

17See also, Bruce Smith, "Accountability and Independ­ ence in the Contract State," The Dilemma of Accountability in Modern Government, eds. D.C. Hague and Smith (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1971), p. 4. Smith deals with the prob­ lem government has in controlling private contractors and implies this interpretation of accountability when he dis­ cusses the tension between 'accountability' and "independ­ ence." As he writes, "...The private institutions must be accountable...The centre of gravity in the making of public policy should...rest with the formal government and not with the contract apparatus. At the same time, it is widely re­ cognized that some measure of genuine independence is vitally important to effective performance."

^■®W. Ennis, Accountability (London: Lyon Grant and Green Company, 1967), p. 17. 39

■^E.L. Normanton, The Accountability and Audit of Government (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966). p. 1.

20ibid. 21Ibid. 22Gerald Robins,"Judicial Resistance to Sentencing Accountability," Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 21, No. 3, (July, 1975), p. 203. 23ibid., p. 204.

24Lesley H. Browder, ed., Emerging Patterns of Admin­ istrative Accountability (Berkeley: McCutchan Publishing Corp., 1971), p. 20. 25Normanton, p. 7. 26Ennis, p. 45.

27william T. Bluhm, Ideologies and Attitudes: Modern Political Culture (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1974), p. 5. 28Rourke, p. 2.

29Herman Finer, "Administrative Responsibility in Democratic Government,"Public Administration Review,Vol 1, (Summer, 1941), p.336. 30Normanton, p. 3. 3lEnnis, p. 17.

32Aaron Wildavsky, The Politics of the Budgetary Process (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1974), p. 3.

33j?obins, p. 207.

34Michael Reagan, The New Federalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 34.

35ibid, p. 95.

36Ibid, p. 106.

37Public Law 93-203, 1973

33William Mirengoff and Lester Rindler, CETA: Manpower Programs Under Local Control (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1978), p. 83. 40

3^Mirengoff and Rindler, p . 5.

40public Law 93-203, 1973, Section 102(a), P* 3. ^Public Law 93-203, 1973, Section 105(a), P* 5.

42pubiic Law 93-203, 1973, Section 105(a), P- 6 . 43Public Law 93-203, 1973, Section 104, p. 5.

44public Law 93-203, 1973, Section 104, p. 5.

45Mirengoff and Rindler, p . 198.

46ibid., p. 197.

47Ibid., p. 4. 48public Law 95-524, 1978, Section 704. 4^The actual names of the prime sponsorships will re­ main anonymous. This anonymity is applied to the interview respondents as well. In both cases, it was promised in the hope that more frank and open discussions of issues and re­ lationships would be forthcoming. 50Robert Dahl, "A Critique of the Policy Elite Model," American Political Science Review, 52, (1958), p. 465.

^^H.D. Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan, Power and Society; A Framework for Political Inquiry (New Haven: Yale Univer­ sity Press, 1950), p. 84.

52r .j . Mokken and F.N. Stokman, "Power and Influence as Political Phenomena," Power and Political Theory, ed. Brian Barry (London: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 1976), p.44.

^3Graham T. Allison, "Bureaucratic Politics," Bureau­ cratic Power in National Politics, ed.F. Rourke (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972), P. 223. The common saying "Where you stand depends on where you sit" captures this principle.

34Mokken and Stokman, p. 44.

S^Mokken and Stokman, p. 34.

56Dahl, p. 465. CHAPTER 2: INTERBUREAUCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY: THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND THE LOCAL CETA AGENCIES

INTRODUCTION

Our first examination of bureaucratic accountability focuses on the relationship between the bureaucratic agencies connected with the Department of Labor and the four CETA staffs connected with the local governments identified as prime sponsors. As Figure 1 illustrates, federal officials from the national and the regional offices of the Employment and Training Administration (formerly the Manpower Training

Administration) represented the Department in the inter­ governmental relationships with the local CETA staffs.

During the fiscal year 1979, approximately four hundred seventy three prime sponsor staffs nationwide interacted with ten regional offices of the Employment and Training Admin­ istration. Althought the national office had final responsibility for policy making, it delegated responsibility to the regional offices to represent the federal govern­ ment’s position on most issues. The regional offices attempted to fulfill this responsibility with the prime sponsor through an assigned federal representative who had the dual responsibility for insuring prime sponsor compliance with the law and for providing managerial and informational

41 Department of Labor

Employment and Training j Administration j ______I

J. National Office

Regional Office(s) j (10) ______i ______3______I Prime Sponsor(s)____ j (473)

Figure 1:

Inter-Bureaucratic Organizational Structure The Department of Labor and the Local Prime Sponsors 43 assistance on federal policy (commonly known as "technical assistance"). Other regional officials became involved through audits, annual programmatic assessments, and problem solving conferences with the local staffs. At the prime sponsor level, federal representatives communicated with the chief elected officials, the director, and the chief staff of the CETA program.

Over the course of CETA's implementation, staffs from all four sites became more accountable to the Department.

Staffs provided the Department with more comprehensive information and explanations of their programs. Moreover, the Department grew more influential over three of the six major planning policies, including the target group, program mix, and public planning system policies.

Yet, we must view this growth in the context of the fundamental and chronic weakness that characterized these relationships throughout the program. In spite of the

Department's collection of comprehensive information on the local programs, it exercised limited influence over local policy making throughout the fiscal years 1975-1980. As one federal representative summed up the Department's changes in fortunes: If the Department of Labor's influence on local decision making were ranked on a scale from zero to ten and measured over time, its ranking would have shifted from zero in the beginning of the program to about three for the present time (fall, 1979). 44

Using the explanatory strategy developed in Chapter 1/ I argue that a serious imbalance in power resources favoring the local staffs is the primary explanatory factor to account for the anemic accountability relationships that developed between the local staffs and the Department of Labor.

The regional offices typically lacked the necessary know­ ledge and constituent support to secure stronger staff accountability. As the regional office's impotence and ignorance became widely apparent/ staff ideological values favoring staff domination in decision making further under­ mined the possibility of strong accountability relationships. To explain the limited but significant strengthening of staff accountability towards the Department, we focus primarily on the shifts of federal governmental authority.

As we will see in more detail later, through the original

CETA legislation, the federal government gave wide discre­ tionary authority to the local prime sponsors. In turn, in most cases, local CETA staffs became the recipients of this authority. Thus, early in the program's implementation, the federal legislation itself tended to undermine the

Department's position. However, this situation was short lived. Through a series of new federal laws and Departmental regulations, the Department gradually reassumed authority in a number of policy areas, including among others, the target group,, program mix, and public planning system policies. The shift in governmental authority tended to strengthen the coercive capabilities of the regional offices. Prior to the shift# the combination of mandated local discretionary authority and ambiguous language in the federal legislation undermined even the milder forms of Departmental sanctions/ often leaving the Department solely an observer. As long as the weight of authority rested with the local decision makers, the staffs assumed that they owed the Department very little. Therefore, the regional office's sanctions lacked credibility. Moreover, the ambiguous language in the federal legislation further widened the staffs' decision making lattitude. On any given point of debate, the regional office had greater difficulty forcing staffs into compliance when the language was ambiguous. However, with clearer and more detailed language and greater, more explicit authority in the Department's hands, the Department's potential sanctions became more credible and staffs lost room for maneuvering. In the end, the Department secured more staff accountability.

To develop these arguments, I first provide an overview t of the typical forums through which the staffs and regional offices communicated. In addition, I introduce some of the potential sanctions and incentives that were technically available to the regional offices. With the context in mind, we then proceed with a presentation of evidence to demonstrate the typically feeble nature of the accountability 46' relationships that developed in all four sites. This is followed by a more detailed exploration of the imbalance in power resources and the ideological factors that explain this pattern. Finally, we examine evidence for the increase in accountability in the target group, program mix, and public planning system policies. In our discussions of each of these policies, we also build the argument for the important roles that authority, ideology, and subtle forms' of coercion played in effecting greater accountability.

OVERVIEW OF THE INTERBUREAUCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY FORUMS As Figure 2 illustrates, the regional offices communicated with the local CETA staffs through a number of forums, including quarterly and annual reports, letters, weekly phone conversations, and periodic on-site meetings.

In addition, the regional offices used these forums for two other related purposes. First, they applied both sanctions and incentives through these mechanisms. For example, as Figure 2 indicates,.the regional offices either granted or denied funding eligibility to prime sponsors through a formal notice. Using this notice, the regional offices could either accept the major programmatic plan as written, with or without staff promises of minor modifications or reject the plan as unacceptable. In the latter case, a prime sponsor would be ineligible for funding until the regional office received the required modified plan. 47

Staff Actiont First week of July, 1 4 submission of Annual Plan to the Labor Department. Labor Department Action; 1. Accept plan as written - send notice of funding eligibility. Labor Department Action: 2. Conditional acceptance End of August, annual of Plan - send notice of assessment letter to funding eligibility with political official, promissory note from prime detailing major problems sponsors that an accept­ and annual rating. able modification is forth­ July and August, coming . conduct annual assess­ 3. Deny grant of funding ment and audit. eligibility - send notice StaffAction: to prime sponsor that Plan First week of July, is unacceptable and that submission of third the prime sponsor will only quarter reports. become eligible.for refund­ ing when acceptable modifica­ tion is received. Labor Department Action: Possible letter to chief political official. Staff Action: Staff Action: First week of October, First week of April, submission of fourth submission of second quarter reports. quarter reports. Labor Department Action: ... — ", Possible letter to chief political official detail­ Labor Department Action: ing problems and possible Possible letter to chief actions that should be political official. taken for correction of Staff Action: problems. First week of January, submission of first Quarter reports.

Figure 2

Overview of Accountability Forums Operating in the Relationships Between the Department of Labor and Local CETA Prime Sponsors (1975-1980) Second# the regional offices used the forums themselves as sanctions. For the federal representative assigned to the prime sponsor, they were often the primary sanction­ ing tool. The federal representatives were typically unable to deny funding to a prime sponsor in spite of a judgement against the plan. However# to show their displeasure with a plan# federal representatives sometimes required numerous modifications. In this way, they used the planning modifi­ cation process as an harassing mechanism to influence staff decision making. CETA staff provided descriptions and explanations of their local programs through a Master Plan and an Annual

Plan. The Master Plan provided an overall description and explanation of the relatively unchanging administrative structure involved in implementing the CETA program.

The Annual Plan described the specific programs and their performance goals for the fiscal year. Upon receipt of the plans, usually required in the first week of July, the federal representatives and other regional officials reviewed the plans for compliance with the laws. At this juncture, the plans became potential battlegrounds for the regional office's exercise of sanctions and incentives. If the regional office viewed the plan as being in compliance with the legislative requirements, it declared the prime sponsor as eligible for funding for that fiscal year. If not, then the regional office either delayed funding until the staff 49

submitted an acceptable modification or granted conditional eligibility for funding, pending a notice from the prime sponsor that a modification would be forthcoming.

CETA staffs also furnished the regional offices with descriptions of the various program performance records through five quantitative reports. They submitted three of these reports on a quarterly basisT These included the Program Status Summary (Figure 3), the Financial Status

Report (Figure 4), and the Quarterly Summary of Participant Characteristics (Figure 5). The Program Status Summary provided cumulative information on the participant enrollment in and termination from the program, and information on the program's achievements•to date in comparison with the planned achievements identified in the Annual Plan.

For example, the report compared the number of individuals placed in unsubsidized employment with the number planned and indicated the percentage achieved to date. With the

Financial Status Report, the staffs identified the cumulative expenditures up through the quarter in comparison with the planned figures. Finally, the Quarterly Summary of

Participant Characteristics identified the socio-economic characteristics of those participants served in the program up through the quarter.

The Department also required two annual reports to summarize the information supplied in the quarterly reports. The Annual Program Activity Summary (Figure 6) supplied 50 information on the resulting placement of participants from each of the programs. For example, under the class­ room training component, the staff identified the distri­ bution of the terminations among six possible categories under labels such as "entered armed forces" and "entered private sector employment". The Annual Report of Detailed

Characteristics (Figure 7) simply summarized the charac­ teristics of the participants served in the program.

Upon receiving the quarterly documents, the regional offices typically compared the performance of the programs with the quantitative goals as stated in the Annual Plans. As regulated by law, the performance figures were to lie within a range of fifteen percent above or below the planned figures. If performance was above or below the fifteen percent criteria, the regional office sent a letter to the chief political official, asking for an explanation of the variation from planned performance and a description of the corrective action that would bring performance in line with the plan. If chronic program performance problems emerged, the regional office used this forum to bring tidings of more severe sanctions. The Department announced or threatened the reallocation of funds from the prime sponsor's budget through this forum. If the regional office concluded that a prime sponsor was unable to spend its funding allocation in a "reasonable" amount of time, then it technically had the authority to reallocate funds. 51 QMS Approval No, AA.RIS5J U J. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR I, PRIME SPONSOR'S NAME AND ADDRESS b. ORANT NUMBER EraplopoMM vid TraJatai Admietitrttlofl CETA PROGRAM e. r e p o r t i n g p e m o o STATUS SUMMARY From

FOR REGIONAL OFFICE USE ONLY a. TYPE OP PROQRAM ( " X ” a n i l CONTRACT KEY REP. PER II -%fC □ □ VI III (S p+ ctfyf .fV la p t c t f y t - VII catfi |i fj |* |t |e |r [e |» 110 n |u |u |u Is|is|i7|ia|m ao|n O th e r w p + ttfy )

L PARTICIPATION A NO TERMINATION SUMMARY ACTUAL PLAN % a t PLAN

A. TOTAL PARTICIPANTS 1, N»* widwa a. Trenttata from ptnaa Sudpnh i, Pmuiwnti carried Owf B. TOTAU TERMINATIONS 1. Entered Untuo. Employment a. Olrect Placement* b. indirect Placement*! U l TTifuSponmr (3) Oiner indirect L to other support* 1. Additional Petiti** Termination* a. Return to/Contlnw* Putl'Tlme Scnool II e» Other Termination* *C. TOTAL CURRENT PARTICIPANTS (Xnd-ofJlusrttr) L Active NorwPfE Participant* til-D or Vt) SPECIAL CATEGORIES BBBSBSBE AAwmMaadBBR b b b e m m b m , A. UNSUaSIQIZEOPRIVA-* ECTOR PLACEMENTS

S. TITLE II-C p fl> UBQfj ______(21 A etr* . C. TITLE IV» in QEDCs :iHeaie 111 A c a o e m re c r e d i t 111 Sped*! MlelurQ CdmponenM YETPI (*l Limited Sendee* (VETPI (11 Vocation Exploration Pro*ram m i (2) Sum mar Entitlement Pretram

(21 Concurrent Participation Inr (al T tim II B /c

a. v c a r >t o -o a t e P. ENP-OF-QUARTER 111. PARTICIPATION (N PROGRAM ACTIVITIES □lav b »i i»b A. C tauteam Tr*lnin* fOcrepctlOFMi SLdbl B. Ctawoom Trunin* tO th tr t C. On«ri»ja* Trainm* D . W P tt KJtParMnee U n -J th o c lf E. w ore CaperieAc* rOfharr P. Public Service Employment flf-O o r VTJ 1. P*S Participant* In Tma^ieevica* O. Career Employ, gaperiance tY E T P i M, Tranniion Iim n i IVCTPI (V. OTHER ACTIVITIES Indicat* other setivmti or spatial programs on stuchratnti. Datctibo their objectives end list milestones toward their achievement in s quantitative or nam tira presentadon. V. CERTIFICATION a. NAME AND TITLE OP AUTHORIZED OFFICIAL p. SIGNATURE

e t a side rAor. itrti Figure 3 Program Status Summary 52 I s u b m it t e o SICNAIUflC lOATC

8 8 ia«w aFd6 *B m ^ m

ussaEssfV*j-?>"sf>rcJi

Figure 4

Financial Status Report 53 QMB AppfQWI NO. 44-H14S9 u.s. departm ent a w l a b o r 2. TYPE PROGRAM 3. PERIOD COVERED ftfo.. Dry. Yr.t 4 . g r a n t n o . Employment and T'tinm* Aaniinmratton Prom | To Q II • 0 , C QUARTERLY SUMMARY OF PARTICIPANT CHARACTERISTICS FOR REGIONAL OFFICE USE ONLY 1 ' m 1, PRIMS SPONSOR'S NAME ANO A00R&35 u CONTRACT REV |1 | r e p . PER. | □ IV ...... U Pro* fla t. SLP.Y. Prolact or Coda N o. a v i |sw ^ M M V Y O v i i i Irutrucilonu uim i with (•) mutt H d to Line i in I rut column. I l l i • 1 i Him with (*»l mutt fee equil to arl**» than Lin* 1 In Column O. a O ther * 9 4 7 ■_u_.tO lll iU Il3 114119 lallT! ill ]9l» 21 22121 aa l7 s Lin* COLS. W O. TOTAL 1 .. ..TE:r m i n ATIONS NO. A. CHARACTERISTICS l l i T s b a 1 TOTAL w A 24 a M *lt 41 a w F tim le s e 4 14 . IB w B 24 9 t a • id 4] t 2 2 0 • 21 94 u 7 < 22 ■ 44 w C 24 s 46 - 54 41 9 5 5 Mid O w 44 10 S i School Drooout lp l 38 11 S tu d en t (High Schoolof L e n t 41 12 High School Graduate or Eqwiv.. No Pott H. S. 94 a«* 13 Post Hfeh School Attend** w n 24 14 Receiving AFOC (S$A TitU tvt 41 IB Receiving SSI (SSA Tin* XVti 34 IB Totil Receiving Piijilc Aalftane* w F 17 U« OMB.Pov. Level or 70% or lau LLSIL 41 IB 71% thru 05% of LLSIL 36 1 IB 5sOw 86% thru 100% of LLSIL w a 26 liu w Above 100% of LLSIL 41 1 21 ECONOMICALLY OlSAOVANTAGEO 34 1 22 Single Pwent w H 24 1 > i 23 J 3 Parent in Tr*a-Pwem Family 41 ! 24 Other Family Memoer 23 11 N o n -0 n « n d * n t ‘ndlvKfual w 29 Whit* {Not ttUponte) 27 - u £ Black l.Vpt HUp em rj 2B i |I H itoanlc w J 29 * 6 5 American Indian or Aratkan Netlvo 3 0 Alien rjr Pacific lt*ander 93 31 UMITE0 ENGLISH SPEAKING ABILITY w K 3 2 M IGRANT 0<1 SEASONAL FARM FAM ILY MEMBER 3 3 V eteran ►a 34 *! V.etn*m-€ri (A t* H of Undtr) Yt L 33 4 SuecsJ Oiiabled 3 3 HANDICAPPED 37 OFFENDER w M 1 39 OISPLACED HOMEMAKER 1 S i | ln>SchooJ i - l S ! " | Unctrtmoloyad w N i S s ? 1 Lrumoiovwl 1 42 I ** ' * \ O tnar *3 1 ufNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION CLAIMANT w o_ f...... | TJTC L r | 1 p. e e l (o « e i 1 i I e. WAGES OP TCfmiNEES ENTERING EMPLOYMENT |WWBBSijt 1 p a o T ir iP 'A TinM 1 4 } No Prtvtoui Wag* w 5 13 49 Leu than S3.11 47 >J4 s S3.11 to 53.49 r- f l H p j B S i g AS (0 » .50 to 53 .DO 3 4 » A f t 49S' S4DO to 5439 50: $540 to S5.W « a 19 ______... tiV-frtWi- 51 IB PO or Mora i i i m h u b m 9. S4QNATUAE ANO TITLE 4. DATE 3IQMCD t. TELEPHONE NO.

Quarterly Summary of Participant Characteristics U1 ft

Yt*r) (') ONLY SERVICES a tm ETA *477 |Apr* (*79) SERVICES OATE SIQNEO W *. Drr. TRANSITION n u m b e r Q UN®. AMHBval O 4«-ni«9S Fiem Ttt to i CAREER t>. t>. o nA N T C, REPORTING PERIOD (Vo, /Mr, EUfLOYMENT e x p e r ie n c e S i 11 m 91 v ii n WORK EXPERIENCE bHStftooi Othw

PUftUC SERVICE *ptUlt koiftllf 5I0NATURE EMA.OVMENT 41 44 w (~X~ (Cl ID) (E) TRAINING ON-rHE-JOB IS M tifrt (suti/j) {Specify) tP l Otiwf IV J1 M a. PniMC SPONSOR'S NAME AND ADDRESS □ II OX ■ n □ II -O □ VI P O lta f d. TYPE OF rROQRAM a in r u . . 1*1 r e t 21 I H Cl.ASSROOU TRAINING f E ) A C D I

APPnaviNo ornciA L 1 o f Occupational SfeOH I R Ml RK " I l " l RJ R R n RBR R R | J R « l l o t 19120 e S s s s 1 s S It M s U MR M U 1 B. a. s. B. L B. B. A A. B. a. A t . lb. PROGRAM I t 117 IIII t117

SUMMARY f NAME AND TITL CETA Full-Time School Continue Return to S e c to r ACTIVITY a. U.S. liLPAntM KN T O F LABOR CONTRACT KCT FOR REGIONAL OFFICE USE ONLY ANNUAL Fjaptoiiucnt ud TRabibi| AdJairtblfilin* TRabibi| ud Fjaptoiiucnt T tim irjlions Subperu Employment Other Employ meatEmploy Terminations 5 . 5. Transfers to Other 1. 1. Entered Plicate 4. Additional Podlive 2. Entered Public Sector 3. Entered Armed Forces Figure 6 Annual Program Activity Summary U1 U1 — (b) FsmaJ* 11 o vu o ______-- - ... , , rT3m7T*TSpf7TffTF] t u ) 7. TELEPHONENUMBER (SIOld A or PMJflC IIUM H O M B ApmOMl No. 4LWI4SIOApmOMl M BNo. t i p * d h t OUiw a From To r«| Mail |b| FinUli la) Man □ 11-0 □ 11-0 □ Vt □ IV (iprcffrl .... a u«jc in u«jc aa I . D A TE ftlG N EO J. TYPE OF PROGRAM rX ” PROGRAM OF TYPE J. (b | Fanula 91 94 41 44 M4M («| («| (11*. itay. rr.j I1* HttpOnkC l**Am. IA0UA o r AlfcL N il. 4. PERIOD COVERED B. RACE/ETHNIC CROUP BY SEX ttk p m U l (S| F rn u u 41 44 1. PRIME SPONSOR’S NAME ANO ADORES* NO. GRANT 3. S.SIQNATUAEANDTITLE (0) FtmaM (41 M4M J l » 21

it I I IV (»1 (»1 MAM Ul vrhii* (Nor HirpmteJ lz) BUCK ftf*| » 17 9 2 B 1 3 4 I » 7 6 X V z r R u V K L 0 6 it E F 9 a p 0 H M A C H J 8 0 IS U s 2 1 1 PiofKl H um M i H5. * »LLSIL

THU IVj

pt o r L tv i Family (S3A NoF o il

tlul cowmA. LLSlL

hi p m m i at - FOR REGIONAL OFFICE USE ONLY two Lint | tOJtQutr^ Fafniry Mimlw

O f mt «-O«p*ndinl InatrlduM 0 Spoclal DtuOMd Urt*«iH»loy*d |»-ScJiool U X fU n y lay M OtlMf VHUM 44% Utfu 100% ol LLSIL llllM u 11% 14 * IS 14 • 1* 22 44 ■ S3

If the regional office believed that the staff had a serious fiscal mismanagement problem, they had the authority to place the prime sponsor on a monthly funding schedule which would have compelled the staff to be in constant commun­ ication with the regional office. Finally, the regional offices also used these letters to disapprove parts of a plan. Thus, the regional offices technically had the authority to veto parts of the overall plan without holding up the entire operation.

With the assistance of other regional office officials, federal representatives generated other reports through their on-site visits to the prime sponsors. As indicated in Figure 1, regional officials descended upon the prime sponsors and conducted annual assessments of the programs, focusing on the major problems identified in the earlier quarterly reports and specific substantive matters of inquiry as identified by the national office. Upon finish­ ing this analysis and evaluation, the regional offices automatically issued annual assessment letters to the chief elected official, pointing out deficiencies in the program and the corrective actions that the Department believed were necessary to improve the program. Most importantly, in this letter, the regional office identified the ratings of the program which were essential for refunding considerations for the next fiscal year. Three ratings were possible. '•Eligible for immediate funding" was the highest rating which enabled prime sponsors to be assured of receiving funds 57 without engaging in programmatic changes. "Problems identified" also insured funding but implied that certain problems needed corrections. Finally/ a "serious problems" rating in effect denied funding to a prime sponsor until the prime sponsor took corrective actions or convinced the regional office that program adjustments would be made shortly to satisfy the Department's complaints.

The Department also used audit reports as part of the array of accountability forums. Departmental auditors conducted audits annually or bi-annually to insure financial compliance with the law.1

CHRONICALLY WEAK ACCOUNTABILITY RELATIONSHIPS

During the implementation of the CETA program/ the local CETA staffs were only weakly accountable to the

Department of Labor for the major planning decisions. This is not immediately apparent. To the contrary/ after a cursory examination of the information and explanations that staffs provided the Department through­ out the program one would be tempted to conclude the opposite.

As I noted in Chapter 1/ one of the chief arguments made throughout this study centers on the importance of information as a source of political power. Everything else being equal/ if one has access to relevant information/ then one can at least be better prepared for the arguments over policy and be in a stronger bargaining position. 58

Thus# based on this logic, one might conclude that the

Department should have been in a strong position in relation to the staffs given the information to which the Department had access. However, this was not the case.

To explain why the staffs were only weakly accountable to the Department, and to resolve this minor paradox, I first present evidence to demonstrate the comprehensiveness of the information and explanations that the four staffs supplied to the Department of Labor throughout the program's implementation. I then proceed with a presentation of evidence that demonstrates the limited scope of the

Department's influence - in spite of the Department's access to information. Finally, I develop an explanation that can account for the weak accountability relationships and explain why the access to the information was insufficient to translate into significant power.

Role of Explanatory Forums In all four sites, the staffs provided the Department with comprehensive information and explanations on their respective CETA programs. As Table 1 indicates, for fiscal year 1975, staffs supplied the Department with one major narrative report that explained the overall program, ' including the administrative and training components of the program. In addition, staffs also provided the

Department with two quantitative reports for each program 59

operated within the overall program.* Thus, for example,

if a prime sponsor was administering four programs, it had to supply the Department with eight quantitative reports on each program for a total of thirty-two reports each year.

This figure excludes the various other responses and modifications that staffs had to supply throughout the year.

As a brief examination of these reports reveals, staffs supplied the Department with information about numerous aspects of the programs. The Quarterly Progress Report (Figure 8) summarized quantitative data on enrollment and terminations in the various program activities, such as classroom training, on-the-job training, public service employment and work experience. The report also provided cumulative information on the financial position of the program. All of this information was presented in a comparative context which generated yet more information.

For example, the staffs presented not only the actual number of people who entered employment as of the end of the quarter, but also presented this in comparison with the planned number scheduled for the quarter, and the percentage of the planned figure actually achieved. The Department’s intention was to use these comparative figures to eval­ uate the efficiency of the program.

♦These reports were the forerunners of the three reports we examined earlier. 60

Table 1

Summary of Major Reports Supplied to the Labor Department by the CETA Staffs (Fiscal Years 1975 and 1980)

Fiscal Year 1975 Fiscal Year 1980

I. Comprehensive Programmatic I. Comprehensive Programmatic Reports Reports A. Prime Sponsor Agreement A. Master Plan B. Project Operating Plan B. Annual Plan

II. Individual Component II. Individual Component Reports (Quarterly) Reports (Quarterly) A. Quarterly Progress A. Program Status Report Summary B. Quarterly Summary of B. Financial Status Client Characteristics Summary C. Quarterly Summary of Participant Characteristics III. Individual Component REports (Annual) A. Annual CETA Program Activity Summary B. Annual REport of Detailed Charac­ teristics 61

U.S. DIPARTHINT OP LAMR «. aRANTEE** NAME AND AODRCM au iaw R ASailaMuauaa E. GRANT NUMEER CETA QUARTERLY PROGRESS REPORT «. REPORT PERIOD rNaa'ii^& *r, Vrarf «. TYPE OF PROGRAM □ 1>TR» i O i*Tnu II Ptanw T at □ S^tMT Ipact/y ...... I 1. ENROLLMENT AND TERMINATION SUMMARY

ENROLLMENT AND TERMINATION CATEGORIES PLAN ACTUAL % O F PLAN O. ANTICIPi LTCD DURATION QF JOB PLACEMIINTS II M tllH A imMmm wriR. ffrww vw (■ ut* (Im » f A .I m tf A .xj art m m in IA.U fOUmtt f t MMI IN or I.B.1P r/*4W cl /!«•«• amar to* M tkiMiM aiMJOaa F I M J aa In Mia im inaiiiaiiy m E M u m u . — ------. , J B. MMvM Wirm yw ta1 1 1 1 / l w « / # , / FtwE.JJ | PROORAM YEAN TO DATE | 1. TMU ttaarlnt cartel fi.A /a lnaiTKlflJ.il l, D*«*t M tM H tli M CETA ItiMlM » «nw*aiT*ntnt 1 fM s S Etyi R. tM tnd taCM M L JMtawlnt CETA m tmr*ntnant *, fail H intw l « thru J W t, Othar PPlWm T#rnrtnatt*«a H y i A N * * # m MIn T tr m lM I M M art IMR t s o a ty t C. InRNMiMl* IM M M . «MR t * Pttan* Rl II !i 1*1 Nianaar 11 {B| en aw iai in a ten vM rm Klhttr H |li ENROLLMENT IN PROGRAM ACTIVITIES prayitm *4 1 N IM m»r of tho auartari InoMautlt w nw > rnnttr arnahaa In nw a |»Mmat tctlrtty m t f b* ca a n la # M w A tO N lt? In nrfiNn ha a t ahatt anraaa*. PROGRAM ACTIVITY PLAN ACTUAL A OF PLANi PLAN ACTUAL A OF PLAN A. CMISNR TlMMN IW*V lllM lK 1 E aiiwuw TnMiN (V n , i s i « • 0 » T » < M TrathlAf a m m iw ia immiRwi E. w a r* I h r r a i P. Othtr ActHAM

| IN. SL M A W PRMNOAt, ACTTVTTR3 f t ta T * w i Ml IV. c u m u l i STIVE FINANCIAL ACTIVITY—PROORAN1 YEAR TO DATE 1* ta THommMjJ ] A. Tat it CETA f«M» avtMUM tar • 1 PLAN ACTUAL « OF PLAN tiNM Run (fnm af A*/pta AJJ A. Prima laoiHot OSiltatlans I. Fw »«• CNTttE la tram pratlaw* a. Anrwa •■a*aoiiu»« a* Piftaw jfijriM yur ar atftar tantrstt! Actwty af in N m Saanaar or r a n ts |I m * r m .t iv a a t f t J .fJ l. OSMtaem Tihami*. Pnma liia a 1. PhM i k i ME praarifa y**f ta a n a S. Oa-Tftauoa Tramms fe. A t n v N •■ paatata'tt, araaram S. Pwanc NrrK» Ematasrwafft ya*r la attarfw* a/B.1 m M l a» a n a t. AaiMAiwitiaa 1 b. Pilnya liiiW l Z. A M v IM M c otn ar J . W n a 4. Wall lu alw n 4. Frtapt NM flll S. MMCM ta CNMI j. TrMnina S. OtMT AciMtNt « . M n w i c . « W N ■ » ■ » M vac. U M t a H M U ta QinPiUP V. SIGNIFICANT SEGMENTS □. A ctfw t «»awsaniatL noa-Ptaaoi iunas E. Aetiuaa **nan«ina*t at auwr P ta m ««n*i M t in I im&cjiw lha tttaisr at M tW wH la n t t PMu M M U/t AfM Minrni arawat w n t aurina U*a pn y « r ta « ! • p. ratal accrvaa •■aantalurM ISaat t M. C . D , m d B SIGNIFICANT SEGMENTS PLAN ACTUAL « O F PLAN SIGNIFICANT SCDMENTS PLAN ACTUAL * OF PLAN A.F. m. o . c . H. o . 1. E. J. VI. OTHER ACTIVITIES rR*/rtt**F f t . t i JV .J.IJ On l iw ir iH M ilt |w4N4l» *<#ileveerv*fiil la atrp f u w adlfW v a* M aywwA. RtAtawtmant I h a i l l ba t w i t i l l a l t a pnjitlHrt* la arthar ■ auiMhiilN ar um illti arttnlilbR. fOtllMall VII. INDIRECT EXPENSE A TYPE OF RATE B. INOIRECT RATE C. EASE O. TOTAL AMOUNT □ O lAredeleaUaeR □ 1-Final □ t-PM S VRI* CERTIFICATION! f CERTIFY dMt ta Sm a t a y Jtn o v N r ifat a d h tB tf Ihif r«SMi • If w m t t a d c o m p tM a a d ih r t aB oultaja nod unpaid eSUpailoaj artf o r ihi purpaaatm t fo rth ia iha f r■rt iwrrf docvawL A. NAME ANO TITLE OF AUTHORIZED OFFICIAL B. SIGNATURE C. OATE HONED

M A 1114 |M*y 11141 Figure 8 Quarterly Progress Report 62

Similarly, through the Quarterly Summary of Client Characteristics (Figure 9), the staffs supplied detailed socio-economic profiles of the people served in the program.

As the report indicates, these profiles included information

on such categories as sex, age, education and family income. A crude, quantitative measure of the

information supplied to the Department each quarter may be

useful in gaining a sense of the large quantity of infor­

mation collected by the Department. If we add up the total

number of individual "pieces" of information that these

two quarterly reports supplied, we arrive at a figure of

two hundred and forty seven pieces of information for each

quarter. In this measure, a piece of information would be,

for example, the actual number of people enrolled in the

classroom training program or the percentage of the plan

that that number represented.

Finally, we find further evidence of the comprehen­

siveness of staff supplied information in the wide ranging

and detailed character of the Master Plans and Annual Plans.

To demonstrate, I have summarized a portion of the Department's informational demands for the major policy decisions as the

Department outlined them in the fiscal years 1975 and 1980

Forms Preparation Handbooks.* Tables 2-7 present this information.

*In these Handbooks, the Department provided detailed guidelines, for the staffs to follow in compiling the infor mation requested in the various reports. X. GRANT NUMBER QUARTERLY SUMMARY OF CLIENT CHARACTERISTICS 1. PRIME SPONSOR'S H A M ANO AODREU A QUARTER COVER ICO W bh Dwv* T««N A FfOfR Bl. Ta

4. REGION CODE ft. STATE CODE

| TERMINATION! 1 CHARACTERISTICS TOTAL CLIENTS H Tmm EnfaraB Emataymsnt A i C o E TOTAL 01 01 UR MM Fmu M 01 IS u 4 U M R 04 IS . SI 01 IS • 44 04 ABC 41*14 07 SS - 44 OS SS *AB Ovw OS a i n i m « 10 a * i i 11 1 HS OiaBwplB 1 EevkAlWrt 11 a m i Man i w m I 11 AFDC 14 FAMILY INCOUK PuMtC AM4RSAU, OtlM# IS IniiwwInN OHiAiMllM IS WRIt* 17 EUCB IS ETHNIC VNOUA Oriental BT Arian IS AHWlCM IRSlSR so AUlKM n u lv f SI Ot*M» SS VANISH AMERICAN IS LIMITED ENGLISH ftPCAK|NG ABILITY S4 MIGRANT OR SEASONAL FARM FAMILY MEMBER t l S«*(M VMRMH b l IS — 04 KM 17 HANDICAPPED t s FULL»riM( STUDENT IS OFFENDER Iso IRRNN 11 LABOR UM WWIlROV SB FOACB 11 STATUS LNwnMBy«E 11 Not in UM f Paras 14 RECEIVING UN

MA I>1U 1 Figure. n9 M*y I M Quarterly Summary of Client Characteristics 64

On the left hand side of the tables, I have summarized the bulk: of the information that staffs had to supply for the fiscal year 1975 for the major policy decisions.

The right hand sides exhibit the additional information staffs had to furnish for the fiscal year 1980. The tables indicate that the Department's informational fishing net was relatively far reaching in scope. It included among other policies the major planning policies staffs had to face, including the target group, program mix, service deliverer, target occupation, public planning system, and local organizational policies. In addition, with regard to each of these policies, the Department required information on both policy outcomes and the decision making processes that led up to the policies. When we examine the tables more closely, we can also discover that the Department required reasonably detailed information and explanations as well. For example, as Table 2 illustrates, the Department requested descriptions of the various programs and services the prime sponsors offered and the explanations for the prime sponsor's choice of its mix or combination of programs and services.

Beyond this information, the Department also wanted details about each of the types of training offered. For example, for the prime sponsor's on-the-job training program, the Department wanted to know the occupational areas for training, the length of the training period, the 'reimbursement 65

formula' for employers, and the level of supportive services.

The staffs had to supply similar information for the work experience and classroom training services as well.

Table 3 reveals a similar pattern for the service

deliverer policy. In their plans, staffs had to describe

the overall delivery system, including the specific service deliverers chosen for subcontracts. In addition, staffs had to describe and justify their decision making process.

In particular, they had to discuss the criteria used for

reviewing and evaluating the available services and facilities in the area. If certain organizations, such as the Employment Service or the area Skill Center, were left out of the delivery system, staffs had to defend specifically these exclusions.

Our brief analysis of the quantitative and narrative reports leads us to the conclusion that staffs supplied the Department with relatively comprehensive information and explanations about their programs. Yet, information left unexamined may be of little use. What evidence can we cite that the Department scrutinized staff information and explanations?

In this case, the evidence leads to a more ambiguous conclusion. Within the confines of the regional offices, regional officials applied close scrutiny to the narrative plans and quarterly reports. In most cases, both the federal representatives and other personnel at the regional Table 2

Scope and Detail of Information Required in the Master Plans with regard to Program Mix Policy Making Processes and Policy Outcomes (Fiscal Years 1975 and 1980)

Required Information Additional Requirements for FY75 for FY80

1. Description of the program 1. Description of plans and and services that will be methods for giving small and provided and explanation of minority-owned businesses, the reasons for program including those owned by choices. women, opportunities to 2. Description of the 'method* compete for contracts for measuring success in the 2. Description of how staff program. used the principal findings 3. For classroom training of program monitoring, programs: Description of evaluations, and prime principal occupational sponsor audits in their areas for training. program assessments. 4. For on-the-job train­ ing programs: Description of occupational areas, dura­ tion of training reimburse­ ment formula for employers and the level of agency supportive services. 5. For work experience programs: Description of eligibility criteria used in selection of partici­ pants and explanation of the criteria. Table 3

Scope and Detail of Information Required in the Master Plans with regard to Service Deliverer Policy Making Processes and Policy Outcomes (Fiscal Years 1975 and 1980)

Required Information Additional Requirements for FY75 for FY80

1. Explanation of ’the reasons' 1. Description of procedures for the selection of the d e ­ and criteria used for review­ livery agencies that were ing and evaluating services selected to provide services. and facilities available in 2. Description of the method the area. of service delivery (in-house 2. Provide a list of potential or subcontracted) and explan­ deliverers of CETA services ation of the reasons for this who expressed interest in writing. choice. 3. Describe the special 3. If any of the organizations consideration given to programs were absent from the system/ operated by community based plan must supply an explana­ organizations that have tion as to why they were 1 demonstra ted effectiveness' excluded. This explanation records. was to show that the exist­ 4. Describe the principal ing services were not being findings of program monitor­ duplicated; that such ing, evaluation, and audits services were obtained for of the Prime Sponsor and comparable cost; and that explain how the information an 'equivalent' quality of was used in the plan. services would be obtained 5. Present a separate table by using other services. listing all institutional Agencies to be addressed: operations for the current a. State Employment fiscal year, with the rate Security Agencies of positive terminations for b. State vocational each. education agencies 6. Include the agreement c. vocational rehabili­ with the Employment Service. tation agencies d. area skill centers e. local educational centers 68

Table 4

Scope and Detail of Information Required in the Master Plans with regard to Target Group Policy Making Processes and Outcomes (Fiscal Years 1975 and 1980)

Required Information Additional Requirements for FY75 for FY80

1. Description of the labor 1. Description of staff efforts force characteristics to be to increase the participation served, including the popula­ of qualified disabled and Viet- tion groups that were econom­ nam-era veterans in program. ically disadvantaged, unem­ 2. Description of specific ployed, and underemployed. activities to address the needs 2. Identification of those of the following groups: public population groups that the assistance recipients; youth; prime sponsor believed were older workers; offenders; dis­ most in need of services. placed homemakers; women; single 3. If it applied, description parents;individuals who lack of how persons of limited, credentials; individuals who English speaking abilities require basic and remedial were to be served. skills development. 4. Description of the methods 3. Description of the staff which the staff were to use procedures for determining and for recruiting, selecting, verifying applicant eligibility: and determining the eligi­ Who gathers data? Who certifies bility of participants to eligibility? How does staff check be served. whether or not an applicant has previously participated in the CETA program? 4. Description of staff efforts to meet the needs of the handi­ capped and measure of success. 5. If planned level of service to any group varies above or below the group1s incidence in the eligible population, staff must explain the reasons for this planned deviation. 69 Table 5

Scope and Detail of Information Required in the Master Plans With Regard to Target Occupation Policy Making Processes and Outcomes (Fiscal Years 1975 and 1980)

Required Information Additional Requirements for FY75 for FY80

1. Description and explanation 1. Provide analysis of the of the target occupation choices. current demand for labor In the description# provision (as of the current fiscal of the following information: year) as well as the estimated a. identification of skill demand for the next five shortage occupations in the years. area. 2. Description of the minimum b. list occupations that skills and entrance require­ were to be given priority. ments to get into career c. identification of the fields# with regard to ed­ priority occupations that ucational attainment# tool had career advancement potential. familiarity# and attitude testing. 70 Table 6

Scope and Detail of Information Required in the Master Plans With Regard to the Public Planning System (Fiscal Years 1975 and 1980)

Required Information Additional Requirements for FY75 for FY80

1. Description of the planning 1. Description of procedures used process: ROle of the Employ­ to insure that council meetings ment and Training Council in are publicly announced, open, and the submission of recommend­ accessible to the general public, ations regarding program plans, and how the minutes will be main­ goals, monitoring processes, tained and made available. and evaluation of programs. 2. Description of procedures used 2. Description of partici­ to select council members. pation of community based 3.Description of the method and organizations in program arrangements for consultation planning. with groups not directly repre­ 3. Indication of attempts made sented on the council: How will to obtain community based they participate? When? And, how organizational participation will "documentary evidence" of that is not reflected in the consultation be collected and the planned process. maintained? The following groups should be addressed: community based organizations; vocational educational agencies;veterans groups; local educational agencies; local advisory councils established under the Vocational Education Act of 1963; women's organizations; business organizations; organized labor; apprenticeship programs; and other federal and state agencies, 4. Attach a summary of the recommendations made by the council regarding the Master Plan or modi­ fications, and list those not accepted for inclusion in the plan with reasons for their rejection. 5. Include any minority reports presented by council members. 71

Table 7

Scope and Detail of Information Required in the Master Plans With Regard to Administrative Structure (Fiscal Years 1975 and 1980)

Required Information Additional Requirements for FY75 for FY80

1. Description of the organ­ 1. Description of the proce­ izational structure with a dures used to recruit and functional chart showing how select administrative staff. the program is administered. 2. Description of the steps 2. Explanation of how admin­ taken to insure that CETA istrative costs are determined eligible participants have in plan preparation. maximum opportunities for 3. Description of the prime employment in staff positions. sponsor's personnel standards. 3. Description of efforts that 4. Description of mechanisms will be made to recruit and hire used to insure equal employ­ staff members that reflect the ment opportunities for the makeup of the population by prime sponsor. age, race, sex, and national origin. 72

offices pored . over these documents, analyzing the informa­ tion to insure that it fit with the Department's requirements.

As noted earlier, the regional office could and often did

respond to the reports with requests for further explan­ ations of the program, its problems, and modifications to

the plan that would include "corrective actions". Moreover, regional officials pursued thorough investigations of the

sites during the annual evaluations.

However, the overall intensity of Departmental scrutiny of the local programs may have been severely reduced by the infrequent presence of the federal representatives at many of the local meetings between staffs and the various other local actors. Thus, unlike many of the other actors, the federal representatives were unable to use those forums to question staffs and other actors, and study closely the local politics and personalities involved in the decision making process. As we will see later, the Department's weakness in the relationships stemmed in part from this absence and the consequent inability of the federal representatives to be of much assistance to staffs for the resolution of local program problems.

In summary, we can conclude that a considerable amount of relevant information about the programs found its way into the hands of the Department, mainly in the regional offices and the federal representatives. We also found that the Department usually engaged in intensive scrutiny 73 of at least some aspects of the local program and staff explanations. Yet, within this context, the Department exercised only limited influence. We can best describe this outcome by using the measures developed in Chapter 1: the relative presence or absence of the Department in important, local decision making forums; the Department's use or non­ use of sanctions and incentives; and the Department's importance in the staffs' anticipatory decision making processes.

Influence; The Department of Labor's Weak Role in Local Decision Making

The Department of Labor was largely absent from the local decision making process. Although the federal representatives communicated on a steady basis with the staffs, they seldom participated in any of the local decision making forums, including staff only meetings, staff meetings with the local political officials, and the local advisory council meetings. As a result, the Department missed important opportunities for influencing policy at the local level.

As I will demonstrate in later chapters, the service deliverers, the local political officials, and the local private sector were generally more influential than the Department in .idecision making at the local level.

In contrast to the Department's experience, these other 74

actors participated more regularly in decision making forums. Hence/ their opportunities to be influential

and to obtain more staff accountability ■were:.' heightened. To demonstrate this contrast in participation and the consequences of absence/ we briefly analyze the decision making processes involved in making the service deliverer policy decisions in the four sites.

In all four sites/ staffs made the initial service deliverer choices, either independently or through nego­ tiations with other local actors, including competing service deliverers and local political officials.

In the Briar Consortium a radical restructuring of the delivery system took place without significant Department involvement. The staff originally dropped twelve of the fourteen service deliverers that were delivering services prior to CETA's creation. The incoming CETA staff assumed much of the: responsibility; fori-the: services)'previously provided by the twelve agencies. A year later, the staff again acted relatively independently and relieved the community action agency of its contract for administering training programs for youth. The AFL-CIO remained as the only subcontractor for on-the-job training services. In Choptank County, the staff also had the dominant voice in the service deliverer selection process. Yet, some service deliverers were stronger here than the comparable service deliverers were in the Briar Consortium. 75

As a result, two of the stronger competitors, the vocational technical school and the local community college, became the two main subcontractors* Two other original sub­ contractors, the Urban League and the National Training

Services Corporation, failed to keep their contracts when chief staff from the prime sponsor decided the CETA staff could provide the services better.

In Lake City, the prime sponsor's staff were^eggUIfdd from the beginning in a negotiated decision making process with the existing service deliverers. In contrast to

Choptank County and the Briar Consortium, originally, Lake

City subcontracted all of its services. The primary agencies involved in the delivery of these services included the local National Alliance of Business, the Employment

Service, the local Opportunities Industrialization Center, the local skills training center, and the Urban League.

By fiscal year 1980, only the Urban League was absent from this list of service deliverers. In all three of these cases, the regional office and the federal representatives had little or no influence in the selection or termination of service deliverers at any time.

Acre deviated from this pattern only marginally. Similar to Lake City's experience, the CETA staff were initially tied into a negotiating process with existing service deliverers. In this beginning phase, the regional office played no role in the process. Six service deliverers were given subcontracts to provide

Title I services. The agencies included the city's Community Action Agency, the Employment Service, the Opportunities

Industrialization Center, Goodwill Industries, and two vocational skills training centers in the area. For fiscal year 1980, the line-up was intact with the important exception of the community action agency which was dropped. In addition, the staff hired more in-house staff to develop and administer an on-the-job training program, heretofore absent. The federal representative and other regional officials had some impact on the decision to drop the community Action

Agency. Through a series of letters directed at the Mayor, the regional office helped to engineer at least one meeting with the chief CETA staff and the Mayor. Through those letters and a few meetings, the regional office exerted some influence on this particular decision. However, again, this was the exception to the rule. In most cases, the regional office played no role in the decision making process.

More damning evidence of the regional offices' lack of influence is revealed in their typical inability to provide staffs with useful political or technical information. Although technical assistance was part of their function, the regional offices were seldom consulted by staffs for the resolution of important managerial and programmatic problems. In most cases, the staffs viewed the federal 77

representatives exclusively as compliance officers and not as additional resources for the resolution of local problems.

Nor did staffs view them as reliable sources of information

concerning new developments in the national office's

regulations and programs. Staffs relied more heavily on

other organizations, such as the National Association of

Counties, and the Urban League, as major sources of accurate

and timely information on national policy developments. Enforcing staff compliance with the law was also often

difficult for both the regional offices and the assigned

federal representatives. Both staff members and federal

representatives confirmed this conclusion. For example, during the height of the federal funding for public service employment, the Acre staff were violating the provisions against substitution in their administration 2 of the public service employment program. The staff were using some of these federal dollars in lieu of local tax dollars to pay regular city employees instead of using the funds to expand the number of public jobs and employ people without work. The federal representative attempted to stop this use of the funds and force the staff to abide by the law. However, the local political officials were able to undermine his efforts by appealing their case to both their Congressional delegation and the national office of the Department. Their appeal was successful. The national office directed the federal representative to overlook the problem. Similarly, in Lake City's program, the regional office

identified "serious problems relating to financial management"

in two of the prime sponsor's service deliverers. Yet, in the regional administrator's own words, "you (the prime

sponsor) have continued to fund these agencies in spite:of

disclosures of operational irregularities". After many

inquiries and requests for "corrective actions", one of the agencies was finally dropped.

This pattern of impotence was mirrored in the testimony of CETA officials from numerous prime sponsors in hearings 3 of the House Committee on Government Operations. In these hearings, other prime sponsor staffs also identified organizations such as the United States Conference of Mayors, the National Governors Association, and the National

Association of Counties as major sources of reliable information. In addition, they criticized their federal representatives for their inability to aid local prime sponsors, even in relation to official Department 4 changes in the regulations. Criticism was also aimed at the regional offices' inabilities to identify and correct noncompliance problems. A General Accounting Office investigation identified numerous compliance problems in several prime sponsors of which the responsible regional offices were completely unaware. Moreover, several witnesses testified that regional offices were unable to gain compliance even when they were aware of violations.5 The Department's weakness in influence was also reflected in its inability to manipulate strong sanctions against the prime sponsor staffs. Formally, the regional offices had the authority to use program funding as a lever to influence local staff decisions. Delaying, reallocating or even denying funding were all within the potential authority of the regional offices. However, in the experience of these four prime sponsors, the regional offices seldom used this sanction effectively to influence local decisions. For example, in the regular planning cycle, funding was seldom denied or even delayed because of an improper plan or an unsatisfactory annual assessment. To be sure, regional offices required modifications of plans and explanations of performance variation from the plans. Moreover, in some instances, they threatened some staffs with the reallocation of some funding. However, the latter occurrence was atypical. Most federal representatives simply believed that strong sanctions were beyond their power to manipulate. They had little faith in political support for their actions from either their superiors dh the regional offices or in the national office. Without this support, the federal representatives were unable to make threats, based on funding manipulation, credible. Consequently, they perceived this sanction as having limited utility in influencing staff decisions.

Instead, most federal representatives resigned themselves 80 to the manipulation of explanatory forums such as letters, phone calls, and visits through which they harassed staffs for answers and explanations of decisions and actions. If a federal representative wanted local staffs to take action, his or her constant harassment through these forums was often the only useful mechanism available to produce action.

Finally, in their own decision making meetings, staffs seldom considered Department views as important factors to consider for policy making. Once the staffs were convinced that their decisions stayed within the confines of the law, they gave little additional thought to the

Department's positions on issues. Consequently, staffs seldom changed their policy positions to fit with the

Department's views unless a clear, legal issue was involved.

The typical attitude towards the Department is represented in a Choptank County planner's own assessment of the conditions under which she supplied information to the Department. She would be cooperative only when the

Department could demonstrate that the national legislation and Department regulations specifically required that she supply a certain type of information, Having little respect for the regional officials, she felt no obligation to provide them with anything beyond that which was explicitly required by law. 81

In summary/ the Department's influence over most policy decisions was limited primarily to the letter of the law.

If the law specifically and clearly identified a policy position# then the staffs usually abided by that policy. Outside of the clear# legislative restrictions# the

Department exercised little influence.

The Labor Department's Weakness Behind a Facade of Formal Strength; An Explanation

Our explanation of this generally weak relationship relies on the combination of an imbalance in power resources favoring the CETA staffs and certain staff and Department ideological values which also functioned to debilitate a strong accountability relationship. We discuss first the resources and then explore the role played by the ideo­ logical values.

The federal representatives lacked the strong organi­ zational support that was necessary for a strong accountability relationship with the staffs. As noted before# federal representatives were seldom confident of national office or regional office support. In their view, they were often caught in precarious positions# saddled with the respon­ sibility for roping staffs into compliance with the law but lacking the necessary organizational support from either the regional or national offices to effect the compliance.

In some cases# federal representatives and even some other regional officials feared that law suits would be 82

brought against them and they would be left to fight their n legal battles alone, without the Department's support.

The Department's authority over the program was

undermined by certain requirements of the CETA legislation itself. The original legislation allocated funds according

to formula and not according to the quality of the programs

the prime sponsors operated. Consequently# the legis­

lation insured all prime sponsors of a minimum funding

level. In effect, this reduced the regional offices'

discretionary authority over the financial resources and their.abilities to use financial resources as a sanction or an incentive to. influence local decision making. The Department's deficiencies in knowledge were also responsible for the chronically weak accountability

relationships. The most striking indication of this deficiency was the prevalence of unknowledgeable federal

representatives. According to one "experienced" federal representative who testified before the House subcommittee, only about "half of the federal representatives knew how to do their jobs well." Among the thirteen federal representatives with whom the four staffs worked, only three were cited as knowledgeable and resourceful. The others had either little knowledge about CETA and the local political environment, or were too narrowly focused on their compliance role to be of any real assistance with local problems. For example, in Choptank County, one federal 83

representative was barely able to fulfill the responsibilities

of his job. Having difficulty writing, he allowed the prime sponsor staff to fill out many of the required

monitoring reports for him. The situation was similar in

the Briar Consortium. When asked about the widely promoted Private Sector Initiative Program, the new federal rep­

resentative had replied, "What's PSIP?"

This dearth of informed federal representatives led to the regional offices' political impotence. Lacking impor­

tant information about management, the local political context, and often CETA in general, federal representa­ tives were unable to establish the type of social exchange relationships necessary for securing an influential position in local decision making circles.9 Instead of building a social relationship based on the mutual exchange of useful information and services, federal representatives and the regional offices developed one-sided and dependent relation­ ships in which prime sponsor staffs provided more infor­ mation and services to the Department than vice versa.

Although mutual exchange relationships can result in mutual and balanced influence, one sided exchange relationships develop into one-sided influence relationships. Over time, if federal representatives had been able to provide staffs with steady and helpful managerial assistance and up-to-date accurate information on Department policy, staffs may have developed a dependency on federal representatives for this valuable information and bypassed other potential sources.

In exchange for these informational services, staffs would

have supplied federal representatives with information and

with greater opportunities for influence on local decisions. Having come through with important and timely information

and shown a good understanding of the local political context, federal representatives would have fulfilled the

requirements for local trust and respect and would have won

an influential position in the decision making process. Instead, having been tried and tested in the past, federal

representatives were found sorely wanting in valuable services

to offer local staffs. Over time, they became viewed as

irritants and not as sources of valuable information. Consequently, in most cases, they were excluded from decision making process if at all possible.

Several factors contributed to this paucity of informed federal representatives. The absence of a comprehensive training program for federal representatives was one contributing factor. Most federal representatives were trained on the job, working with older federal representatives.

Consequently, the habits and procedures of the older workers tended to form the basis of the new personnel's understanding of the job. And, given the past record, these habits and procedures were probably deficient.^ The high rate of personnel turnover also contributed to this lack of know­ ledge. As discussed above, a federal representative's access to the inner circle of decision makers at the local level required the federal representative to be able to

supply valuable services and have a good understanding

of local politics and managerial problems. As both regional

officials and local staffs pointed out, developing an under­ standing of the local context and winning the confidence of the local staffs takes time. One regional official

estimated that it took approximately six months to become

acclimated to a prime sponsor and begin to understand how the local system functioned. Therefore, long tenures with

a prime sponsor were probably more conducive to influential

positions than short tenures. However, long tenures were not the pattern in the four prime sponsorhips under study.

Over the five year period, one prime sponsor had two federal

representatives, two prime sponsors had three, and one prime sponsor had five. In the latter case, three of the

five were assigned to the prime sponsor within a year and a half. Consequently, federal representatives often failed

to develop a firm understanding of the local political

system or the managerial problems faced by local staffs.

Counterproductive standard operating procedures for

federal representatives also contributed to the regional offices' lack of knowledge of the local prime sponsors' programmatic problems. According to several sources,

federal representatives spent most of their time in the 86 regional office's headquarters. One federal representative estimated that most agents spent seventy percent of their time in the headquarters and the remainder in the field.

The office time was spent primarily on the analysis of a growing number of reports, such as the Financial Status

Report and the Quarterly Summary of Participant Character­ istics which were designed to insure accountability to the

Department. However, although these reports did provide some descriptive information on the performance of the programs, many observers noted that they did not provide the quali­ tative information necessary to understand local problems.

According to a General Accounting Office report, much of the

"desk work" done in the regional offices, including the analysis of the quarterly reports and the annual assess­ ments "lacks the necessary detail to identify specific "11 operational problems. Consequently, m effect, the standard operating procedures were preventing the field work activity that would probably have generated better information about the local problems and thereby opened up greater possibilities for regional office influence.

Instead, the process of collecting and analyzing these standard reports had become the major goal for federal representatives and had displaced the central goal of insuring close accountability.

Competing ideological values within the Labor

Department regarding the primary function of the CETA 87

program further crippled the Department's potentially strong role in decision making. Almost from the very start of the program the Department seemed to view the program as both

a training program and as a part of the federal government’s

fiscal policy. As a training program, CETA was to be judged with regard to the quality of training and job

placements accomplished under its auspices. As a spending

program, it was to be judged with regard to the volume of

funds funneled into the economy' through the administrative system set up under its authority and the speed with which

these funds entered the economy. This second value or goal began to dominate the Department’s thinking early in

the administration of the overall program. Thus, once the staffs received their allocations for the fiscal year, the Department tended to place a high priority on getting the funds spent and was often reluctant to have the funds reallocated from one prime sponsor to another.

This policy was clearly reflected in the administration of the Title VI public service employment program, launched in December of 1974. All staffs testified to the heavy pressure applied by both the federal representatives and other officials to spend the available resources as quickly as possible. Similarly, during the early implementation of Title VII, the Private Sector Initiative Program, the national office insisted that all prime sponsors must accept all flanding to which they were entitled under the standard 88

allocation formula. Although they refrained from an

order to spend funds quickly, they required all prime sponsors to accept the allocations. This apparent national priority

on staff acceptance and expenditure of funds also functioned to insure prime sponsors of a steady supply of funding.

Consequently, this policy tended to undermine the potential use of the financial sanctioning mechanism for the regional

offices and, in particular, the federal representatives. Since local staffs were aware of the national level

priorities, they were unafraid of a loss of funds. Thus, a federal representative's threats appeared hollow. Moreover, often awashi with too much money, staffs were unafraid of threats of reallocation even when the threats were realistic. In fact, in some cases, reallocation was viewed as a relief.

Finally, all staffs embraced the belief in their own superior "professional" talents. In general, they simply grew to believe that they knew significantly more about the local problems and their solutions than any of the regional officials. Coupling this value with their basic disrespect for most of the federal representatives, the staffs worked to protect their power over decision making. Consequently, they tended to be unreceptive to outside advice and attempts to influence the decision making process. As we will see, this ideological position tended to militate against influence by other actors as well. 89

GROWTH IN THE STRENGTH OF ACCOUNTABILITY TOWARDS THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

To make the case for the growth in staff account­ ability towards the Department of Labor, we first examine in greater depth the major factors that can explain the changes in the Department's stature. In the light of this overall explanation, we then proceed to examine some = evidence that supports the case. In particular, we focus on the changes that developed with regard to the target group, program mix, and public planning system policies.

As we noted earlier, the shift in governmental authority towards greater national control is the most important 12 factor in explaining the growth in staff accountability. Complementary factors that worked in concert to effect this change include the Department1s acquisition of greater potential clout in its coercive resources, and sympathetic staff values that coincided with some of the values implicit in the policy changes effected by the federal government.

Applying this analysis to the interbureaucratic relationship between local bureaucrats in the CETA system and the Labor Department, we can identify the general pattern of how these factors affected staff accountability to the

Labor Department. The local CETA bureaucrats had basic beliefs about fair and just decision making systems, as well as fair and just employment and training policy.

To the extent these beliefs were confirmed by the operating 90

decision making system/ that system became legitimate authority in the eyes of the local CETA staffs. Once

the national decision making system was viewed as legitimate

authority, then local bureaucrats also believed they had

an obligation or duty to follow the laws and directives

emerging from the decision making system. One critical element within the American context is the belief in the federal system and the acceptance of the federal government as having a legitimate role in policy making. Consequently, if Congress and the Labor Department made decisions which were intended to influence local actions, including an increase in the explanation of decisions made at the local level, then, local staffs would have attempted to follow the directives and provide the explanations as requested.

A brief example should illustrate how authoritative directives work through basic values to produce higher accountability. In all four staffs, two values or beliefs appeared to be prominent as principles which guided staff actions as local CETA decision makers. First, all four staffs were committed to the service of the economically disadvantaged. As one director said, “Our goal in this program is to serve poor people. We operate on the assumption that we ought to be getting poor people out of poverty and out of dependency." Second, all staffs indicated respect for the law. Although all staffs had 91

many disagreements with specific policies within the law, none objected to the decision making system itself.

All seemed content in trying to operate within the law's

boundaries as much as possible. As I will demonstrate more specifically below, these

two values provided the necessary climate within which

the national institutions were able to maintain their legitimate authority. Thus, when national policy makers

attempted to increase staff accountability through the

manipulation of legitimate authoritative directives, an

expansion in accountability occurred. For example, the

1978 legislation specifically directed local CETA staffs

to restrict the services available in the main training

title to the economically disadvantaged. Although this new restriction was the federal government's attempt to

remove discretionary authority from the local decision makers, it was also consistent with staff values.

Consequently, staff compliance with this restriction posed no ethical dilemma for the staffs. Therefore, accountability,

both in terms of attempting to carry out the directives and

of providing explanations was forthcoming on a voluntary

basis. The basic belief in the legitimacy of the law also

appeared to keep staffs from deviating from the law, unless the law seriously conflicted with staff goals and values with higher priorities. To be sure, staffs were 92

uniformly critical of Congressional and Department efficiency.

As described above, staffs had little respect for regional

Labor Department officials, especially the assigned federal

representatives. However, beneath this criticism remained an acceptance of the legitimacy of the national institutions for making authoritative decisions which staffs felt they should attempt to obey.

However, to be sure, accountability based on a sense

of obligation to legitimate authority was often compromised in these sites. Conflict between the local bureaucrat's

policy views and his or her perceptions of the Department's role in decision making or in the content of some of its policies did undermine effective accountability. In these circumstances, staffs placed a higher priority on their own policy goals than on their accountability obligations to the

Department. In certain cases, achieving local values had more legitimacy than being accountable to the federal government. This sacrificed one or both elements of accountability. For example, in the Briar Consortium, the director insisted on having three advisory councils, one for each county in the consortium. The law specified only one council for each prime sponsorship. Although he recognized this as a violation of the law, he believed it was necessary to maintain good communication with the rural communities in the consortium. Consequently, he was willing to contradict the law on this point. The director 93 was more than willing to present his arguments to the Department but was resistant to the authority of the law and regional office pressure to follow the law.

In this case the staff was fulfilling the explanatory side of accountability but resisting the influence side.

Finally, the Department's greater authority in the policy making process also strengthened the Department's ability to use some of its potential, sanctioning powers. As we will see, the CETA legislation became more specific and detailed as the program developed. This trend towards greater detail in a number of areas allowed the Department to define the agenda and be in a stronger position to check local staff decisions. As long as the legislative language was ambiguous or open-ended, the Department and the federal representatives had relatively little foundation from which to harass staffs. However, once the law became clearer.!' and more detailed, federal representatives and other regional officials had a firmer legal basis from which they could launch closer examinations and criticisms of staff policy making.

In turn, this placed them in better positions to apply their limited sanctions to force staffs into closer compliance with the law. In effect, from their point of view, the staffs lost maneuvering room for their policy explanations and justifications. 94

For example, in the target group policy, the original

CETA legislation left the choices relatively undefined.

In one paragraph, the legislation states that the prime sponsor should serve those "most in need" and give them 13 preferential treatment "to the maximum extent feasible".

In part, the problem lay in definition: Who are those "most in need"? What does "to the maximum extent feasible" mean? Given this language, federal agents had difficulty criticizing staff decisions unless they were blatantly out of line.

However, as soon as the federal government switched its policy and tightened up the legislative language, the Department's harassment powers grew stronger. In the

1978 reauthorization legislation, the "economically disadvantaged" were authorized to be the target group recipients for services under the main training program, Title Il-d. In contrast to the ambiguous language of the previous legislation with regard to target groups, the 1978 language defining the economically disadvantaged is very specific. As the legislation reads: (8) The term 'economically disadvantaged' means a person who (A) receives, or is a member of a family which (i) receives cash welfare payments under a Federal, State, or local welfare program, or (ii) had a family income during the 6-month period prior to application for the program involved which would have qualified such family for such cash welfare payments, subject to regulations of the Secretary;(B) has, or is a member of a family which has, received a total family income for the 6-month period prior to application for the program involved...which, in relation to family size, was not in excess of the higher of (i) the poverty level determined in accordance with criteria established by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, or (ii) 70 percen^ of the lower living standard income level;... With this clearer policy standard in hand, the regional officials could identify policy violations more easily and corner staff more easily in the scrutiny process. With this language, the staffs had little room to try to justify serving other than the economically disad­ vantaged .

Growth in the Comprehensiveness of Staff Explanations to the Department of Labor By examining some of the changes in both the quanti tative and the narrative reports that staffs supplied to the Department of Labor, we can demonstrate the gradual expansion in the quantity and detail of information provided to the Department. We examine first the change in the quantitative reports. As Table 3 indicates, the Department increased the number of quantitative reports to be supplied in fiscal year 1980. As of fiscal year 1980, the Department was requiring an Annual CETA Program Activity Summary and an Annual Report of Detailed Characteristics for each of the programs operating at the local level. These summary reports were simply the cumulative data for the 96 for the Program Status Summary and the Quarterly Summary of Participant Characteristics for the year. In addition, in 1976, the Department eliminated the Quarterly Progress Report and developed two separate reports to collect the financial information and the substantive program infor­ mation separately. ' Respectively, these two new reports were the Financial Status Report and the Program Status Summary.

The detail of information required in these various reports also increased. If we compare some of the cate­ gories required in the fiscal year 1975 reports with those required in the fiscal year 1980 reports, we can demon­ strate some movement towards more comprehensive reporting of information. For example, in the Quarterly Summary of Participant Characteristics for fiscal year 1975, the participant categories related to income were placed under the heading "Family Income" and included three categories: Aid to Families with Dependent Children,

Public Assistance, and Economically Disadvantaged.

For the fiscal year 1980 reports, the Department was requiring more detailed information about the participants, particularly with regard to their economic status. For the fiscal year 1980 reports, the Quarterly Summary of

Participant Characteristics included eight categories, distributed under two headings, Public Assistance and

Economically Disadvantaged. The new categories centered around the variations of income relative to the poverty 97 level of seventy percent or less of the lower living standard income level. In addition, the form also included a category intended to document the number of participants participat­ ing in the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit Program, a private sector-related program initiated under the Revenue Act of 1978.

We can observe similar expansion of required information in a comparison between the Quarterly Progress Report of fiscal year 1975 and the Financial Status Report and

Program Status Summary of fiscal year 1980. In contrast with the Quarterly Progress Report for fiscal year 1975, the Program Status Summary for fiscal year 1980 exhibited a new "special categories" section which requested information on specific aspects of various programs offered in the CETA program, such as Title II-c upgrading and the various youth programs. In addition, reflecting the heavier emphasis on the private sector for job placements, the Program Status

Summary included a special category requesting information on the "unsubsidized private sector placements". Comparing the fiscal year 1980 Financial Status Report with appropriate parts of the fiscal year 1975 Quarterly Progress Report, similar expansion is apparent. In quantitative terms, the number of categories to be detailed increased from nine to fourteen. As the forms illustrate, in fiscal year 1975, financial data was analyzed into the broad programmatic activities including classroom training, on-the-job training, work experience, etc. Although these categories were still 98 included in the fiscal year 1980 reports# additional categories were added to gather financial information on other activi­ ties# such as upgrading# retraining# and transitional services. Finally, if we again use a crude quantitative measure of the total "pieces" of information staffs supplied through these reports# we can further demonstrate the gradual increase in information supplied to the Department.

If we compare only the quarterly reports for the two fiscal years# we arrive at a figure of three hundred and thirty-four pieces of information for the reports for fiscal year 1980 compared with a figure of two hundred and forty- seven pieces of information for fiscal year 1975. Through these reports, the Department was therefore collecting approximately eighty three more pieces of information in fiscal year 1980 than in fiscal year 1975. When we compare the Department's demands for narrative explanations in the prime sponsors' plans for fiscal year

1975 and 1980# we find evidence for the expansion in the comprehensiveness of those narratives required of the staffs.

Referring back to Tables 2-7 (pages 65-70), we can see the growth in the comprehensiveness of the Department's informational demands in the comparison between the fiscal year 1975 and fiscal year 1980 plans. To illustrate the type of growth that we can observe in all six policies# we examine more closely the changes that took place in the 99

target group and public planning system policies. As Table 4 indicates, for the fiscal year 1980, the

Department demanded significantly more detailed and focused

information on program activities directed at specific target groups. Although the previous Department demand

asked for descriptions of services that would be provided,

it remained a general request without specifying how services were to affect specific groups. 15 In contrast,

the fiscal year 1980 demands required the staffs to address in narrative form the services to be provided for approx­

imately twelve different groups, including, among others, public assistance recipients, older workers, offenders,

and single parents. As Table 4 also indicates, the

Department required special information on services to 17 disabled and Vietnam-era veterans and the handicapped.

Finally, the Department was also more demanding with regard to the staff's service plan to the eligible groups.

For the fiscal year 1980 plan, staffs had to defend any plan that intended service to a group which would vary either

above or below the group's "incidence in the eligible 18 population" Again, this type of demand extended significantly beyond the previous informational

requirements.

Clearly, these changes indicate that the Department was attempting to exercise a stronger role in this policy making area. Whereas before, the staffs were able to set 100

their own agenda with regard to these issues, by fiscal

year 1980, the Department was setting the agenda by forcing staffs to commit themselves to specific services

for specific groups. The changes in the Labor Department's informational

demands are even more striking in the public planning system policy. Once again, as Table 6 indicates, the Department was demanding demonstrably more information

for the fiscal year 1980 plans than for the fiscal year 1975 plans. And, once again, the Department's growing

agenda setting role is revealed in another policy area.

Similar to the Department's earlier informational requests

for target group policy, the Department's fiscal year 1975 informational requests for the prime sponsors' public 19 planning system policy were relatively open ended. In effect, this allowed the staffs more flexibility in their planning. The Department was refraining from pressuring staffs into certain planning process commit­ ments that the staffs may have wanted to avoid. However, with the fiscal year 1980 demands, the Department was, in effect, structuring the agenda and pressuring the staff into some set of written commitments and explan­ ations that were to address specific Department concerns. Briefly, some of the changes include the following.

For fiscal year 1980, many of the Department's additional requests involved process and procedural information. A few examples should illustrate this pattern. As Table 6 indicates, for the fiscal year 1980 plans, the Department wanted descriptions of the procedures to be used "to insure that council meetings (were) publicly announced, open, and

• « O f ) ( accessible to the general public." They also required a description of the procedures the staffs used for the selection of council members. 21 Additionally, the Depart­ ment required information on the staff's consulting "arrangements" with (1) relevant groups that were without specific representation on the advisory council (including such groups as vocational education agencies, veterans' groups, and women's organizations); and (2) relevant councils 22 such as the Youth Council and the Private Industry Council. Finally, the Department required the staffs to attach a summary of the council1s recommendations regarding the plan. Where the staff rejected recommendations, the

Department wanted the staff's justification for their rejection.. 23

Growth in the Department's Influence in Policy Making

By 1978, the Department had become a significantly more important factor in the program mix, target group, and public planning system policies of the local staffs.

To demonstrate this development, we examine each of these policies, highlighting the ways in which the Department became more influential in the policy making process.

In addition, we apply the explanation developed earlier to the growth of influence and accountability in these areas. 102

The Department's greater presence in the policy making process and its important impact on policy is evident in the gradual expansion in nationally determined cate­ gorical programs. By the time of the 1978 reauthorization legislation, staffs had become significnatly more accounta­ ble to the Department for program mix policies. In effect, with the federal dollars increasingly tied to specific types of programs, the staffs' discretionary authority over these policies was gradually eroding. Through a number of national initiatives, Congress and the Department earmarked funds for specific program­ matic activities. Implicit in these initiatives was the resumption of national authority to determine the policy outcomes for many program services. As Table 9 indicates, in the chronology of the major national initiatives since the beginning of CETA, national initiatives targeted funding for the specific application of public service employment, on-the-job training, work experience, and classroom training programs to a variety of specific target groups, including the cyclically unemployed, different categories of youth, and veterans, among others.

The most significant shift emerged on the heels of CETA's enactment. With the passage of the Emergency Jobs and

Unemployment Assistance Act in December of 1974, the federal government dropped a massive countercyclical public service employment program upon the backs of local, prime sponsor staffs. 103

Table 8

Chronology of Major National Initiatives in Employment and Training Policy within the CETA Structure (1973-1979)

1973 Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) December Emphasis on Title I * Appropriation: $2.1 billion. * Program Content: To be defined and structured locally. * Target Groups: Wide lattitude in choice, includ­ ing the underemployed, unemployed, and the econ­ omically disadvantaged. 1974 Emergency Jobs and Unemployment Assistance Act December (EJUAA) * Appropriation: $2.5 billion. * Entered CETA structure as Title VI. * Program Content: Public service employment, designed to provide jobs which did not need to lead into unsubsidized employment. * Target Groups: Wide lattitude in choice; persons who were unemployed for at least fifteen days. 1977 Skill Training Improvement Program (STIP) June * Appropriation: $250 million. * Entered CETA structure through Title III, "Special Federal Responsibilities". * Program Content: Focused on "upgrading" the level and quality of skill training by coordinating training directly with private sector employers. Training programs were to last between six and fifteen months. * Target Groups: Same as for Title I. 1977 Youth Employment and Demonstration Pro iects Act August (YEDPA) * Appropriation: $1.5 billion. * Entered CETA structure through Title III and the creation of a new Title VIII. * Program Content: A variety of programs with different specifications. * Target Groups: Different specifications for each program. 104

Title III programs: Youth Incentive Entitlement Projects (YIEP) * Appropriation: $155 million. * Program Content: Provide employment and training. * Target Groups: Economically disadvantaged youth, ages 16-19, who are in school or will return to school to work towards a high school diploma. Youth Community Conservation and Improvement Projects (YCCIP) * Appropriation: $115 million. * Program Content: To provide jobs, work experience, and training. * Target Groups: Unemployed in and out of school youths, 16-19 years of age.

1978 Help Through Industry REtraininq and Employ­ May ment f HIRE II) * Appropriation: $90 million,. * Entered CETA structure through Title III. * Program Content: Subsidized OJT positions. * Target Groups: Disabled, Vietnam-era, and unemployed veterans; or persons eligible for veterans 1 preferences. 1978 Private Sector Initiatives Program (PSIP) * Appropriation: $400 million. * Entered CETA through the creation of a new Title VII. * Program Content: Designed to increase the involvement of the private sector in CETA programs. Institutional vehicle - Private Industry Councils (PICs); Programs could include a variety of OJT and classroom training options. * Target Groups: the economically disadvantaged. 105

This program embodied a national decision to inject large quantities of federal funds into the economy by expanding public service employment positions. It did not offer new discretionary funds to the prime sponsor staffs to use as they saw fit.

Other national programs illustrate the same point,

A series of youth programs, a veterans program and a private sector oriented program all represented the steady reassertion of the federal government's authority to decide the design of programs to be offered and the recipients of those programs. In fiscal year 1977, the federal government initiated a series of youth programs to provide specific training and employment services to various age groups of youth with different employment problems. In fiscal year 1978, the government introduced an on-the-job training program for veterans to provide training and job oppor­ tunities for different groups of veterans. Finally, it also created a specific title to focus attention on private sector, unsubsidized employment. As Table 10 illustrates, the reauthorization legislation of 1978 crystalized these shifts from the original 1973 legislation. Interestingly, with the initiation of the Private Sector Initiative

Program, the national focus came full circle in terms of its focus on substantive programs. The initial CETA legislation was intended to emphasize training for long term employment. With the slide into an economic recession 106 Table 9

CETA Program Titles: Original Legislation of 1973 and Its Reauthorization of 1978

1973 Legislation 1978 Legislation Title I - Comprehensive Man­ Title II - Comprehensive Employ­ power Services ment and Training Services * Provides services for * II—B - Services for the the unemployed, under­ economically disadvantaged. employed and the econom­ * II-C - Upgrading and ically disadvantaged. retraining - Provides "assis­ Title II - Public Employment tance to public and private Program employers for the costs ♦Provides "unemployed and associated with occupational underemployed persons with upgrading. transitional employment in * II-D - Transitional jobs providing needed public employment opportunities for services in areas of substan­ the economically disadvantaged. tial unemployment." Title III - Special Federal Title III - Special Federal Responsibilities Responsibilities Title IV - Youth Programs * Provides legislative Part A: vehicle for national initia­ * Subpart 1 - Youth Incentive tives in categorical programs. Entitlement Pilot Projects Originally, targeted Native (YIEPP). Americans, migrant and sea­ ♦Subpart 2 - Youth Commun­ sonal workers, youth, and ity Conservation and Improve­ others. ment Projects (YCCP). Title IV - Job Corps * Subpart 3 - Youth Employ­ * Provides "an unusually ment and Training Programs intensive program, operated (YETP). in a group setting", to help Part B: Job Corps. youth become "more responsive Part C: Summer Youth Programs. employable, and productive Title VI - Countercyclical citizens." Public Service Employment Program Title VII - Private Sector Opportunities for the Econ­ omically Disadvantaged Title - VIII - Young Adult Conservation Corps 107 in the middle of the 1970's/ the government changed its emphasis to public service employment programs. The

Private Sector Initiative Program reflected the rekindled effort and focus on skill training for long term, private sector employment.

The shift in authority had its most significant impact on the program mix decision through these national cate­ gorical initiatives. Over time, prime sponsor staffs had to spend increasing percentages of their time administering nationally designed programs. Table 11 illustrates the variety of programs that the four staffs.were planning to administer in fiscal year 1980. Most of the programs had nationally determined design and target group specifications. Consequently, the increase in nationally determined programmatic content entailed a reduction in local staff discretionary power over program mix decisions for the overall CETA program.

The national initiative with the greatest impact was the Title VI public service employment program. This program had an important impact through its substantive purpose and the quantity of funds intended to be spent on the program. Through this program, the federal government intended to provide funds for a public service employment program that would provide public sector, subsidized employment for the unemployed. Unlike the training programs, this program could fund jobs without measurable training 108 benefits and without prospects for long term, unsubsidized employment. Combining this emphasis with large sums of federal funds, this national initiative tended to replace the initial training emphasis of CETA with an emphasis on public service employment opportunities. As one planner commented, "We were smothered with an avalanche of mon for public service employment which took considerable time away from our planning efforts for the training programs."

To be sure, although all staffs felt the pressure from these categorical initiatives, some were buffeted by the changing Labor Department winds more than others.

In spite of the Department's heavy pressure for the public service employment program, the Briar Consortium and the

Choptank County staffs continued their emphasis on their training programs. Moreover, rather than allowing the new initiatives to fragment their overall programs, these staffs attempted to integrate the categorical initiatives into the overall program. For example, although the

Title VI legislation did not require participants to be led into other training programs for long term employment, the Briar Consortium's staff attempted to accomplish this where possible. In contrast, for the Lake City and Acre

City staffs, the national initiatives tended to shift the focus of the program. Particularly in Acre, the staff was pushed from a focus on classroom training programs 109 Table 10

Programmatic Status of Prime Sponsors (As of July 1979)

Acre Lake City

Title XI: B & D Title II: B,C, & D Title III: Title IV: * STIP 11+ *YETP+ * HIRE 11+ *YCCIP+ Title IV: *Job Corps *YETP+ Title VI PSE* *SYEP+ Title VII PSIP+ YCCIP+ Title VI PSE+ Title VII PSIP+

Choptank County Briar Consortium

Title II: B & D Title II: B & D Title IV: Title III: *YCCIP+ *STIP 11+ *YETP+ *HIRE 11+ *Job Corps Title IV: TitleiVI,PSE+i- *YETP+ Title. VII PSIP+ *YCCIP+ *Job Corps Title VI PSE+ Title VII PSIP+ +Post CETA legislation 1973, indicating re- categorical nature of the programming. 110 immediately to a large effort for public service employment programming. With the Private Sector Initiative Program, the city's program began to swing back again toward a training focus, launching its first on-the-job training program in its entire history with CETA. The explanation for the influential effect on all four prime sponsor staffs of these national initiatives lies in both the ideological preferences of the staffs and the balance of resources among the local political forces. Although most staff members complained about regional office inefficiencies, in most cases, they agreed that the programs were needed. For example, given the dire economic conditions of the prime sponsorships daring the recession of 1973-75, all staffs believed that a massive public service employment program for the cyclic­ ally unemployed was called for. Staff values permitted staffs to see the program as legitimate and worthy of a sincere effort at implementation.

Similarly, for all four prime sponsorships, the staffs also viewed the private sector initiative in 1978 as a reasonable and useful attempt to shift CETA's focus back to the private sector. Although staffs had reservations about details of the program, they had few ideological conflicts with the basic reasoning of the national initiative. Consequently, in both of these programs, staff values led them to accept the programs Ill as reasonable policy measures.

In addition, the staffs also seemed resigned to the shifts in authority and accepted the programs with the understanding that they, as CETA bureaucrats, had the obligation and responsibility to administer the programs according to the law. While staffs were unenthusiastic about giving up their discretionary power, they recognized the legitimate authority of the federal government to make these decisions and to expect local staffs to implement them.

Finally, staffs were always under local political pressure from local political officials to accept any available federal money. This was particularly true for the public service employment program. Consequently, even if a staff wanted to refuse an allocation of federal funds, they accepted funds because of the local political pressures.

In the target group policy, the federal government initiated substantial changes over time which were summarized in the 1978 legislation. Implicitly, these changes effected greater Department authority in this policy area and greater local staff accountability towards the Department. A brief comparison between the original

1973 guidelines for target groups in the main trainiing program and the changes in the 1978 reauthorization legislation will demonstrate the level of change. In the target group policy, substantial changes emerged in the national legislation which indicated national intentions for greater staff accountability to the Depart­ ment and* as a consequence, an intention to shift authority back towards the national government. For Title I programs, the 1973 legislation authorized significant discretionary power to the local decision makers for both policy outcomes and the policy making process. Federal constraints on eligibility were mild. The legislation restricted target groups to the unemployed, the underemployed, and the

O j\ economically disadvantaged. In addition, as noted earlier, the legislation required the prime sponsors to give assur­ ances that those "most in need* and those "low income persons of limited English speaking ability" would get priority* treatment "to the maximum extent feasible". 25

In contrast, through the 1978 legislation, the federal government attempted to narrow the range of choices open to prime sponsors. In effect, the legislation removed the authority for this decision from the prime sponsors and placed it in the hands of the national government. Eligibility became restricted solely to the economically disadvantaged who were either unemployed, 26 underemployed, or in school. In addition, service to this population was to be equitably distributed among the

"significant segments" of the population, as identified by demographic characteristics, including sex, age, race, 113

and ethnic group. 27 Moreover# the federal government

further stipulated a number of priority groups who were to receive special treatment# such as veterans, the 2 8 handicapped# and others. In effect# these guidelines pressured staffs into serving not only specific groups but also specific proportions within those groups, with

"special treatment" reserved for groups within the already select list.

The Department's influence coincided with the change in the authoritative directives. In the early years of

CETA# the Department exerted little if any influence in this policy area. In all four prime sponsors# neither the federal representatives nor other regional officials were actively involved in the decision making process. Nor were regional offices' reactions taken into account in the decision making process. With the passage of the reauth­ orization legislation of 1978# the Department's influence expanded significantly. Reflecting the views of most staff members from other prime sponsors, the chief planner from the City of Acre commented, "They have taken this decision out of our hands." Thus# in compliance with the changes in the law# all four staffs intended to direct CETA services only to the economically disadvantaged and# if possible, according to the proportions of the various demographic groups within the respective populations. 114

In this policy area, expansion in the Department's

legitimate authority,filtered through staff ideologies, produced a major part of the expansion in staff account­ ability. Two elements or values of the staff ideologies were tapped in this process. First, the federal government's shift to a restrictive focus on the economically dis­ advantaged was congruent with CETA staff values. Most

CETA staff believed that the economically disadvantaged should have been the primary recipient group for employment and training services under this title. Consequently, the staffs' own social values led them to accept willingly this criterion and work to implement it. Second, as indicated

by the planner's comment that the Department had "taken the decision out of our hands", staffs generally accepted the shift in authority to make this decision. In the absence of any overriding values, this underlying acceptance of the legitimacy of the national authority led staffs to comply with the changes in the law.

Yet, to be sure, coercive mechanisms were also function­ ing to make staffs more accountable for this decision area. One major institutional change emerging from the changes in the law was the federal directive to local staffs to establish Independent Monitoring Units. One of the major functions of these units was to monitor closely the programs for their service patterns to insure that the programs truly served the economically disadvantaged. 115

Consequently, perceiving that this issue was important in the eyes of the Labor Department, and in anticipation of a closer, and constant examination of the eligibility of participants, staffs attempted to comply in this decision and with the explanatory demands. Finally, recognizing the Department's expanded authority for the collection of more comprehensive information in the plans, staffs also complied more consistently with the informational demands.

In part, they complied because they agreed with the policy shifts. However, they also complied to avoid the harassment of having to write modifications to the original plan.

Thus, anticipating the regional offices' usage of the modification process as a sanction, staffs attempted to comply most closely in those areas which were of central concern to the Department.

The growth in influence was also significant in the public planning policy, stemming from the shift in authority as reflected in the 1978 reauthorization legislation and the creation of Title VII. In the 1973 legislation, the federal government drew a general outline of a public planning structure and process. The legislation mandated Manpower Advisory Councils as the central structures for the public's input into decision making at the local level. It directed the prime sponsors to establish these councils and appoint a membership that was represnetative of the community. 116

More specifically/ the legislation identified the following groups for council membership: clients# community based organizations# the Employment Service, training agencies# 29 business# labor, and# where appropriate# agriculture.

Beyond these constraints, the federal government granted discretionary authority to the prime sponsor.

Technically# the chief political official had appointment authority# including the designation of the chairperson for the council. In addition# the council's informational and clerical needs were to be fulfilled by the CETA staffs. Although the legislation specified a role for the council, it made clear that the council had advisory authority only. Within this advisory capacity# the council could provide the prime sponsor staffs with advice on the community's needs for employment and training services and monitor and evaluate the programs and services provided 30 by the staffs. However# the councils' advice and recommendations carried no binding authority on the CETA staffs. As the legislation stated: "Any final decision with respect to such recommendations shall be made by the 31 prime sponsor." In sum# through this legislation# the federal government placed the principal authority over the planning system with the prime sponsor. The Department was placed on the periphery of the decision making structure. As the 1978 legislation reflects, authority for the design of the council expanded at the national level.

Through the new legislation, the federal government .. designated additional groups to be represented on the council. The new groups included veterans, the handicapped, a representative from the public assistance agency, and an additional labor representative. The federal government further reduced the prime sponsor's discretionary authority in the choice of chairpersons for the councils. Before, the chief political official had the authority to choose a chair under locally constituted guidelines. Thus, often, the chairperson turned out to be either the CETA director or the political official, neither of whom could be considered

a disinterested public citizen. Under the new legislation, the federal government explicitly ordered that the chairperson be a "public member" of the council, thus, denying the political official or the CETA director this position. Finally, the legislation mandated that the council meet at least five times during the course of the year. Before, . . . 32 no minimum had been established. Yet, the federal government's passage of Title VII, the Private Sector Initiative Program, reflected the most significant expansion in the national government's authority for shaping the local public planning system. Through this legislation, the federal government attempted to change radically the public planning structure and process in the local CETA system. The government intended to involve

the private sector in the decision making process to an extent unachieved before. The main vehicle for this change

was the national authorization for the creation of a

Private Industry Council in each prime sponsor. The

legislation mandated the creation of these councils and

restricted the prime sponsor's discretionary authority over

these new councils. The legislation specified the membership to emphasize industry and business, including small and

large businesses. In addition, minorities, organized labor, community based organizations, and educational agencies

were also to be on the councils. However, without exception,

the councils were to be business controlled, with a

majority of the members from business and with a business

person as chairperson. As the legislation emphasized:

In no event shall representatives of industry and business haye less than a majority on the council and whenever possible, at least half of such industry and business representatives shall be representatives of small business.

In addition, unlike the government's treatment of the

regular advisory councils, the federal government granted substantial authority over other issues, including the authority to hire independent staff and select its own

chairperson. And, moving far beyond the regular planning

council's authority, the industry councils were also granted the authority to design, monitor, and administer employment and training programs, as well as being able to veto CETA

staff suggestions for Title VII programs. Its authority

may also extend to the private sector programs within the other titles as well. As the legislation stated:

Nothing in this section is intended to limit the functions of the PIC, with respect to assisting the prime sponsor to improve the responsiveness of employment and training programs to employment opportunities in the private sector.

In sum, by 1978, the federal government had absorbed

a sizeable chunk of authority for shaping the local planning systems. Through the Private Sector Initiative Program,

the federal government had in effect begun the process of

creating a new organization with which the staffs had to

contend. Moreover, given the potentially formidable character of these councils, the federal government may

also have begun a change in the balance of local political power in the employment and traning systems as well.

We will take up this question later in Chapter 4.

The Department's influence in this decision area coincided closely with the changes identified in the leg­

islation. All four prime sponsors abided by the new leg­

islative specifications: All chairpeople were members of

the councils; new members from the newly identified groups had been appointed or were in the process of being appointed

and meetings were being held at least once every two months, thus, following the regulation of at least five meetings

each year. Yet, beyond these policy areas, the Department 120 failed to increase its influence over the process or the structure of the local planning sytems. Neither federal representatives nor other regional officials increased their activity in this area.

However, the Department's influence in the public planning policy increased most substantially in correspon­ dence with the expansion in the Department's authority via the Title VII legislation. In all four prime sponsors, industry councils were established in accordance with the national legislation. Consequently, in effect, staffs gave up some of their discretionary power over the shape of the public planning system. Prior to the Private Sector

Initiative Program, the staffs made most of the critical decisions concerning the shape of the planning system.

However, with this new initiative, businesses were granted important authority in the local planning system. Thus, since all staffs consented to this legislation,tfehey^alluwed the Department to alter the planning system by establishing yet a third council with considerably more constraining authority than the other councils. Interestingly, throughout the initial implementation process of the Private Sector

Initiative Program, the regional offices and particularly the federal representatives, played minimal roles. Private sector coordinators at each of the regional offices attempted to monitor the process of organizing industry councils and to insure that the staffs were adhering to the law. However, 121 by their own admission, they often did not have full information and knowledge about the local situations and were unable to influence local decisions significantly.

Yet, in spite of continuing regional office impotence, the private sector oriented legislation was being implemented in large part according to the intent of the legislation. To be sure, three of the four staffs were concerned with the programmatic repercussions of this intrusion into the planning system. The directors and planners of these three prime sponsors wanted to insure that productive training programs were maintained for participants. For example, in the Lake City program, the industry council began pressing the CETA staff to reduce the cost per placement in the training programs. The CETA director worried that this concern would eventually mean the termination of what he considered to be important training programs. Recognizing the loss of discretionary power inherent in the creation of the council, he worried that this would be one of the results of that planning system change.

Similarly, in the Briar Consortium, the director commented that his prime sponsor "...would be one of the last prime sponsors to launch Title VII, deliberately." While he thought the basic thrust of the program was sensible, he wanted to insure that the change in the local planning structure was in accordance with the needs of the local agenda and would not disrupt the ongoing training programs. 122

Consequently/ he would gradually institute a private

sector institution and not rush into the program according

to the Labor Department's plans. Moreover/ in all four

prime sponsorships/ staffs recognized the danger in this

program for reducing the staff's discretionary power over not only the Title VII programs but all other private

sector programs as well. Nevertheless/ without significant pressure from the regional offices/ staffs in all four

prime sponsorships began to implement this program and

integrate the new councils into the planning structure and process.

The explanation for the expansion in staff accountability to the Department in the public planning policy area stems primarily from the manipulation of legitimate authority/ having its effect through the staff ideologies. While staffs recognized the loss of discretionary power in the establishment of the industry councils/ they also believed in obeying national law/ and/ therefore/ attempted to implement the changes in the planning struc­ ture accordingly. However/ the belief that made this obedience to national law more palatable was the belief that a greater involvement of the private sector was necessary for a more successful CETA program. All staffs expressed this sentiment. Consequently, the Department's private sector initiative was welcomed in part as an opportunity to establish firm linkages with the private 123 sector. Particularlyr in the City of Acre, the staff embraced this program fully and planned to use it to revitalize a sagging CETA program for their city. In effect, in all four prime sponsorships, the belief in the need for a private sector linkage helped solidify the legitimacy of the national authoritative directives and helped insure the Labor Department's influence on staff actions.

As I will discuss in Chapter 3, a major part of the explanation for the relatively successful restructuring of the local planning system via the Private Sector

Initiative Program also lies in the manipulation of local political authority and sanctions. In some cases, these factors had the dominant effect on the shape and character of the industry councils and their activities. Thus, the changes in the planning systems were not solely the result of the manipulation of legitimate national authority.

As I will show in Chapter 3, these local pressures complimented the Department's intention to influence the local planning structures and processes to involve the private sector to a much greater extent than before. 124

SUMMARY

In this chapter, we have demonstrated two major empirical patterns of behavior in four CETA prime sponsor­ ships with regard to local CETA staff accountability to the Department of Labor. First, staff accountability to the Department was generally weak with regard to most important policy decisions. Second, within this persistently flaccid relationship, staffs gradually became more account­ able to the Department, particularly in the target group, program mix, and public planning system policy areas. The end result still entailed a weak relationship. Yet, important changes had nevertheless developed and the relationships had grown stronger. To explain the first major empirical pattern, we found ample evidence and reason to demonstrate that the combin­ ation of certain staff values and staff access to better power resources militated against strong staff account­ ability towards the Department. More specifically, we demonstrated that staffs, by and large, developed strong beliefs in their own superior capabilities and became increasingly jealous of "outside" intervention into what they considered to be their sphere of policy making.

Moreover, staffs also developed certain ideological values which also led them to spurn strong accountability towards the Labor Department. Staff access to important technical and political knowledge and constituent support# in the forms of both local governmental and public support# gave them the resources with which they developed and protected their large sphere of discretionary policy making power in support of their major goals and values. Conversely# the relative lack of the Department's access to these same resources further undermined any development of a strong accountability relationship. In particular# the regional offices and the assigned federal represen­ tatives suffered from this lack of access. In turn# these inadequacies led to a pervasive staff disrespect for regional office personnel# with particular ridicule reserved for many of the assigned federal representatives. Consequently, this combination of circumstances produced the chronically weak accountability relationships.

Given that the regional offices appeared unable to accumulate the necessary technical and political knowledge and local and organizational constituent support to overcome their inadequacies, we had to look elsewhere for an explanation of the growth in staff accountability. The

Department's accumulation of legitimate governmental authority and some associated coercive resources were the major factors we cited to explain this second major behavioral pattern. For evidence to support this argument, we pointed first to the apparent association between changes in 126

federal legislation and changes in the growth of staff accountability to the Labor Department. Simply stated, we argued that staff accountability to the Department

increased because of the changes in the federal legislation

and the shifting of legitimate authority that thosechhanges

represented. Regional office and federal representative

activity did not appear to account for the changes. Our second source of evidence/associated with the

first, was the staffs' general acceptance and belief in the legitimate authority of the federal government to make policy. Since staffs viewed the federal government, including the national office of the Department of Labor,as the

supreme, legitimate authority for these decisions, they attempted to obey the orders and directives of the legitimate authority. Certain staff values and beliefs were in agreement with some of the policy changes. Thus, these value agreements tended to reenforce the trend towards greater accountability. As noted earlier, this was particularly true for the target group policy since staffs believed in serving the economically disadvantaged. In both the program mix and the public planning system policy areas, value conflicts were more apparent. Yet, the explanation still held. While staffs knew that their implementation of massive public service employment and various youth programs designed by national decision makers meant giving up some discretionary power and authority, staffs also believed the programs to be necessary and still maintained a belief in obedience to national legislation.

Similarly, while the establishment of the industry councils involved the concession of a reduction in discretionary authority and the transference of authority to the national government, it also fulfilled a function which most staffs believed should be filled in one organizational structure or another — getting the private sector in­ volved in these programs. Consequently, in both of these cases, staff belief in the rationality of the policy goals embraced in the federal policy, reinforced by staff belief in the legitimate authority of the federal government led staffs to be more accountable to the Department of Labor 128

NOTES

*The outcome of these reports identified "questioned costs" which could range from simple bookkeeping errors to serious problems of mismanagement, fraud, and abuse. The "disallowance of costs" category for questioned items was the most significant sanction that could emerge from these reports. If the questioned costs maintained their status as improper expenditures through the appeal process, then they became "disallowed costs". In these cases, the prime sponsor was then responsible for return­ ing funds and finding local sources to pay for the services and goods originally purchased with the federal funds. Anti-substitution provisions were included in the original legislation. However, because of the widespread violation of the provisions, Congress included more specific and more comprehensive provisions in the 1978 legislation to aid in preventing further abuse. For example, the 1973 legislation simply requested prime sponsors to include in their Title II applications "assurances that jobs funded under this title are in addition to those that would be funded by the sponsor in the absence of assistance under this Act." In Public Law 93-203, 1973, Section 205(c)(25).

In contrast, the 1978 legislation was much more specific. The main intention of the additional provisions was to insure that these funds would be used for expanding the labor force at the local level and not for general revenue sharing purposes. For example, one section stated the following:

"No person shall be employed or job opening filled (A)when any other person not supported under this Act is on layoff from the same or any substantially equivalent job, or (B)when the employer has terminated the employment of any regular employee not supported under this Act or otherwise reduced its workforce with the intention of filling the vacancy so created by hiring a public service employee. In Public Law 95-524, 1978, Section 122(c)(1). 3 House Committee on Government Operations, Depart­ ment of Labor's Administration of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, Tenth Report by the Committee on Government Operations, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979). 129

^Ibid., p. 16. ^Ibid., p. 21. Several witnesses claimed that the regional offices seemed to have capitulated to "...pressure from higher echelons in the Department of Labor to overlook weaknesses in politically powerful prime sponsors." ^These staff responses lend support to Max Weber's original arguments on the subject pertaining to obedience to "legal authority". Obedience is not based on personal loyalty but only to the office and institution. As he wrote: "...In the case of legal authority/ obedience is owed to the legally established impersonal order. It extends to the persons exercising the authority of office under it only by virtue of the formal legality of their commands and only within the scope of authority of the office.... That the person who obeys authority does so...only in his capacity as a member of the corporate group and what he obeys is only the law...." From Max Weber/ The Theory of Social and Economic Organizations (New York: The Free Press/ 1947), pp. 328 and 330.

^House Committee on Government Operations, p. 21. ®Ibid., p. 18. g For a development of this concept, see Peter Blau, The Dynamics of Bureaucracy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1955), pp. 140-1. This concept is at the heart of an explanation of the development of individual and organizational influence relationships. The basic assumption of this explanation is that influence is based on an exchange relationship. An individual can get another individual to provide a service only if the other person believes that he or she will benefit by receiving some service in return. As Blau wrote, "no exchange will take place unless both parties to it feel that they will benefit from it." An influential relationship develops only if reciprocation occurs. ■^House Committee on Government Operations, p. 18. During these hearings, the U.S. Conference of Mayors urged that a training program for federal representatives be formally established. They suggested that all federal representatives be assigned as staff members to a prime sponsor for six months every three years. 11Ibid., p. 20. 130 12 In this study# I use the concept of authoritative relationships to describe those relationships in which an individual recognizes an "order giving role" of another individual or institution and, thereby, consents to obey and carry out the decisions of those decision makers in the order giving role. Thus, in an authoritative relationship, one party accepts a subordinate role to another party. Within this broad definition of authority, two types of authority relationships can be distinguished. Legitimate authority exists when subordinates voluntarily obey superiors because they believe in the superior's legiti­ mate role to give orders. The voluntary nature of obedience in this type of relationship emphasizes the relative absence of force or coercion in obtaining obedience to authoritative decisions. The concept of legitimacy embodies the belief that the superior individual or institution has the moral or ethical right to make the major deicsions. In contrast, non-legitimate authority relationships are those in which subordinate obedience is obtained using other mechanisms, possibly including coercion, remuneration, or pursuasion. Beliefs in the legitimacy of a superior's position or role play little or no role in a subordinate1s obedience in this type of authority relaionship. A subordinate1s belief in the legitimacy of a superior decision maker or decision making system is based primarily on two interrelated beliefs in a person's under­ lying ideology or belief system. The most important belief concerns an acceptable decision making system. At minimum, this system entails a set of acceptable decision making institutions which make public policy through certain decision making processes. A second related belief is concerned with the types of policies that emerge from the decision making system. These beliefs tend to either reaffirm or undermine the belief in the legitimacy of an existing decision making system. If the existing decision making system generates policies that fit with a subordinate's values about good policy, then the subordinate’s views about the fairness of the decision making system will tend to be bolstered. However, if the policies tend to contradict a subordinate's views, then the decision making system will lose its legitimacy in the eyes of the subordinate. To summarize: a decision making system attains a legitimate authority position when its institutions and processes fall within an acceptable range of the subord­ inates beliefs of a just and fair system. This system retains its legitimate authority so long as it operates according to a subordinate's beliefs about the institutions and processes and produces policies that are perceived as just. Voluntary obedience follows from this recognition 131 of legitimate authority. If subordinates view the decision making system as legitimate# they will feel obligated to obey the system's decisions and directives. Given this understanding of legitimate authority and its relationship with ideology, we can readily see how legitimate authority can influence accountability. If a subordinate perceives the decision making system as fair and just, then the subordinate will grant the system legitimate authority, which implies that the subordinate will attempt to obey the system's directives. Under these conditions, if the system's directives demand greater accountability, the subordinate will attempt to comply with those demands, unless other high priority values conflict with the perceived obligation to comply. Thus, in more specific terms, the subordinate will follow the system's directives and provide explanations for decisions made, even if both of these actions entail a reduction in the subordinate's discretionary power. The critical point is that this voluntary obedience ultimtely depends on the congruence between the subordinate's views of a just and fair decision making system and the subordinate's perceptions of teh actual system. To use effectively authoritative directives to increase accountability, a superior necessarily taps into the subordinate's under­ lying beliefs and values embraced in ideologies. If these beliefs give support to the superior's claims to legitimacy, then the subordinate will follow the author­ itative directives without the jpressure of other sanctions and incentives. I base this argument on previous arguments developed by Max Weber and a contemporary analyst, Peter Blau. For Weber, the "voluntary" obedience of subordinates based on some belief in the "legitimacy" of the relation­ ship between superior and subordinate were the defining characteristics of authoritative relationships. As he wrote: "A criterion of every true relation of imperative control...is a certain minimum of voluntary submission... Thus, an interest (based on ulterior motive or genuine acceptance) in obedience...... In everyday routine life, these relationships... are governed by custom and in addition, material calcu­ lation of advantage. But these factors, custom and personal advantage do not, even taken together, form a sufficiently reliable basis for a system of imperative coordination. In addition, there is normally a further element, the belief in legitimacy." From Max Weber, pp. 324-5 Similarly, Peter Blau argued that it is the distinctive feature of authority relationships that influence is brought about without the use of sanctions and incentives. As he wrote: 132

"The distinctive feature of authority is that normative constraints, in effect, compel with directives. The fact that a person compels others to do his bidding by employ­ ing coercion or sanctions or threats and promises or pursuasion is prima facie evidence that he does not have authority over them....For if he had, his mere command or request would suffice to influence their conduct.... Authority rests on socially accepted norms that define compliance with certain orders as a social duty, indeed, often as a moral obligation." From Peter Blau, p. 226.

13Public Law 93-203, 1973, Section 105(3)(b).

■^Public Law 95-524, 1978, Section 3(8)(A) and (B). 15 United States Department of Labor, Manpower Administration, Forms Preparation Handbook, May, 1974. p. 111-18. 16 United States Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Forms Preparation Handbook, May, 1979, p. 111-14.

17T,Ibid. . .

18Ibid., p. Ill—19. 19 United States Department of Labor, Manpower Administration, Forms Preparation Handbook, May, 1974. p. 111-20. 20 United States Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Forms Preparation Handbook, May, 1979. p. II-21-2. 91 Ibid. 22_, . , Ibid. 23., Ibid. 2 4 Public Law 93-203, 1973, Section 2.

25Ibid., Section 105(3)(b). 28Public Law 95-524, 1978, Section 213.

27Ibid., Section 103(b)(2).

28Ibid., Section 103(b)(3). 29Public Law 93-203, 1973, Section 104.

3°Ibid. 31Ibid. 32Public Law 95-524, 1978, Section 109(c) and (d). 33Ibid., Section 704. 34Private Sector Initiative Program, the Department of Labor regulations, Section 679.3-7. CHAPTER 3: THE SPORADIC NATURE OF ACCOUNTABILITY BETWEEN LOCAL POLITICAL OFFICIALS AND LOCAL CETA AGENCIES

INTRODUCTION

As we shift our attention to the four staff relationships with their respective, local political officials, we face an initial puzzle: In spite of the legislative intentions to strengthen the decision making role of the local political officials, the staffs were only sporadically accountable to the political officials. More specifically, these relationships assumed the following general profile.

In most cases, staffs supplied comprehensive information and justifications for their decisions. Yet, the political officials, the mayors and commissioners, seldom turned this information into useful sources of power for influence in the decision making process. Nor did they press the staffs for deeper explanations on a steady or systematic basis. Moreover, for much of the time, the political officials were absent from the decision making process and generally uninfluential in that process. The political officials pressed for more thorough explanations, scrutinized them, and generally became more involved and influential only at intermittent moments.

134 135

We can see this profile mirrored in the staffs'

accountability regarding the six major planning policies.

Accountability was generally lowest in the target group, target occupation, and public planning system policies. To the extent that steadier accountability relationships

developed, they were primarily oriented towards the program

mix, service deliverer, and the local organizational policies. Yet, even in these cases, the sporadic or

fitful character of the political officials' involvement

is the primary image that predominates. Given this description, we need to address two major questions: Why was accountability generally low?

And, how can we explain the occasional spurts of account­

ability? We will answer both questions by weaving an explanation that draws upon the ideological values and beliefs of both CETA staffs and political officials and their access to power resources. The generally weak: reed of accountability that pervaded the relationships stemmed

in part from the staffs' access to important political

resources within the employment and training systems.

Some of these resources included organizational strength,

access to specialized knowledge and information, and

allied constituencies, including, at times, the Labor Department, and local community support. As we will

discover in the course of the chapter, staffs were able to use these resources to bolster their own authority and 136

independence in decision making and undermine the strength of the local political officials. Some staff values gave direction to the use of these

resources and functioned to undermine strong accountability.

As was the case in the staffs' relationships with the

Department of Labor, staff belief in professionalism played an important role in the accountability relationships between staffs and local political officials. Professionalism entails the belief that expertise in a policy area should be the primary criterion for deciding who should have the dominant role in policy making. As in the other relationships, staffs generally believed that they were the experts, the true professionals in employment and training policy. Therefore, they generally believed that they should control decision making in the local CETA program. Consequently, they tended to resist outside intervention, even from the duly elected political officials.

Staff ideological views towards the proper role of the CETA program in the community or the proper role of the local government in the local economy also functioned in some cases to undermine accountability. As we shall see, in at least three of the four sites, the staffs had different views than the local political officials with regard to these questions. Thus, given the differences in views, staffs tended to fight for their independence in an effort to administer the program in the way that fit their own ideological positions. 137

However# the local political officials' own ideological and personal values are probably the pivotal explanatory factors that can account for both the generally weak relatonships and the periodic waves of strong accountability.

Most of the political officials embraced a managerial value or principle which emphasized the delegation of authority to lower level bureaucrats. Taken to its extreme, this tended to release the political officials, in their own eyes, from the responsibility for close scrutiny of the major decisions made in the programs, technically under their responsibility. Thus, guided by this thinking, the political officials tended to assist the staff in weakening the accountability relationships. In other words, the . political officials often slipped into the position of allowing experts to be "on top" rather than "on tap".

Staffs generally declined from complaining about their free rein in the programs. Personal, political goals also functioned to keep some of the local political officials at arm's length from the CETA program. Some of the political officials viewed the program as a type of poisonous root, dangerous to handle, fatal if one became deeply involved in its implementation. Thus, for reasons of political survival, some political officials simply withdrew from any forceful role in the decision making involved in CETA. On the other hand, other political officials tended to become involved in CETA 138 decision making only when they perceived that electoral advantages could be accumulated with an adroit management of the program's resources. In other words, political officials tended to become involved in CETA programming either to protect themselves against political scandal or to avail themselves of the bounteous political fruit that the program could at times bear when it was generating benefits for the community.

When neither grand opportunities nor dire emergencies were perceived, then local political officials generally retired to the background, delegating authority to their CETA staffs to administer the programs.

In summary, the staffs' various ideological commitments and access to power resources both functioned to fend off political official intervention and kept staff accountability low. Yet, in the end, when political officials became determined to affect specific decisions, perceiving either dangers or opportunities, they achieved a higher level of accountablity, even if it was short lived.

To pursue this argument, I first describe the similar­ ities of the local contexts within which the staffs and political officials operated. We then explore in detail the specific accountability experiences of each of the four sites. In each case, we document the low levels of account­ ability and some of the occasional moments of high account­ ability in the sites. This analysis also documents the 139 similarities and variations in accountability found in the sites. In addition, I present an explanation of these phenomena. In each case, I also highlight the role bureaucratic forces played in impeding effective account­ ability.

OVERVIEW OF ACCOUNTABILITY RELATIONSHIPS

In all four prime sponsorships, the accountability relationships involved primarily the CETA directors, planning staffs, the chief elected political officials, and their personal advisors. Within these relationships, the formal authority lay with the chief elected political officials. These officials had the authority to make all the important decisions within the bounds outlined by the federal legislation and the Department of Labor regulations.

For example, technically, the political officials had the authority to decide which programs the staffs should have offered and which service deliverers should have provided the CETA services.

Staffs communicated to the local potlicial officials through common forums. Some of the important planning documents that eventually found their way to the Department of Labor had to have the signature of the chief elected official. Therefore, technically, the political officials received and had the opportunity to review some of the written explanations that the staffs provided for the 140

Labor Department. More specifically, these documents included, at a minimum, the Master Plan, the Annual Plan,

and the quarterly reports for each component program.

Staffs and political officials also had opportunities

to communicate with each other through two formal explan­ atory forums, including the regular advisory councils

and, later in the program, the private industry councils. In sum, effective accountability seems quite possible.

Technically speaking, the political officials had access

to information, authority, and other sources of power which should have placed them in effective accountability

relationships with their CETA staffs. However, as the analysis below indicates, in most cases, and for most of the time, the political officials remained largely ignorant of CETA programming. Consequently, in many ways, the staffs were unaccountable to the political officials.

CASE STUDIES

City of Acre; Local Accountability Context

In the City of Acre, the principal actors in the relationship between the chief elected political officials and the CETA staff included the Mayors, their chief administrative assistants, the Director of the Department of Personnel and Civil Service Commission, the Assistant

Director for the Employment and Training Grant Administration, and several senior planners. The Director of the Department 141 of Personnel and Civil Service Commission bore the chief responsibility for the CETA program. Although the Mayors irregularly met with the Director on matters relating to CETA, in most cases, they communicated with the Director and especially the rest of the administrative members of the

CETA staff primarily through either their executive secretaries or one of their chief administrative assistants. Low Level of Accountability: Role of Explanatory Forums

According to both interviews and analysis of relevant documents, staff supplied the Mayors with relatively comprehensive information and explanations regarding the administration of the CETA program. However, in general, the Mayors were seldom inquisitive in response. The staff sent to the Mayor's Office all the CETA documents that the staff supplied to the Department of Labor. Consequently, the Mayor's Office received relatively comprehensive explanations of decisions that the CETA staff were making.

Through this mechanism, the staff offered the Mayors an opportunity to obtain a detailed understanding of the program.

However, the level of scrutiny of these documents was regularly low. Although the Mayors signed the documents, seldom did they read them. Similarly, even the Mayors' chief staff were less than systematic readers of these papers. Furthermore, even the Labor Department's quarterly assessment letters, which the Department sent specifically to the political officials, received little close attention. 142

1974-1977 1978-1980

(Mayor's Office) (Mayor's Office)

Mayor Mayor Executive Secretary Executive Secretary

Special Assistants Special Assistants

CETA Director Director/ Department of Personnel and Civil Staff Service Commission

Assistant Director Employment and Training Employment and Training Advisory Council Grant Administration Staff

Private Employment Industry amd Training Council Advisory Council_____

Key; Appointment Authority --- ^ Technical Accountability Relationship .. ______

FIGURE I Administrative Structure of Acre1s CETA Proaram 143

Instead/ most often the Mayor's Office simply transferred these letters - usually without comment - to the senior planner's office.

The staff provided oral explanations to the Mayors and their chief advisors only when major problems arose. The Mayors refrained from scheduling regular formal or informal meetings for CETA staff, their chief advisors, and themselves. When problems arose, CETA staff would generally meet with one or two of the Mayor's advisors...

Thus, the CETA staff lacked any consistent, oral, explan­ atory opportunity through which they could have provided the Mayors with important information on developments in the program. Consequently, the Director was at times quite frustrated under£these conditions.1

-H§r§6ver'5'neither^the Mayors nor their chief advisors used the employment and training advisory council or the private industry council meetings to keep informed about the program. Although the CETA staff used these meetings to supply descriptions of programs and explanations of decisions taken to members of the councils, neither the

Mayors nor their chief staffs regularly attended. Consequently, they missed opportunities for acquiring valuable information and for cross-examining staff explanations. 144

Low Level of Accountability: The Mayors1 Influence in Decision Making The indicators for the level of the Mayors' influence in many of the major planning decisions provide further evidence of low staff accountability to the Mayors in the ordinary course of policy making. During both adminis­ trations, neither Mayors nor their chief staffs parti­ cipated in the decision making processes regarding the target group or the target occupation policies. Moreover, they participated little more with regard to the public planning system and CETA staff organizational policies.

The one regular exception involved the Mayor's legislated role for appointing members to the regular advisory council. Potentially, the Mayors could have perceived this authority as an important mechanism for their input.

Yet, in general, they ignored it and simply legitimated the choices suggested by the staff.

Similarly, the anticipatory decision making indicator suggests that the staff decisions in these policies were relatively unaffected by staff perceptions of the Mayors' reactions to their decisions. This was particularly true with regard to the target occupation and the public planning system decisions. With regard to the former, the staff believed that the Mayors would have reacted negatively to a decision targetting blacks lower than their demographic proportion within the Acre area. However, since the staffs already believed that blacks should be served in proportion to their demographic representation, their policy position was simply reinforced by these perceptions of the Mayors* views. Moreover, their sensitivity towards the views of the Mayor's Office became less important with the passage of the 1978 reauthorization legislation. As will be recalled, that legislation required that service to the economically disadvantaged be equally distributed among segments of the population as identified by demographic characteristics, including age, sex, race, and ethnic groups. Consequently, in effect, the federal government removed discretionary decision making authority from both the staff and the Mayors.

Finally, neither the Mayors nor their chief staff levelled many disciplinary sanctions or rewards against CETA staff in efforts to influence policy. For the most part, all appeared quiet on the Acre front.

Occasions for Higher Accountability

As I have demonstrated, low staff accountability throughout both administrations appeared to be the pattern in the City of Acre. However, at certain times and for certain issues, staff became more accountable. The Mayors demanded more staff accountability on specific decisions which involved large sums of money, politically volatile constituencies, and perceived challenges to the city's 146 authority over programs. In effect, at certain times, the Mayors became more involved in certain stages of the program mix, service deliverer, public planning, and organizational policy making processes. One of the more dramatic political official interventions into the regular decision making process involved the first

Mayor's decision to use the public service employment funds allocated to the city under the Emergency Employment Act of 1974 to pay the salaries of the regular city employees. The major influence indicators both show that the Mayor had influence on this decision. He was present in the decision making processes with the CETA director and the Mayor's chief staff that led to this policy. Also, once the policy was set, the lower CETA staff continued the policy along these lines, anticipating that the Mayor was keeping track of this particular policy. This was done in spite of the repeated protests of this substitution policy by the 2 Department of Labor. Essentially, at least under the first administration, for a long period of time, the staff simply ignored the regional office on this issue. Clearly, the Mayor's policy wishes had been more important in staff decision making. A second issue that periodically arose to some importance and was a focus of both Mayors involved the organizational question of additional staff for the CETA program. In both administrations, both CETA staff and 147 and Labor Department officials believed that more staff was needed. During the first administration, the staff numbered approximately eleven to twelve in-house personnel.

During the first administration and in the first part of the second administration, neither Mayor hired new staff, in spite of staff and Labor Department appeals. Both Mayors were reluctant to hire more staff for these programs because of the costs involved. The issue was only finally resolved when the regional office and the new CETA staff director and other chief CETA staff pressed the Mayor to meet formally and work out a schedule and an organizational pattern for new staff. The Mayor finally retreated and gave the authorization to hire more staff.

Another staffing issue became an important concern to the Mayor when the Private Sector Initiative Program was introduced in 1978. Under this program, each prime sponsor had to establish a Private Industry Council which emphasized private sector employer representation.

Initially, at the Mayor's and the staff's suggestion, the industry council was to use the city's regular staff as their staffing resource. However, within approximately one year, some of the council members became disgruntled with the staffing situation and pushed for the hiring of the council's own staff to be responsible only to the industry council. 148

Anticipating the Mayor's negative reaction to this idea, the staff opposed the idea when it was first raised

within the industry council. Shortly thereafter, the Mayor and his chief staff became directly involved in the decision

making process, meeting with both CETA staff and members of the industry council. In this instance, the Mayor and his chief staff jumped into the fray because they perceived

this policy change as a threat to the city's authority over

the funding and direction of the Private Sector Initiative

Program. Consequently, after much haggling and bargaining, the Mayor and his supportors, including the CETA staff,

denied the industry council the independent staff.

Arising from the same situation, a public planning issue also became the focus of the Mayor's influence. As mentioned above, neither Mayor ever had a great interest in the

regular advisory council. Although the Mayors were required

to finally choose the members of the councils, in most

cases, the Mayors only authorized the names chosen by the CETA staff. The Mayors were relatively minor actors in the process.

However, with the introduction of the private industry council, the Mayors became more involved in the membership appointment process. One clear example of this emerged from a conflict that developed between the Mayor and the private industry council over the question of who had the final authority in the appointment of council members. 149

One of the council members responsible for suggesting names of potential members to the council had preempted the Mayor’s prerogative to authorize appointments and told prospective nominees that they had been officially selected. Irritated by this development, the Mayor and his chief staff stalled on the appointments for at least a month and a half before finally making their appointments. This delaying action coupled with CETA staff lectures to the council concerning the Mayor's supreme authority in this matter are clear indicators of the Mayor's use of sanctions to exercise his will in this process. As the Mayor interpreted the council's authority, the private industry council had the authority to suggest nominations, but it did not have the final authority for the appointments. The Mayor could either accept or reject council nominees or pick a totally independent slate of members.

The staff were also well aware of the Mayor's keener interest in this decision. Thus, they tried to anticipate the Mayor's views on these appointments more closely in their initial nominee suggestions to him. For the staff, the importance of the two councils was clearly distinct.

While the new employer council was viewed as having significant potential, the regular council was viewed, in the words of one planner, as a "joke!". They believed the Mayor had similar perceptions. 150

Higher accountability periodically erupted in the service deliverer policy. Originally, the CETA staff worked with approximately six subcontracted organizations to deliver the CETA services and programs. Throughout both administrations, the Mayors were uninvolved in the decisions to renew the contracts with many of the existing programs.

Yet, the staff operated on the basic assumption that unless the Mayor or the Mayor's chief staff stated otherwise, they were to continue with the same service deliverers. In other words, the staff's anticipatory decision making processes reflected the Mayor's influence on these decisions.

In spite of the staff's wish to drop some of the entrenched delivery agencies they automatically retained them simply because they believed the Mayor and his chief staff would block any move to cut service deliverers from the program.

The staff finally succeeded in eliminating one delivery agency but only through a long bargaining process with the

Mayor and with substantial political support from the regional office of the Labor Department. The Community

Action Agency had been mismanaging funds and failing to provide effective services for the CETA participants. Thus, the staff believed it was a good candidate for removal from the delivery system. However, fearing political retribution from some leaders in the black community, the

Mayor hesitated in taking such an action. Only after continued problems with the agency and meetings with both the staff 151 and representatives from the Labor Department/ the Mayor finally agreed to drop the Community Action Agency from the list of delivery agencies. Finally# program mix decisions were also areas of higher accountability. For the most part# the Mayors were uninterested in the details of the programs offered through CETA. The Mayors were little concerned whether the staff favored classroom training programs over work experience programs. However# the Mayors were acutely interested in insuring that the city received all the federal grants that were available. Consequently# unwilling to be found negligent in failing to apply for available funds# the staff applied for federal funding even if the programs were inappropriate for the area# unmanageable, and a surrender of staff control over decision making to the federal government. For example# even though the staff lacked sufficiently experienced personnel to operate an on-the-job training program# they nevertheless applied for and received funds to operate a program specifically for veterans. After failing to sign a single contract with an employer# the embarassed staff returned the funds to the Labor Department. At least they could show the Mayor that they tried. 152

Low Level of Accountability; Hole of Values and Pover Resources

The belief in the importance of delegating authority to lower ranking administrative figures within the city's bureaucracy is probably the most important ideological value that helps to explain the relatively low strength of staff accountability towards the Mayors. Operating on this principle# the Mayors refrained from involvement in normal policy making processes and from extensive use of explanatory forums to get information on issues and problems. Similarly# the Mayor's chief staff also simply assumed

t that the responsibility for running the program lay with the CETA director# who operated with considerable discre­ tionary power. He or she was to bring to the Mayor's attention only those issues deemed to be important enough for the Mayor's direct attention.

The staff also operated on this principle. They assumed the Mayor and his chief staff lacked concern about many of the major policies made in the program# including# in particular# the target occupation# the target group# and the public planning system policies. Waving his arm in the direction of teh Mayor's Office# the chief planner commented, "I don't know if anyone is really up there!"

Consequently# CETA staff were unsurprised at the relative inattention they received from the Mayors and their chief staffs. Hence, they rarely worried about the Mayors' reactions on many policy issues. 153

The Mayors' perceptions that the program was primarily a federally financed program also led them to pay less attention to it than to other programs over which they believed they had more control. According to close advisors# neither Mayor believed they wielded much discretionary power over the program. Each assumed that the program had to be operated within strict boundaries set by federal regulations.

Therefore# as long as the staff operated within those regulations, the Mayors were relatively satisfied.

Creative innovation was not a high priority.

The first Mayor's fiscal conservatism also led him and his administration to ignore the program. He was primarily interested in shoring up the city's budget# by maintaining or reducing city services and keeping city taxes low. He was responsible for cutting city services# initiating a hiring freeze on city employees# and gen­ erally, reducing the role of the city government in the expansion of governmental programs. This fiscal conser­ vatism helped to prevent the staff from operating a badly needed on-the-job training program. Given their meager staff resources# the staff needed to hire more people to operate such a program. However# the Mayor's freeze on hiring rule this out# and# in effect# rule out the program as well. 154

Occasions for Higher Accountability; Role of Values and Power Resources Ideological and idiosyncratic values also played important roles in shaping the periodic spurts in account­ ability. The first Mayor's fiscal conservatism led him to circumvent federal law when he used the public service employment funds to secure a balanced budget instead of expanding the aggregate level of public employment as intended by the federal legislation.

In addition, the Mayor's political electoral ambitions also help to explain his purpose in scalping the CETA program of its public service employment funds. At the time, the Mayor was aiming for senatorial and gubernatorial offices. If he could tout success at keeping taxes low as Mayor, his electoral prospects might brighten. Thus, by funneling the public service employment funds into the city's regular budget, the Mayor was in effect serving both his political and economic goals as well as his personal goals.

Similarly, the second Mayor's electoral desires and his views on th role of local government in the economy also help explain his occasional interest in the program.

The second Mayor's political ideology might be characterized best as corporate liberalism. His administration was replete with words and actions which indicated his view that local government should be quite active in social welfare policy but with strong input from the corporate sector. For example, early in his administration, the

Mayor initiated a study commission composed of corporate executives to study governmental management processes. Its goal was to recommend improvements in the management of local government. More specifically, the commissionhs purposes were "to improve use of tax dollars in managing essential city government services" and "to promote cooperation between leaders in business and government".

In addition, the Mayor was also involved in the launching of a government and business coordinated effort to revital­ ize the downtown area of the city. Towards this end, the city administered a low interest loan program for businesses interested in locating and expanding within the city's jurisdiction.

Given this orientation, the Mayor's interest in CETA perked up when federal policy shifted more forcefully towards a private sector orientation. Clearly, the Mayor began to view CETA as another component of his economic develop­ ment plans which were aimed at strengthening the ties between government and business. Through CETA and especially through the Private Sector Initiative Program, the city could strengthen those ties by offering businesses governmental subsidies for the training of labor. One of the Mayor's chief staff also revealed this corporate liberal perspective in his comments concerning the major functions of the Mayor's Office. In his view, the

Mayor’s Office was responsible for keeping crime down and political and labor conflict to a minimum. By way of explanation, he said: "We want to provide a good climate for businesses.11 He then went on to discuss the emphasis being placed on keeping existing businesses and attracting new businesses into the city. In this context, he pointed out the work of the city's economic development department.

As alluded to earlier, that department was involved in a low interest, revolving loan program designed to aid businesses in acquiring enough capital to begin their enterprise or to expand their production in the city. The Mayor's ideological views towards the location of local authority over federally funded programs also play a part in explaining his surges of interest in CETA. Without question, in both arguments with the industry council, regarding membership appointment powers and an independent staff, the Mayor acted in part to retain and protect the city government1s domination in these policy areas. In the Mayor's view, the industry council would have infringed on the city's authority if the city had allowed it to have an independent staff and final authority in membership appointments. 157

Interestingly, the Mayor and the CETA staff perceived

the new industry council as both a potential boon and a

potential threat. It could become a boon if it built

firmer ties with business and generated a better climate

for businesses in the city and greater employment oppor­ tunities. Yet, it could become a threat to the city's authority if it attempted to act independently of the

Mayor's policy plans. It seemed that both of these

perceptions attracted the Mayor's greater interest in

the program.

Choptank County; Local Accountability Context

The organizational relationship in the Choptank

County program was different from the other sites.

In this site, the county government subcontracted the

administrative responsibilities to the local Community

Action Agency. Thus, as Figure 2 illustrates, the major actors involved in the interaction between political officials and staff include the three members of the

Board of Chosen Freeholders, three members of its own bureaucratic staff, and the Community Action Agency staff,

including the Executive Director, the Director, and

several chief staff, particularly the chief planner. Technically, accountability was supposed to be strongest between the Executive Director and the Board.

The CETA staff from the Community Action Agency were supposed to be accountable primarily to the Executive Director. 158

Board of Chosen Freeholders Administrative County Staff

Community Action Agency

Executive Director i Employment and Training Coordinator Chief Staff 37 Private Industry Employment and Training Council Advisory Council

Key: Appointment Authority — Technical Accountability Relationship------^

Figure 11

Administrative Structure of Choptank County1s CETA Program 159

Low Level of Accountability; Role of Explanatory Forums

We find our first indication of low staff account­ ability towards the Choptank County political officials in the role the explanatory forums played in the decision making process. For the most part, the Freeholders took little advantage of opportunities to learn about the local CETA program. Although they received comprehensive infor­ mation from the staff, they failed to scrutinize that infor­ mation very closely. With respect to the staff's provision of written explanations, the pattern in this prime sponsorship was similar to that found in the other prime sponsorships. The staff provided comprehensive statements, as demanded in Labor Department formats, and answered the occassional written requests from either Freeholders or their chief staff. However, according to both CETA staff and the

Freeholders' own staff, the Freeholders and staff rarely reviewed thoroughly the CETA documents. We can illustrate this pattern by describing briefly the ritual for signing the planning documents that evolved over time. Once the staff finished drafting the Annual Plan, one staff member hand carried the document over to the county office building, and gave it to the chairman of the Board of

Chosen Freeholders. The CETA staff member would then wait outside the office door, and, five minutes later, the two hundred and fifty page document would reemerge with 160 the chairman's signature on it. The chairman of the Board was not known for his speed reading. The accountability relationships also suffered from the absence of any formal/ regularly scheduled meetings between the CETA staff/ the Freeholders/ or thier chief staff. Moreover/ up until late in the fall of 1980/ the Freeholders and their staff attended the regular council meetings only infrequently. Informal meetings between CETA and county staff contributed little to effective communication about the program. The county staff met informally with the CETA staff primarily over politically sensitive but perpheral matters to the program. For example, in some cases, the

CETA staff would eliminate public service employment positions from a small town's aggregate number of positions if the participants were failing to show up for work. Mayors of the small towns would then complain about the loss of these positions to the county staff.

In turn, the county staff would then hold an informal meeting with the CETA staff to get the positions reinstated. Yet, beyond this type of exchange, the county staff rarely explored the complexities of the overall program.

The Executive Director of the community Action Agency met informally with the chairman of the Board of Chosen

Freeholders on a regular basis once or twice each month. 161

This might have developed into a constructive forum for a healthy exchange of information between the county and the agency. However, instead, the Executive Director used these meetings as mechanisms to diffuse the Free­ holder's concerns and prevent Freeholder interference in the programs. Both the Executive Director and the chairman of the Board were veterans of the local political milieu, at times antagonists, at other times allies. As such, both actors perceived themselves as having certain political "turf" to protect and control. The Executive Director saw himself as a "community advocate" and a powerful politician, with inflated visions of political influence in the federal government. His ego was clearly involved in his belief that he controlled the CETA agency operation. Consequently, he used these sessions to thwart potential threats to the agency's control of CETA and alleviate any fears of corruption or mismanagement in the program.

Yet, the Executive Director was poorly informed about 5 the program. Although he attempted to bask in the glamour of authority over such a large program, he left most of the substantive planning and administrative decisions to the coordinator and the planning staff. They made the significant decisions for the program.

If the coordinator and the chief planner were the chief decision makers, what then of their communication with 162 the political officials? The record is dismal. During the three years of administering the program, the coordinator had had one five minute conversation with the chairman of the Board of Chosen Freeholders.

Possibly as a consequence of the absence of good communication, the chairman of the Board appeared ignorant of important elements of the program. This was revealed during my interview with him. During the interview, the Freeholder complained that the federal government should change the eligibility requirements of the program so that non-economically disadvantaged people would be permitted to become involved in the program. The problem with his complaint was that, at that time, the regulations were flexible in this regard and allowed other than economically disadvantaged people into the program.

The program operators within the Community Action Agency had simply decided to focus their efforts primarily on the economically disadvantaged. They viewed the program as a poverty program and aimed its resources at aiding the hard core poverty population. Later, with the 1978

CETA reauthorization legislation, the federal government did what the Freeholder had thought they had already done - tighten up on the regulations, restricting services to the economically disadvantaged. Clearly, the Freeholder was confused over the eligibility requirements issue. This is a good example of how a political official's lack of 163 information and knowledge left him impotent in a policy area which he would have like to have been and could have been influential.

Low Level of Accountablitv: The Freeholders' Influence in Decision Making In the Choptank County prime sponsorship# the normal relationship of low accountability and the occasions for higher accountability break up nicely into fairly clear and distinct periods. The normal relationship of low account­ ability began with original decision made by the county Freeholders to subcontract completely the entire admin­ istration of the CETA program to the Community Action

Agency. With the exception of some county pressure placed on the staff during the emergency public service employment program, this state of very low accountability continued until late 1980 with the initiation of Title VII. Urged on by an ambitious county staff, the Freeholders saw an opportunity to absorb some of the authority they had delegated away. We will deal first with the normal relationship of low accountability and its manifestations and then proceed to the two periods of higher accountability.

During the majority of the period under examination, neither the Freeholders nor their chief staff had signif­ icant influence on any of the major planning decisions.

In particular, for the target group, target occupation, program mix, and service deliverer policies, neither the 164

Freeholders nor their staff were involved in the meetings in which these policies were worked out nor were they

consulted in any significant way about these policies. With regard to the CETA organizational policies# the

Freeholders were involved only in the decision to subcontract the program to the Community Action Agency. Beyond that decision# they played no role in shaping the

internal organizational structure of the agency or in personnel policy# i.e.# hiring and firing staff. Finally# the Freeholder role in the public planning system policy

was similarly weak. They simply ratified staff suggested

appointments to the regular advisory council. The anticipatory decision making indicator reveals

an equally weak role for the Freeholders. In general#

the staff seldom worried about the Freeholders' reactions

to staff decisions.With regard to the target group# target occupation# program mix# and service deliverer policies# the staff took steps mainly to insure a solid "paper trail" of documents to justify their policy decisions. Concern over Freeholder reactions to policy decisions failed to surface even when the staff eliminated the Urban League and a private technical school as delivery agencies.

During the policy making process over the public planning system# the staff exhibited slightly higher concern over Freeholder reactions. In particular# the 165 staff tried to anticipate the Freeholders' views concerning representation on the planning council. They were quite sensitive to the Freeholders1 desire to avoid insulting any constituent groups by failing to invite them onto the council.

This was done primarily for the staff's own strategic reasons. The staff used the council as a political "buffer" to protect themselves from potentially damaging community and Freeholder criticisms of policy decisions. They used the council to legitimize their decisions. With the council's support of a controversial policy, the staff could more easily brace itself for criticisms and, most importantly, maintain their policy position. After all, if the Freeholders wished to overturn a policy decision, they would have to undermine not only the staff’s opinions but the council membership's as well. Although not impossible, this was politically risky.

With respect to organizational decisions, anticipation of Freeholder concerns was generally low. A minor exception to this generalization involved the staff's attempts to insure that all those hired were county residents.

Originally, this issue emerged as a small source of irri­ tation because the CETA coordinator had not been a county resident at the time of his hiring. When this fact emerged, the Freeholders expressed some concern over it and applied pressure on the staff to insure that future staff 166 be hired from the county's residents.

Occasions for Higher Accountability

Greater accountability emerged between the staff and Freeholders during the implementation of the Emergency Jobs and Unemployment Assistance Act of 1974 and the

Private Sector Initiative Program initiated in October/ 1978. With respect to the public service employment program, this increase in accountability manifested itself primarily through the staff anticipatory decision making process. Because of the program's potential for nepotism and political patronage, the staff were careful about their choices of the special projects which were the primary employment mechanisms in the legislation. Because of the large number of jobs that the program brought to the area, the staff were aware that the political officials would have been very sensitive about criticism of patronage and misuse of the funds. However, their wariness of political official reactions to project choices failed to prompt staff into rejection of many projects. According to the staff, out of two hundred funded projects, only two or three were significantly affected by staff fear of political official reactions to the programs. For example, the staff rejected a gay rights counseling project in part due to the political flack that the agency might have received from the Freeholders. In addition, the staff 167 gave less money to a community cultural ressurection project because of the competition with another project that had county support. To avoid potential political official criticism, staff spread the funds to cover both programs.

Yet, staff were most concerned with political official reactions to their decision to reduce the amount of time that a person could stay on a public service employment job. The staff had decided to cut the time back from eighteen to thirteen months. The staff were afraid that the local town mayors and councils within the county would react negatively, call the county, and pressure from the county would ensue. The staff attempted to anticipate the reactions of not only the county officials but also the local mayors in the area. However, again, this fore­ casting activity failed to change the staff's policy positions but rather guided them to consider the possible counter actions they could take in response to negative reactions from the community and the political officials. In response to criticism, the staff planned to give new positions to all those towns that lost positions because of the time cut back. To be sure, county officials occasionally pressed the staff for special favors such as the placement of certain people in public service employment jobs. To keep the county from interfering further in the program, the staff author­ ized a few of these requests. Yet, major patronage traffic 168

was not the pattern. The greater accountability that coincided with the beginning of the implementation of the Private Sector

Incentive Program was reflected primarily in the public planning system and the organizational decision areas.

In both areas, the political officials and their chief staff became actively involved in the decision making process dealing with those issues.

With respect to the public planning system, the Freeholders appointed three county officials to the regular advisory council. The Freeholders made this decision without consulting the CETA staff. Moreover, these county officials, once appointed to the council, placed themselves on the Program Development subcommittee. At the time, this was significant because this committee was influential in determining the special public service,employment projects that would be funded. Both of these actions were sig­ nificant departures from the preceding pattern.

Similarly, the political officials played a more aggressive role in the appointments to the industry council.

Straying from previous practice, the Freeholders and their chief staffmade the appointments without input from the CETA staff.

The Freeholders’ attempt to wrest control of Title VII from the CETA staff sent the staff a more ominous signal of the political officials' displeasure with the CETA staff. 169

When the federal government originally introduced Title VII, the CETA staff intended to integrate it into the rest of

the employment and training system. However, the political officials and their staff wanted the county to regain some

direct control over the program. Although this effort failed, it was simply a first barrage of several that would

probably take place in the county's efforts to find ways of eventually bringing the entire program under direct

county administration. The Freeholders and their staff also threatened to withdraw the CETA contract from the

Community Action Agency. Although, the county did not

act on this threat during this period under study, it had an unsettling effect on staff. Some staff quit and others

were anxiously looking around for alternative employment in case the county made good on its threats. The county's press for greater accountability also

manifested itself in the explanatory forums. As already

noted, one clear step in this direction involved the

Freeholders' appointment of three of their own staff

to the regular advisory council. The county's staff

attended regularly and were vocal in their presence.

According to the CETA staff, these officials were asking more challenging questions than had been the pattern before. Moreover, another structural and procedural change

coincided with these changes. Following the regular council meetings, the Freeholders' chief staff began to 170 have briefing sessions with the Freeholders if the chief staff thought some important information had been revealed at the council meetings. If these meetings continued, greater accountability was in the offing.

Low Level of Accountability: Role of Values and Other Power Resources The low level of accountability can be attributed to a combination of ideological factors and an imbalance in the availability of other power resources that favored the staff. The Freeholders' fear of bureaucratic mis­ management and fraud and the consquences on electoral success was one of the factors that appeared to allow low accountability. At the beginning of the program, the Freeholders viewed the program as a political liability and therefore, wanted to keep it at arm's length. Although they changed their perception later, initially and through most of the period under observation, this was a strong factor in keeping the political officials from intervening in decision making. The staff's ideological commitment to serve the economically disadvantaged also tended to reduce account­ ability. They believed that the Freeholders and their staff were not committed to the same goals and would use the program to serve more politically advantageous groups within the county, i.e., those people who vote more often.

Consequently, the CETA staff attempted to protect their discretionary power by maintaining a low profile and determining political official participation in policy 171 discretionary power by maintaining a low profile and determining political official participation in policy making. The staff's expertise and reputation for effective programs were critical factors in originally establishing the program with the Community Action Agency. The staff was also able to use these attributes to maintain their discretionary power. Originally/the political officials chose the agency to administer CETA because the county lacked the administrative infrastructure to do so.

In contrast/ the Community Action Agency had experience in administering community programs and a reputation for running efficient and effective programs in other community service areas. Thus, initially, the Freeholders were comfortable with subcontracting the entire program out to the Community Action Agency. Ironically, the staff wielded these same resources to defend its control over Title VII. Given the staff's expertise and strong reputation, the county was hard pressed to justify a change.

Up to the introduction of the Private Sector Initiative Program, the Community Action Agency had administered an excellent CETA program, and had thus further enhanced its own reputation. Moreover, the county had yet to develop an infrastructure to absorb the program.

The staff,'s organizational efficiency and high national reputation helped the staff garner coalitional 172 support from the Labor Department at certain important junctions. Thus, in effect, they were able to tap another resource for the protection of the staff's discretionary power. At a high point in the controversy over the administration of the Private Sector Initiative Program, the county's staff called the Labor Department and inquired about the procedure to end the subcontract with the

Community Action Agency. In response, the regional office organized a tri-partite meeting at which they advocated the position of the community action agency.

Towards that end, they persuaded the Freeholders that a change would be ill-advised, primarily because the county had neither the administrative infrustructure nor the staff expertise to replace the efficiency of the Community

Action Agency. This r. incident ^provides a goo$;. example ' of how various factors can merge to produce a victory for a staff's fight to preserve discretionary jurisdiction.

The Freeholders approached the issue of organizational control with conflicting perceptions. On the one harid, they had been persuaded by their chief staff that they should be more ambitious and try to absorb the program into the county's administrative structure. However, on the other hand, they still had nagging doubts about the county's ability to build an efficient staff, and the possible liabilities tied with that absorption. Moreover, 173

given the nationally acclaimed performance record of the Community Action Agency, grounds for withdrawing the contract were weak and the Freeholders still believed that the agency

was doing a good job. Therefore, when the Labor Department weighed in on the agency's side with its objections to the transfer, the county's push forabsorption crumbled and the program remained in the hands of the Community Action Agency.

Occasions for Higher Accountability; Role of Values and Other Power Resources The Freeholders were able to obtain higher accountability

primarily through exerting their authority over the program. In the use of their authority, they were operating on the

basis of certain ideological and idiosyncratic values.

In the light of these factors, we examine some of the

major incidents to demonstrate this explanation.

Political gain was a major motivating factor in the Freeholders' attempt to take control of the Private Sector

Initiative Program. Contrary to the chairman's original expectations, the CETA program had not become a political

nightmare for his old nemisis, the Executive Director of the community Action Agency. Instead, the program was

bringing him respect and accolades for operating one of the most efficient and honest programs in the country.

Consequently, the chairman of the Board began to perceive

the program as a growing opportunity to gain electoral 174 mileage to shore up his own personal political fortunes and future. He wanted credit for a successful program.

As the chairman commented: I'm not entirely happy with the way the CETA program has been run. I'd like to see the program brought more into line with county government. I just think the county should get more credit for what CETA does. Part of the motivation was also wrapped up in the chairman's personal competition with and animosity towards the Executive Director of the Community Action Agency.

To dethrone him from his position in the limelight of the community would probably have given the chairman great satisfaction. The CETA Coordinator provided this insight.

As he commented, "This episode really evolved out of

[Freeholder] O'Dwyer's anger with [Executive Director] Mays. He just wanted to put Mays in his place."

Yet, somewhat loftier values were also part of the initiatives. The county officials also pressed for more accountability because of a dim but growing realization of the potential connection between CETA and economic development within the community. They were beginning to realize that economic prosperity may be aided through stronger connections between county government and business using CETA funds to tailor workers for needy businesses.

However, although the Freeholders commented about the need to focus more on the private sector linkages, J< he}' lacked the vision of economic development that had emerged in 175

the other three sites. The ideological outlook of this Freeholder was that of a small town/ political in-fighter

in contrast to the big city/ corporate liberal perspective of the Lake City and Acre City mayors and commissioners.

To explain the two other examples of higher account­ ability - the staff decision to reject the funding for a public service employment project and the decision to

apply for programmatic flanding for veterans - the motives of the CETA staff need to be explored. In both cases, the staff attempted to avoid the criticism of the political officials. Although these decisions in themselves were relatively unimportant to the life of the organization, the staff felt that with the growing animosity between the county and the community Action Agency, any actions resembling mismanagement would be used as ammunition to justify county absorption of the CETA program. As dis­ cussed before, in the case of the project rejection, the staff wanted to avoid possible criticism for projects that might be viewed in the public's eyes as irresponsible.

With respect to the staff's decision to apply for federal funding of a veterans: employment and training program, the staff simply wanted to avoid the Freeholders' criticism that an opportunity to bring money into the county had been lost by skipping an application for the funds. Consequently, even though the staff believed in their best judgement that the program would not succeed primarily because of the low 176 number of veterans in the area, the staff applied for the funds. Unfortunately, in the staff's view, they also received them. In sum, the accountability relationship in this site was significantly weaker than the relationships in the other three sites. Much of the absence of accountability stemmed from the imbalance in power resources that the staff had at its disposal and the ideological commitments of the staff. Technically, although the political officials had the authority to withdraw the program from the Community Action Agency, their own views of the efficiency of the program coupled with a number of other political factors edged out the will and commitment to go forward with an absorption of the program. Staff confidence in their own expertise and their fierce commitment to serve the economically disadvantaged also reinforced their successful attempts to protect their discretionary decision making power. Consequently, althought the Freeholders and their staff increased their scrutiny of staff explanations and decisions, they were unsuccessful at increasing their influence over policy making to any marked degree. The staff continued to be only weakly accountable to the Board of Chosen Freeholders. 177

Lake Cityi Local Accountability Context

In the Lake City prime sponsor, the configuration of

the actors involved in the relationship between political officials and CETA staff was more complex than those in

the other sites due to the two different political contexts within which the city's CETA program operated during the years under examination. The first context involved a

consortium including two county governments along with the city. As Figure 3 indicates# all three political

jurisdictions had representation on a consortium executive board, which was composed of six officials, two from each of the jurisdictions. Of these officials, three were elected, and three were chief staff from the respective

jurisdictions. Thus, during the first phase of the CETA program, the CETA staff, which was made up of the city's staff, were technically accountable to three sets of political official and their chief staffs. This situation remained intact until the fall of 1979 when all three government became disenchanted with the consortium and dismantled it. With the collapse of the consortium, the city placed the CETA staff within the Office of Management and Budget for a brief time. The more lasting arrangement involved the more complex structure illustrated in Figure 3, under the time period 1979 to 1980. Under this structure, the old CETA staff, minus the director, still reported primarily 178 1974-1978

C o u n ty County City Commission ^.""jjjCity Manager's Office aX XL Consortiura Employment and Training A ssistant to E x e c u tiv e Advisory Council the City Manager B o a rd ^ !/b T E a l ------CETA D i r e c t o r & T ----- CETA S t a f f

1979-1980 _L C i t y CommissionCity Manager’s Office

— t\i/ l ...... Mayor's Council Employment and Training Assistant: to on Economic Advisory Council Jthe City Manager Development r

l i k ______Private Industry C o u n c il Ti City Liason J . y National Alliance of Business CETA D i r e c t o r

C ham ber - o f CETA S t a f f C om m erce,

Key: Appointment A uthority——^ Technical Accountability ______Relationship -

F ig u r e 12

Administrative Structure of Lake C ity's CETA Program 179

to the Assistant to the City Manager for Research and Development (henceforth known as the "Assistant to

the City Manager"). However, as I will discuss in more detail below, the city shifted programmatic responsibilities of the old

CETA staff to a reorganized chapter of the National

Alliance of Business, which was intended to be monitored and held accountable to several organizations, including

the city, the chamber of commerce, and the private industry

council. The industry council was made a subcommittee

of the Mayor's Council on Economic Development and the National Alliance of Business chapter was made the service

deliverer for several of the private sector related jobs

programs under CETA. It was under contract with the city.

Yet, it was also responsible to the industry council and

the chamber of commerce. In addition, the city hired a special liason staff assistant to monitor and coordinate

the efforts of both the newly organized National Alliance

of Business and the older CETA staff.

Low Level of Accountability; Role of Explanatory Forums

During the consortium period, the explanatory forums failed to enhance the level of accountability. To the

contrary, on many occasions, staffs used them to increase

their own decision making power and reduce that of the political officials. 180

Several problems contributed to the malfunction of the forums in preparing the Commissioners for a constructive and informed role in the decision making process. First, although no Commissioner complained about the amount of the materials that the staff supplied to them, they all complained about the lack of succinct executive summaries of the materials that were presented. Instead, the Com­ missioners received "reams of documents" which often overwhelmed them and, even more often, lay unread on their desks. As a result, these materials tended to inhibit the Commissioners from participating in the policy making process.

A second related problem was the ill-timed presentation of the written materials. Often the staffs allowed very little review time to the Commissioners before policy decisions had to be made. Instead, the staff presented the Commissioners with plans which needed their signatures on the evening of the very meeting at which policy decisions had to be discussed and finalized. The Director gained leverage for his favored policy proposals by warning the

Commissioners that federal money would be lost if they did not act expeditiously, i.e., in the direction that the

Director wanted to go. Clearly, this failed to facilitate thoughtful Commissioner participation in the process. Informal communications between the Board chairman and CETA staff took place almost daily. As one official 181 commented, "We probably never missed a day of communication with the staff. We spent a hell of a lot of time [on communication]”. However, again, he complained that much of the communication involved primarily discussions about the latest Labor Department regulations and new crises with the delivery agencies — not substantial planning decisions.

One major problem lay in the staff's presentation of their policy proposals and explanations. The staff often failed to give the political officials policy options from which to choose their own policy. Instead, the staff came to the Board meeting with only one policy option to follow and proceeded to lobby for its support. Thus, in the view of a number of political officials and their staff, the

CETA staff failed to inform and educate adequately the political officials about the program. Thus, as a consequence, the political officials were often unable to participate effectively. However, the blame for the failure of this particular explanatory forum should not be placed solely on the staff's shoulders. According to a number of respondents, some of the

Commissioners failed to give the program the attention it needed. Thus, unknowledgeable about CETA and employment and training programs in general, they would simply go along with the chairman's decisions and make few attempts to under­ stand the program more thoroughly. 182

This lack of interest also revealed itself in the generally low attendance rate of political officials or their staff at the regular advisory council meetings. Consequently, these meetings were also of little use in improving the communications between the CETA staff and the Commissioners. With the collapse of the consortium,the city admin­ istration placed its CETA program under the authority of the Office of Management and Budget, with particular auth­ ority vested in the Assistant to the City Manager. In addition, the city also instituted three structural changes which enhanced the accountability pressures on the

CETA staff. First, the city created a liason position to coordinate activities between the regular CETA staff and the new National Alliance of Business staff, and, most importantly, to keep city administrators and political . officials abreast of CETA developments. Second, the city was fully supportive of the industry council. Although this council was only in its embryonic stage during the time of this study, it was clearly a more vigorous account­ ability forum than the regular council had ever been. The Assistant to the City Manager and the liason were almost always present and active in pressing the staff for information and explanations at the council meetings. 183

Finally, by making the industry council a subcommittee of the Mayor's Council for Economic Development, the city established another communication link between the CETA staff and the political officials. Thus, increased scrutiny of staff decision making marked this post-consortium period in the Lake City CETA program.

Low Level of Accountabilitys Chief Political Officials' Influence in Decision Making

During the consortium period, political official influence was low in all of the planning policies with the exception of the staffing and organizational policies.

An examination of the influence indicators provides evidence to support this conclusion.

Formally, the political officials were present in a decision making forum that was to have been the main policy making forum, the Executive Consortium Board, involving the political offficials from all the involved political jurisdictions. However, these sessions performed more of a legitimation function than a formulation function.

In most cases, political officials merely ratified the main planning decisions outlined by the chief CETA staff.

Similarly, in the staff's own decision making forums, they seldom allowed their fears of political official reactions to policy decisions to affect the substance of those decisions. This was particularly the case with 184 regard to the target occupation/ target group/ and public planning system policies. Finally, the political officials seldom used any significant sanctions or incentives to apply pressure on the staff. For the most part, the political officials involved in the consortium were politically paralyzed.

The only major exception to this pattern was the final act of the county governments to pull themselves out of the consortium. This certainly sent a message to the staff but it was essentially a sign of exasperation and not of political power.

Occasions for Higher Accountability

The accountability relationship remained feeble until the consortium disintegrated and the new structure was set in place. The staff became more accountable primarily in the service deliverer, staffing and organizational, and public planning system policies. In each of these areas, we find evidence of increased accountability exercised through the Assistant to the City Manager.

The political officials' new attention to the delivery system and program mix decision areas coincided with the new federal initiative towards the private sector programs being launched under the Private Sector Initiative Program. Given the transitional nature of the CETA operation since the collapse of the consortium and the timely arrival of 185 the new Labor Department initiative, the chief political officials, with the Assistant to the City Manager spear­ heading the attack, decided to establish a separate organization to operate all private sector related programs.

This included any programs that attracted'private sector employers in the training of CETA participants. The Assistant to the City Manager fervently believed that this was the beginning of a general shift in federal policy towards all private sector related programs. This decision indicated that the staff had lost a significant amount of decision making power. They had had little input into the policy making process with regard to this major shift in program mix and delivery agency policy. Instead, wider forums, including the Mayor's

Council on Economic Development and the Private Industry

Council, were used to set the new policies. In effect, the Mayor, the Commissioners, some former Commissioners, and the Assistant to the City Manager had exercised a sanction against the staff and reduced the staff's sphere of discretionary decision making power. The CETA Director was clearly critical of the new policy developments. He doubted the ability of the on-the-job training program to provide participants with a correspondingly high quality of skill training that could be found in the classroom training programs. Moreover, 186 with respect to the job finding program/ called the "job factory"/ the Director's attitude was plain: "We are a training program, not a job finding program." The CETA staff also steadily lost power over the staffing and organizational policies for the CETA program.

During both the consortium period and afterwords, the CETA Director could hire new staff only with the approval of the Assitant to the City Manager, acting under the

City Manager's authority. And, throughout CETA’s history in Lake City, the Director succeeded in hiring more staff only after many overtures to the city.

Organizationally, the political officials increased their influence substantially shortly after the consortium debacle. In a decision that was made outside of the staff's control, the political officials, decided to integrate the program into the administration of the Office of Management and Budget. This was done in part because of the program's fiscal management problems. In this move, the political officials exercised a punishing sanction against the CETA staff which had the effect of reducing the staff's sphere of discretionary decision making power. A more explicit example of the same type of action involved the firing of the Director. As one Commissioner commented, "Max [the former Director] finally got his bell rung!" 187

Finally, the CETA staff also became more accountable

for policies concerning the public planning system. Once again, the political officials removed important decisions from the staff's sphere of decision making power. Agreed upon by both the Mayor's Council on

Economic Development and the industry council, the

industry council became a subcommittee to the Mayor's Council on Economic Development, with the periodic obligation to report its activities to the Mayor's council on how the employment and training activities were affecting the economic development plans of the city.

The political officials further invaded this policy area by creating the liason staff position and hiring a person to fill it without consulting the regular CETA staff. Once again, the political officials imposed a decision on the staff and forced them to accept a signif­ icant change in the organization of the employment and training system. Clearly, the staff had lost an additional chunk of policy making authority. Low Levels of Accountability: Role of Values and Other Power Resources The most plausible explanation for the lack of account­ ability during the consortium relies on a combination of four major factors: (1) the bureaucratic barriers of staff expertise; (2) the organizational structure within which the staff and the political officials operated; (3) coalitional 188

politics; and (4) the staff's own value commitments

operating within their ideologies.

In all the sites# the bureaucratic barrier of staff expertise posed some problem for accountability. However#

this was the only site in which these barriers functioned

with particular force in preventing the political officials

from exerting important influence over the programmatic decisions. In large part# they were unable to participate

effectively in decision making because they lacked three types of critical knowledge: (1) knowledge of how to

interpret the Labor Department's regulations; (2) knowledge about the mechanics of employment and training programs

and services; and (3) knowledge of the politics, both national and local# of employment and training programs.

According to respondents, this ignorance was quite evident.

As one chief staff member commented# "The political officials didn't understand anthing that was happening. They didn't

understand the key issues."

This basic lack of understanding reflected itself

in the political officials' inability to see through the

steady rain of changes in the Labor Department's regulations and focus on the central planning issues. Instead# political officials were effectively washed away from dealing with

the important issues. In the state of nature of CETA programs# staff constantly received changes in regulations controlling the programs under the various CETA titles. 189

Rather than attempting to give the political officials concise analyses of the new regulations, the staff simply communicated the changes to the political officials as they received them. As the Assistant to the City Manager commented:

The elected officials had great communications, but it was quantity, not quality. That was the crux of the problem that eventually dismembered the con­ sortium. Staff made the decision to throw them everything and so political officials were then bombarded with reams, upon reams, upon reams. And every time there was a new regulation from DOL, which occurred practically every two days or so, they got their nice little trusty copy hand carried. Here is another emergency, as if the whole world would crumble on every single change from DOL. In addition, managerial and possible audit problems constantly kept the political officials from getting to substantive planning issues. As the Assistant to the City Manager continued:

The agenda was always overwhelmed with the possible audit finding of the week. The crisis of the day had nothing to do with those substantive issues.

Thus, even though the political officials had wanted to be involved in the basic planning decisions, they became involved instead primarily in putting out fiscal fires and managingfrmini-crises. Moreover, the lack of understanding appeared to paralyze the political officials' ability to act. As one chief staff person commented: 190

Many of them didn't know what questions to ask. They didn’t understand whether the staff was making a good political or a good management decision. They became very, very frustrated with the process. In contrast, the staff was able to use its knowledge to seize control over the planning decisions. One way in which they used their political knowledge to achieve control was to engineer effective coalitional pressure and direct it at the political officials. At strategic moments, the staff riveted together a formidable coalitional structure to defend its positions. This structure included the Labor

Department, some of the local delivery agencies, and r=i:- national representatives of some of those delivery agencies. The timing of the coalitional pressure was determined in part by the third important factor, the staff's own set of values and beliefs. A strong belief in their own professional expertise and knowledge about employment and training programs was an important factor in explaining the staff's hostility towards outside influence, particularly from the political officials whom they considered as neophytes to employment and training programs. Consequently, they felt justified in making decisions and attempting to dissuade the political officials from changing the substance of their decisions simply because they felt they knew best what to do with the programs. This belief tended to re­ inforce the predisposition to keep outside hands off the system. As one respondent quipped, "The Director treated the thing as a special district." 191

The staff also believed in certain types of programs which tended to make them resistant to change from their patterns. The second Director was convinced that the struc­ tured format of classroom training programs provided a much higher quality of training than the training obtained in most on-the-job training programs. He was simply convinced that the regular classroom programs provided more rigorous and systematic development of skills. In his view, employers, by necessity, were too busy with their own daily problems to tend to the development of a part­ icipant's skills. Thus, in his view, the on-the-job training program would fail to provide sufficient job skills.

The staff also had a commitment towards serving the inner-city and primarily the black residents of the city who needed services. As pointed out by both staff and political officials, although blacks in the area made up approximately fifty to sixty percent of the population, they made up approximately eighty percent of the CETA participants.

Moreover, as some of the political officials from the rural counties complained, most of the intake and outreach sites for participants were in the inner city and, consquently, the percentage of rural county participants was also lower than the demographic distribution warranted. 192

Finally, values of personal loyalty to friends in the employment and training business and former employers also accounts for some of the staff's determination to keep control in their hands. Some of the chief staff had either worked for or with certain service deliverers prior to CETA's enactment. Consequently, once in positions of authority within the city administration, these former staffers or friends of certain delivery agencies tended to protect the project operators from severe reductions in funding. Thus, of the main delivery agencies that entered the system at the outset of CETA's implementation, none had been dropped up through the time of the consortium breakup. As one political official summed it up, "The staff had an absolute historical bias."

Several examples should help illustrate how the power resources and ideological factors worked together to prevent effective accountability. The clearest example involved the service deliverer policy. In one instance, a few county commissioners asked whether it was prudent to refund two of the on-line delivery agencies, given their poor records. Managerial problems had developed to such an extent that performance was poor and the possibility of fraud loomed on the horizon. Consequently, these political officials queried the staff as to whether these agencies had a preemptive role in the system or whether they could be easily dropped from the program. By most accounts, 193 the regulations on this matter were ambiguous and open for

interpretation. However# in response to the political officials' requests for information and education on this issue# the staff told them that the regulations gave certain delivery agencies a preemptive role. Therefore, the staff argued that it would be difficult to drop them and unwise to do so at that time. Naturally, the service deliverers whose programs were on the block lobbied both the staff# who were sympathetic# and all of the political officials.

In addition, the national offices of some of the local service deliverers were also notified and they began to apply pressure to the Labor Department. The coup de grace was then delivered on cue by the Department of Labor.

In effect# the Labor Department reinforced the staff's interpretation of the regulations by demanding that the political officials prove to the Department that these delivery agencies should be defunded. Faced with disagreeable pressures from all sides# the political officials capitu­ lated and dropped their objections.

In a sense# the political officials were caught in

a "catch-22" situation. While they were ultimately

responsible for the performance of the programs and for the CETA funds# they were, in effect# being told by both

their own staff and the Labor Department that they should

be very cautious about trying to defund programs, even

when the programs were being poorly run. Because of their 194

relative ignorance about the politics and the regulations, they were unable to effectively press their case. As one

staff member commented, "The Board could not read in be­ tween the lines. All the others could." The lack of knowledge of CETA regulations and basic

politics also surfaced as an important factor in decision making during the meetings at which the basic plans were being examined. As mentioned before, staff often presented plans for signatures on the very night of the examination

rather than giving the political officials some lag time to review the plans. On these occasions, staff used the threat that if the political officials failed to authorize the plans that evening, the consortium would lose the money for which the plan was being submitted. By knowledgeable accounts, the Labor Department's "deadlines" were amazingly fluid. However, ignorant of the politics in this process, many of the political officials allowed themselves to be buffaloed into decisions which the staff wanted legitimated.

Although most respondents agreed that the staff had purposely used their superior knowledge to dominate the policy making process, we should include an additional explanation for the staff's mismanagement of the political officials. The CETA staff may simply have misunderstood the way in which a staff can integrate political officials into the decision making process. Since the important staff members came from previous employment and training 195 delivery agencies/ their training was mainly in the operation of these programs. Importantly, they lacked experience

in the administration of public programs which were supposed to be directly accountable to elected political officials. Consequently, as the Assistant to the City Manager observed,

"They [the staff] couldn't distinguish between what the role of the political officials was in establishing policy and what was their own."

Furthermore, the staff lacked an understanding as to how to educate the officials about the system, or, worse, that education was even necessary. As an end result, both through plan and political official default, the staff ended up making all of the important policy decisions. As this staff assistant commented:

You can either usurp the legislative role because you have the power to do so because you have the information? or throw everything at them, and then blame things on them when things go wrong, not knowing that they don't have the capacity to address the issues! A similar coalition between the staff and the Labor Department gathered over the issue of the organizational relationships between the staff and the city's administration. As mentioned earlier, with the collapse of the consortium, the city administration attempted to increase its over­ sight of CETA operations by forcing a closer link between the CETA staff and the Office of Management and Budget.

Sharing office space was one mechanism used to accomplish 196

this oversight. In response, with the CETA staff's

support, the Labor Department applied constant pressure

on the city to allow the CETA staff to have its own offices.

Finally, the city administration capitulated. As one chief staff member complained:

DOL went into a tirade about the integration of the CETA staff with OMB because they say 0MB has myopic views about staffing and won't properly staff anything. Finally, the staffing issue also became the focus of

another coalitional effort between the CETA staff and the

Labor Department against the political officials. However,

in this case, the political officials,through the efforts

of the Assistant to the City Manager, won out. Both the

Labor Department and the local CETA staff had relied

on the alleged lack of staffing as their stock answer to malfunctions in the employment and training system. The process involved the local staff presenting this argument

to the political officials at the consortium board meetings and the Labor Department sending periodic letters to the political officials citing problems in the system and emphasizing that, in their view, the lack of proper staffing was a major source of these problems. In addition, on

several occasions, they requested that the political officials prove to them that they had enough staffing. As the Assistant to the City Manager summed it up, "Staff simply got their dear friends in DOL to say that the system was understaffed." 197

Occasions for Higher Accountability; Role of Values and Other Power Resources

Eventually, all of the political officials retaliated against staff and used their authority to override the wishes of the CETA staff. The most important of these actions included the breakup of the consortium, the city's decision to reorganize the program, and the shaping of the character of that reorganization towards the private sector. In explaining each of these occasions for higher account­ ability, I emphasize the role of the values of the political officials that guided their use of authority over the programmatic decisions.

The decision to dismantle the consortium stemmed primarily from the political officials' concern for their electoral and political futures. The precarious nature of their control within the consortium struck the political officials' most important value - their electoral and political survival. As pointed out before, the program had auditing problems. The political officials became increasingly concerned about liability for mismanaged funds. If funds were lost, who would pick up the tab? The city? The county jurisdictions? CETA staff? In addition, if the system was exposed as involving scandal and mismanagement, what would this do to all of their political futures? As one chief assistant commented: 198

They would toss their hands up and say to me, 'Bob, the only thing I fear is (1) we are talking about millions of dollars and (2) the likelihood of corruption is very great, and my name is on it. I don't understand what is going on and I don't believe I have control. If anything goes wrong, I'm going to be blamed but I don't know anything.'

Consequently, these fears and perceptions of financial and political dangers prompted them to use their authority

and withdraw their political jurisdictions from the consortium.

Once the city was out of the consortium, the issues

of staffing and staff organization became priority items for accountability and political official influence.

From the start of the new system, the city's political

officials wanted to avoid the lack of accountability that

had developed within the consortium. Consequently,

the political officials appointed the city liason position and created the linkage between the Mayor's Council on

Economic Development and the Private Industry Council.

Finally, to complete our explanation, we need to examine the role played by the officials' corporate

liberal ideology. In both words and actions, the political

officials and their chief staff indicated clearly their

strong desires for an active, coordinated, governmental

and corporate effort to rejuvenate the city's economy, and

to use the CETA program in that effort. In particular, the

Assistant to the City Manager and the chairman of the 199

Private Industry Council emphasized the importance of using the new private sector initiative as the catalyst for changing the shape of the local employment and training program to conform more directly with private sector business needs. In addition# they saw the remodeled program as aiding in the revival of the city's rickety economy. The Private

Industry Council's basic goals# as written in its bylaws# provide clear evidence for the prevalence of this thought.

They were:

To establish a program which supports Lake City's economic development strategies. To enable Lake City's businesses to capitalize on all available federal tax benefits as a way to encourage employment of hard core unemployed. Other actions also provide evidence of the importance of these motivating values. The political officials chose the National Alliance of Business to be the sole delivery agency for the Private Sector Initiative Program. In addition# they managed to make it responsible to the

Chamber of Commerce as well as the city. And, finally# the officials endorsed the clear policy shift towards more on-the-job training and employer conducted training programs, and away from the conventional classroom training programs. All of these actions indicate a strong desire to engage the business sector directly in shaping and guiding governmentally funded employment and training programs. 200

In summary/ perceptions of threat and opportunity

motivated political officials to press for greater CETA

staff accountability. Fear of personal financial and

electoral problems prompted political officials to focus

more closely on CETA policy making. Economic difficulties

within the city prompted further emphasis on CETA when the political officials began to perceive the program as one

additional means of dealing with their economic woes. The sum effect with respect to staff accountability was increased pressure on staff and a reduction of the

staff's sphere of discretionary decision making power.

The Briar Consortium! Local Accountability Context

The major actors involved in the Briar Consortium

CETA program included nine County Commissioners/ three

from each of three rural counties in the consortium/

an Executive director, and several senior planners admin­

istering the CETA program. Formally/ as Figure 4 indicates/ the staff communicated with the political officials principally through the Consortium Executive Board. Less

important but occasionally useful forums included the three advisory councils and, by the fall of 1979/ the

Private Industry Council. 1975—Fall. 1979

Consortium Executive B o a rd TT------fExecutivej--- Director ^ , Ozz. ' | CETA staff |

1979-1980

C o u n ty jf C o u n ty

Private Industry zC o u n c il

Key: Appointment Authority Technical Accountability Relationship ------______

F ig u r e 13

Administrative structure of B riar's CETA Program 202

Low Level of Accountabilityt Role of Explanatory Forums In this prime sponsorship/ the low level of staff accountability emerged primarily in the low level of political official influence over major CETA policies.

In this regard/ this site fit the pattern of the other sites.

Yet, in some respects/ the explanatory forums were used more effectively in providing political officials with information about and justifications for the staff’s policies than in any of the other prime sponsors. According to all sources/ the staff kept the Commissioners well informed. The staff placed particular emphasis on fore­ warning Commissioners about the possible negative or controversial consequences that might develop as a result of staff decisions. Instead of confusing the Commissioners with undigested and unanalyzed Labor Department documents/ the staff took pains to present clear summaries of plans and decisions along with the basic planning documents.

The staff was very conscious of maintaining the strong trust of the Commissioners.

Similarly/ oral communications through the Consortium

Executive Board meetings and especially through the informal staff contact appeared to enhance the quality of infor­ mation and explanations that the staff supplied to the

Commissioners. The staff maximized the use of the informal

"old boy" network for both better communication of staff 203

intentions to the political officials and better "intelligence" for the CETA agency. Soon after the Executive Director

had moved to town, he hired a retired County Commissioner as a staff member. The former Commissioner knew the area

well and got along with the Commissioners who were then in office. As time wore on, he became an increasingly valuable resource because of his knowledge and experience in the region.

Yet, despite the relatively healthy communications

network, the intensity of the Commissioners1 scrutiny of

staff policies was low. In general, the part-time Comm­

issioners were satisfied with the staff summaries of plans

and usually failed to delve more deeply into the justifi­

cations for various elements of the program.

Thus, the staff probably scores better than the other

three staffs in supplying information and explanations

to their respective political officials . However, the political officials score about the same or lower than the other political officials in their intensity of concentration on the program.

Low Level of Accountability: County Commissioner Influence in Decision Making

In general, over the entire period under examination, the County Commissioners failed to exercise significant influence on the major policy decisions. This was especially true for the target group, target occupation. program mix, and organizational issues. In these policies the staff had virtually complete autonomy from political official interference. This wide range of discretionary power was in part established in the negotiations between the

Executive Director and the Commissioners at the beginning of the program's implementation. From the outset, the Executive Director made it clear to the Commissioners that he would accept the job only if he had complete jurisdiction over most of the policy decisions, espeically the staffing and internal organizational issues of the

CETA program. During the intervening years, the Commissioners generally respected this original understanding. Thus, as a consequence, these Commissioners fulfilled the familiar function of dutifully signing the necessary planning documents to be sent to the Labor Department without a significant degree of cross-examination. In other words, they played little role in actively shaping policy.

With regard to forecasting the Commissioners' reactions to staff policies, the staff's planning sessions resembled other staff sessions. Although the staff engaged in attempts to forecast Commissioner reactions to certain decisions and issues, this forecasting affected only the staff's strategy of achieving staff goals. The staff never changed a policy decision as a result of anticipating a negative response from Commissioners. 205

However/ unlike some of the other staffs/ this staff appeared to be kore cautious about the possible consequences of policy decisions on political officials and other actors as well. As the Executive Director described it/ anticipatory decision making was a "general modality" for j the staff. According to him/ for each major decision/ the staff attempted to anticipate the reactions of both political officials and thenpublic. As the Executive

Directive elaborated:j 1 We don't run with any anonymity whatsoever. We run in the public's eye every day, and that figures into what goes on here. Each time we move out, we test the parameters to the extent we can really ground the programs in the community. Finally, we could find little evidence to indicate that political officials used either sanctions or incentives to pressure the staff into policies desired by the Comm- ! issioners. In sum, for most of the period, the Commissioners remained outside of the decision making process for the j vast majority of the decisionsVthat 'were:'.made.

! Occasions for Higher Accountability

Yet, with that said, we must also conclude that, on occasion, the Commissioners also had their day. In at least a few jiotable instances, the Commissioners did play a prominent role in policy making.

The Commissioners played a pivotal role in a crucial round of the policy making process dealing with the policy 206 towards service deliverers and the delivery system structure.

When the Executive Director was first hired, he faced an employment and training system involving fourteen program operators, many of which, in his view, performed inefficiently and were therefore expendable. The Executive Director wanted to centralize operations and build a system that would present comprehensive services in a one stop operation.

To do this, he needed to cut drastically the number of service deliverers. The Executive Director proceeded to discontinue twelve of the fourteen program operators.

However, before he delivered the axe to these agencies, he met with the Commissioners, anticipating their concerns over the political repercussions of these decisions and asked for their input. To be sure, the Executive Director was also concerned about the program's public image and his own discretionary power in this decision. As he commented: I asked them, 'What groups would I have to include no matter what? What groups could actually block this development?' Anyone else who didn't have a club could then be included or excluded by choice.

He then took their advice and kept two of the original fourteen deliverers. The Commissioners also pressed for a greater role in policy making with regard to the structure of the public planning system. In most prime sponsors, regardless of the size or density of the population, one advisory council was usually established to serve the entire prime sponsorship.

However, in the Briar Consortium, even though the entire population totaled approximately one hundred thousand

(in contrast to the one million residents residing in the

Choptank County prime sponsorship), the political officials demanded three separate councils, one for each of the political jurisdictions. Although the Executive Director could have challenged this effort, he believed that the rural con­ stituencies would be more receptive to the CETA program if this variation were accepted by the local CETA staff and the Department of Labor. Consequently, although he would have preferred for the staff's sake that only one council be set up, he joined with the Commissioners in successful negotiations with the Labor Department for the different structure. The Commissioners' demands for the three councils stemmed from fears of the centralization of power.

Commissioners from the smaller counties worried that with only one council the major town within the larger and more populous county would dominate the policy making process. This centralization would “symbolize what these people don't believe in. They want local control.'1, as the Executive

Director commented. 208

Low Level of Accountability; Role of Values and Other Power Resources Ideology/ personal values/ and other power resources

all combined to generate a low level of accountability

between staff and the political officials. The Commissioners believed in the delegation of responsibility to a "professional"

or to people with administrative expertise and knowledge

of employment and training programs. These were particularly

important criteria in the Commissioners' hiring process for the Executive Director. Consequently, when they

found the person with the necessary skills, they hired him and gave him the discretionary authority he requested.

Similar to the thinking of some political officials

in the other sites, the Commissioners also delegated

authority because they were fearful of the potential

political scandals that might develop with the CETA programs. As one Commissioner commented, "CETA is a potential political

grab bag." Therefore, rather than wrestling with the

potentially damaging decisions inherent in the program, the Commissioners gave the authority to a professional

bureaucrat who could absorb any of the political heat that might arise.

The Executive Director's personal desires for control

of the organization, his belief in his and his staff's

professional abilities to administer a good program, and his ideological views with regard to the role of CETA in 209 the community all tended to encourage the staff to protect their autonomy and discretionary decision making power. As already noted, in exchange for his services, the Executive Director extracted from the Commissioners the promise of political non-interference in the administrative and programmatic details of the programming. In his view, this was critical to the potential success of the program.

Asked what he would do if the political officials began to meddle in the program, the Executive Director smiled and quipped, "I'm ready to leave at any time. I rent my house.

I can pack up quickly with little trouble." On the basis of the interviews, it was clear that if he would have threatened to resign, that threat could have had a sig­ nificant impact on the Commissioners' thinking. The Commissioners respected the Executive Director's abilities and would have hated to lose him.

Ideologically, the Executive Director and his staff viewed the program primarily as a "poverty program" or a redistributive program for the economically disadvantaged.

As the Executive Director commented, "We are believers in CETA ourselves as a good economic and social policy."

In concrete terms, this meant providing the economically disadvantaged with the best training possible to move them into a competitive position in the primary.' llaborjnmarket. Towards this end, he worked to change the thrust of the programming from simply a work experience program, which 210 involved virtually no skill training# to on-the-job and classroom training programs# both of which gave partic­ ipants marketable skills. Since these staff values were not necessarily parallel with the Commissioners' values# the staff needed autonomy if they were going to fulfill those values. The staff’s relative autonomy was essential in those instances when staff and some Commissioners clashed over policy. In one case# the staff argued against approving a contract with a shoe making factory because# in their view# the factory program would fail to provide marketable skills for the CETA participants involved. They were suspicious about the high turnover rate at the factory and the likelihood that they would be subsidizing cheap labor for the shoe company, doing little for the CETA participants. In contrast, some of the Commissioners viewed the possibility as a way to get more business into the area.

In the end# the staff won out and the program failed to receive any funding.

Finally, the efficiency and effectiveness of the program tended to complement the ideological factors in protecting the staff's discretionary decision making power. During the course of CETA's implementation# the staff achieved an excellent performance record for the program and had avoided managerial problems that had struck other CETA programs. As a consquence# this reputation tended to 211 protect the autonomy of the CETA staff from heavy handed political official interference. Not wishing to disturb a system that appeared to be working well and working to the benefit of their own reputations as lithec'chief political officials in the area, the Commissioners remained in the background of the decision making process. The power resource of an effective staff functioned to protect the staff's autonomy in another way as well. As pointed out before, the staff engaged in a high level of forecasting public and political official reactions to staff policy initiatives. This was done to prepare staff strategies for insuring that the policies would be accepted by the public and the Commissioners. Part of the credit for the absence of controversies between the CETA staff and political officials must be attributed to this effective

"political" planning.

This experience contrasts 'sharply-in.fch'Vthe^experienees in the other three sites. In both Choptank County and

Lake City, relations with the political officials were rocky and often tense. And, although the relationships were better in the City of Acre, the staff in that site were insufficiently organized to engage in thorough forecasting of political official policy views. In the words of the chief planner in Acre, the staff had

g time mainly for "putting out fires and nothing more." 212

The Briar Consortium staff were more fully equipped to handle both the immediate crises and plan for the future.

Occasions for Higher Accountability! Role of Values and Other Power Resources In the few instances of higher accountability, the major explanatory factors involve primarilybfche.personaljor idiosyncratic and ideological values of both staff and

Commissioners. In those decisions where the staff moved in the direction of Commissioner desires, the movement was prompted by both staff and Commissioner perceptions of threat. For example, the Commissioners feared the political repercussions to their electoral futures if the staff had gone ahead with a rejection of all fourteen service deliverers and, more importantly, the single council planning structure. In this rural community, the local people wished to safeguard local control. If their Commissioners were unable to protect this interest by insuring the the tri-council arrangement, then the Commissioners could lose some of their legitimacy and credibility. Aware of this local perception, the Commissioners pressed the staff on this issue.

Similarly, the CETA staff recognized that they also faced legitimation problems. Given the rural public's generally conservative anti-governmental mentality, much of the public tended to view the CETA program as simply a wasteful, governmental "handout” program. If the staff 213 failed to win support from the community, they would be less able to aid the economically disadvantaged.

Without legitimacy, they would be blocked from access to the private sector businesses in the area. Clearly, without them, the CETA agency would be an insignificant force in aiding participants in the job market. Consequently, in both of these decisions, the staff believed it could best achieve its goals by building support in the community and going along with the Commissioners' proposals.

In summary, the Briar Consortium program fits well into the pattern of low staff accountability towards the chief political officials in the area. Although this staff took greater care than the other staffs to anticipate any political official dissatisfaction with the program, they nevertheless totally dominated the policy making process in almost every aspect of the program.

SUMMARY

In this chapter, we have demonstrated that the CETA staffs in the four prime sponsorships were only weakly accountable to the chief local political officials. The staffs were forced into higher levels of accountability only when the political officials and their chief aides plunged into the employment and training morass and exerted their authority over certain policy decisions. In general, 214 the political officials burst into the process most forcefully, if only sporadically, with regard to the staffing and organizational, service deliverer, and program mix policies. They paid relatively less attention to the target group, target occupation, and the public planning system policies. After documenting this pattern, we then proceeded to explore the factors that could be used to explain the patterns and variations in accountability that we found. As in

Chapter 2, we explained the relationships in terms of the staff and political official access to various power resources and their idiosyncratic and ideological values that gave direction to the use of those resources.

In general, we placed our greatest emphasis on the ideolog­ ical and idiosyncratic values of the political officials.

For the most part, political officials failed to get deeply involved because they perceived more to be lost than gained in an association with the program. The periods of higher accountability coincided with those occasions in which political officials perceived important personal or ideological values at stake. At these junctures, political officials mustered enough political resources to attain greater accountability. Authority over the payroll, hiring policy, service deliverer choice, program mix, among others, came to life when political officials truly wished to exert influence. 215

Yet, in spite of this emphasis, we did not deny the critical importance of the staff values and access to political resources. As was the case in staff relations with the Labor Department, staffs were jealous of their discretionary power in relation to the local political officials and in the ordinary course of decision making did not view the political officials as having a legitimate role to play in the basic decisions of the program. Thus, when the staffs wanted to resist the intervention of the political officials, they gathered together resources which they used to effectively block some of the intervention.

The important resources included specialized bureacuratic knowledge, coalitional support, organizational reputation, and programmatic efficiency. Evidence of the importance of these resources was provided most clearly in the experiences of three of the sites, Lake City, Choptank County, and the Briar Consortium. In the Choptank County and the

Briar Consortium cases, all four resources were instrumental in protecting and preserving staff discretionary decision making power. In the Briar Consortium, staff authority went unchallenged because of the staff1s programmatic record, expertise, and organizational efficiency. In the

Choptank County case, significant poltical official inroads were made but the staff was able to salvage the bulk of its dominant position on the basis of these resources. Labor Department support and political recognition of the staff's 216

superior abilities were critical factors in the final outcome. Finally, in Lake City, the staff used bureaucratic knowledge and coalitional resources to hang on to some of their power. Significantly, they lost the bulk of their authority ultimately because of their poor programmatic and organizational reputation. Unlike the case in

Choptank County, the political officials in Lake City were not faced with dismantling a nationally respected CETA program.

Thus, although the political officials ultimately had the political resources to demand close accountability, their ideological and personal values tended to channel them away from the program. Consequently, they conceded significant discretionary authority to CETA directors and their chief staffs. In turn, given their own ideological and personal values, the respective CETA staffs welcomed the discretionary authority and grew to covet their jurisdictional bureacuratic turf. When challenged, the staffs defended it, often viewing political official intervention as illegitimate and amateurish meddling. 217

NOTES

^A brief analysis of the organizational arrangement between the Mayor and the CETA staff may help to explain her sense of anxiety. This site is one of thfe three sites in which the chief political official was separated from the CETA staff by a layer of advisors. Much of the commun­ ication with the CETA staff was funneled through this layer of staff. Thus, under this arrangement# the CETA director was often only indirectly in communication with the Mayor. Most of her interactions with the Mayor occurred through his chief staff. Consequently, while the dangers may not be inevitable, the political official may not have been receiving sufficient, unbiased information on problems about which he should have been aware. In their attempts to sift out problems and information which the Mayor did not wish to see, the Mayor's chief staff may have isolated him on certain issues.

2The original Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973 stated that: "...no funds received under this title will be used to hire any person to fill a job opening created by the action of an employer in laying off or terminating the employment of any regular employee not supported under this title in anticipation of filling the vacancy so created by hiring an employee to be supported under this title." In Public Law 93-203, 1973, Section 205(c)(8). 3 My use of the term corporate liberal ideology is meant to convey two primary values that these officials seemed to hold: (1) emphasis on active government to solve social and political problems? and (2) the belief that active government can best solve the problems by enlisting the aid and cooperation of corporations and private sector firms. 4 This tendency to avoid a disturbance of the ongoing contractual relationships between the city and service deliverers also extended to the local school district training program and the Catholic diocese training program. From the Mayor's point of view, the political controversy that would have arisen from defunding either of these organizations would not be worth the effort. Thus, given the perceived sensitivity of this issue, significant changes in agency selection were not within the decision making sphere of the staff but rather had to involve the Mayors. CHAPTER 4: LOCAL CETA AGENCY ACCOUNTABILITY TOWARDS LOCAL INTEREST SECTORS

INTRODUCTION

In the previous chapter# we focused on the CETA

staffs' relationships with the major governmental actors within the local employment and training policy systems,

the local chief political officials. In this chapter,

we complete our analysis of the local accountability

context by examining the staff relationships with five other important local actors, including the participant

groups, the press, the service deliverers, the private

sector, and organized labor. In this examination, we demonstrate the emergence of a number of significant

accountability patterns. As in the other two relationships,

the CETA staffs maintained considerable discretionary

decision making power and authority over most of the major planning decisions in these relationships. Thus, we provide additional evidence to support our suspicion that

bureaucrats can and do operate often with wide discretionary

power. In Chapter 5, we will discuss more fully the significance of these findings.

218 219

Yet, within this context, staff accountability

towards these five other actors fluctuated widely with regard to both the scope and strength of accountability. Overall, staffs were least accountable to the participant

groups and the press. In both of these relationships,

staffs supplied comprehensive explanations to both sectors.

Yet, the local presses and participant groups generally failed to scrutinize and cross-examination thoroughly

these explanations and failed to exert significant

influence over most planning decisions. In contrast, organized labor, service deliverers, and the private sector all demanded greater accountability from the staffs. In general, both organized labor and the relevant service deliverers scrutinized staff explanations more effectively than either the participant groups or the press# and exercised significant influence over a narrow range of planning decisions. Finally, although the private sector tightened its oversight activities only in the

latter period of the program, it generally exercised

considerable influence over a wide range of policies. More specifically, with regard to each actor's impact

on the major planning policies, we draw the following profiles. Participant groups focused most naturally on the target

group policy choices. For them, inclusion in the focus of the program was of primary importance. Yet, although 220

participant groups generally strengthened their impact on staff decision making over time, they continued to remain

on the periphery of the policy making system. As one might have expected, the press focused primarily

on questions of staff and delivery agency mismanagement and fraud. Thus, with some exceptions, the press failed to study closely or exercise important influence on the main planning decisions. In contrast, organized labor focused more sharply,

if narrowly, on the target occupation policy decisions.

Across all four sites, representatives of organized labor pressed for explanations and influenced target occupation

policies whenever they perceived that the potential tar- getted occupations for CETA participants might jeopardize

union labor or violate labor agreements with employers.

Yet, beyond this focus, organized labor generally remained aloof.

A less consistent pattern of staff accountability

emerged in the relationships with service deliverers.

In the City of Acre and Lake City, service deliverers secured relatively strong staff accountability for the service deliverer, program mix, and target occupation policy decisions. In contrast, service deliverers in Choptank County were less effective in obtaining staff accountability for these decisions,and in the Briar Con­ sortium, they were virtually powerless. 221

Finally/ the private sector generally obtained strong staff accountability for at least part of the target occupation, program mix, and service deliverer policy decisions. The strength of this accountability grew. It was nurtured by the federal government's policy movement away from the public service employment programs, and towards a sharp focus on private sector related programs, expressed clearly in the Private Sector Initiative Program of 1978. Under this initiative, the private sector entered the local policy making systems more forcefully, especially through the private industry councils. In part, as a consequence of these developments, the private sector also expanded its scope of accountability to include the public planning system policies and administrative issues as well.

We will proceed with the analysis in the following manner. First, as in the previous chapters, we provide an overview of the local accountability contexts. In this section, we are primarily interested in describing and assessing the effectiveness of the formal accountability structures established to accomodate the non-governmental actors in the four sites. With a general understanding of the context, we then examine each of the five relationships, beginning with the weakest and ending the chapter with the strongest relationship. Under each section, we first demonstrate the overiding complexion of the particular 222

relationship, providing some evidence from the four sites

to support the empirical claims. Second, we also develop a detailed explanation to

illuminate the conditions that produced the overall patterns.

We again apply the general theoretical strategy used in the previous chapters to explain the relationships. As before, we demonstrate that different combinations of both staff and outside actor ideological and idiosyncratic values, and access to power resources produced the various patterns of accountability. Finally, we draw a few prelim­ inary conclusions about the findings to prepare the way

for the more complete assessment that follows in Chapter 5.

OVERVIEW OF THE LOCAL, FORMAL ACCOUNTABILITY FORUMS

Within the local employment and training policy

systems, the major formal accountability forums included the employment and training advisory councils, the private industry councils, and their respective subcommittees.

In this section, we explore both the legislative intentions for the roles that these institutions were supposed to play and the actual roles they played in the four sites.

Under the original 1973 legislation, the federal government mandated the establishment of the employment and training advisory councils to represent the local public in the local employment and training systems. 223

To achieve this public representation, the federal government identified several general categories of groups to be represented on the councils, including members of the participant community; community based organizations; the Employment Service; education and training agencies; business; labor; and agriculture, where it was appropriate.'*'

Further, under this legislation, the federal govern­ ment gave the councils wide ranging duties and responsibilities.

As stated in the legislation:

It is the function of the council to submit recommendations regarding program plans and basic goals, policies, and procedures, to monitor and provide for objective evaluations of employment and training programs conducted in the prime sponsorship area, and to provide for continuing analyses of needs for employment, training,and related services in such area. To facilitate the fulfillment of these duties, the federal government also directed the prime sponsor to

"provide professional, technical, and clerical staff 3 to serve the council." These statements clearly indicate that the prime sponsors and the CETA staffs were to have been accountable to the coucils.

Yet, further statements identified the limited nature of the council's authority. While the councils were to make recommendations for policy making, "(a)ny final decision with respect to such recommendations shall 4 be made by the prime sponsor." Thus, the prime sponsors and the staffs operated within their legal authority when 224 they ignored the councils' strongest protests. Moreover, the prime sponsors also had authority over membership and 5 chairperson appointments.

With the passage of the 1978 reauthorization legis­ lation/ the federal government took several steps that reduced the prime sponsor's domination over the council's organizational structure. First, the federal government mandated the councils to meet at least five times each year.6 Under the authority of this directive, the councils now had a potential legal weapon which they could use in their efforts to secure meetings from unenthusiastic prime sponsors.

Second, although the federal government declined to remove the prime sponsor's appointment authority over the chairpersons for the councils, it explicitly demanded that the chairperson be a "public member" of the council.^ Legally, this meant that neither a political official nor a staff person could be the official chair­ person for the council. Potentially, this provided some safeguard against prime sponsor and staff domination of the agenda and the decision making process at the council meetings. Finally, the federal government further reduced the discretionary authority of the prime sponsor in its choice of representatives for the council. In addition to those 225 groups already specified in the earlier legislation, four other groups were specifically mandated for representation, including veterans, the handicapped, vocational educational 8 agencies,* and public assistance agencies.

Yet, none of these directives changed the advisory character of the councils. Although the prime sponsors and staffs had less legal control over the organizational structure of the councils, their discretionary authority over the decision making process remained unaffected. This was not the case with the introduction of the

Private Sector Initiative Program and the establishment of the accompanying private industry councils. Under Title

VII of the same 1978 legislation, the federal government gave decision making authority to the private industry councils, whose members were to include a majority of business representatives (at least fifty-one percent); minorities, community based organizations; organized labor; and g educational agencies. This decision making authority included the right to design, monitor, and administer employment and training programs as well as to veto prime sponsor and staff proposals under Title VII.

In addition, a legal door was left open for the introduc­ tion of the council's authority into other titles as well. 226

As the legislation stated:

Such council shall participate with the prime sponsor in the development and implemen­ tation of programs in this title and shall consult with the prime sponsor with respect to other programs under this Act. Furthermore, although the federal government gave the

prime sponsors the authority to appoint the membership

of the industry councils, it gave the councils the author­

ity to pick their own chairpersons and hire their own staffs if they so desired.

At this juncture in the development of the federal

government’s employment and training policy strategy,

the federal government was clearly angling to draw the

private sector into a much greater involvement in employment

and training policy. Thus, through the private sector initiative, it explicitly mandated a strong accountability

relationship between CETA staff and the private sector.

As we will explore more fully later, this entailed

significantly more independent authority for the industry

councils than was ever granted to the regular advisory councils. 227

Assessment of the Employment and Training Advisory Councils As Figures 14-21 indicate, all of the sites established

the required employment and training advisory councils and the private industry councils, and fulfilled the minimal criteria guiding the organizational structure of the

councils. For example, all of the sites provided for representation of the designated local public groups.

Regarding the industry councils, all sites also insured

that the business participation was at least fifty-one

percent of the membership.

However, in general, the regular advisory councils demanded only limited accountability from the staffs.

In the more effective sites, in Choptank County and the

Briar Consortium, the councils functioned primarily as good sounding boards to test staff initiated policy

proposals. In these cases, the councils gave advice and

raised probing questions that assisted staffs in working out difficulties with the programs. In the worst of cases, in both the City of Acre and Lake City, the councils

barely functioned as public bodies at all. Yet,

in none of the four sites were the councils important

decision making bodies. More specifically, as we assess the councils'

performance on the basis of the accountability indicators, we turn up further evidence of the limited nature of 228

C o u n ty Consortium Executive C o u n ty B o a rd

A d v is o ry C o u n c il

SC SC #1 E x e c u tiv e SC SC - D i r e c t o r

CETA S t a f f

KEY; A p p o in tm e n t A u t h o r i t y ------Formal Accountability ------^ Relationship Advisory Council Subcommittees: (1) SC#1: Target Group/Supportive Service Subcommittee (2) SC#2: Labor Market and Public Service Employment Policy S ubcomm i tt e e (3) SC#3: Program Design, M onitoring and Evaluation Subcommittee

F ig u r e 14

The B riar Consortium Local Public Accountability Structure (1975-1979) 229

C o u n ty C o u n ty C o u n ty

^ T r . A d v is o ry A d v is o r y A d v is o ry C o u n c il C o u n c il C o u n c il S >/ SC sc SC SC SC #2 #3 #3 #3

Consortium Executive B o a rd ______

E x e c u ti v e jffPi’b l i c D i r e c t o r nformatio: CETA S t a f f O f f i c e r >

\ I Private ^jJlndustry ^*1 C ouncil

SC j #4

KEY; Appointment Authority ^ Formal A ccountability Relationship Advisory Council Subcommittees: (1) SC#1: Target Group/Supportive Service Subcommittee (2) SC#2; Labor Market and Public Service Employment Policy Subcommittee (3) SC#3: Program Design, M onitoring and Evaluation Subcommittee Private Industry Council Subcommittees: (1) SC#4: Executive Committee (2) SC#5: Public Relations Committee (3) SC#6: Program Committee

F i g u r e 15

The B riar Consortium Local Accountability Structure (1979-19??) Mayor's Office \—

KEY: Appointment A uthority —— ----- Formal A ccountability ______v Relationship (No Subcommittees on council.)

F i g u r e 16

A c re C i t y Local Public Accountability Structure (1974-1977) 231

Mayor*s Office A

I CETA S ta f f " !

A d v is o ry P r i v a t e C o u n c il I n d u s t r y C o u n c il

SC [SC ISC sc SC #1 #4 #6

KEYi Appointment A uthority -— ------Formal Accountability ______^ Relationship ^ Private Industry Council Subcommittees: (1) SC#1: Executive Committee (2) SC#2; Services to Participants Committee (3) SC#3; Employment Generation Committee (4) SC#4; Contracts and Follow-Up Procedures C o m m ittee (5) SC#5: Training Committee (6) SC#6; Nominating Committee

F ig u r e 17

A cre C ity Local Public Accountability Structure (1978-19??) 232

C ounty"}—

C om m unity Action Agency CETA S t a f f

A d v is o r y C o u n c il

SC #3

KEY; Appointment A uthority ------Formal A ccountability Relationship - - ... -——-$> Advisory Council Subcommittees: (1) SC#1: Program Development Committee (2) SC#2: Program Assessment Committee (3) SC#3; Labor Market and Community Needs Analysis Committee

F ig u r e 18

Choptank County Local Public Accountability Structure (1974-1978) 233

C o u n ty

C om m unity Action Agency ^Public CETA S t a f f Information

\ ° £ £ n v A d v is o ry ♦ P r i v a t e C o u n c il I n d u s t r y C o u n c il

KEY; Appointment Authority ———— Formal Accountability Relationship ■■------Advisory Council Subcommittees: (See Figure V .) ♦Do not have inform ation on subcommittees.

Figure 19

Choptank County Local Public Accountability Structure (1978-19??) 234

City Commission 7 A L i V I C o u n t City Manager's _ . I C ounty"! O f f i c e

Consortium Executive ______B o a rd T

1 CETA S t a f f 1^-/- / \ t / A d v is o ry C o u n c il

KEY; Appointment A uthority ------Formal A ccountability Relationship Advisory Council Subcommittees: (1) SC#1; Planning Committee (2) SC#2; Program Evaluation Committee (3) 5C#3; Human Resources Committee (4) SC#4; Labor Market Analysis C o m m itte e

F ig u r e 20

L ake C i t y Local Public Accountability Structure (1974-1978) 235

Citv Commission 1"^ — Mayor's Council on 7 *~r A ------1------Economic Development / & - I A 7 City M anager's nr — I Office IV——Ucitv L ia s o n J I -rift i t t — N r / _____* 1 CETA S t a f f K L a k e C i t y P r i v a t e Alliance of I n d u s t r y / \ r B u s in e s s C o u n c il A d v is o r y C o u n c il J~1 SC sc #1 W2 Chamber of Com m erce

KEY; Appointment A uthority — ------•>>» Formal A ccountability Relationship — .... ■ ■■ ^ Private Industry Council Subcommittees: (1) SC#1: H ospitality Industry Committee (2) SC#2; Health Industry Committee ^3) SC#3; R etail Industry Committee

Figure 21

Lake City Local Public Accountability Structure (Beginning 1979) 236 staff accountability towards these councils. With respect to the provision of comprehensive information and explana­ tions about the program, three of the four staffs generally received high marks. In particular, council members in both the Choptank County and the Briar Consortium prime sponsorships applauded the respective CETA staff efforts to supply information and explanations in an organized fashion. In contrast, on many occasions, the Lake City staff were unresponsive towards their council. As noted in Chapter 3, staff would often rush through council meetings without divulging much important information or allowing ample time for questioning.

The intensity of council member scrutiny of staff explanations varied significantly among the four sites. Using the frequency of council meetings as one indirect measure of council scrutiny, we can sketch the following pattern among the sites. All of the staffs scheduled monthly meetings. However, the Briar Consortium and Choptank County staffs were much more consistent in honoring this schedule. In contrast, both the Lake City and the City of Acre staffs held their meetings on a more sporadic basis.

Council member attendance is another indirect measure of scrutiny. Again, when we assess the four sites on this measure, we can observe a similar pattern. Although all 237

staffs faced some problems in obtaining steady and healthy

attendance from the council memberships, again, the Briar Consortium and Choptank County staffs were significantly more successful in organizing well attended council meetings. In striking contrast, both the Lake City and the City of Acre staffs often faced abysmal turnouts.

For example, on several occasions, Lake City's regular council meetings involved five or six members out of a potential of forty-four members officially on the council roster. The subcommittee system reflected similar patterns. In the City of Acre, the staff and council members failed to develop any subcommittee structure. Consequently, the level of council member scrutiny was significantly

lower than in the Briar Consortium or Choptank County.

Without functioning subcommittees, the council members lacked important, small forums through which they could have explored in detail the many issues involved in the program. Similarly, although Lake City's staff and council had officially authorized four standing committees with eleven appointed members to each, they failed to spur the committees into significant action. The council members were erratic in their attendance. In part, as a conse­ quence, they did? not, scrutinize staff actions very closely. 238

In contrast, in both the Briar Consortium and Chop­ tank County, the staffs and council members organized functioning subcommittees that met on evenings other than those of the general council meetings. Through many of these committees, council members generated independent analyses of program successes.and failures and presented these to the full councils for comment. To be sure, in both sites, staffs worked overtime to guide the work of the subcommittees. Nevertheless, because of these functioning subcommittees, the council members scrutinized staff decisions more systematically and in more detail than the council members in either the Lake~Cityroriin-the City of Acre prime sponsorships.

Yet, although the Briar Consortium and Choptank

County councils functioned more effectively, neither these nor the other councils exercised significant influence over much policy. Moreover,:staffs'rareiy changed policy directions to avoid irate council reactions. In all cases, the staffs viewed the councils as either potential "political buffers" that could take the heat with the staff on controversial decisions or political barriers that needed to be surmounted. At their most formidable power, the councils simply pushed staffs to be more sophisticated in the preparation of their policy and programmatic justifications. 239

Assessment of the Private Industry Councils

The staffs were considerably more accountable to the private industry councils.* Although our observations are limited to the embryonic stage of the industry councils as local institutional actors, we could already see the significantly stronger accountability relationships developing between staffs and these councils. As of the fall of 1980, all of the councils had assumed their wider, mandated authority which thrust them beyond an advisory role role and into a policy making position. To be sure, the industry councils generally made decisions only within the confines of the Title VII programs and, thus, they avoided any additional substantial invasion of staff discretionary authority. Yet, as our analysis demonstrates, the establishment of these councils as local actors set the stage for future private sector expansion into staff decision making domains.

Through an examination of the accountability indicators, we can document the stronger staff accountability towards these councils. All staff provided information and explan­ ations to the industry councils that were either equally

In the analysis of the private industry councils, I was able to gain detailed knowledge on only three of the four sites. Thus, whenever the analysis focuses solely on the contributions of the business council structure to accountability, my case study excludes Choptank County. 240 or more comprehensive than that supplied to the regular I councils. More specifically, the industry councils regularly received reports on Title VII national and local programmatic decisions. In addition, staffs supplied them with information and reports on otheir programs as well, particularly when they related to t ie private sector. Moreover, in all sites, the staffs were quite responsive to specific informational demahds of individual

! council members. Industry council members also appeared to scrutinize

j more intensely staff explanations of programmatic decisions.

In addition to their relatively high attendance in the sites, these council members were, on the! whole, more vocal and active than many of the regular!council members.

This was particularly striking in Lake City and the City of Acre. Moreover, in general, the industry council members appeared to question staffs more intensely and probe for more detailed information.

Industry council member activity at the subcommittee level further dramatizes the more intense I scrutiny of the staffs. Again, we can see the contrast most vividly in

i the Lake City and the City of Acre programs. In contrast I to their moribund or non-existent subcommittees responsible to the regular advisory councils, the industry council subcommittees functioned in both sites to!dissectI the issues j into smaller components for more detailedjanalyses. Consequently, i 241

the councils appeared to scrutinze staff decision making more thoroughly than the regular advisory councils. The industry councils also influenced policy in

important respects. In particular, the Lake City industry council was most vigorous in influencing staff decision making. As explained in Chapter 3, chief political officials and urban bureaucrats removed much of the CETA staff's authority in private sector programming and placed it in the hands of a new, separate organization, the local

National Alliance of Business. The industry council was partly responsible for this policy decision. Thus, the council was involved in the service deliverer decision.

Moreover, the council became influential in all of the six planning policies. For example, contrary to the wishes of the CETA Director, the industry council threw its weight behind an on-the-job training program as the major programmatic campaign in Title VII for the Lake

City program. The council also badgered the staff into locating only the "desirable", i.e., the most employable, participants to interview for jobs. In addition, it also organized its subcommittees on the basis of potential occupational areas. Thus, the council also became more involved in the target occupation choices as well.

Finally, with the prodding of some of the city manager's staff, the industry council helped shape the council's position in the city's overall policy making 242

system. As Figure 21 indicates/ the industry council became a subcommittee of the Mayor's Council on Economic

Development. Although the industry councils were less

influential in the Briar Consortium and the City of Acre,

they also played much more important roles in policy making

than had the regular advisory councils.

In summary, the industry councils, by and large, were more successful in obtaining staff accountability

than the regular advisory councils. In all of the sites, staff and industry council members made important decisions at council meetings. In contrast, almost invariably, the staffs presented the regular councils with a fait accompli or with proposals only for discussion. Staffs would make the decisions at some later point in time.

Similarly, when we assess the staffs' anticipatory decision making processes,we find further evidence to substantiate this pattern. All of the staffs treated the industry councils with more discretion than the regular councils. Staffs perceived these councils as ports of entry into the private sector's domain. As a consequence, in recognition of the more powerful position of the bus­ iness community on the industry councils, the staffs tended to be more attentive towards anticipating how business people on the councils responded to staff positions and proposals. Moreover, given the legal 243 authority of the industry councils to make decisions, in contrast to the purely advisory role of the regular councils, the staffs were additionally more attuned to the industry councils.

In sum, even at their early stages of development, the industry councils had eclipsed the advisory councils as planning bodies in the local employment and training systems. As we proceed with our analysis of the staff relationships with the five non-governmental actors, we will see additional evidence fbrvthis“point.

LOCAL PUBLIC ACTORS: THE PARTICIPANT POPULATION

General Character of Accountability Relationship

Across the four sites, participant groups usually secured only weak and unfocused staff accountability. Participant groups exercised little influence over most major decisions and failed to employ the existing forums to gain thorough staff explanations of policy decisions.

In those cases in which accountability was stronger, the choice of target groups was usually the major focus both in the training and the public service employment programs.

Role of Explanatory Forums

In general, participants and participant groups had access to a number of formal and informal explanatory forums, including direct representation on the regular advisory 244

councils/ indirect representation on the private industry

councils/ and informal meetings with CETA staff and chief aides to the local political officials. With the passage

of the 1978 reauthorization legislation/ their repre­

sentation expanded on the regular advisory councils. The federal government mandated positions for veterans/

the handicapped/ and welfare recipients. However/ in spite of this access/ the intensity of

participant scrutiny was generally low. Participants

rarely examined staff plans and reports. Moreover/ their representatives attended meetings only sporadically.

As a consequence/ explanatory forums were generally an unimportant basis for participant influence on staff

decision making. For example, in the Briar Consortium, native American Indians were part of the participant

community. Records show that they attended one of

the early meetings at which lthey urged that the council

insure that the tribe in the area be served according to

its needs. Yet, beyond this initial vocal presence, they were an inconsistent force at most future meetings.

Service deliverers in Choptank County, Lake City, and the City of Acre were the only mild exceptions to this overall pattern. In each of these sites, the black communities obtained some organized representation and scrutiny through the local Urban Leagues and the local community action agencies. In each of these cases, 245 these service deliverers were present and active on the advisory councils. In addition to representing their own organizational interests, they also indirectly represented the interests of the black participants as well. Nothing comparable emerged in the Briar Consortium primarily because of the absence of subcontracted service deliverers in that site.

Participant Group Influence in Decision Making

The influence indicators reflect a similar pattern.

Participants and their representative groups seldom penetrated into the inner circles of staff decision making in any of the four sites. With the occasional exceptions of the more powerful service deliverers who outflanked the staffs by appealing directly to chief aides of political officials, most participant organizations were never present in important decision making forums.

Nor were the reactions of these groups important factors considered by the four staffs in their own decision making processes. Staffs seldom shaped their policy decisions to conform to expected reactions from some of the groups. For example, at one point in the development of their program, the Choptank County staff planned to provide some child support services for women interested in participating in the training program. During the interviews with staff members, they indicated clearly 246

that this choice had nothing to do with satisfying an organized force that might react negatively if the program

was absent from the list of services. Other staffs indicated similar decision making processes. Given the previous description, the absence of

participant group manipulation of either sanctions or

incentives is unsurprising. If they had had resources with which to exercise either sanctions or incentives,

they most likely would have been able to obtain a presence

in the decision making process and insure that staffs

anticipated their activities. However, this, by and large, was not the pattern.

Explanation of Accountability Towards Participant Groups; Role of Values and Power Resources

The participant groups1 lack of organizational strength and general ignorance of employment and training programs and CETA regulations are primarily responsible for the relatively weak staff accountability towards participant groups. Given that participant groups by definition were economically disadvantaged, they were generally politically underorganized. As one consequence, they were relatively unimportant to the reelection plans of the chief local political officials. Thus, without leverage on the chief political officials, these groups had less leverage on the CETA staffs who were sensitive to the political officials' political ambitions. 247

Coupling this lack of cohesive organization with a meager understanding of employment and training programs and CETA/ participants were unable to mount sustained pressure on staffs. Even as members of the advisory councils/ participant representatives were often silent and manipulable. Lack of knowledge of the programs appeared to be a part of the explanation of their quiescence. For example/ in both Lake City and the City of Acre/ representatives from various veterans organizations revealed overwhelming ignorance of the employment and training programs available for veterans in CETA. Moreover/ they exhibited this ignorance of the federal government's attention towards veterans during the implementation of the Help through Industry Retraining and Employment Program (HIRE II) of 1978. To the extent that staffs were accountable to partici­ pant groups/ this accountability was due to staff values and attitudes; some national participant group pressure on the federal government; and limited local organizational pressure. All staffs believed the CETA program was worth­ while and that it should be directed primarily at the economically disadvantaged. Consequently, they all felt obligated to be accessible and answerable to participant groups. More specifically, the staffs provided special services to participant groups, including women, the 248

handicapped, Spanish speaking people, etc., in part because

they believed those groups deserved the services.^

Participant group organization at the national level of government and the consequent imposition of federal authority on behalf of certain participant groups were

additional factors in inching up the level of staff accountability to some participant groups. We can find a

good example of this shift in power resources in the

legislation of 1978. Under this legislation, the federal government reabsorbed the authority for designating the target groups who were to receive services. In effect, the federal government thereby reduced the prime sponsors' breadth of discretionary decision making authority. To the extent the changes in federal policy were effective, specific recipient groups benefitted from the more explicit demands of the legislation. We demonstrated some of the effects of federal authority on this policy in Chapter 2. As we pointed out, in the original leg­ islation, the federal government requested that target groups be limited to the unemployed, the underemployed and the economically disadvantaged. The prime sponsor had 12 some lattitude for chdice within these limits. Through the 1978 legislation, the federal government restricted eligibility to persons who were economically disadvantaged and were either unemployed, underemployed, 13 or in school. Moreover, the federal government 249

specifically required staffs to insure that their services were distributed equitably among the eligible participant

population according to the demographic breakdown, including 14 sex, race, age, and ethnic group. In addition, the

prime sponsors were to provide specific services to

various elements within the population, such as people

with little English speaking capabilities, Vietnam era 15 veterans, the handicapped, and others. Although this

represented some change in the degree of attention staffs were supposed to pay to specific groups, the accountability level changed only marginally because of it. National

organizational pressures often failed to filter down to

the local level•

Finally, in three of the four sites, the black

community was able to exercise some indirect influence

over policy through entrenched and organized service

deliverers. The clearest cases of this phenomena

involved largely black dominated organizations such as local

Urban Leagues, run and operated by blacks who administered

the organizations with an eye towards serving the black community. As we will see later, these organizations exercised influence in part as long as they controlled certain resources that the staffs needed to operate the programs. 250

LOCAL PUBLIC ACTORS: THE PRESS16

General Character of the Accountability Relationship

The press was also unable to obtain strong staff accountability. In general, the press managed to get the staffs to be responsive on a wide range of issues. However, in almost all cases, this reponsiveness was short lived and shallow in nature. The press covered a variety of aspects of the program including general analyses of new programs, analyses of funds coming into the community, descriptions of individual participant success stories, and governmental mismanagement and fraud. For example, the press was always interested in the amounts of money that different programs brought into the community.

Thus, given the large scale of funding introduced by the public service employment programs, the press paid particular attention to this program. Out of this coverage, stories emerged on governmental mismanagement and abuse of federal public service employment dollars.

Yet, the press's coverage was seldom in depth and often distorted. All staffs agreed that the press simply misunderstood the program and, therefore, tended to distort what they covered, no matter whether the coverage was positive or negative. Most importantly, all staffs believed that the press functioned both intentionally and uninten­ tionally to distort the overall image of the CETA program. 251

In the staffs' views# because of the press# the public viewed the program as simply a "make-work" program. In relative terms# the press provided little coverage to the major thrust of the program - the training of people in marketable skills.

Role of Explanatory Forums In general, the press failed to take the best advantage of the available explanatory forums to insure strong staff accountability. In all four sites# the basic forums included informal and irregular meetings with chief staff; informal meetings with aides to the political officials; and press conferences with the local political officials. Through all of these forums# according to both CETA staffs and press reporters, the press had ready and easy access to 17 most information.

Yet, the press's scrutiny of information and staff explanations was spotty and shallow. Reporters admitted that most of the available written documents went unexamined simply because reporters lacked the time to examine them.

Meetings and discussions with staffs were irregular and superficial. Moreover# the press seldom attended either the regular advisory council or the private industry council meetings# even though the staffs usually supplied signifi­ cant amounts of information at these meetings. 252

Finally/ in many cases/ since reporters covering the program changed often/ the CETA staffs found themselves educating new reporters/ who were generally ignorant of the programs. As a result/ as one staffer from the Briar

Consortium commented, "We can give them better information than they know what to make use of."

The Press's Influence in Decision Makincr

In general, the press exercised only limited influence on staff decision making processes but little or no influence on substantive programmatic decisions. For example, all staffs protected themselves from press and public cri­ ticisms by developing sufficient documentation, known in the trade as "paper trails", to justify their decisions. Thus, if the press or other outside actors pressured staff memoers for justifications of policy, the staffs could respond with more than simple recollection of the process and the reasons for deciding on a certain policy. In this regard, the staffs were particularly sensitive to the press's allegations that staffscdperated.:without signifi­ cant public participation in the decision making process. To combat this criticism, all staffs used this "paper trail" strategy to show that they obtained public input. This, in effect, deflected the press's criticism.

Yet, the press generally failed to exert influence over substantive policy areas. The press influenced 253 substantive decisions only in the context of broader uncertainty about a specific decision. If the staff perceived that the press reflected a broader public consensus on an issue then it had an impact. However# if staffs perceived the press to be operating from a narrow constituent base, then they ignored its state­ ments .

We can see evidence of this influence in both the press's exercise of sanctions and in the staffs' anticipatory decision making processes. Critical editorials and articles were the primary sanctioning mechanisms. If the local newspapers wished to criticize the local CETA programs it attacked the program directly by focusing on an aspect of the local program; or indirectly by publishing articles that were critical of CETA on the national level. In both cases,, the paper hurt the public image of the local CETA program and damaged the program's legitimacy.

The press', influence also surfaced in the staffs' anticipatory decision making processes. All staffs perceived the press as an important link with the broader public, and, more importantly, as a molder of public opinion. Therefore, since the staffs needed public support for their efforts, they were sensitive to the press's ability to shape the public’s view of CETA, especially the political elite's view of CETA. Consequently, over 254

the course of the program's implementation, staffs attempted

to anticipate the press's reactions so as to avoid criticism and encourage commendation. A good example of staff

perceptions of the press's role as a molder of public

opinion is the following statement from a staff member of the Briar Consortium:

What the public does learn will be through the press. Most people don't have too much of an impression on CETA one way or another. If the press runs an article or series of articles saying this Consortium has screwed up, they can very definitely turn the public against the Consortium and every­ body would be on our back. An editorial may carry more weight among the people that count because the politicians, the professional people, the teachers, and the community leaders read the editorials. So, they do have the power to impose quite a sanction through the weight of public opinion.

As already noted, in both Choptank County and the Briar Consortium, the directors appointed staff liasons with the press to insure healthy communications between the agencies and the press. As one director commented, it is a "good thing to have understanding at the paper." These developments were clear signs of staff anticipation of press criticism and the need to be sufficiently prepared for it.

At one time or another, the press in all four sites printed stories and editorials about alleged mismanagement in either the local CETA agencies themselves or in associated delivery agencies. Some staffs managed these press attacks more effectively than others. For example, the Briar Consortium staff avoided serious damage to their credi­

bility through an effective anticipatory strategy. In one

instance, the Labor Department's Office of Inspector

General had charged the agency with the "improper expendi­ ture" of funds in the Title I program. In brief, this office

alleged that the local CETA agency violated regulations

by using Title I training funds for the purchase of equipment for Title II and Title VI public service employ­ ment programs. The staff insisted that no mismanagement had been involved and promptly brought the issue to the

attention of the advisory councils to clear the agency of any wrongdoing. In addition, the staff immediately

contacted the press, obtained an interview, and attempted to persuade the press that the allegations were untrue.

In sum, the staff were quick to recognize the potential danger involved in failing to anticipate the effect of hostile press reporting.

Explanation of Accountability Towards the Presst Role of Values and Power Resources

Both press organizational weaknesses and ignorance of CETA programs were major contributing factors to the weak accountability relationships between staffs and the press. In all of the sites, the major newspapers lacked a sufficient number of reporters to provide systematic and effective coverage of the CETA program. In most cases, the editors assigned only one reporter to the city hall beat. Under these circumstances, the one reporter was responsible for a host of stories, CETA stories comprising only a few of them. As a consequence, reporters provided unsystematic and sporadic coverage of CETA programs. They would catch the beginnings of certain dramatic events such as the passage of the public service employment program in 1974 but fail to cover important changes in ongoing training programs. All reporters and staffs agreed that if the papers had more personnel, they could have given more systematic coverage to the programs.

As two reporters from the Briar Consortium lamented, "There isn't any way we can keep up with the [CETA] rules and regulations. We have too many other agencies to follow."

The general lack of specialized knowledge of employment and training programs and CETA legislation and regulations also contributed to the weakness of the accountability relationships. In most cases, reporters had only super­ ficial knowledge of employment and training programs and

CETA legislation. As already noted, in some instances, reporters understood CETA only as a public service employment program. Under these circumstances, the press had some difficulty going beyond a superficial analysis.

One reporter in Lake City observed that "We [the reporters] have limited knowledge and therefore can't ask the right questions. As a consequence, this limits how articles 257

can be written." Echoing this sentiment, reporters in the Briar Consortium added these reflections:

We will get one or two page items but we don't know what they're saying. It's legaleze and fed- eraleze! We need to get them to translate. We have no specialist in the area.

To a certain extent, this press ignorance also allowed staffs some room to obscure decisions or activities

they might have wanted to keep hidden from the public.

However, ironically, it also functioned to push them into a stronger and more comprehensive relationship with the

press. Rather than face the flak that might erupt from

uninformed reporting, which CETA agencies could ill afford,

some staffs developed more systematic means of keeping

the press informed about CETA programs. As already

noted, both the Briar Consortium and the Choptank County staffs employed this strategy.

In these same sites, the staffs were also able to mobilize community power resources to reduce further the

strength of accountability with the press. In both sites,

the staffs attempted to minimize the harm done to their

public images by gaining statements of praise from their

respective councils. In the Briar Consortium case, the

advisory council passed a motion to invite the press

to one of the meetings to see the staff in action. The

council believed that the press would then be convinced that the program was being operated by competent personnel. 258

Yet, the Briar Consortium staff drew even further from their store of local political power to do combat with the local newspaper. Unlike the other staffs, the

Briar Consortium staff had solid support from the local

Commissioners. Thus, other factors being equal, the staff could count on Commissioner support.

Moreover, many of the Commissioners distrusted the major local newspaper, in part for traditional reasons: these Commissioners were Democrats and the paper's editors were Republicans. Consequently, given their confidence in the program and particularly in the Executive Director, and their suspicions of the paper, the Commissioners usually gave the CETA staff the benefit of the doubt in times of criticism. When the press criticized the program the Commissioners checked the story first with the Executive Director. If he denied the story's validity or dismissed it as unimportant, the Commissioners generally accepted his opinion and proceeded to help repair the damage done to the agency's public image.

In all four sites, at one time or another, staffs also manipulated the regional officies of the Labor

Department as another political resource to use against one or another local antagoinst. We demonstrated this pattern in Chapter 3. The Briar Consortium's staff succeeded in garnering political support from this office 259 to counter press criticism. For example, in the case of the alleged staff mismanagement of flands, one bureacuratic layer of the Labor Department overruled a lower layer, clearing the Consortium staff's record of any wrong doing in this case. While the "audit shop" claimed the violation was serious, the Director of the regional office, the bureaucrat with primary authority in the matter, dismissed it as "a minor problem". Moreover, in a public statement to the press, the Director went further and made the following glowing remarks about the local CETA agency:

In my judgement, the Briar Consortium is undoubtedly one of the best managed CETA programs in the country. I wish I had twenty- six Briar Consortiums. Staff perceptions of their superior professional expertise also contributed to the weak relationships with the press. All staffs viewed the reporters and the editors as generally uninformed - possibly well meaningamateurs.

In contrast, they viewed themselves as the experts.

Consequently, the staffs generally ignored an editorial *s : or an article'srsubstantive, policy cri- tieismiandaponder.edr only the political implications they might have for implementing the programs. As one director summed it up, "The press is a factor to be dealt with but not to be conformed to or to be aligned to."

Another value that contributed to the weak relationships was the general belief among the staffs that the program was 260 of significant worth. Thus, faced with critical editorials that lashed out at the inherent wastefulness of CETA programming/ the staffs turned a deaf ear to them.

Although they heartily acknowledged the fraud/ mismanagement/ and failure of some CETA programs/ they believed these phenomena were the results of poor or inexperienced manage­ ment and not the intrinsic deformities of the program itself. As one staff member of the Briar Consortium emphasized:

We are believers ourselves. If you believe in this as both an economic and a social policy/ then the driving force is the law, and you become a vehicle for implementing that policy.

Thus, staff professional values and political and economic commitments all functioned to shield them from harsh press commentary. We can best explain the limited accountability that emerged in these sites with reference to the role of the press as an opinion molder and to the values motivating the reporters and editors from the newspapers. As I have already indicated, in all of the sites, CETA staffs faced a credibility problem with the public. The public was always questioning the legitimacy of the CETA program.

In this context, CETA staffs became increasingly sensitive to those actors who had access to broad publics and could conceivably build or dismantle the foundations of legitimacy for CETA. Thus, staffs treated the press gingerly and 261

and increasingly provided them with growing amounts of information. As mentioned above, in two of the sites,

specific personnel and offices were established to deal

primarily with the press. Staffs wanted the press to be

better informed about the programs so that the program's image would improve. The art of public relations and

symbolic politics had come to local CETA agencies.

The self-perception of reporters also contributed to the limited level of accountability. Reporters saw

themselves and the press as the public's non-governmental,

institutional monitor of governmental activity. Con­ sequently, they generally believed that the CETA staffs

owed them some special consideration, time, and information. As one reporter remarked, "It is a long way before these

CETA programs are open to the public eye and we intend to insure that they are."

Finally, many of the editors and reporters were

ideological conservatives. As such, they doubted the program's value to the community. This was true even in Choptank

County and the Briar Consortium - both nationally noted as having excellent programs. As one columnist from the

Briar Daily News expressed his suspicions, "Privately, I have my own doubts about the entire CETA program,

Briar Consortium and otherwise." And, in the perception of one CETA staff member: 262

They [the local paper's editor] are anti- government. If a little scandal erupted in this agency. I'm sure they would love to ride it for all it was worth!

LOCAL PUBLIC ACTORS: ORGANIZED LABOR

General Character of the Accountability Relationships

Organized labor stands a notch higher on the account­ ability ranking than either participant groups or the press. In general, labor demanded and obtained strong staff accountability primarily with regard to the target occupational policy. Yet, for most of the other planning policies, labor demanded little from the staffs.

Usually, labor representatives remained aloof from the program and simply guarded their own perceived interests.

The general character note in this relatonship was one of mutual suspicion, wariness, and distrust.

Role of Explanatory Forums

Labor organizations obtained comprehensive information and explanations about programs from the CETA staffs.

They had access to all important formal and informal forums and generally used them well. Labor was repre­ sented on both the regular advisory councils and the industry councils. In addition, labor made use of informal meetings with CETA staffs, local political officials and their staffs, and Labor Department officials. In sum, 263 unlike most of the participant groups and the press, organized labor usually maximized use of the available forums for information.

However, labor representatives scrutinized only those issues and policies? that concerned their own perceived interests. In particular, they sharply questioned staffs concerning policies that appeared to place CETA partici­ pants in potential union jobs. For example, during an angry argument between CETA staff and labor representatives at a City of Acre advisory council meeting, labor repre­ sentatives attacked the staff's plans for Title VI public service employment projects. They were alarmed about the projects' potential role in creating competitive non­ union labor in various occupations, including painting, woodworking, carpentry, and the building trades in general.

Similarly, in a Briar Consortium council meeting, a labor representative more calmly but just as emphatically raised parallel arguments. He argued that the staff would be unable to justify the placement of CETA partici­ pants in industrial positions where union members remained out of work. Therefore, he strongly recommended that the staff deliberately avoid dealing with industries that had been experiencing serious unemployment problems. For him, CETA's goal should be to "help place people in jobs without displacing others." 264

Labor1s Influence in Decision Making The influence indicators provide additional evidence of labor's limited focus in the accountability relationships.

For most important decisions, labor representatives seldom participated in staff decision making forums. Similarly, labor did not often employ either sanctions or incentives to obtain a preferred position from the staffs. Yet, in all of the sites, labor's influence registered much higher in the staffs' anticipatory decision making processes. All staffs admitted that union reactions to important programmatic decisions were always part of the calculus in their decision making. This was particularly true with regard to the program mix and the target occupational policies. Since all four sites boasted relatively strong labor organizations, the staffs were afraid to antagonize them. To illustrate the staffs' wariness of labor's strength in these sites, we explore briefly a proposal that the

Briar Consortium staff wanted to implement and the stra­ tegy they used to avo’id union censure. The staff was preparing a special training program for high school drop outs. Under the provisions of the program, they were permitted to pay the participants approximately eight dollars an hour. However, the Executive Director believed that this would have infuriated the public and labor 265

because of the relatively high unemployment that plagued

the area. As he commented, "If you were to apply Davis- Bacon wages? to high school drop outs 16-18 years of age,

you would get blown out of the water!" Taking this potential

powder keg into consideration, the staff contracted with the AFL-CIO to provide the training for the program at

minimum wages for the participants. Thus, for the staff, it was the best of both worlds. They were able to get

the program started, satisfying a potential adversary in the process, and obtain good training from workers

in the trades. The Executive Director believed that this

choice was critical to the success of the program. As he observed, "If we had chosen an alternative route, we would not have been able to run a training program."

Explanation of Staff Accountability Towards Organized Labors Role of Values and Power Resources

The limited and protectionist character of the accountability relationships between staffs and labor organizations stemmed in part from labor's goals and its perceptions of CETA in relation to those goals. Labor was primarily interested in protecting union member jobs and the unions! organizational survival. Thus, union representatives acted to restrain decisions and policies that they perceived as threats to these goals. As already noted, labor representatives perceived CETA as generally 266 a threat to union interests, particularly in its effects on job opportunities for union members. Given this perception of CETA, labor leaders were often hostile to CETA. As one labor representative bellowed in an advisory council meeting:

The building trade has gotten nothing out of CETA. They did not push CETA in Congress. They were strictly against CETA.

Labor suspicions about the ultimate effect of the program grew with the passage of the Private Sector

Initiative Program of 1978. For many labor representatives, this program posed an even greater threat to union interests.

In an article assessing this program, one representative from the AFL-CIO made the following comment:

If President Carter is sincere about holding private profits to five percent this year (1978), how can he justify a disguised giveaway to private industry?

Organized labor as an important electoral constituency also played a role in the explanation of its constraining effect on staff decision making. In all four sites, labor unions were important to the electoral futures of the local political officials. Consequently, the local political officials were sensitive to union demands and avoided any unnecessary disagreements with organized labor. This attitude was invariably transmitted to the CETA staffs. In turn, staffs incorporated it into their dealing with the unions - if for no other reason than to avoid criticism from the local political officials. 267

Labor's access to high skilled and high waged job opportunities for CETA participants was another source of power that functioned to constrain staff actions and decisions. In those occupations in which collective bargaining agreements had been reached, labor had sig­ nificant power over access to jobs. Wishing to gain access to those occupations, CETA staffs remained sensitive to union concerns, hoping for, and in some cases obtaining, union aid in setting up job training programs in those areas.

Staff interest in their own organizational survival was an associated value that made the staffs more attentive to union demands. Employment and training planners and administrators always faced the chronic problem of few participant placements in career oriented, highly skilled occupations. Since many of these areas were unionized, access often required union consent and aid. Therefore, success of the program and the staff's organizational survival were in part dependent on labor's assistance.

Thus, in their own interest, staffs were willing to be more accountable to labor organizations if labor organi­ zations were willing to be more cooperative in return.

Finally, staff socio-economic values favoring more governmental aid to blue collar workers also opened staffs up to a potentially more accountable relationship to.labor. 268

One staff member summed up this similarity in outlook: by describing labor organizations as ultimately "kindred spirits"

and "natural allies". Consequently, most staffs would have \ been more accountable to organized labor if labor had taken

a greater interest. In sum, largely through labor's own inaction, the staffs were only narrowly accountable to labor. Given the

staffs1 ideological sympathies and their need for greater access to higher skilled occupations, they could have

been more responsive to labor. Yet, this was not the

pattern. Labor's potential influence went largely unfulfilled.

LOCAL PUBLIC ACTORS: SERVICE DELIVERERS

General Character of Accountability Relationships

As we shift our focus to the service deliverers in the local political systems, we see a significant strength­ ening in the accountability relationships in contrast to those we have just examined. Although the strength of the relationships varied among the sites over time, in most cases, the delivery agencies were consistently more formidable political actors in the local employment and training systems than most of the other actors.

More specifically, among these four sites, staff accountability to service deliverers followed three patterns. For the City of Acre and Lake City, staff accountability 269 was relatively strong and broad in scope during the earlier years of the program but ebbed in strength with the movement towards the focus on private sector programming. In contrast, in Choptank County and in the Briar Consortium, the accountbility relationships were significantly weaker and much more limited in scope throughout the history of the program. Yet, in all of the sites, certain service deliverers were able to sustain a steady, minimum level of accountability.

Service deliverers focused primarily on the service deliverer, program mix, and, to a lesser extent, the target occupation policies. Often, these policies were bunched together. For example, an agency may have invested a great amount of money, time, and staff in a classroom structured training operation aimed at placing graduates in secretarial and clerical jobs. Consequently, this agency might very well apply pressure on all three of these decisions simultaneously.

However, we should see this focus in the light of the overall change in the administrative structures at the local level inaugurated by CETA. Prior to CETA, service delivery agencies received their grants directly from governmental sources and were therefore relatively autonomous in their operations. In the previous contexts, each agency made its own decisions about programming. 270

CETA entailed the centralization of administrative authority, usually within the local or state governmental institutions.

Consequently, delivery agencies lost much of their autonomy with respect to the federal employment and training funds.

Thus, although the delivery agencies had lost administrative authority to the local governmental staffs,

they struggled to win back some of that autonomy. Functionally,

they still retained power in the control of training facilities and supportive services they offered that were

already in place. Yet, even in these areas, some of the

CETA staffs took over decision making authority as well. With some exceptions, this trend continued and grew

stronger with the emergence of the Private Sector

Initiative Program of 1978. In many cases, private sector involvement eroded more of the traditional service deliverer's decision making power. Before we explore the evidence supporting these claims and the explanation of the development of the relationships, we need to sketch the functions that staff and service deliverers shared in the administration of CETA programs and the specific administrative configurations that emerged

in each of the four sites. With these contexts outlined, we will then be in a better position to understand the nature of the accountability relatonships. 271

Basic Services Provided in the Local CETA System Through the activities of all the agencies involved

in the CETA program, four basic services were provided.

These included (1) outreach, intake, and orientation services; (2) assessment and referral services;

(3) occupational skills training services; and (4) job development, placement, and follow-up services. Through the outreach and intake services, agencies informed poor comunities about the program and invited potential enrollees to come to the intake centers and see whether or not they could qualify for one or more CETA programs.

During the orientation stage of the process, agency staffs discussed with potential participants the program's goals, the participant's rights and duties, and the services available to the participants.

Once a person qualified and decided to become involved in the program, the appropriate agency then assessed or evaluated the person’s work skills, talents, and specific handicaps that may have been preventing the person from getting a secure job. These handicaps were often referred to as "barriers to employment".

After the assessment process was finished, the assessment agency then referred individuals to the appropriate agencies equipped to help the individuals overcome their employment handicaps. Often, this meant 272

that the assessment agency would send individuals to a

different agency that would provide training in a marketable

occupation. Finally, the agencies attempted to fulfill the

program's primary mission: the placement of CETA parti­

cipants in training related, secure jobs. In this final

stage, agency staffs searched for potential job slots (job development) and matched those with participants

from the CETA programs. If the participants were acceptable to the employers and were hired, then the appropriate agency followed up on their progress on the job. As we will see, all of the prime.' sponsors provided

these services through various organizational configurations.

In general, however, the basic trend was towards greater consolidation of most of these services under one admin­ istrative roof. In most cases, the local government was expanding its own staff and resources to absorb the

services.

Local Accountability Context: City of Acre

Throughout the life of the CETA program in the City of Acre, the city's staff subcontracted most of the program to other agencies. While the CETA staff coordinated the efforts, other agencies provided the services to the client populations. Figure 9 illustrates the organizations involved in the system and their relationships with the city staff. The local community action agency originally

provided the outreach and intake services along with some

referral services in coordination with the Employment Service. The community action agency operated service

centers in each of the eight major poverty areas of the city.

From these centers, the community action agency staff sent

participants to the Goodwill Industries agency for orientation, assessment, and referral services. Following assessment,

the Goodwill staff referred participants to a training

program with one of a number of agencies, including

the local Opportunities Industrialization Center, Acre

Training Center, the Acre Board of Education's skill center, or one of a number of other public or private training

schools. Upon fulfillment of a training program, the

participants were then referred back to Goodwill Industries for placement and follow-up services.

Some significant change in the organizational

structure emerged during the development of the Private

Sector Initiative Program. An enlarged city staff absorbed

the outreach, intake, and initial referral services and the placement services. In addition, the city staff also assumed the responsibility for operating an on-the—job training program. As I shall argue later, these changes were significant because they increased the staff's decision making power and further reduced the service deliverers' influence over policy. 274

Community Action Agency: Board of Education (orientation, assessment Skill Center:(Classroom and referral)_____ skill training)

Employment CETA Staff Service: Administrative oversight, (referral) monitoring, placement, and follow-up. 1978: added outreach, intake, and OJT)

Goodwill Opportunities Acre City Industries: Industrialization Training Center: (orientation, Center: (classroom (classroom remedial assessment, and remedial and skill and skill training) referral)______training)

KEY; Ongoing Subcontract ------^ Terminated Subcontract ^

Figure 22

Acre Administrative structure For Service Delivery 275

Local Accountability Context; Lake City As Figure 10 illustrates/ the service delivery structure for Lake City was very similar to the City of Acre. Again, the central CETA staff were responsible primarily for administrative oversight, placement, and follow-up services. The Employment Service and the Lake City Manpower Center were responsible for outreach, adult intake, orientation, assessment, and referral to training programs. Agencies involved in providing various kinds of skill training included the local National Alliance of Business and the

Urban League (on-the-job training, job development, and placement); the local Opportunities Industrialization Center and Goodwill Industries; the local vocational skills center; and the Lake City Board of Education's training facilities.

With the emergence of the Private Sector Initiative

Program, nothing significant changed the operation of the main line training programs. However, the on-the-job training components and the private sector training programs were all placed under the authority of the local National

Alliance of Business. As I will argue later, in contrast to the growth in staff authority in the other sites, this reduced significantly the regular CETA staff's discretionary decision making power. 276

Comprehensive Manpower Center: Vocational Skills (Adult intake, orientation, Center: Classroom assessment, and referral) Skill Training)

N a tio n a l CETA S t a f f Alliance of (Administrative oversight, B u s in e s s : monitoring, placement, and {QJT) follow-up.) ______

{ l a t e r , V Opportunities Lake City \ Industrialization Alliance of \ Center: (classroom Business: \ remedial and skill {all private \ t r a i n i n g ) sector programming)

Employment Urban Board of Education S e r v ic e League Training Center: I (Some intake and (QJT) (Classroom skill training) referral; QJT)

KEY: Ongoing Subcontract Terminated Subcontract ------^

F ig u re 23

Lake C ity Administrative Structure For Service Delivery 277

Local Accountability Contexts Choptank County

As noted in Chapter 3, the Choptank County delivery

system differed significantly from the other local systems because of the county's decision to subcontract the entire

CETA program to the Choptank County Community Action Agency.

With this exception/ Choptank County's organizational structure assumeicid a similar : form to that of the Briar

Consortium's structure. In both cases/ the staffs attempted to centralize most of the necessary services under one agency. As Figure 11 illustrates# the Community Action Agency absorbed most of the operations of the services.

The major subcontracts for the remaining necessary services included the Choptank Community College and the Choptank

County Vocational Technical School for skill training services.

Early in the program# the staff subcontracted with the local

Urban League and a private corporation for the on-the-job training program. Yet, once the staff were sufficiently organized# they terminated these subcontracts and assumed responsibility for administering the program.

Local Accountability Context; The Briar Consortium

Finally# the Briar Consortium fits well with the structure of the Choptank County program. Although the staff were part of the county staff# they too absorbed all of the administrative and delivery responsibilities for the major services in the program. As Figure 12 indicates# 278

Community Action Agency CETA Staff (outreach, intake, assessment, orien­ tation, referral, placement, follow- up. and OJT) ______

Choptank County Urban League Community College (OJT) Choptank Vocational (classroom skill Technical School: t r a i n i n g ) (classroom skill t r a i n i n g ) ______

KEY: Ongoing Subcontract Terminated Subcontract »

Figure 24

Choptank County Administrative Structure For Service Delivery 279

AFL-CIO CETA S t a f f : (OJT) (outreach, intake, assessment, orien­ tation, referral, placement, follow- up. and OJT) ______

B riar Community Community Action Briar Vocational C o lle g e : A gency: Technical Institute (classroom skill (classroom skill (classroom skill t r a i n i n g ) ______t r a i n i n g ) t r a i n i n g )

KEY: Ongoing Subcontract ------^ Terminated Subcontract ------r>

F ig u re 25

The Briar Consortium Administrative structure For Service Delivery 280 the staff depended on other agencies primarily for the skill training resources, including the smaller community colleges, the local branch of the state university, and the vocational technical institute. The only other ongoing connections with other agencies for which funds were subcontracted, included the AFL-CIO local and the local Community Action

Agency. Initially, the staff were faced with the task of coordinating fourteen different service deliverers in the local system. The staff immediately cut twelve of the fourteen from the payroll and kept the AFL-CIO as a subcontractor for the on-the-job training program and the local Community Action Agency to run youth programs. Of these two, the staff maintained only the contract with the AFL-CIO.

Role of Explanatory Forums

In three of the four sites, all respondents indicated that staff supplied service deliverers with comprehensive descriptions and explanations of programmatic decisions or recommendations of the central staffs. In these sites, through one forum or another, service deliverers were able to obtain information on the programs.

Across all four sites, service deliverers followed closely the staff decisions that affected them directly.

In all cases, service deliverers used all of the available 281 forums to question staffs and to press their demands.

These forums included the advisory councils and especially the informal channels such as meetings with CETA staff, chief assistants to the political officials, the political officials themselves, and, on occasion, with representatives from the Labor Department.

With the development of the Private Sector Initiative

Program, service deliverers obtained more information from staffs and generally intensified their scrutiny of staff activities. Many service deliverers managed to increase their pressure on staffs in part because they secured membership positions on the private industry councils.

Thus, given the industry councils* greater authority and the staffs' greater attentiveness to the councils' demands, service deliverers on the councils increased their clout. Across three of the four sites, this was particularly true for the City of Acre Board of Education, the City of

Acre and Lake City Urban Leagues, the Lake City Manpower

Center, and the Briar Consortium's local vocational education school.

Service Deliverer Influence in Decision Making

In all four sites, service deliverers exercised significantly more influence on both the service deliverer and program mix decisions than most other local actors.

This pattern was particularly strong in both the City of 282

Acre and Lake City systems but less so in the Choptank County and the Briar Consortium systems. However/ as the decade progressed, service deliverers weakened in their abilities to influence local employment and training policies.

We find evidence for service deliverer influence most prominently displayed in the staff recollections of their own anticipatory decision making processes. The Lake City and City of Acre staff decision making processes illustrate this pattern best. In these two sites, the CETA staffs simply included the entrenched agencies as givens and as the center pieces of their respective employment and training systems. In effect, even if a service deliverer was per­ forming poorly, it could retain its contract without a major presence in the formal decision making forums. It was the potential political clout that certain agencies had with chief political officials that was critical to a service deliverer's staying power. If a service deliverer commanded that elusive resource, it had a good chance of maintaining its position. Thus, as one chief planner from the City of Acre commented, "These decisions [service deliverer and program mix] have been automatic". Echoing this sentiment, Lake City's chief CETA planner admitted that in spite of the program's poor performance record, the CETA staff "never wiped out a large agency. To a large extent, we are locked into the service deliverers." With the emergence of the Private Sector Initiative

Program, in effect, the federal government gave local CETA staffs and city administrators the opportunity to clip the wings of many of the entrenched service deliverers. Given the thrust of this legislation, staffs placed greater emphasis on nurturing direct relationships with the private sector for training programs instead of working through existing service deliverers. A clear shift in service deliverer strength resulted. Heretofore, service deliverers assumed that they could secure their contracts without significant difficulties. However, with the program's direction shifted towards the private sector, the staffs became less dependent on the service deliverers and began to apply greater pressure on service deliverers for high performance. For example, in the City of Acre, the staff began the practice of pursuing performance based contracts and unannounced spot checks on delivery agencies.

Yet, some of the service deliverers succeeded in retaining influential positions through the private industry councils. Under the Title VII legislation, the federal government mandated representation for some service deliverers. Given the authority of these councils, the councils made more important decisions at their meetings than had been made at the meetings of the regular advisory councils. Some service deliverers managed to use this authority to win contracts for themselves or to shape the 284 direction of policy towards their benefit. For example, at least one delivery agency in the Briar Consortium system weasled its way back into the decision making process and into a program operating capacity on the back of the

Title VII program and the industry council. Allied with certain private sector interests, the local vocational education school obtained a Title VII contract to administer a truck driver training program - against the best judgement of the CETA staff.

Explanation of Accountability Towards Service Deliverers; Role of Values and Power Resources In summary, two important patterns need to be explained.

First, although the strength of staff accountability to service deliverers varied among the sites, in all cases, this accountability weakened over time. Second, within these weakened relationships, some of the service deliverers maintained a minimal but significant level of accountability throughout the life of the program.

Four major factors are most important in explaining the service deliverers' maintenance of strong accountability.

These include: (1) service deliverer control over important training facilities and trained staff necessary for the operation of the CETA funded programs; (2) the service deliverer bureaucratic knowledge of Labor Department politics, rules, regulations, and the substance and history 285 of employment and training programs; (3) service deliverer ties with certain communities within the local political jurisdictions which were seen as important by the local political officials; and (4) a minimal level of support from the Department of Labor. Control over training and educational facilities and trained staff was probably the most important power resource available to any service delivery agency. Local community colleges/ vocational educational schools, skills centers, and certain community based organizations unsurprisingly controlled the major facilities available for training purposes, aside from the private sector firms themselves. Given this relative monopoly, CETA staffs were hard pressed to break away from these entrenched service deliverers. Thus, as already noted, the Lake

City and City of Acre staffs used essentially the same agencies throughout the CETA program. In both sites, the local

Opportunities Industrialization Centers, the boards of education, and the vocational educational skill centers provided the bulk of the services throughout the program's history. Even with the passage of the Private Sector Initiative Program, a program meant to emphasize private business training, the City of Acre's local Opportunities

Industrialization Center won a contract to work with a private sector firm because it controlled valuable training facilities. 286

Similarly/ even in the more independent CETA systems, certain delivery agencies continued to exert clout because of their access to indispensable facilities. For example, the Choptank County staff admitted that for many of CETA's training needs, the Choptank County Community College and the Choptank County Vocational Educational Skill

Center were the only available facilities. In effect, the staff faced a Hobson's choice, that is, no choice at all.

Ironically, the delivery agencies' specialized know­ ledge of both employment and training programs and the byzantine nature of politics in the Labor Department also contributed to their early and lasting strength in the local systems. CETA was not introduced into a political vacuum.

Instead, the federal government dropped it into a political forest already overgrown with organizations that had sunk their roots into employment and training policy and programs.

Many of the agencies traced their association with government employment and training programs to the early and mid- nineteen sixties, and thus, brought to CETA experience and knowledge about programs, governmental relationships, and politics. This background gave these agencies strength to influence the decision making process.

This factor was most evident in the City of Acre and

Lake City. In the City of Acre, given the high turn over of city staff and the earlier unwillingness of the Mayor 287

to build a larger CETA staff/ traditional delivery agencies

were relied upon to deliver the services. Lacking initiative, the city government simply relinquished much of the control

to organizations with experience and knowledge.

In Lake City, some service deliverers managed to get

themselves in an even better position. Some of them were

able to get their own personnel to become chief staffers

in the administration of the CETA program. Thus, some of the important CETA staff were former members of the traditional

service deliverers. Historical knowledge was simply

brought into the city's CETA staff. In part, they were 18 hired for this experience and knowledge. More specifically,

both of the CETA directors were former employees of the local

Opportunities Industrialization Center. At the end of the 1980 calendar year, one had still retained the directorship of the regular CETA staff and the other had obtained the directorship of the newly constituted Lake City Alliance of

Business that had been granted significant authority for private sector related programs.

The local governments of Choptank County and the Briar

Consortium faced similar situations but dealt with them differently. In both of these cases, the local political officials brought in outside expertise to administer the

CETA grants rather than allow the traditional agencies to influence unduly the shape of the programs. In Choptank County, 288

although the political officials subcontracted the entire

program to the local Community Action Agency, the chief

administrator and the chief planner were imported from outside the local political environment. The Director was a former member of a regional office of the Labor Department and the chief planner had been involved in another county with a number of other social welfare programs. Similarly, local political officials in the

Briar Consortium also imported an administrator from another state and granted him essentially unlimited authority to develop the program according to his own vision of the program's purposes. The important point is that the political officials recognized that they lacked the expertise within their existing governmental staff and therefore were faced with either importing new people and building a staff or continuing with the delivery systems of the past with the traditional service delivery structure.

Knowledge and experience were important resources that won the day for the imported administrators.

Service deliverer ties with an important political community was another important factor in insuring some significant staff accountability to some of the traditional delivery agencies. If the staff perceived an agency as having a politically important constituency and having potential clout with the local political officials, then they treaded 289 lightly on the agency's interests. For example, this factor appeared to be particularly important in the City of Acre and Lake City in which large black communities resided. In important respects the program was viewed by some staff and some political officials as a program for the black community. Thus, to keep that community satisfied, certain service deliverers were kept within the delivery system regardless of their effectiveness or efficiency. For example, in both cities, the Urban League, the local Opportunities Industrialization

Centers, and the Community Action Agencies used the threat of constituency pressures to their best advantage. Several staff members and the local political officials in both of the sites attested to the importance of this factor. As a chief bureacrat in Lake City observed, "In large part,

CETA is simply a guilty conscience."

Finally, the federal government's authority continued to provide support for a strong position for certain service deliverers throughout the CETA program. What the Department of Labor took away with one hand, it gave back with the other hand. Although the Labor Department established a mandate for greater private sector participation, they also mandated the placement of service deliverer representatives on the newly formed private industry councils. In all three sites, service deliverers made ready use of their new positions and 290

and the councils' authority. As already noted, a number of agencies in the various sites were able to use their

positions to secure interests in the new program. The staffs' accumulation of an assortment of power

resources was the major contributing factor that effected the decline in staff accountability towards the traditional service deliverers. As already noted, delivery agencies exerted influence in all of the sites primarily because of their knowledge and control of important facilities needed by the CETA staffs. As long as the service deliverers maintained an edge in these resources, they had leverage over the CETA staffs. However, as the programs developed in all of the sites, the central CETA staffs acquired invaluable bureaucratic, programmatic, and political knowledge of the federal and local employment and training policy systems. In an important sense, a .service deliverer's leverage waned in proportion to the growth of staff accum­ ulation of knowledge in these areas. Thus, for example, in both Choptank County and the Briar Consortium, the agencies' decline was rapid because of the rapid development of expert directors, planners, and other staff. Already experienced in the ways of the Labor Department and the intracacies of employment and training programs, the imported directors and planners quickly asserted their expertise, undermined the domination of all the traditional agencies, and jettisoned what they considered the dead weight of inefficient agencies and misbegotten programs. 291

Through federal legislation, a shift in governmental authority towards the local governmental jurisdictions also functioned to weaken CETA staff accountability towards the delivery agencies. The original CETA legis­ lation of 1973 explicitly placed authority over federal employment and training policy in the hands of local governments. Moreover, the legislation explicitly encouraged local prime sponsors to develop programs that would offer comprehensive services. Although the Lake

City and City of Acre staffs moved more sluggishly than the other two staffs in this respect, all staffs used this mandate to justify the withdrawal of service deliverer authority and influence in the local systems. For 'example, in both the Briar Consortium and Choptank County, the county officials, in effect, gave complete authority to the CETA staffs for the entire operation of the CETA programs. With this authority, both staffs quickly consolidated administrative power and absorbed the operations of a number of programs under one administrative unit.

In the City of Acre and Lake City, the city admin­ istrations used another source of federal authority to weaken the hold of some of the entrenched agencies. This time, using the Private Sector Initiative Program as the catalyst, both jurisdictions attempted to dislodge in­ efficient agencies. In Lake City, this entailed establishing 292

a new agency, the Lake City Alliance of Business, and changing the overall focus of the program from an emphasis on class­

room training programs to one on on-the-job training programs.

This new focus inevitably eliminated the need for large subcontracts to agencies with extensive training facilities.

Finally, in the City of Acre, the administration used the

opportunity to drop one inefficient agency, expand the in- house staff, and assume the responsibility for the services

the former agency had provided. In addition, the city

also began a new on-the-job training program using in-house

staff rather than subcontracting the services to an outside agency. Again, the end result for delivery agencies was a

loss in strength in the local system. Staff confidence in their own expertise and in the

efficiency of centralized administrative control further undermined strong accountability towards service deliverers.

As might be expected of staffs in any agency, most of the

CETA staff members believed in their own capabilities to administer efficient CETA programs. Therefore, they tended to resent dependence on outside agencies, especially outside

service deliverers. Moreover, most staffs also believed

in the concept of centralizing adminstrative authority within one organization, the authorized CETA agency. Thus, once the staffs had access to the necessary resources, they took the appropriate steps to achieve their goals of consolidation which inevitably enfeebled the delivery agencies. Finally, staff beliefs in the critical importance of close linkages with the private sector also eclipsed the service deliverers’ traditional power over the staffs.

During much of CETA's implementation, CETA staffs dealt with the traditional delivery agencies for training services. Staffs had assumed that the traditional agencies could provide participants with marketable work skills which they could use to find career oriented employment. However, over time,

CETA staffs became increasingly disillusioned with many of the agencies in the face of the agencies' relatively poor performance records. They became convinced that many of these agencies were out of touch with the needs of the private sector. In their view, many of the agencies had become entrenched in archaic training courses which trained people for jobs without a clear demonstration that those jobs were still in plentiful supply. Moreover, in some cases, even when jobs were available, the training was often out of step with the employer's needs. In these cases, if an employer hired a CETA graduate, they would have to provide additional training. Consequently, given this sorry record, staffs became convinced that some type of direct private sector involvement in the training process was necessary to solve these problems. This inevitably meant some reduction or erosion of staff accountability towards service deliverers. This entailed the elimination of certain 294

training programs and a reduction of service deliverer

discretionary authority over the training curriculum.

In summary/ by and large, service deliverers demanded

and obtained significantly greater staff accountability than many of the other actors in the employment and training

systems. In at least three of the four sites, service

deliverers for a time forced staffs to share decision making power over at least some of the important planning decisions,

including primarily the service deliverer and the program mix policies. They managed this feat primarily because they had control over important resources that the CETA staffs needed. However, once the agencies lost their relative monopoly over these resources, they also lost their

leverage over the CETA staffs. Thus, in the end, CETA staffs dominated the decision making process, in most cases keeping the delivery agencies, along with most other actors, at arm's length from most of the critical planning decisions. 295

LOCAL PUBLIC ACTORS: THE BUSINESS SECTOR

General Character of the Accountability Relationships

Over the course of the CETA program, CETA staffs became increasingly accountable to the business sector

in both the scope and detail of the major planning policies. More specifically, prior to the inauguration of the Private

Sector Initiative Program and the latter years of CETA, staffs were accountable to the business sector primarily in the target occupation policy and indirectly in the

service deliverer, program mix, and target group policies. We find the evidence for the early accountability largely

in staff attempts to anticipate private sector decisions on jobs and occupations. Evidence of large scale business attempts to manipulate and influence target occupation and other programmatic policices is scarce in the earlier years of the program.

With the federal government's Title VII program, we see a dramatic expansion in the private sector's direct participation in the policy making process. Under this new set of conditions, almost all major planning decisions then fell under the private sector's scrutiny.

Increasingly, staffs engaged private sector employers directly about a myriad of CETA decisions. In addition, business representatives: more consciously and forcefully exerted influence on CETA policy making as well. 296

Yet, similar to other actors who threatened staff autonomy in decision making, the private sector still

secured only limited staff accountability. Although they succeeded in increasing staff responsiveness to the

private sector's needs and interests, they failed to take

over significant spheres of the staffs' discretionary decision making power.

Finally, within these two general patterns, we can also observe important variations in the nature of staff

accountability among the sites. The CETA staffs in the City of Acre and Lake City became more accountable to the

private sector than the staffs in either Choptank County

or the Briar Consortium. We will see this variation reflected in the scope of policies for which staffs became

accountable and the consequent effect that had on the

staff's remaining sphere of discretionary decision making

power. In general, the City of A.cre and Lake City staffs

lost more of their autonomy to the private sector than the other two staffs.

Role of Explanatory Forums

Prior to the Private Sector Initiative Program,

the CETA staffs provided the business sector with ample

opportunities to gather information about the CETA program. As with the other actors, staffs provided interested business

representatives with Labor Department reports and always 297

insured business representatives positions on the advisory councils. Moreover, given the staffs' perceptions of the private sector's importance to the program, all staffs

sought out individual employer and business groups for wider consultation.

With the development of Title VII, the staffs provided even greater opportunities to the private sector for gathering information on the program. Through the private

industry council forums, all staffs provided businesses with more concise and current information on both the development of Title VII programming but also the develop­ ment of other CETA programs as well. Using the indicators that measure the comprehensiveness of staff explanations to the business sector, we can see evidence to support this conclusion. In all sites, we can see increases in three pertinent areas: (1) the number of forums for staff and business communication; (2) the number of staff documents and oral explanations provided to business representatives; and (3) business participation in policy making. All of these increases indicate a greater flow of information from staffs to the private sector and greater staff accountability to the private sector. More specifically, in all sites, the industry councils were established.

In turn, they quickly created functioning and active subcommittees. Moreover, both industry councils and their 298 subcommittees met regularly and attracted relatively high membership attendance. Finally, heretofore uninvolved business people and organizations were now gathering information through CETA documents and staff explanations of the CETA program.

We can observe this pattern most clearly in the City of Acre and Lake City systems. In the City of Acre, prominent business people became involved in both the formal proceedings of the industry council and informal meetings with CETA staff and city administrators. Included in this new set of private sector representatives were the president of the Acre City Conference, an organization representing the largest corporations in the City of Acre, and the president of a regional, smaller manufacturers association. Similarly, in the Lake City system, noted business people in the hotel and retail industries became directly involved in council and subcommittee activities.

Business scrutiny of CETA staff explanations also intensified with the establishment of the private industry councils. Under the new structure, we naturally see more business people participating at meetings and requesting more detailed informaton and explanations about the CETA program.

Again, the Lake City and City of Acre experiences provide good examples of this pattern. In both sites, 299

the business sector was largely absent from the policy

making process in the early years of the program.

In contrast/ through the industry councils and subcommittees/

business representatives participated in the policy making

processes with much greater intensity. Business represen­ tatives regularly attended meetings and were usually quite

vocal/ commenting on and questioning staff management of

the programs. Staffs openly admitted that they had to

spend more time and effort in preparation for the industry

council meetings than they did for the regular council

meetings. According to the staffs/ industry council members tended to raise sharper questions and made greater informational demands on the staffs.

Business Influence in Decision Making

Business influence in CETA staff policy making was significant throughout the life of the CETA program.

However/ over time/ that influence varied in strength and in the scope of policies over which it was exercised. We can

see this variation develop historically in three stages.

During the initial year and a half of CETA’s implementation, we can see the private sector's influence primarily in the

target occupation policy decisions with some ripple effects

on the service deliverer, program mix, and target group

decisions. As noted earlier, this influence registers most

clearly in the staffs' anticipatory decision making processes. 300

The program entered a second phase when the federal government launched a large public service employment program in 1974. This action shifted the focus from skill training for long term, career oriented jobs to the place­ ment of participants in temporary, low and semi-skilled jobs in governmental or non-profit, public service agencies.

Given this focus, the private sector faded into the background as the major focus for staff attention.

Finally, with the inauguration of the Private Sector

Initiative Program in 1978, we can see evidence of anrexpansion of business influence not only in staff anticipatory decision making processes, but also in the conspicuous presence of business representatives in policy making forums as well.

Moreover, at this stage, businesses began to exert stronger and more direct influence on program mix, service deliverer, staffing, and the public planning policies.

During the initial stage of the program, the private sector's impact on the target occupation policy is clearly reflected in staff anticipatory decision making processes.

Staff comments in interviews and council meetings indicate their commitment to anticipate as best they could employer occupational and skill needs. As the Director of the City of Acre program expressed her views at an advisory council meeting: One thing we would like to do is to determine the needs of the private sector. We would like to set up a meeting with a number of employers to find 301

out the kinds of training that is needed and we want to fill those needs so people can get unsub­ sidized employment. We want to develop specific training programs for their needs.

Expressing a similar but more ambitious sentiment,

the Executive Director of the Briar Consortium's program

believed that the Consortium's CETA program could become the

major training program for all businesses in the area. Thus,

anticipating private sector employer needs was critical. As he explained his goal: Rather than going just on money savings that a business could have, we have gone on selling them our ability to train disadvantaged people. We have expertise in this area and with his [the employer's] guidance in curriculum, he can have a good steady and tested employee. We know so because we have had him or her in work experience and on site testing. We can train better than anyone else can train. He can go out to the market place and compare what he finds there with what we have to offer. We will beat it.

Given their goal of forecasting private sector needs, all staffs used various methods and mechanisms to achieve that goal. Their methods ranged in sophistication from rudimentary "seat of the pants" techniques, including review of want ads in the local nespapers, to university researched and designed, computerized surveys. Although the staffs refrained from relying solely on these analyses for their target occupational choices, they did use these labor market analyses to eliminate options and narrow the range of choices. 302

Informal communication channels with employers were

more important mechanisms for anticipating private sector employer needs and desires. With the exception of the City of Acre, all the other program had developed active on-the-job training programs that developed these channels early in the program. Usually, the key links with the private

sector employers were the staff "job developers". They made contacts with employers and arranged training oppor­ tunities and job placements for CETA participants. Through these contacts, information about the labor market filtered back and affected planning decisions. As one director summed up the importance of this information, "Informal feedback from employers is seen as an invaluable supplement to quantitative labor market information."

The identification of specific occupations for tar- getting also had an impact on the program mix and service deliverer decisions. For example, a staff may have decided that training automobile mechanics for a given area was an appropriate use of resources. To implement the program the staff would then have had to subcontract the training program to a service deliverer to provide the training.

Implicit in this decision was part of the choice involved in the mix of programs to be offered to participants.

Instead of choosing simply work experience and on-the-job training programs, the staff had decided to offer classroom training services also. 303

The private sector's impact on target group policy was more subtle yet still significant. Given the high premium staffs had to place on placement, at times, staffs worked more closely with participants who were easier to place.

And, given that employers placed an equally high premium on employees with experience and skills, the staffs tilted towards participants with higher education and more advanced skills. In the lexicon of employment and training politics, this practice was known as "creaming". This practice violated the spirit of the program because the program's purpose was to aid those with significant problems in obtaining employment. People with education and skills were already marketable. Nevertheless, in part because of this placement pressure, three of the four staffs admitted that they had engaged in this "creaming" process at one time or another. With the federal government's public service employment initiative in 1974, the private sector's influence declined.

The staffs had to place a priority:on spending-tha large amounts of public service employment dollars and finding public non-profit and local governmental positions for participants. These were the major staff problems and crises for the moment. Thus, given these time consuming tasks, the staffs were relieved temporarily of the pressing need for successful placement in the private sector. As national thinking turned full circle and the inauguration of Title VII arrived in 1978/ the accountability relationship grew stronger/ surpassing the level reached in the first stage of the program. One indication of this new strength is reflected in the increase in staff use of different analytical methods to anticipate and to analyze private sector desires. In addition to the normal labor market analyses already discussed/ staffs also developed surveys and studies of business opinion. For example, the Lake City staff conducted the "Lake City Area Business

Satisfaction Survey" to- discover private sector opinions on the local economic and political conditions of the metro-

**■ '* r politan area. Through the survey, the CETA staff and city administrators learned, unsurprisingly, that local profit taxes, wage rates for semi-skilled labor, and the availability of working capital were the most important conditions affect­ ing business people's decisions about business investment.

Basing their decisions in part on the results of this survey, the city engineered an economic development program that offered businesses a joint aid package that included low interest loans and subsidized training programs.

Other staff pursued similar techniques in their efforts to discover the best means of linking the private,sector with the CETA program. 305

Finally# the development of administrative units focusing solely on private sector needs also indicates the growing staff efforts to anticipate private sector wishes.

In all cases# the staffs organized these offices to identify employer needs and engineer linkages between the employers and the CETA program. The Lake City and City of Acre programs provide good examples illustrating this pattern.

The city administration created the Lake City Alliance of

Business and gave it full responsibility for anticipating and meeting private sector employer needs. Similarly# the

City of Acre administration organized the Office for Private Sector Programs to serve similar ends.

We can also see the growth in business influence in the participation indicator. Prior to the Private

Sector Initiative Program# private sector employers appeared primarily in two forums: the regular advisory councils and the informal# one-on-one meetings with the job developers. In all of the sites, business representatives on the councils seldom functioned as important entrees into private sector jobs. With regard to the job development meetings, employer interests were narrowly focused on the individual employer's specific needs# at a specific moment. These mechanisms were ill-equipped for wide ranging business input into decision making. 306

Yet, with the federal government's new interest in private sector linkages, the private sector's presence in policy making and advisory forums increased dramatically.

This rise in private sector prominence took place through the private industry councils and their active subcomitteess. Moreover, the private sector also began to exercise more explicit and conscious influence over policy making.

Organizational and staffing policies, program mix policies, and public planning system policies all reflect the new private sector influence.

For example, in both the Lake City and City of Acre programs, business representatives lobbied effectively for separate administrative units to administer strictly private sector programs. In addition, in both cases, business representatives also threw their weight behind the efforts 19 to develop on-the-job training programs. In both cases, this indicated a weakening of the classroom training program's preeminent position. Evidence from these sites also indicates that business representatives exercised greater influence over the public planning system policies as well. Prior to the creation of the industry councils, the staffs most often dominated the discussions at the regular advisory councils by setting the agenda and specifying the tasks and roles of the sub­ committees. Though the staffs continued as a major force 307 in the industry councils, the business representatives began to shape the agenda and define the specific roles the sub­ committees would play. The shift in control was most evident in the Lake City program. In that site, the regular

CETA staff became minor figures in the industry council's proceedings. The city's administration in concert with the industry council engineered staffing changes such that the regular staff would not coordinate the industry council's meetings. In addition, major structural decisions were made without the staff's input. The city and the industry council agreed to make the industry council a subcommittee of the

Mayor's Council on Economic Development. Although the other sites did not experience changes as dramatic as these, they also experienced similar surges of business influence in this policy area. Finally, specific=staffing decisions" were-also under siege by the business sector, particularly in Lake City and the City of Acre. As described in Chapter 3, the industry council in the City of Acre attempted to hire an independent executive director and clerical staff for the Title VII program. The regular CETA staff defeated this effort only with the Mayor's support. Yet, in exchange for surrendering this idea, the council forced the city to assign a staff member to the council. The staff member's only responsibility was to serve the council. 308

In the Lake City program, the business representatives were even more successful. Earlier in passing, we noted that a new staff was created to administer private sector programs and a liason position was also created to coordinate activities between staffs, the industry council, and the city administration. Important business members on the council and the council itself participated in making these decisions.

Again, although the private sector was less influential on staff policies in the other two sites, they exerted similar pressures to gain more control.

Yet, despite the increasingly influential position of private sector actors in CETA policy making, staff still maintained their dominant position. We can see this dominance most clearly in the instances of policy dis­ agreement between staffs and business representatives. The Choptank County and the Briar Consortium staffs were particularly strong in holding their ground against business pressures. For example, a shoe company in the Briar area failed in its efforts to arrange an on-the-job training program through the Briar Consortium's CETA program.

Business representatives lobbied staff and the local

Commissioners in support of this project. However, in the staff's assessment, employee wages were too low, employee turn over on the job was too high, and the career potential seemed quite limited. Consequently, in the face 309 of both business and political official opposition# the staff decided against the proposal and made the decision stick. In the Executive Director's view# if the program had funded the project# it would have "socialized the

[employer's] labor costs and fed into the employer's dollar stream with little return to the public."

Explanation of Accountability to Business? Role of Values and Power Resources Part of the explanation for the vitality of this relationship lies in the private sector's access to important power resources that enabled it to obtain relatively strong staff accountability. The private sector's control over the supply of unsubsidized jobs was probably the most important power resource in this relationship. With the fading of the interim emphasis on public service employment# in which the placement of participants in subsidized jobs had been the goal# the resurgence of an emphasis on private sector employ­ ment once again placed the private sector in a functionally critical role. In the new context, a CETA program succeeded to the extent staffs could find private sector positions for participants. In other words# business controlled what CETA staffers needed most - jobs farrOETA^participahtss. For example, in the City of Acre# the staff and the city administration turned towards the industry council for 310 help immediately upon receiving word that the public service employment program was to be phased out.

Approximately fourteen hundred people were to lose their federally funded positions in city jobs. A statement in an early plan expressed the essence of the problem that all CETA agencies faced in their task: We want to turn around the saying that people have training but do not have jobs. Without the availability of jobs in the private sector, no manpower program can be successful. Accountability was strong also because of the staffs' perceptions of the private sector's access to important labor market information. What occupations were going to be important in the next few years? Specifically, which businesses or companies were going to be hiring new employees in the near future? When would they be hiring and how many people would they need? Staffs desperately needed this type of concrete and current information to organize programs that would place participants in training related jobs. Again, given the primacy of job placement as a measure of success, the staffs had to be attentive and cooperative with those who could help them achieve that goal. Consequently, particularly during the aftermath of the public service employment program's elimination, staffs became increasingly responsive to the private sector's wishes in the hope that business people 7C) would provide this information. 311

Businesses and business organizations were also able to rely on access to sympathetic national and local govern­ mental authorities for support. The Private Sector Initiative

Program is good evidence of the federal government's support of a strong private sector role. As we have examined in detail/ through this initiative/ the private sector gained substantial authority over programming, especially through the private industry councils. This marked a clear shift in the federal government's policy towards the private sector in this policy area. Before, under the regular employment and training advisory councils, business representatives had only advisory status along with the rest of the non-governmental public actors. The new initiative moved the private sector into a direct policy making position, if the private sector wished to assume it.

The private sector also reaped the benefits of local mayoral and commissioner support for an expanded private sector role in the design and operation of the CETA programs. Given the importance of keeping old businesses in and attracting new businesses to their respective cities and communities, the political officials generally embraced the new federal initiatives. This was most evident in

Lake City and the City of Acre. As already noted, in both of these cites, the political officials introduced major 312 structural changes internally within the staff organizations and externally in the creation of the industry councils.

In both cases, chief assistants to the local political officials enthusiastically applauded the new private sector initiative. For example, the Assistant to the city manager in Lake City made these few terse remarks on CETA and the movement towards the private sector programs:

CETA will always be a failure until it can get linked up with the private sector. The private industry council is the last straw for making CETA work. If this linkage can be developed with the private sector, then the rest of CETA can go to hell. If this doesn't work, I've had it with CETA.

The Private sector's effectiveness was bolstered further by the emergence in all of the sites of a group of business people who genuinely believed in the creed of corporate liberalism. In short, they presumed that with greater private sector oversight and management, the CETA program could be successful. For many business representatives, this effort included a better public relations program. The private sector as a whole needed to be persuaded that the program could be useful for private sector employers.

Finally, as hinted at earlier, many staff members shared this ideological position. This added strength to the accountability bond with the private sector. These staff members believed that a close relationship with the private sector was both desirable and essential for effective employment and training programs. Given this view, staffs 313 always attempted to anticipate the private sector's needs and to persuade the private sector to work with CETA.

One CETA director captured this widely held view when he emphasized that the creation of a "positive image for

CETA in the community, especially among private sector employers" was one of the main goals of his administration of the CETA program.

Given this analysis, what factors prevented the private sector's domination of the decision making process?

How did the CETA staffs maintain their spheres of discretion­ ary decision making power? Throughout all three stages of CETA's development, most of the staffs always retained governmental authority that had been delegated to them by the presiding, local, chief political officials. Although some staffs suffered reductions of this authority they were all able to draw upon this power resource in conflict situations. We saw the use of this authority in several instances earlier. For example, when the

Briar Consortium staff decided against the shoe company's training program proposal, it drew in large measure from its authoritative position in the local political system.

Staff commitments to the basic goals of the program also tended to work against open ended accountability to the private sector. The training and placement of economically disadvantaged people in skilled occupations 314

was one of the primary goals of the program. To the extent that businesses were willing to shape their employee requirements in conformity with this goal, all staffs

were willing to work with them. However, staffs balked when they perceived attempts by local employers to obtain CETA funds to subsidize training for low-skilled, dead­

end jobs or to train people who were not economically

disadvantaged. Examples of this tension have already been highlighted. The Director of Choptank County's program

was always wary of getting involved with loosely monitored on-the-job training programs because of this fear. Similarly,

the City of Acre's staff blocked industry council proposals

to included non-economically disadvantaged people in the

training programs. Finally, the staffs drew heavily from their bureaucratic

sources of power to protect their decision making power.

As in their relationships with so many of the other actors, the staffs also outstripped the private sector in knowledge of employment and training programs, CETA legislation, and

the bureaucratic politics both within the Labor Department and between the Department and the local governments. In contrast, the private sector representatives were often mystified about the programs and politics and were there­

fore less able to address problems with confidence. Thus,

in spite of the enthusiasm and energy that many of these 315 people brought to the industry councils/ many quickly tired of the maze of regulations and grew increasingly dependent on the CETA staffs for guidance in CETA policy matters.

As one businessman on Lake City's industry council lamented/

"All these titles [in CETA] just boggle my mind!" As a consequence/ the staffs continued to exert a dominant influence over the agenda issues and alternative solutions to problems in the program. 21

Finally/ in some of the sites/ a strong reputation for effective programs also weighed in on the side of staffs in their efforts to defend their discretionary decision making territory from the private sector's influence.

The Briar Consortium and Choptank County sites offer the best examples of the use of this resource. In both sites/ the staffs developed a significant level ofrvcommunity"respect for their programs. The public may still have had doubts about CETA/ but they at least respected the efficient management of the local staffs. Thus/ for example/ when the Briar Consortium's staff defeated the shoe company's attempt to force them into an unwanted program/ they did so based in part on their reputation for running good programs. Althought the Commissioners initially tilted in favor of the company's proposal, they eventually left the final decision making authority in staff hands. Trust in and respect for the staff was an important factor in this process. In summary# staff accountability towards the private

sector in these sites reflected two major interwoven patterns: staff anxious attentiveness to the private sector's wishes hedged within the context of the staffs' ultimate domination in the policy making process. Charles

Lindblom succinctly provides a general explanation for the first of these patterns when he wrote:

Not many governmental officials are so witless as to overlook their dependence on business. If business is not induced to perform# the result is economic distress. When the economy fails# the government fails...Hence# no category of persons is more attentive to the2heeds of business than the government official. And# perhaps the second pattern can be summarized neatly in Max Weber's terms when he wrote that "In a modern state# the actual ruler is necessarily and unavoidably the bureaucracy.

Thus# although the private sector was a strong force and probably the most influential of all actors within the local American employment and training systems# the CETA staffs continued to be the dominant voice in CETA policy making. 317

SUMMARY

With this chapter# we complete our documentation of the CETA staff relationships with the seven major actors in the employment and training system. Among these five particular relationships, we found a wide variation in the character and strength of accountability. As we will explore in more detail in Chapter 5, the range of that variation extended both above and below the strengths of accountability found with the local political officials and the Department of Labor. Yet, one constant theme that continued to play throughout these relationships as well as the previous two was the continued staff dominance in the policy making process.

To explain these observations, we again employed the two pronged explanatory strategy that we have used throughout this study. In general, we argued that the direction, content, and strength of accountability was shaped by a combination of ideological and idiosyncratic values on the one hand, and actor access to various power resources on the other hand. The values determined intensity of interest and the purposes and goals the actor had for becoming or not becoming involved in the program. The power resources provided the potential strength an actor called on to exert influence and demand accountability. In effect, an actor's values simply 318 directed or guided an actor in his or her use of the accessible power resources.

Thus, using this approach, we were able to make sense of the relationships we found. In general, access to important power resources marked the critical dividing line between those who were successful in demanding accountability and those who failed. Without access to sufficient power resources, as we found to be the case with both the press and most participant groups, an actor failed in gaining significant accountability even with strong interest in the program. To be sure, without sufficient interest and commitment to work with the program accountability can remain low even when an actor has access to important power resources. We found this to be the case in the labor unions1 general relationship to CETA. Yet, in some cases, an actor could attract a high level of accountability simply because of its access to critical power resources even if the actor directed little interest towards the program. Generally speaking, the private sector appeared to fall into this category earlier in the CETA program. Even without active participation in the program, the private sector still registered a fairly strong accountability rating with the staffs. 3X9

Unsurprisingly, the strongest accountability bonds emerged from the combination of factors i.thht:i •incOLUdedS^bbfch strong commitment to values that tied directly into the program in one form or another, and access to a number of important power resources. This explanation made compre­ hensible the relatively strong accountability relatonships that developed between the staffs and the service deliverers.

It also explained the strengthening of the relationships between the staffs and the private sector during the latter period of CETA's history.

Finally, this explanation also accounts for the staffs’ constant and forceful grip on the policy making process.

Given the staffs' strong ideological and idiosyncratic value commitments and their access to important power resources, the staffs could and did regulate the levels of accountability to the various actors. In particular, though with some exceptions, staff access to important bureaucratic power resources was critical to the staffs' abilities to maintain their dominant positions. Bureaucratic resources gave staffs a strong advantage over most of the other actors in the policy systems. 320

NOTES

^Public Law 93-203, 1973, Section 104.

2Ibid.

3Ibid. 4Ibid.

5Ibid. ^Public Law 95-524, 1978, Section 109(d).

^Ibid., Section 109(c). Q Ibid., Section 109(b).

9Ibid., Section 704(a)(1).

^Ibid., Section 704(c).

^This was not always the case, however. As noted in Chapter 2, several staffs proceeded with programs targeted on veterans even though they doubted that the demand was present. All staffs expressed both a sensitivity towards groups in need and wariness of the possibility of abuse. For example, the Executive Director of the Briar Consortium program expressed both of these sentiments in his view towards the needs of veterans: "Some veterans are the most disadvantaged, both physically and emotionally while there are colonels with large pensions who want ten thousand dollar per year public service employment jobs."

*2Public Law 93-203, 1973, Section 104. Ibid.

14Ibid.

15Ibid. 321

1 fi In this section, we deal primarily with the written press and, more specifically, the major newspapers in each of the four sites. The reason for this is simply a question of data sources. Although the staffs discussed their media contacts more broadly to include television and radio, I was unable to talk with any other media representatives besides those from the major newspapers. 17 Temporary exceptions were noted. As discussed in Chapter 3, the chief executive directors in Choptank County and Lake City impeded press access to staff at certain earlier times in the program's development. However, in both cases, access improved over time.

18 * Although on the face of it this arrangement might appear to be obviously corrupt and without defense, similar parallets can be drawn with the federal government's personnel policy in defense and commerce policy. In both of the latter cases, corporate executives from defense contractors and other major corporations come in and out of government. The argument in defense of their appointments is the same: they have the knowledge, and the managerial skill to handle the job. This may or may not be consoling. 19 As discussed in Chapter 3, the chief assistant to the city manager in Lake City believed that many of the classroom training programs were wastes of money. In his view, few results came from high costs in expenditures. Business leaders tended to agree. Less costly alternatives included on-the-job training programs and job finding and securing programs. Consequently, the city and business representatives decided to opt for these programs. 20 All staffs hoped that the private industry councils would serve as important conduits for this information. Up to this point, most staffs had complained about the paucity of this kind of labor market information. Staffs always worried that they were training people in skills that would no longer be in sufficient demand once the participants graduated from the training programs. Thus, the more specific and current the labor market information, the more likely the programs would be successful. 21 In the City of Acre, the industry council's attempt to obtain an independent staff was in itself a recognition of the membership's dependence on the city's staff for critical information. During an interview with the chairman of the council, the chairman readily acknowledged his inability to keep up with the important developments in the program. Consequently, he always felt at the mercy of 322 the staff because they had the information that he needed. Given that they were part of the city's personnel/ the chairman believed their first loyalty was to the Mayor. Thus, he was unconvinced that they would always be forth­ right with him and the council. Hence, he helped lead the ill-fated charge to obtain independent staff. 22 Charles Lindblom, "The Business of American is Still Business", The New York Times, January 4, 1978. 23 Max Weber, Economy and Society, p. 1401. CHAPTER 5: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CETA STAFF ACCOUNTABILITY RELATIONSHIPS AND THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS

INTRODUCTION

Two sets of questions remain to be addressed/ one empirical/ the other theoretical. We first take up the empirical questions. In the previous four chapters/ we have refrained from developing a thorough comparative analysis of accountability across the seven relationships.

In this chapter/ we address that wider comparative picture.

Towards that end/ we direct our attention to two questions:

How do the seven actors compare with each other with regard to their overall accountability strengths? What factors best explain the accountability rankings?

Using the empirical analysis as the source of evidence, we then return to the major theoretical questions that provided the original impetus to the study. Specifically, what light can this study shed on the problems that bureaucracies present to democratic societies? Finally, what can we learn from the study about the nature of accountability relationships and their importance in solving the problems of democratizing bureaucratic agencies?

323 324

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CETA STAFF ACCOUNTABILITY TOWARDS SEVEN OTHER ACTORS IN THE EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING POLICY SYSTEM

To reach conclusions about the comparative nature of accountability among actors both within each site and across

sites* I constructed a summary index to measure the overall

strength of staff accountability towards the various

actors. Focusing on each individual relationship, I

assessed the strength of staff accountability towards the

actor in that relationship on each of the six major decision

areas under examination. For each decision area, I assigned an accountability rating of high, medium, or low. The rating criteria involved (X) strength of actor influence on decision making over time and (2) intensity of actor scrutiny of decision making over time. The distinctions made among the high, medium, and low rankings were based on judgements as to the level of actor influence and scrutiny and the consistency of that influence and scrutiny. Thus,

I assigned a high ranking when the actor demonstrated a consistently high level of both influence and scrutiny over a decision area. I used the medium designation when actors exercised periodic,strong influence in a decision area and selectively intense scrutiny over time. Finally, I used the low ranking to indicate little or no influence and shallow scrutiny over time. 325

Using this index, I then ranked the accountability

strengths for each decision making area and for each of

the seven relationships within the four sites. Thus for each relationship within each site, I made judgements on the strength of accountability for the six major decision making areas. For example, for Lake City, I determined

that the overall, composite assessment for staff account­

ability towards local political officials was four medium ratings on four of the decision areas and two low ratings on two areas. This assessment means that if we take the

time period as a whole, we find that in four of the decision areas, the local politial officials exerted strong influence only periodically and scrutinized staff decision making in a similarly sporadic fashion. The low ratings indicate that in two of the areas, I judged that the political officials exercised little or no influence nor watched 2 staff decision making in those areas very closely.

Once I arrived at a composite assessment for each of the actors within each of the sites, I then placed the actors on a continuum. Figures 26 through 29 illustrate the results of this analysis. Each continuum is meant to demonstrate the variations in overall accountability strengths among the seven relationships within each site.

Finally, stepping back still further to a more general analytical position, I constructed a general Low Medium High Accountability Accountabi li ty Figure 26

Choptank County Continuum of Accountability Comparison Across Sectors

...... m » e/d 5/1 4/2 3/3 2/4 1/5 6/0 5/1 4/2 3/3 2/4 1/5 0/6 Low Medium High Accountability Accountability Figure 27

The Briar Consortium Continuum of Accountability Comparison Across Sectors 327 e© e^'c> Me /<^ c^‘ * o ^ V *V‘'VPv* , «e«te»v .6®

Low Medium High Accountability Accountability Figure 28

Acre Continuum of Accountability; Comparison Across Sectors CV®S

Low Medium High Accountability Accountability

Figure 29

Lake City Continuum of Accountability: Comparison Across Sectors 328

ranking of relationships across all four sites. Figure 30

illustrates the results of that analysis.

From a brief examination of these figures/ we can make several important observations that highlight claims made throughout the preceding chapters. First, these

continuums indicate that none of the seven actors consistently maintained a strong accountability relationship over time.

At best, the strongest actors developed periodic and

selective accountability. They scrutinized and influenced

staff decision making in major ways only during certain time periods. Moreover, the range of decisions held under the accountability umbrella also tended to be narrow.

Second, partly as a consequence of the power vacuum left by the lack of consistently high influence by any of the other actors, the CETA staffs were able to maintain considerable discretionary decision making power. Throughout CETA's implementation, staffs dominated the decision making process in most areas. In many cases, major decisions were consistently made among the chief staff without involving other actors in significant ways.

Finally, focusing our attention on Figure 30, we can arrive at an overall assessment of the accountablity

rankings of the seven actors across the four sites. Moving our gaze from right to left on the continuum, we find the private sector and the service deliverers holding the Low Medium High Accountability Accountability Figure 30

Aggregate Continuum of Accountability: Comparison Across Sectors and Sites strongest accountability relationships. The political officials an

weaker relationships than either the private sector or the delivery agencies/ but ranked higher than the unions/

participant groups/ and the local newpapers. The latter

three groups bring up the rear in this ilne of political actors.

In general/ this ranking suggests the following in terms of the measures we used to assess influence and

scrutiny throughout the study. The private sector and the service deliverers ranked highest because they were more

active in the formal and informal decision making processes; more important in staff anticipatory decision making processes; and more thorough and consistent in their

scrutiny of staff decision making. In contrast/ the

other actors participated in the decision making

processes less often/ less powerfully and were less often

considered as important in staff anticipatory decision making processes. Finally, they were generally less

thorough and less consistent in their scrutiny of staff actions and decisions. 331

Explanation of Inequalities Among the Seven Accountability Relationships In Chapters 2, 2, and 4, we explored some detailed explanations of the relationships between the four staffs and their respective sets of outside actors. In those analyses# we examined a number of factors that seemed

important in determining the similarities and differences

among the four sites for each of the seven specific relatonships. For example, in Chapter 2, we were concerned

fundamentally with discerning the similariites and differences among the four staff relationships with the Labor Department. Given that analysis, what explanations can now be offered to understand the pattern of inequality in the account­

ability strengths between the staffs and the seven types of outside actors? For example, generally speaking, why were the staffs more accountable to the local private sectors than to either the local newspapers or participant groups? Similarly, why were the staffs usually more accountable to the local political officials than to the local unions? And, finally, why were the staffs dominant in the policy making processes?

Throughout the preceeding chapters, I explained the specific accountability relaionships by referring to objective souceesof power and ideological and idiosyncratic values. More specifically, in most cases, I argued that any significant level of accountability depended on the 332

use of a combination of power resources. In addition, in most cases, an actorclarity and level of commitment with regard to ideological and idiosyncratic or personal values enabled the actor to maximize accessible power resources and gain staff accountablity. Thus, the strongest

actors tended to be those with the greater access to a number of power resources and the ideological clarity and commitment to make use of those resources to achieve their desired goals. In the following analysis, we use this explanatory strategy to explain the accountability rankings.

Drawing from the previous three chapters, we can sketch a profile of the more important resources of power and the ideological values that played important roles in shaping the accountability relationships. The operative resources of power in this context included: (1) governmental authority (stemming from both local governments and the federal government); (2) knowledge and expertise in the local operations of employment and training programs, the management of intergovernmental and local politics, and the interpretation of CETA legislation and regulations;

(3) various forms of wealth such as financial resources and jobs; (4) supportive constituencies such as an organized community group, a labor union# or an allied governmental agency; and (5) organizational strength and reputation. 333

As we indicated earlier in the analysis, the actors’

ideological views ranged across a relatively wide spectrum. Roughly speaking, we could identify a spectrum that included a brand of laissez faire, economic conservatism, corporate liberalism, New Deal liberalism, and a form of

social democratic thought. Assuming that ideology affects actions, we argued throughout that the staffs’ and the

outside actors’ ideologies influenced the content, strength, and direction of staff accountability.

Thus, in the following analysis, we explain the varia­ tions in the rankings by referring to the interactive

effects of actor value commitments and actor access to

power resources. Where actor value commitments and access to resources were high, staff accountability tended to be high. Where the commitment and access were low, staff

accountability tended to fall in line accordingly.

For the comparative analysis, we proceed by explain­ ing the positions of the higher ranked actors first and then move on to explain the positions of those actors on the lower side of the continuum. In our examination of each set of actors, we focus only on those factors that distinguish the strengths of the seven sets of actors. 334

The Private Sectort Constant Strength in CETA Relationships

The private sector's domination over various aspects of employment is the critical factor that distinguished its accountability strength from that of the other actors.

More specifically, these aspects included dominance in decisions regarding who gets hired, who gets, fired, length of employment, types of occupations, and wage rates.

In addition, the private sector had better access to infor­ mation about when specific jobs would be available, how many jobs would be open, and where those job opportunities would be. In general, the private sector can be distin­ guished from the other actors by its preeminent control over labor market information and the critical, concrete employment decisions.

Thus, given the essential nature of a capitalist economy within which these programs had to operate, the importance of the private sector1s domination over these sources of power becomes apparent. The training and placement of CETA participants in career oriented, private sector jobs was the clearest measure of programmatic success. Therefore, staff accountability towards the private sector tended to be relatively strong. Even in those cases in which staffs were ideologically cool or hostile to business wishes and interests, the staffs recognized the realities of operating these programs 335 within a capitalist economy. Therefore, they recognized the necessity of developing close cooperation with the private sector.

The private sector's unique access to the authority of the local political officials was a second source of power that helped differentiate their accounta­ bility relationships from other actors. Local politicians were keenly aware that thier political futures were seriously affected by the health of the local economy.

Therefore, given that the health of the local economies were dependent on the continued presence and contentment of local enterprises, and the attraction of new businesses, local politicians were highly attentive and responsive to private sector interests. Consequently, when they began to view CETA as a constructive tool for keeping and attract­ ing businesses, they urged staffs to be attentive to businesses as well.

Federal governmental grants of political authority to the private sector substantially complemented these other sources of power and further elevated the private sector1s strength above the other actors. As pointed out in Chapter 5, the federal government gave the private sector special authority in employment and training programs through the passage of the Private Sector Initiative Program.

By virtue of that program, the federal government gave the 336 the private sector policy making authority above that of the other, local actors, with the exception of the local political officials. As we discussed earlier, the private industry councils and the federally mandated, dominant position of the private sector on these councils were the main mechanisms for the private sector's exercise of this new source of power. In striking contrast to the regular employment and training advisory councils, where representation ofi-.most relevant groups was relatively equal, the federal government intentionally skewed representation in the private sector's favor. At least fifty-one percent of the council's members had to be business representatives. Moreover, in contrast to the advisory councils' strictly advisory authority, the private industry councils had the authority to control and administer programs if they so desired. Finally, the private sector pulled further ahead of the other actors because certain segments of the private sector took advantage of the new found authority in the industry councils and began to participate in policy making.

Previously, business had refrained from a significant level of direct participation in CETA policy making. However, through this program, the private sector committed itself more forcefully to a visible and direct role in policy making.

Although the local business representatives on the councils 337

remained dependent on the CETA staffs# they effectively

tightened the accountability bond with the local staffs

and# consequently# further increased the inequality of

staff accountability between it and the other actors.

The Faded, Yet Resilient Strength of the Entrenched Delivery Agencies The reasons for the delivery agencies1 high ranking

are equally easy to identify. The service deliverers'

control of critical employment and training resources

and their zeal in pursuing their interests propelled them above all other actors# with the exception of the private

sector. As we discussed in Chapter 4, the entrenched agencies usually controlled important training facilities, expertise in employment and training programs, and political and bureaucratic knowledge of the federal government's policies and their history in the local areas. Particularly in the early phases of the CETA program's development# delivery agencies maximized the advantages of these resources and secured strong staff accountability simply because CETA staffs needed access to these resources.

In addition, since the agencies were often dependent on federal funds for a large part of their budgets# they attempted to take advantage of every opportunity to influence policy. For some agencies# renewal of a CETA contract was the difference between keeping the agency 338

afloat and seeing it sink out of sight. Thus, as

we found in Chapter 4, these agencies were a constant

in the local employment and training equations. This

tenacity enabled many service deliverers to maintain a

strong presence in the local systems. Yet, staff accountability towards these agencies weakened

as the agencies' resources grew less valuable to the CETA

staffs. As time wore on# CETA staffs generally developed

their own expertise and gradually absorbed most of the

administrative responsibilities for the program. Consequently, service deliverers became less important for the provision

of services. Moreover, as the staffs steadily improved

their relationships with the private sector, the "middle­ man" role of the delivery agencies was further diminished in importance. In short, why pay more attention to a

"middle man" agency who promises to place people into

jobs it does not control when one can deal directly with the companies and businesses who do control those jobs?

Nevertheless, many of the delivery agencies still maintained a strong position because of the continuing

importance of some of their resources, particularly training

facilities. And, as noted in Chapter 4, in a number of

cases, delivery agecnies were solidifying their positions by linking their services with various businesses to get

CETA contracts. 339

Political Officials and the Labor Department; Underutilized Governmental Authority

Legitimate governmental authority distinguishes

both the Labor Department and the local political officials

from the other actors in the system. Formally speaking#

this resource gave both governmental sectors substantial

political power over the CETA staffs. Other factors being equal, one might have thought that staffs would

have been most accountable to these actors. After all,

these governmental actors formally controlled the budgetary strings for the programs.

Yet, as we saw in Chapters 2 and 3, other factors

weakened the governmental officials' abilities to exercise

their authority. In particular, the local political

officials often lacked important knowledge about employment

and training programs and Labor Department legislation and regulations. Without this knowledge, they usually

refrained from direct intervention into program decisions even though they had the authority to do so. . Instead, they delegated that authority to their respective CETA staffs.

In effect, they forfeited much of their policy making power because of ignorance.

Ironically, much the same case can be made with regard to the Labor Department. Although higher echelon officials were well versed in both the intracacies of the employment 340 and training bureaucracy and programs, many of the regional officials were dismally uninformed. Like the political officials, these latter officials were often impotent because of this ignorance. Thus, staff accountability towards the Labor Department was severely weakened.

For both actors, competing political and economic goals also undermined the governments' abilities to use their authority effectively. At both levels of government, officials used the CETA program to achieve economic and political goals that were only tangentially related to the more focused goals of the CETA program itself. As we pointed out in Chapter 2, the Labor Department began to use the program as an instrument for aiding the economic recovery in the mid-nineteen seventies. The government, not the private sector, became the primary target for employment. In effect, CETA became an economic syringe through which the federal government injected large sums of money into the body of the economy. As a consequence, the Labor Department's exhortations to staffs for improved management of long term, career oriented, training programs fell on deaf ears. The overwhelming pressure was on efficient spending of the public service employment funds.

Similarly, the local political officials often focused on CETA in the context of electoral politics. They were seldom closely concerned with the original CETA goals. 341

In part# as a consequence# the local political officials

infrequently tested the limits of their authority in this

policy arena. As we explored in detail in Chapter 4# most

politicians were content as long as the staffs succeeded

in attracting federal funds into the community. In addition# many avoided becoming involved in the program because they

perceived potential political dangers. In their view,

political contamination from a mismanaged CETA program might ruin a political career. Thus# in effect, the political officials withdrew themselves from most of the

policy making process# leaving the field open to other# more motivated actors such as the service deliverers.

Given these circumstances# staffs were less account­

able to both the local political officials and the Labor Department than they were to the delivery agencies and

the private sector. The delivery agencies and the private

sector traded their critical resources for significant staff responsiveness to their interests. In contrast,

in most instances# the Labor Department and the local

politicians qranted authority and funds to the CETA staffs

but secured weaker staff responsiveness in return. Yet# we still place the local political officials

and the Labor Department above the labor unions# the newspapers# and the participant groups on the continuum.

To justify this placement# we point to the two actors’ 342 use of a combination of sufficient authority and mild coercion to gain accountability that was generally stronger than that obtained by the other three actors. Thus, although the two governmental actors failed to maximize the strength of their authority in influencing policy, they did exercise it in enough instances and with enough strength to warrant their higher ranking. The employment of coercive measures simply reinforced their efforts. As we argued in Chapter 2, Labor Department officials used their authority to manipulate employment and training policy through changes in the regulations and legislation. Unless other staff values took precedence, staffs complied with Department requests and requirements. And, when authority failed, Labor officials resorted to simple harassment to obtain their wishes. As we noted in Chapter 2, some federal representatives claimed that a persistent rain of telephone calls and inquiring letters was often the most effective tool for influencing policy.

The role of legitimate authority was more important for the local political officials. Again, as we described in Chapter 3, staffs often doubted the wisdom and decision making abilities of their elected superiors. Nevertheless, they still believed that they owed the elected officials a certain measure of accountability because of the officials' governmental status. 343

In contrast# all other actors/ except for the Labor Department/ were unable tod raw upon this source of power.

Thus/ as long as this source of power remained potent/ the local political officials had significant advantage over

other actors/ and particularly the press/ the labor unions/ and the participant groups.

Organized Labor

Organized labor's position on the lower end of the continuum belies its potential for obtaining greater staff accountability. In practice, labor demanded relatively little staff accountability outstide of thos policies which they perceived to affect their vital interests. Yet, given labor's relationship to many of the higher skilled occupations, all CETA staffs were attentive to union wishes.

Staffs hoped that labor could help them find placements

in career oriented jobs for CETA participants. If labor had been more forthcoming in this regard, they could hhave secured greater staff accountability.

Moreover, most staff members sympathized ideologically with the labor movement. Thus, staffs would have been more responsive to the unions than they were if they had received more active union input.

In short, labor ranks lower than several other actors largely because it failed to participate actively and con­ sistently in CETA policy making. It ranks higher than 344 the press and the participant groups because of its access to higher skilled occupations and the attraction that held for CETA staffs. In addition, given the unions' organized constituencies, they also exercised some leverage with the local political officials. If the unions disliked staff proposals or programs, they could have made their dissatisfactions known and felt. Thus, labor always had both potential sanctions and incentives to manipulate in securing a certain level of staff accountability that rose above that of the local newspapers and the participant groups.

The Press and the Participant Groups

We can explain the low rankings of the press and the participant groups primarily with reference to their lack of sufficient resources of power. In the political and economic context of the local employment and training systems, both of these sectors had less leverage on the

CETA staffs than any of the other actors. Although the local newspapers were usually strongly committed to their self-appointed role as night-watchmen for the public's protection, they simply lacked the necessary organizational resources to secure significant staff accountability.

Overburdened and often poorly informed about CETA, press reporters usually onlt skimmed the surfaces of the local programs. Thus, the newspapers seldom became informed enough to exercise any significant influence over the direction of policy. 345

To be sure, all staffs were sensitive to the press' potential effect on public opinion and the political officials. Yet, the press alone was unable to exercise

significant clout over the staffs. Only when the press acted in tHe context of deeper dissatisfaction among other actors did staffs begin to move in the direction of policy reconsideration.

Finally, we also place the participant groups lower than most of the other actors on the continuum primarily because they were deficient in the power resources necessary to compete with the other actors in the systems. Given the nature of the program, the participant groups included poor people with serious employment and training needs. Often, they lacked jobs and rudimentary skills. Within the theoretical assumptions of the program, they made up the nub of the problem that needed solved - the train­ ing and employment of the chronically underemployed and unemployed population. As such, most of the participants remained largely powerless unless they became informed and organized. However, ignorance and weak organization were the more common attributes of these groups.

Thus, even though most staffs were in great sympathy with the participants and were ideologically committed to their service, they were only weakly accountable to them. The severe inequality in access to resources of 346

power among the various outside actors explains the low ranking of the participant groups.

Staff Domination of the Local CETA Decision Making Process

In Chapters 2 through 4, we explained in detail the reasons for the staffs' fundamentally superior decision

making position in relation to each of the seven actors. Here, we simply summarize the important factors that led

to their superior position and briefly reiterate the basic logic of the arguments.

Superior bureaucratic knowledge, superior organizational strength, and delegated political authority all play a

role in explaining staff domination in the decision making processes. In most cases, the staffs usually knew more

about both the specific local employment and training

systems and the intracacies of the CETA legislation than any of the other actors in the system, with the possible

exception of some of the service deliverers. Consequently,

the staffs were almost always able to dominate decision

making forums and agendas. Invariably, other actors had to give the floor to more knowledgeable actors.

The gradual build-up of organizational infrastructure,

including additional staff members and accumulated wisdom

in "older hands" gave the staffs, in most cases, additional muscle. As I documented in three of the four sites, over 347 time, the staffs gradually cut away subcontracted delivery agencies and absorbed those administrative and programmatic services within the CETA staff organizations themselves.

The growing domination of staff control over more and more areas of decision making was the result of this development.

Finally, governmental authority, delegated to the staffs, combined with these other factors, gave staffs the final edge over all other actors in the decision making processes. In many cases, outside actors simply recognized the staffs as the representatives of the legitimate, locally elected government, and gave staffs the lion's share of decision making accordingly. Yet, even when out­ side actors refused to reliquish tbeir roles willingly, staff at times drew from their stock of authoritative power to achieve their goals. For example, in the more serious donnybrooks, such as the row between Acre's CETA staff and the local industry council over the staffing issue, CETA staff appealed finally to their delegated authority and the Mayor himself to prevail on the side of the staff's position. Additionally, some of the staffs' ideological beliefs prompted staffs to use their resources to dominate the policy making processes. Their dominant belief in their own "professionalism" led staffs to be wary of outside suggestions and influence. Moreover, staffs assumed that 348 they should retain the final authority over policy making.

Finally# in many cases# this view was buttressed by intense, staff commitments to specific programmatic goals. For example, in both the Briar Consortium and Choptank County, staffs viewed the program almost exclusively as an anti­ poverty program and were fiercely committed to insuring that it remain rigidly fixed on helping poor people acquire working skills and decent employment. To insure this programmatic direction, both staffs closely guarded their dominant decision making positions.

BUREAUCRACY, DEMOCRACY, AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Given the empirical analysis, where does this study leave us with regard to the larger theoretical questions that provided the original impetus for the study? First, what can we learn from this study about the relationship and tension between the development of state bureaucracies and democratic societies? Are these developments necessarily set on a collision course with one another? Second, what can we learn from this study about the importance of account­ ability relationships and mechanisms? If they function well, can they relieve the tension between bureaucratic institutions and democratic society? 349

Bureaucracy1s Dangers to Democratic Society

In part, the analysis provides additional fuel for the critics' fires of discontent with the nature of bureaucracy.

In summary form, the critics of bureaucracy fear a number of developments that they argue are associated with bur­ eaucracies. These include: (1) the bureaucracy's control over important policy making information? (2) the 'profess- ionalist' values assumed by bureaucrats that function to seal off other actors from the policy making process? and

(3) the resulting movement of policy making power from representative, elected officials to non-elected bureaucrats. As we explored their arguments in Chapter 1, critics argue that these aspects of bureaucratic development lead in an anti-democratic direction. Simply stated, the public loses control over its affairs in proportion to the increase in the development and proliferation of these aspects of bure aucra cy.

The evidence from this study clearly supports the claim that decision making power in important policy making areas at the local level shifted towards bureaucratic organizations, in these cases, the local CETA aaencies. In all of the sites and in all of the relationships, the staffs dominated the policy making processes.

We also found some evidence of staff ideological predispositions and access to power resources that tend 350 to be associated with bureaucratization and the centralization of power. In many of the relationships# the CETA staffs developed superior knowledge and expertise of the employment and training programs and CETA legislation and regulations.

This certainly approached monopolistic status in many of the relationships. Consequently# for a host of actors# including some regional Labor Department officials, local political officials# the press# participants, and business representatives# their lack of knowledge severely inhibited their abilities to influence policy making. In addition, the staffs' organizational infrastructure also tilted policy making power towards the centralized staffs. Out­ side actor respect for the agencies and their reluctance to assume the responsibilities for creating new agencies to compete with the CETA agencies also worked in favor of the staffs' relative independence. Simply stated# few actors had access to competitive resources that could counter—balance staff resources. As we saw in Chapter 3# in Choptank County, the political officials gave up their fight for a new# county administered program in large part because of the county's lack of organizational infrastructure and expertise.

At least some staff ideological and idiosyncratic values also tended to fit with the critics' fears of bureaucratic development and centralization of policy making 351

power. Staff beliefs in their superiority of knowledge

and expertise - their belief in 'professionalism' - led

staffs to ignore policy making suggestions and inputs from

other actors. As we discovered, in amny cases the staffs treated the inputs more as political and strategic problems

to get around. Seldom did staffs view them as viable

alternatives to staff policy positions. Staffs tended to

consider all outsiders as rank amateurs to be educated about the program and guided into "correct thinking"

about the program, but not to be seriously involved in policy making itself. .

Staff personal, vested interests in the maintenance

of their jobs and their organization's dominant position in policy making also contributed towards a fortification

of control over a large sphere of discretionary decision making power. Once CETA staffs had control over certain

areas of decision making and had accumulated personnel, they resisted outside efforts to weaken this control. I Finally, staff ideological commitments with regard to CETA's primary purposes and goals also contributed to greater centralization of staff control and more independent decision making. The stronger the staffs' commitments to certain ideological ends, the more resistant they were to outside actors whose policy views differed with the staffs'. This ideological value complemented the values of 352 professionalism. Both sets of values tended to lead staffs further into independent decision makincr structures and processes. As we mentioned before# the Briar Consor­ tium and Choptank County staffs are crood examples of this point, in both cases, decision makincr became increasinalv centralized amoncr top staff in the respective oraanizations. In summary# the analysis provides some evidence that these bureaucratic oraanizations had a tendency towards the centralization of power and the insulation of themselves from outside influence. Thus, functionally speaking, some anti-democratic drift seems apparent. I say "functionally anti-democratic" because staffs did not intend to operate in an undemocratic fashion, but for the reasons we have just examined, they proceeded into that pattern anyway. 353

TOWARDS THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF BUREAUCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY

Yet, at the same time, the study also provides evidence

that accountability mechanisms can provide a brake on this

centralizing tendency and allow for greater outside actor

input in the policy making process. As we documented through­ out the study, the explanatory mechanisms were checks on the exercise of bureaucratic power. Although many actors failed to maximize the use of these mechanisms, others used them with enough frequency to keep staffs on their guard. For example, neither the regular advisory councils nor the local newspapers muscled staffs into policy changes. However, given the existence of these forums and the staffs' expectations of questions, the staffs prepared strategies and arguments to respond to those inquiries. In this study, we found that all of the industry councils and two of the advisory councils funtioned reasonably effectively in this manner. Thus, although staffs still controlled policy making, they were always made aware that some sectors of the public were watching their actions.

Moreover, through the functioning of the various explanatory mechanisms, the staffs inevitably disseminated considerable amounts of information to outside actors. Given the importance of access to information in this context, this action offered many actors opportunities to gain influence. 354

Thus, for those who collected and integrated this infor­

mation, they became more equal partners in their relationships with the staffs. When used effectively, this aspect of the

explanatory mechanisms served a critical democratizing function. In this study, we also saw accountability mechanisms

aiding outside actors in effectively influencing agencies

when those actors had access to resources needed by the agency

staffs. As we saw in the staffs* relationships with both

delivery agencies and the private sectors in particular, staffs were accountable to these sectors in part and as long as those actors manipulated resources deemed valuable by

the CETA staffs. Thus, in effect, these actors checked the trend towards greater centralization of policy making power within the respective agencies.

Zealous ideological commitment on the part of some outside actors also contributed towards limiting

some of the staffs' drift towards greater centralization of power. For example, as we discussed in both Chapters 3 and

4, the Assistant to the City Manager for Lake City guided his use of governmental authority towards dramatically increasing the staff's accountability towards both the local political officials and the private sector. He wanted to change both the programmatic goals of CETA and the policy making structure. More specifically, he wanted the program to fit into a general economic development program. Both 355 political officials and private sector representatives were to have a more significant role in policy making.

Thus, he checked the staff's domination of decision making and widened the number of participants in the process. In summary, the evidence seems to indicate that when conditions are adequate for accountability, accountability mechanisms can help to impede the movement towards the centralization of staff power. Given interest, access to important power resources, and a willingness to make use of explanatory forums, an outside actor can check the development of bureaucratic power. Yet, to impede the movement towards greater centraliza­ tion of bureaucratic power fails in itself to fully democ­ ratize the accountability relationship. This, then, is our final question: What can we learn from this study about the potential for democratizing bureaucratic accountability?

To fully answer this question would take us beyond the scope of this study. However, it is appropriate that we at least identify some of the arguments involved in an answer to this question. Simply stated, to democratize a bureaucracy’s account­ ability, we have to insure that the bureaucracy is relatively, equally accountable to the legitimate representatives of the public. More specifically, this would entail: (1) relatively equal access to the important explanatory forums at which 356

bureaucrats could be effectively questioned? (2) relatively equal access to critical resources of power? and (3) an

ideological atmosphere in which both bureaucrats and outside actors believe in wide sharing of information and in shared decision making authority over a certain sphere of decision making areas.^

In the context of the employment and training policy

systems, this achievement would require far reaching changes

in both actor values and access to resources of power. Throughout the study, we demonstrated that the relevant outside actors had largely unequal relationships with the local CETA agencies precisely because of the inequality in access to relevant resources and sets of values on the parts of both staffs and outside actors. In effect, this configuration of access to resources and values militated against more democratic relationships. Moreover, as the CETA program developed, the relationships grew less demo­ cratic. We can demonstrate this point clearly in a brief summary of the differences between the character and authority of the regular advisory councils and the industry councils. Democratically speaking, the representative structure of the Employment and Training Advisory Councils was a reasonable approximation of a democratic institution.

Most, if not all, segments of the relevant public sectors 357 had some representation on these councils. Moreover, all members had equal formal authority on the councils. Yet, as we pointed out earlier, the councils were ineffective largely because of their inadequate access to resources of power and membership apathy. For example, the councils lacked the authority to countermand staff policy decisions. They could demand an explanation but not a policy change.

Through federal mandate, they were restricted to an advisory capacity.

In contrast, through its creation of the Private

Industry Councils, the federal government simply reinforced the already wide inequalities among the outside actors.

Unlike its treatment of the regular advisory councils, the federal government mandated business to have a dispropor­ tionate representation on the councils and control of the chairperson position. Moreover, the federal government gave the councils substantial policy making authority.

As a result, these councils tended to strengthen primarily the hands of that sector that already had significant power.

Thus, staffs became more accountable, but not in a more democratic direction.

In summary, although it is difficult to specify precisely how the structure could be democratized, greater equality of resource allocation among outside actors would 358 be an essential condition. More equal access to resources among legitimate public actors would allow for more equal influence on staff policy making. Ideological change among both outside actors and staffs would be necessary as well. Staffs would have to become more amenable to greater accountability towards outside actors. Instead of viewing these outside actors as so many political potholes in the road to effective programs/ they need to be able to see them as resources for improving programs. Moreover/ a greater sense of obligation towards outside accountability would also be necessary. Staffs would have to become more committed to outside actor involvement.

However/ none of this is conceivable without a signifi­ cant shift in outside actor ideological views and attitudes.

In many instances/ staff members made a strong case against serious outside actor involvement because of two factors.

First, in many cases, outside actors were uninterested in the program. ThuB, they failed to learn enough about the program to make a constructive contribution. Second, in the views of many staff members, many of the outside actors also suffered from an inability to work for a broader public interest. Instead, even if they were informed, they often worked primarily to secure their own, perceived interests at the expense of the larger public interest. Many of the 359 delivery agencies fell into this category. Thus, the staffs reasoned# if they allowed a greater decision making role for these types of actors# they would have little confidence in the efficacy of the programs that emerged from the decision making process. Consequently, for a democratized accountability process to develop# outside actors would have to become more committed to greater and more educated participation# and to an agreed upon definition of the public interest in terms of policies and programs.

To the extent that some approximation of this structure is possible, one additional step would involve the delinea­ tion between the discretionary sphere of decision making reserved for the bureaucrats and the non-discretionary sphere reserved for shared or collective decision making.

This is probably the most difficult stage in this process# but probably the most critical. It is a this stage that the politcal actors must distribute the policy making responsi­ bilities such that the expertise and efficiency of the bureaucracies are protected as well as the democratic character of the decision making process. To some extent, lip service was given to this principle in all of the sites.

However# actors seldom clarified the content of the two spheres and, more importantly, seldom acted to make this principle a reality. Finally# if we can tentatively conclude that this model offers some promise for a more general application to other relationships between bureaucracies and other sets of legit­ imate public actors# then we may be able to argue that a coexistence between the development of democratic and bureaucratic institutions is possible. Moreover# we may also surmise that accountability relationships and mechanisms may play critical roles in both the creation and maintenance of this uneasy but constructive coexistence. 361

NOTES

*Our judgements on influence and scrutiny were based on the indicators that we used throughout the study. For each relationship between a staff and a certain actor, we asked the following questions to assess the level and consistency of both influence and scrutiny: (A) Judgement on influence rating: (1) Presence in decision making forums: In the making of a particular decision, how often was the actor present? To what extent did the outcome reflect the actor's interest? (2) Consistency and level of staff anticipatory decision making: In the making of a particular decision, did staffs consider seriously the effects of outcomes on the actor? How often? If the staff did consider the actor's reactions, what effect did the consideration have? Did it change policy to fit the actor's interest or change staff strategy to deal with the actor's reactions? (3) Consistency of use of sanctions and incentives: To what extent did an actor use sanctions or incentives to get its way? How successful was the actor? CBj Judgement on scrutiny rating: (1) With regard to a particular decision, how closely did an actor examine staff supplied information and explanations? (2) Examination of indirect measures: (i) frequency of attendance at formal and informal meetings and forums. (ii) reports on an actor's examination of documents from reliable actors within the local system. (iii) presence or absence of forums and the number of forums through which scrutiny could take place. (iv) intensity of actor questioning and inquiries at meetings. 2 I determined the placement of each of the actors on the continuum by arriving at a rough, composite measure of the overall accountability strengths of each of the actors. I arrived at these composite figures by first making judg­ ments on the overall strength of accountability for each of the six planning decisions in each of the seven relation­ ships. Based on the empirical criteria identified in end note one, I assigned a low, medium, or high ranking to each of the decisions in each of the relationships. Thus, for each of the relationships, I arrived at. composite summaries for the six decision areas. For example, as Table 11 362 indicates, in Lake City, I determined that the overall accountability strength of the relationship between the local political officials and the CETA staff involved four medium and two low assessments across the six relationships. In turn, for the sake of obtaining a rough comparative assessment, I assigned numerical rankings to these summary assessments by using a scale of 1 to 3, low receiving a 1, medium a 2, and high receiving a 3 rating. Thus, I could then calculate a mean for each of the relationships and place them on a comparative scale as illustrated in Figures 26 through 29. However, since I did not develop a single quantitative unit of measurement for accountability, I make no claim that these scales are interval scales. They are primarily ordinal in character. The results of each site analysis can be found in Appendix B. 3 * The concept of democracy that underlies this adaptation to the accountability model is drawn from Ira Katznelson's and Mark Kesselman's definition of what they call "substantive democracy". As they define it: "...Democracy [is] a situation in which all citizens have relatively equal chances to influence and control the making of decisions that affect them..." From: Ira Katznelson and Mark Kesselman, The Politics of Power: A Critical Introduction to American Government (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1979), p. 14. In his book, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), Robert Dahl raises a similar question about the possibilities of democracy in the midst of significant resource inequality. As he wrote: "...In a system where nearly every adult may vote but where knowledge, wealth, social position, access to officials, and other resources are unequally distributed, who actually governs?.. .How does a 'democratic1" system work amid inequality of resources?" , pp. 3-4. 363

APPENDIX A EXPLANATION OF METHODOLOGY

In this appendix, I present a fuller description and defense of the data collection methodology. Given the importance of the field interviews to the empirical claims made in the study, I focus most attention on them.

Field Interviews: Respondents. Interview Guide, and Procedures

During the course of the research, I interviewed repre­ sentatives from all seven sets of actors involved in the local employment and training policy systems, including repre­ sentatives from the local delivery agencies, participant groups, press, labor unions, private businesses, CETA staff, and the regional offices of the Department of Labor. As

Table 12 indicates, I interviewed twenty-five to thirty-four respondents in each of the sites or a total of one hundred and nineteen people. As the table also indicates, I inter­ viewed more representatives from some of the sectors than others. For example, In Acre, I spoke with two chief aides to the Mayor and eight CETA staff members over the course of the research. In contrast, I spoke with only a few representatives from the various participant groups.

The research itself spanned approximately three years.

During that -time, I had the opportunity to speak with many of the respondents on numerous occasions. In general, I conducted the interviews during the course of three to six 364 Table 11

Interview Respondents By Sector and Field Site

Acre Choptank Briar Lake City County Consortium

CETA Staff 8 8 10 7

Labor 3 2 2 3 Press 2 2 2 1

Business 7 3 2 5 Participant Groups 3 4 4 4 Delivery Agencies 7 3 4 6 Local Political Officials 2 2 3 3 Department of Labor 2 1 2 2

Totals 34 25 29 31 Grand 119 Total 365 waves of field interviews. In addition# I supplemented these interviews with follow-up telephone interviews.

In all cases# I quickly recognized the more important and knowledgeable actors in the local systems. Consequently,

i. given limited resources and time# I gradually reduced the number of people to be interviewed on repeat visits. This meant that I interviewed certain actors more often and more intensively than others. For example, after I became con­ vinced that certain participant groups were relatively uninfluential# I relegated their representatives to either short field or telephone interviews. In contrast, I conductd numerous interviews with chief CETA staff# representatives rom important delivery agencies, and representatives from the relevant private sector businesses.

In the interviews themselves, I questioned the respon­ dents with open-ended Questions as Ficrure 31 indicates.

Usina the "focused interview" approach^, I phrased the questions to elicit • respondent-defined answers to the basic concerns and issues of the study: For what decisions and policies were the staffs accountable? To whom? To what extent? And# what factors explain the patterns that emerged?

Once the initial questions were asked, I followed each respondent's own line of thought and asked more specific questions intended to pin down concrete, empirical examples as evidence for the respondent's claims. For example, if an actor said that the staff was accountable for service deliverer decisions, I would probe for specifics: How 366 Interview Guide For Chief CETA Staff I. General Format for Communications in Accountability Relationships

1. How do you generally keep in touch with the other actors in the local employment and training system? (Probes: formal or informal meetings, formal or informal reports; use of outside evaluators; etc.) 2. How often would you say you communicate with each of the actors? For how long?

II. Substance and Quality of Explanations Offered to Other Actors

1. What issues and problems are examined with each of the other actors? (Probes: Basic planning decisions - target groups, target occupations, program mix, delivery agency choices, administrative decisions, and public planning decisions.) 2. To what extent do these actors press you and the staff to explain the agency's policy decisions and actions (past, present, or future) concerning the topics and problems identified in question one.) 3. Who controls the agenda? 4. Are there any topics or problems that are precluded from discussion? If so, what problems and how are they excluded from the discusssions?

III. Types of Sanctions and Incentives and Their Degrees of Manipulability

1. Do these actors have any sanctions or incentives they can use to influence your decisions? 2. On what decisions and issues were these used? With what effect? Did they change policy or just strategy?

IV. Level of Outside Actor Scrutiny

1. How much scrutiny is given to staff explanations of agency positions and decisions? (Probes: types of issues, references to other sources of information to check staff positions; time spent discussing issues after meetings, etc.) V. Outside Actor Influence

1. On what particular topics or issues do these actors have influence? 2. In making decisions, do you take into account how the other actors wil react to your policy decisions? To what extent? (Probes: strategy sessions prior to meetings with actors, articulation of strategies in dealing with actors, etc.)

Figure 31 367 did you make the staff accountable for those decisions?

Did you threaten them to make them accountable? In what forums did you exert influence? On what specific programs were the staff most accountable? As the Interview Guide also indicates, I approached each respondent with certain specific topic areas for him or her to comment on. Yet, unlike the approach used in standardized questionnaires, I avoided asking all respondents identical question in identical sequence. Instead, I tailored the questions to the respondent and his or her role in the accountability process. As a result, although

I managed to cover all of the important aspects of the process, I used different wording for the questions and timed the questions differently for the various respondents. In many cases, this procedure seemed to be most efficient in obtaining detailed and rich descriptions and explanations of the accountabiolity relationships. If I had insisted on a more strict, standardized questionnaire, I fear I would have had to cut off respondent discussions of the process - just when they may have been developing the .2 detailed information needed for the case studies.

Ideally, one might want to employ both standardized, closed-ended and partially structured, open ended question­ naires. However, given time, resource, and access to respondent constraints, and the nature of process analysis,

I chose the latter approach. To understand influence processes# one needs detailed information on various aspects

of the process: Who was present in the decision making processes? What issues were discussed? What decisions were made? What forums were important? And/ how did the

influential actors exert influence? Although one could obtain much of this information through a more highly structured questionnaire/ the less structured approach may be more efficient in generating the desired information.

Once the interviewer sets the respondent on a certain line of discussion/ often/ the respondent, if allowed to develop his or her points, will cover many of the issues that the researcher wants addressed. Moreover, with a few, quick, probes, the researcher can nudge the respondent to provide specific, concrete examples and, thus, further enrich the study.

Finally, given the researcher*s need for detailed information about the process, he or she needs an approach that allows for flexibility in the questioning process.

To gain clarity about the specific process in a site the researcher must at time be able to back up and probe further on particular aspects of a point that a respondent raised.

He or she must have the freedom to refashion a general question from the Interview Guide into a more specific question, tailored especially for the respondent's experience.

A greater wealth of detailed information inevitably emerges from this process. 369

Validity of Accountability Indicators

As I explain in the text, I assessed the accountability relationships by examining two major elements found in any accountability relationship: (1) the comprehensiveness of the explanations provided by one party to another party? and (2) the character of the influence one party exerts over the other in those relationships. In turn, I developed more specific and concrete empirical indicators to measure these two elements of accountability. In this section, I describe those indicators more specifically and defend their validity. In other words, I address the following question:

Did the indicators truly measure what they were supposed to measure?

Measurement of the Comprehensiveness of Staff Supplxed Explanations

To measure the comprehensiveness of staff explanations to outside actors, I broke down the concept of comprehensive­ ness into two categories: (1) quantity of information supplied by staffs; and (2) quality of information supplied by staffs.

Quantity of information simply referred to the sheer amount of information provided, regardless of whether or not it was important. Quality of information referred to the importance of the information that staffs supplied to out­ side actors. In general, I reasoned that comprehensive explanations must reflect both of these characteristics. If outside actors are to be able to influence important policy decisions intelligently, they must have access to information about the important policy decisions. Moreover# they must also have access to enough of this type of infor­ mation to make timely and up-to-date decisions. It is insufficient to be provided with important information only on occasion. Thus# quantity is also important. To measure the quantity of information# I focused on two indicators: (1) the frequency of communications between staffs and outside actors; and (2) the actual# identifiable "pieces” of information supplied by the staffs. A "communication between staffs and outside actors included formal and informal meetings# letters# reports# and phone conversations. With regard to some of these communications# such as the reports staffs provided to the Department of Labor# I attempted to obtain a specific measure of the number of reports provided. This was also the case with the frequency of the meetings for both the local Employment and Training

Advisory Councils and the Private Industry Councils.

However# in the other cases# I reached rough measures of the frequency of communication. For example# with regard to informal meetings and telephone cnversations between chief staff and local political officials# I attempted to determine whether these occured on a daily, weekly# or monthly basis.

The validity of this indicator lies in the simple fact that any exchange of information only takes place in some form of interaction or communication. It follows that the quantity of information exchanged will probably rise with 371 the frequency of the communications. Thus, by gaining a rough measure of the frequency of interactions between staffs and outside actors, I could obtain a fair reading of the amount of information being supplied. With regard to some forums of communication, I also attempted to calculate specific numbers on the

"pieces" of information supplied. For example, as the reader will see in Chapter 2, I arrived at some specific figures on information supplied in a number of the reports provided to the Department of Labor. In these cases, the pieces of information referred to specific statistics on program performance.

The validity of this second indicator is self-evident.

After decidina on a particular unit of measurement for measuring the information, I simply counted the units.

In measuring the quality of the explanations, I used two indicators: (1) the frequent appearance of infor­ mation about important policy decisions; and (2) the frequency and intensity of outside actor scrutiny of staff explanations. To reach conclusions about the first indicator

I scanned the data sources for evidence of discussions of the six major policy making areas. With regard to the level of scrutiny, I examined the relevant communication forums and looked for evidence of intensive and far reaching outside actor examination and cross-examination of staff explanations. 372

The validity of the first measure for quality is

also self-evident. As X stated earlier, quality of explanation entails information about important policy

decisions. Thus, to obtain a measure of the quality of

explanation provided by the staffs, I needed to assess

whether or not and to what extent the information dealt with the important planning decisions. To the extent

that it did, the quality of information could be iudqed to

be hiqh.

The validity of the scrutiny measure lies in an

assumption about the accountability process. I assumed

that in any accountability forum in which outside actors

questioned staffs about information the staffs had supplied,

the staffs were usually forced into providing more specific

and more important information than they would have supplied

otherwise. Therefore, the more often the outside actors

queried the staff on their information, the more likely

they were to receive important information. Thus, an indirect measure of quality would be the frequency and

intensity of this kind of cross-examination.

Measurement of Outside Actor Influence

As discussed briefly in the text, I measured the influence of the outside actors by focusing on three

dimensions of the influence process: (1) the important

decision making forums; (2) the anticipatory decision making processes of the staffs; and (3) the use or non-use 373

of sanctions and incentives by outside actors. With

regard to the decision making forums, I measured influence

by noting who was usually present at the meetings and whose goals and objectives were ahcieved in policy decisions.

Similarly, I measured outside actor manipulation of

sanctions and incentives imply by perusing the data sources for incidents which indicated their use. Finally, X depended primarily on staff reflections for evidence of

staff anticipatory decision making. In these cases, I simply recorded the issues over which staff engaged in anticipatory decision making; the effects on strategy and policy these processes had; and the actors who most regularly effected this process.

The justifications for the validity of these measures is also fairly straightforward Frequency of attendance at important meetings is a valid, if indirect, measure.

If a forum was an important decision making forum, then, the more often a group had representation at the forum, the more often they had opportunities to influence policy.

Comparing organizational goals with the actual decisions of the agencies is also valid because it takes a reading of each sector's ability to achieve their ends. Thus, unless other evidence discounted it, I noted influence when a sector's stated goals matched the actual goals of the CETA agencies. 374

Measuring the frequency of sanction and incentive manipulation and their effects also gives an indication of the willingness of outside actors to pressure staffs and with what results. If one can document that outside actors used sanctions and incentives to pressure staffs and were successful in using them, then, influence would be apparent.

Finally, the analysis of staff reflections may be the only way to obtain evidence on the staff anticipatory decision making processes. Without having directly observed private, staff councils, I was dependent on staff accounts of what transpied in those sessions.

Reliability of Information

The last question to be addressed is: Were there any checks in the research process that insured the accuracy of the information collected? Two aspects of the process helped to secure accuracy: (1) multiple sources for infor­ mation; and (2) numerous visits to the field sites, stretched out over a three year period. By gathering information from personal interviews, personal observations of meetings; and a variety of documents, I was able to check information from one source with the information from the other sources. The numerous visits provided additional opportunities to reconfirm previously gathered information as well as to probe for additional, new information. 375

NOTES

■^Claire Selltiz, et. al., Research Methods in Social Relations (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1959), p. 264.

2Ibid., p. 264. 376

APPENDIX B

Table 12

Lake City; summary Assessment of CETA Staff Accountability to Seven Public Actors

Actors/Decisions TO TG PPS PM SD ADM Mean

Political Officials 1 1 2 2 2 2 1.7

Business 2 1 2 2 2 2 1.8

Labor Department 1 2 2 2 1 1 1.5

Unions 2 1 1 2 1 1 1.3

Delivery # CO Agencies 2 2 2 2 2 n *

Press 1 1 2 1 1 1 1.2 Participant Groups 1 2 1 1 1 1 1.2

Key; Policy Decisions

1. TO - Target Occupation 2. TG - Target Group 3. PPS - Public Planning System 4. SD - Service Deliverer 5. PM - Program Mix 6. ADM - Administrative

Measurement Equivalents

1 = low 2 = medium 3 = high 377 Table 13

Acre: Summary Assessment of CETA Staff Accountability to Seven Public Actors

Actors/Decisions TO TG PPS PM SD ADM ' Mean

Political Officials 1 1 2 2 2 2 1.7

Business 2 1 2 2 2 2 1.8

Labor Department 1 2 2 2 1 1 1.5

Unions 2 1 1 2 1 1 1.3

Delivery Agencies 2 1 1 2 2 1 1.5

Press 1 1 2 1 1 1 1.2 Participant Groups 1 2 1 1 1 1 1.2

Key: Policy Decisions

1. TO - Target Occupation 2. TG - Target Group 3. PPS - Public Planning System 4. SD - Service Deliverer 5. PM - Program Mix 6. ADM - Administrative

Measurement Equivalents 1 = low 2 = medium 3 = high 378 Table 14

Choptank County: Summary Assessment of CETA Staff Accountability to Seven Public Actors

Actors/Decisions TO TG PPS PM SD ADM Mean

Political Officials 1 1 2 2 1 2 1.5 Business 2 1 1 2 1 1 1.3

Labor Department 1 2 2 2 1 1 1.5

Unions 2 1 1 2 1 1 1.3

Delivery Agencies 2 1 2 2 2 1 1.7

Press 1 1 2 1 1 1 1.2 Participant Groups 1 2 1 1 1 1 1.2

Key: Policy Decisions

1. TO - Target Occupation 2. TG - Target Group 3. PPS - Public Planning System 4. SD - Service Deliverer 5. PM - Program Mix 6. ADM ■ Administrative Measurement Equivalents

1 = low 2 = medium 3 = high 379 Table 15

The Briar Consortium: Summary Assessment of CETA staff Accountability to Seven Public Actors

Actors/Decisions TO TG PPS PM SD ADM Mean

Political Officials 1 1 2 1 2 1 1.3

Business 3 1 2 2 2 1 1.8 Labor Department 1 2 2 2 1 1 1.5

Unions 2 1 1 2 2 1 1.5

Delivery Agencies 1 1 1 1 2 1 1.2

Press 1 1 2 1 1 1 1.2 Participant Groups 1 2 1 1 1 1 1.2

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