Anti-Corruption Reforms in Governmental Programs  

Ever taken an introductory business management or public administration course? An early lesson in these courses is usually the key functions of managers and administrators. These are often explained as planning, organizing, controlling, staffing, and leading.

As a former management professor and consultant, I stressed the quality of controls established for organizational plans and programs. Without adequate controls to monitor and identify problems, organizations have much greater difficulty in achieving plans or developing better ones for the future. Many inefficiencies in both the public and private sectors can be traced to ineffectual organizational controls. We can see this particularly when funds appropriated for important government priorities, such as environmental cleanup and climate change responses, are squandered.

   

Control deficits can occasionally be found in the collective process of creating our federal, state, and local laws. Those directly involved in or significantly affected by proposed legislation can usually provide much more informed input in this process. These key stakeholders can also interject their self-interests and perceptual biases though. Deals are eventually struck, with parties to these deals often trying to squeeze in preferred amendments. These negotiated agreements can result in legislation, and later administrative programs, having gaps, overlaps, and inconsistencies, adding to implementation and control difficulties.

Stakeholders with “deeper pockets” who are impacted by legislation and administrative policies often obtain talented resources to help them “get around” some provisions in the agreements. There are also those who flout laws and policies with impunity, especially if there are poor enforcement activities and low punishment risks.

   

Critics can sometimes fault an overall law or policy without fully recognizing that its major weakness is its crude monitoring or enforcement. The devil can be in the details of creating and maintaining appropriate control measures, and this important responsibility is often left in the hands of lower-level staff members. We do have some program administrators who are attuned to their control responsibilities. However, we often don’t have enough of these truly dedicated and talented individuals to make policy implementation very effective.

One glaring example of federal policy implementation and control weaknesses was revealed to the public by reporting from NBC News last year. The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was a business loan program established during the Trump administration through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). In what many have called the largest fraud in U.S. history, the U.S. Department of Justice has charged more than 500 people with illegally claiming PPP loans. Experts have claimed that there was theft of about ten percent of the $800 billion distributed in the relief plan. That amount was said to be in addition to the $90 billion to $400 billion estimated as stolen from the $900 billion COVID unemployment relief program.  

Our own state has long had an unenviable reputation for fraud and corruption associated with governmental programs.  One example of statistics backing up these perceptions is displayed.

The Biden administration has prioritized increased anti-corruption efforts within federal programs, stating that such corruption erodes public trust, deepens economic and political inequality, and degrades the business environment. The website fact sheet for their reforms describes how underinvestment in government technology, the crush of demand during the pandemic, and ill-considered decisions to take down basic fraud controls led to historic amounts of outright fraud. The effectiveness of these recently proposed approaches will be tested over time. Given the massive amount of grants, loans, and tax credits associated with recent infrastructure and climate programs, wide ranging anti-corruption reforms seem warranted.  

   

Part of the focus on anti-corruption in governmental programs must be better recognition of the importance of lower-level personnel who often directly implement and monitor these programs. We learned the critical roles played by “essential workers” on the frontline during the pandemic, and afterward during global supply chain shortages. These workers are best situated to detect potential implementation problems – if we value and seek their input.    

For every czar or top program administrator, we need many conscientious support personnel to assure high levels of policy implementation. The quality of recruitment, selection, training, and treatment of talented public-sector employees is key, especially given attractive job alternatives in the private sector. Even if we are smart enough to have these essential workers where needed, they seldom get the attention and respect that they deserve.

Public sector administrators can rely too much on heavy-handed bureaucratic controls and display limited awareness of market and social controls. The administrative challenge is much more than a simple choice of either more or fewer control measures. It’s the selection of a creative and appropriate set of controls that fit well with chosen plans and implementation realities. Since any control option has a mix of potential costs and benefits, specific controls must be justified. We need to reduce potential frauds without having enforcement officials spend excessive resources or obsessively monitor the lives of employees, consumers, and others.

Billions of dollars in governmental funds for infrastructure and environmental improvements in Louisiana have been provided or scheduled. Let’s hope that the administrators and employees involved will take their control responsibilities seriously.