The federal government is facing a workforce crisis. The current workforce is aging, and young people's desire to join the civil service is decreasing. For example, in the field of cybersecurity, the government needs approximately 40,000 cybersecurity experts to protect the country from malicious attackers. More generally, the White House recently announced ambitious goals to accelerate the government's hiring of AI talent. But this “talent surge” could be just a temporary dip in talent, as less than 1 percent of PhDs specializing in artificial intelligence hold public office.
There are ways to counter this. One of the federal government's biggest secrets is an obscure 53-year-old law that provides for filling talent gaps, training federal employees in new skills, and fostering scientific innovation, all at a very low cost. . The Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) facilitates the exchange of personnel between levels of government and between governments and universities. This allows for the rapid allocation of skilled professionals to meet a variety of needs, including in science and technology fields. Whether the issue is climate change, pandemic preparedness or technology governance, IPA can gain expertise where it is needed most.
However, there are many myths and misconceptions about this law. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has announced a wide range of federal sanctions following media revelations that the law gave former Google CEO Eric Schmidt control over U.S. technology policy. Launched a “fundamental review'' of the IPA across institutions. IPA's real story contrasts sharply with such claims.
An upcoming comprehensive study will show notable ways IPA has solved pressing problems. Half of the employees at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a model of public innovation that claims to have helped develop the GPS system, the Internet, and mRNA vaccines, work under IPA. The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) was launched by, you guessed it, staff assigned under the IPA program. The National Science Foundation (NSF) attracts top researchers under a statute to shape the nation's scientific frontiers. Additionally, the General Services Administration (GSA) has used IPA extensively to facilitate rigorous policy evaluation across the government.
So the IPA worked really well. Contrary to highly publicized allegations, IPA appointees operate overwhelmingly at lower levels of government, where expertise is required. These are offered for a limited time, usually less than two years. They also follow a code of ethics that applies to all federal employees.
The law also allows the government to bring in experts who would otherwise not hold public office. Academics working at the forefront of their fields can contribute part-time to important government projects. Even for full-time assignments, the two-year limit and faster hiring process make it easier for people to move in and out of government without losing a more permanent position. Although short-term, these experts can make long-term improvements and increase the skills of remaining bureaucrats.
Assignees under the IPA also save the government money. Some people don't get paid by the government at all. Their home institutions pay their salaries. The government covers someone else's salary (up to the government level) and the cost is much lower than using a contractor. GSA's IPA talent costs approximately one-fourth to one-third of comparable contractor costs.
According to one public administration dean, it was recognized from an early stage that personnel exchanges through IPAs would be “non-coercive, decentralized, highly simplified, and flexible,'' but these words were used to describe government. It was something that was rarely used. We should launch the IPA from obscurity and embrace its public-private partnership model to tackle the most pressing problems of our time.
How can I do this? First, an IPA hub must be established to make programs for emerging technology and science available to all government agencies. Although many large agencies have modeled what this law could do, from NASA to his NSF to the IRS (one of us, Daniel, works without pay under the IPA). , and other institutions are in a bind. Here we can borrow a page from his GSA, which established a cost-effective IPA hub for policy evaluation. We need to help all interested institutions build in-house expertise through IPA.
Second, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) should use its rulemaking authority to promote IPAs, remove barriers to their use, and dispel myths surrounding IPAs. In the 1990s, OPM delegated IPA responsibilities to individual agencies and a thousand flowers bloomed. While this encouraged innovation, it also led to misunderstandings on the part of government agencies about the IPA program. OPM has a list of “mythbusters” on his website, but few people read it, and even fewer rely on it. It is not enough to counter these misconceptions. For example, one government agency told us last year that IPA appointees must be full-time, which is directly contrary to actual policy. This is exactly the kind of thing he thinks OPM can solve through regulation.
When introduced in 1969, Senator Edmund Muskie described the IPA as “a landmark piece of legislation comparable in its potential impact on the quality of public administration'' as the law that created the civil service. That may have been an exaggeration. But the potential is there. And given the urgent challenges that require scientific and technological talent, from mitigating climate change to limiting the risks of AI, now is the time to celebrate and redouble that vision. Masu.
