How to Get--and Keep-the Best

How to Get--and Keep-the Best

Reports issued by Government commissions tend to be quickly shelved and forgotten. But one produced by the Commission on Executive, Legislative and Judicial Salaries is bound to hold Washington's--and the nation's--attention for some time to come. It proposes hefty pay increases for Senators, Congressmen, federal judges and most top officials in the Executive Branch.

Since 1969, while inflation has soared by 60.5%, these officials have received a grand total of 5% in raises. As a result, says the salary commission's report, good people are leaving Government in a flood. If the trend continues, the Government will eventually be run by the rich, the young, the untried and perhaps the unsavory. Adds the report: "The costs of such a government reach beyond the costs of a salary increase; they are incalculable, and to a free people unacceptable."

Serious Reform. Every four years, a nine-member commission of distinquished citizens is appointed to review salaries for executive-level federal employees who are political appointees, outside civil service. The last two proposals were turned down by Congress, which feared retaliation at the polls if it raised its own pay. Since the law requires all executive-level federal salaries be increased at the same time, Congress's politic penny-pinching had the effect of denying raises to the Judicial and Executive branches as well.

This year's commission--chaired by Peter G. Peterson, 50, a former Commerce Secretary who is now board chairman of New York's Lehman Brothers tried a different approach. "Why does Congress deny these raises?" the report asked. "Because it knows the mood of Americans, who have far less confidence in public officials than before. Breaches of trust--even by relatively few--have reduced the willingness to increase compensation." Concluding that "only a commitment to serious reform will convince Americans that trust and confidence can be restored and that increases in salary are justified," the Peterson commission recommended a financial code of conduct for federal officials to go along with the pay hike.

It remains to be seen whether such a code will be enough to reassure a public that has grown increasingly tightfisted because of a series of Government scandals, ranging from Watergate to Koreagate. Says Peterson: "I do not believe it is excessive to say that the 'money in polities' issue has metastasized and threatens to eat away our whole political system."

A few Government positions, says the report, continue to attract talent because of their "psychic" rewards. But jobs that are less visible and glamorous than, say, Cabinet posts are being drained of competent people. That includes top civil service posts, where salaries have also been frozen, since no civil service job can pay more than an executive-level position. Employees have an added incentive to quit because retirement benefits keep growing, while salaries are frozen. In 1974, no fewer than 46.6% of eligible executives with frozen salaries chose early retirement. From 1969 to 1976, the Air Force lost 46% of its top scientists. For more than a year, the Social Security Administration has been unable to fill the post of chief actuary, who estimates the longevity of Social Security recipients. During the last three years, four of eleven directorships of the National Institutes of Health have been vacant.

Salary Boosts. The report concedes that the Federal Government will never be able to match salaries for comparable jobs in private industry. Nor is such parity desirable. To a considerable extent, public service should be its own reward. Thus the salary boosts urged by the commission are substantial without being stupendous (see chart). Because Cabinet posts are much sought after, their salaries would advance only 7%, to $67,500. Judges, on the other hand, would get a better break because most serve until retirement and are unable to make up for financial sacrifices with fat salaries in later years. The Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court would be boosted from $65,600 to $80,000, Court of Appeals judges from $44,600 to $65,000.

The President's salary--currently $200,000--can be raised only by a special act of Congress. But the commission would increase the salaries of the Vice President and the Speaker of the House from $65,600 to $80,000, the majority and minority leaders in both houses of Congress from $52,000 to $65,000. The lowest executive-level jobs, including the Commissioner of Education and the director of the Census Bureau, would receive boosts from $37,800 to $49,000.

The code of conduct accompanying the raises would severely curtail outside earned income, such as legal and directors' fees and honorariums for speeches. It would require complete financial disclosure of all income, gifts, debts and personal holdings. Strict conflict-of-interest standards would be applied. Restrictions would be placed on the kinds of jobs that people could take when leaving Government. The report urges abolition of "revolving-door arrangements through which company executives, Government regulators and contract negotiators pass freely, changing hats or uniforms as they go, doing damage to public respect for Government."

So far, President Ford has not commented on the report. If he approves its recommendations, he can include them in the budget message that he will send to Capitol Hill next week. Congress then will have 30 days to modify or vote down the proposals. If it does neither, the proposals will automatically become law.

Congress appears to be receptive to the pay provisions, cool to the code of conduct. Says House Minority Leader John Rhodes: "I'm not pleased with the idea of members of Congress, who are in just two years at a time, having to give up all outside sources of income." A House reform task force is now drawing up a code of ethics similar to the commission recommendations. Whoever draws it up, a stricter set of ethics is certainly desirable. Even more urgently needed is a salary level that can attract and keep in Government people who do not require a code of conduct.

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