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    Administrator's
     Update
               svEFA
 Number 5
                           September 24,1993
                               National Performance Review
         The Vice President's Reinventing Govern-
    ment report, released last week, contains a number of
    government-wide recommendations that will have an
    extremely positive impact on employees at EPA and
    other federal agencies. As with our internal National
    Performance Review (NPR) effort, the Reinventing
    Government recommendations recognize that federal
    systems., not federal employees, are at the center of
    inefficiency in the federal government.  Copies of the
    report have been distributed to AAs, RAs, Office
    Directors, and EPA NPR team leaders and are
    available in all 28 headquarters and regional libraries
    — I encourage all of you to review it.

         Some of the key concepts in the report
    include:

    • Empowering Employees - The Reinventing
    Government report recognizes that government must
    take its lead from the private sector, restructuring to
    empower federal employees and encourage innova-
    tion, creativity and responsibility. Recommended
    steps to empower employees include decentralizing
    decision-making, creating new incentives and awards
    for innovation, diversifying employee training
    opportunities, and modernizing information technol-
    ogy.

    • Putting Customers First - The report places a high
    priority on orienting federal agencies to treat taxpay-
    ers as customers. Recommendations include increas-
    ing the use of voluntary customer surveys and
    introducing elements of competition in the federal
government by eliminating monopolies held by GSA
and other agencies. Of particular importance to
EPA, the report also recommends the establishment
of cross-agency ecosystem management projects.

• Cutting Red Tape - The red tape recommenda-
tions are designed to free federal employees from
cumbersome restrictions so they can do their jobs
better and enjoy them more. Specific recommenda-
tions include streamlining the procurement process
by shifting from rigid rules to guiding principles, re-
orienting Inspector General offices to increase their
focus on helping managers better evaluate their
management control systems, decentralizing and
deregulating personnel policies, and streamlining the
budget process.,

• Cutting Back to Basics - The final section of the
report focuses on cost-saving measures the govern-
ment can take that reduce useless expenditures and
improve revenue collection. Recommendations in
this section range from specific items, such as
increased utilization of electronic reporting and
communication, to general measures such as giving
the President more flexibility to cut items from
spending bills.

      EPA's NPR Implementation Steering
Committee met for the first time September 10 to
discuss an implementation strategy for both the
government-wide and internal EPA recommenda-
tions. I look forward to an implementation process
that will put our best NPR ideas into practice.
                                                                            Continued on back
                                   Printed on Recycled Paper

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              Personnel Moves

       I want to let everyone know about a
personnel shift in my office. Kathy Aterno will be
leaving the Chief of Staff post in order to devote
herself full time to a number of significant man-
agement issues facing our Agency, including
environmental justice. Starting in November 1993,
Kathy will become Deputy Assistant Administrator
for Management and Administration in OARM
where she will continue her work on environmen-
tal justice and will play a major role in manage-
ment matters throughout the Agency. I have asked
Mike Vandenbergh to move from his current
position as Associate Deputy Administrator to the
Chief of Staff slot starting Monday (9/27).
              National Service

       On Tuesday, the President signed the
National Service Act National Service will create
a corps of thousands of people working in and for
their communities to earn money for college — a
"domestic peace corps." Because environmental
protection and management is one of four focus
areas for the program, National Service will further
our mission at EPA, providing concrete benefits
for the environment, and equipping a new genera-
tion with the skills and perspectives of environ-
mental protection.

       I have asked Helga Butler on my staff to
put together an EPA Working Group on National
Service. The Working Group met for the first time
yesterday (9/23) to begin developing a National
Service program for EPA. I encourage anyone
who has thoughts about meaningful ways EPA can
involve young people in the National Service
program through community-based environmental
protection activities to contact Helga. You can
leave a message on her voice mail at (202) 260-
4179.

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