By John Mitchel
RE: “Civil service reform a must” by Phillip L. Parker, CEO, Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce, Dayton Daily News, B2B, March 27, 2011. I couldn’t agree more with the Ohio Metro Chambers of Commerce three specific civil service reforms that must occur to give state government the ability to rein in burgeoning personnel costs and to act as more efficient stewards of taxpayer investments (read taxes).
(1) Giving managers freedom to manage their employees, (2) Linking compensation to performance, and (3) Investing in workforce development would go a long way to make local and federal, as well as state governments more efficient. The private sector has pretty much figured this out with the notable exception of private not-for-profit corporations like the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce, which is led by Mr. Parker.
Non-profits are a sort of hybrid between private corporations and public business entities; the main difference being that many not-for-profits like the Dayton Chamber’s Education and Improvement Foundation receive significant funding from the taxpayers through government grants, where truly private corporations do not. For example, according to the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce Education and Public Improvement Foundation IRS Form 990* (Google “Form 990 finder”), the Foundation received over $1.25 million in government grants in 2008 accounting for more than 90 percent of that organization’s revenue that year.