A hollow administration?

Hundreds of top agency positions remain unfilled in the Trump administration, but maybe some should stay that way.

teamwork on puzzle (alphaspirit/Shutterstock.com)

After more than a year in office, the Trump administration is maintaining a very slow pace for filling top government jobs. The appointments tracker run by the Partnership for Public Service and the Washington Post shows that President Donald Trump is “months behind his predecessors in staffing up political leadership.”

Only 267 of 636 key Senate-approved positions had been filled as of mid-February — far fewer than the previous four presidents at this point in their presidencies. But let’s dig a little deeper and see what we might learn.

The State Department has the most openings — 65 positions. No other department is close to that number. Might this reflect the alleged tension between the White House and the secretary of State? Or policy and personnel tensions over who should fill key jobs? It’s a startling number of vacancies, and it would be good to understand the cause.

These departments face a better staffing picture: Justice (17 positions), Treasury (16), Energy (11) and Transportation (10). All other departments and agencies have vacancies in the single digits.

A good bit of attention has focused, as it should, on the open positions at the top of key agencies. Specifically, there are no permanent directors of the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; no undersecretary for health or benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs; no director for the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House; and no commissioner for the Social Security Administration.

Equal weight should be given to the openings in the administration’s top management ranks, including chief financial officers, CIOs, chief operating officers, inspectors general and administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. I have counted at least 17 positions that would fall into that category, and a good number of them have a direct impact on the federal IT community.

There is, however, another side to the appointments/confirmation coin. I counted at least 60 openings on various boards, commissions, foundations, endowments, administrations and authorities. One would think I’d heard of everything after a 30-year career in government, but the roles and responsibilities of the International Joint Commission or the Northern Border Regional Commission stumped me. And should such positions be presidential appointments requiring Senate confirmation?

A similar issue of concern: Of the 65 State Department vacancies, 31 are ambassador positions and 11 are representatives to various international bodies, such as the United Nations and the European Union. Clearly, some are important and should be filled soon (e.g., the ambassadors for Egypt and South Korea). For others, the bigger deadline pressure might be that nominees risk being stuck here for the remainder of the winter season and miss out on the warmer weather in Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago. As for Mongolia, I don’t know much about the best time of year to be there.

My point is not to demean or diminish any of the openings or vacancies. Instead, my argument is that we need to get more information to determine whether the government is suffering in any way because of the number of roles that have yet to be filled.

Finally, I encourage readers to take a look and suggest two or three positions that might better be dropped from the list of those that require Senate confirmation. I nominate the following: assistant secretary for economic development at the Commerce Department, director of the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity at the Energy Department and special counsel for immigration-related unfair employment practices at the Justice Department.

Your nominations are welcome!

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.