The Generalist Perspective in the HEW Bureaucracy

A t the beginning of the 1970s, the decentralization of the federal bureaucracy was an idea in good currency. It was widely seen as a way of breaking up the vast concentration of power in Washington, bringing government closer to the people, and improving intergovernmental relations. For these and other reasons, it was a prominent part of the Nixon administration's package of domestic initiatives. In June 1971, I joined the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) as a policy analyst and quickly became caught up in the rush to decentralize the bureaucracy. However, since I worked in the Office of the Secretary rather than in one of the program agencies, I found myself addressing the issue from a broader perspective than most HEW officials. To me and others with whom I worked closely, the issue became one of not only decentralizing program authority, but also strengthening the position of generalist administrators in the ten regional offices of the department. We argued that such a strengthening would be instrumental in: (1) promoting coordination among the more than 300 HEW programs, (2) improving relations with elected officials and generalist administrators at state and local levels, and (3) generating services which were more responsive to the multiple needs of clients. In addition, we warned that to decentralize program operations without increasing the authority and resources of the ten generalist regional directors would be to make the vast and highly fragmented department all the more unwieldy. It would deprive it of crucial internal steering mechanisms and place it ever more firmly in the hands of the program specialists. Within HEW, our position was clearly a minority one, but because it reflected the thinking of Secretary Richardson and some of his top aides, it had an impact. In a relatively short span of time, the regional directors gained a measure of authority over some program operations, acquired additional staff and financial resources, and became more important participants in

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