Working for a Local Bureaucracy for Eight Years: A Horror Story

Conventional wisdom has it that a decentralized government is the best government, that a local bureaucracy is preferable to a federal bureaucracy because it is closer to the people and therefore more accountable.

I’m not so sure about that.

I worked as a local bureaucrat, a technical writer for the city of Costa Mesa. I’m a horror novelist by trade, but the horror market was in a slump, and I needed a day job to tide me over, a way to pay the bills until my books started selling. So I gritted my teeth, put on a white shirt and tie, and sat at a desk in the bowels of City Hall writing computer instructions.

For over eight years.

People who advocate a devolution of federal power, a relinquishing of responsibility to states and municipalities, invariably point to Washington’s bloated bureaucracy as one of the key incentives for decentralization. But I know from personal experience that bureaucracy on the local level is no less bloated. When I left Costa Mesa, there were 142 full-time employees working in City Hall. Of these, 26 were division managers and department heads, administrators offered an astonishing array of perks and privileges not available to general employees.

That’s one administrator for every five workers.

Put simply, City Hall is top-heavy with management.

During one of California’s recent budget crises, the city planned to lay off people in order to make up a predicted budget shortfall. In an open meeting between rank-and-file employees, the city manager and the mayor, I asked if there were going to be equal cuts in both general employees and management.

The mayor grew defensive, refusing to answer my question and instead attempting to justify the city’s outrageously high administrative salaries (the city manager makes as much money as California’s governor and half the salary of the President of the United States). The city manager did answer my question and assured me that cuts would be applied equally, a promise he repeated to the press. But when the dust settled, 50 positions were eliminated, 13 regular employees were gone and no management personnel had been let go. The result? Members of the public now had to wait an inexcusable amount of time for building permits and inspections because the Development Services Department was short-handed, yet there were no vacancies among the attendees at the next city-sponsored “executive retreat.”

Of course, the line fed to the citizens of Costa Mesa was that the fat was being trimmed, that tax dollars were being saved.

And they bought it, hook, line and sinker.

Someone said that a government is only as good as the press covering it. Therein lies one of the major problems with local bureaucracies. The fact is, the national press does a much better job of covering politics than do local journalists.

Perhaps the single biggest problem with local governments, however, is the arrogance of their administrators, the tendency of minor faceless bureaucrats to suffer from big-fish-in-a-small-pond syndrome. Mid-level bureaucrats are led to believe that they are extremely important people, that they are the focus around which everything orbits. And they act accordingly.

I had a personal encounter with this myself. After five uneventful years of simply going to work, doing my job and going home, I was suddenly told by my supervisor that someone in another department had complained about me, saying that I was spending too much time on break. I was not--and had a witness to prove it--nevertheless, I followed bureaucratic protocol and covered my rear, using a time clock to punch in the beginning and ending times of each and every break.

A short time later, the Orange County bankruptcy hit, and it was learned that the finance director had repeatedly recommended to the City Council that Costa Mesa keep its money in the county investment pool. The council decided instead to heed the advice of [county Treasurer] John Moorlach, a citizen activist and CPA who predicted the economic disaster and suggested that the city withdraw its funds.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? I think so. Yes, federal bureaucrats can be petty and small-minded, myopic defenders of the status quo. But local bureaucrats seem to be even worse. While federal officials may not be perfect, at least they are monitored and their failings are dutifully reported. Also, their relatively high level of responsibility guarantees that minimum standards will be, if not maintained, at least attempted.

No such institutional structures exist for bureaucrats on the local level. They can run roughshod over rules and ethics and no will ever be the wiser.

And I guess the bottom line is: I feel better entrusting money and power to federal employees than I do to the type of local yokels I worked with at City Hall.