A lesson to learn: the value of public service

After days of news coverage of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, it struck me: Almost all of the thousands of rescue workers I saw or read about were public employees. Or as our governor and Legislature think of them: bureaucrats.

There were the firefighters, police officers, emergency management officials, National Guardsmen, sanitation workers, health care workers and others working desperately around the clock to find survivors in New York.

At the Pentagon were active duty military and reservists, civilian employees and others trying to save lives, find out what happened and find the terrorists.

Then there were the thousands of unseen public employees obtaining and moving supplies, staffing hotlines, cutting paychecks, restoring sewer and water services and performing myriad other tasks.

In the best sense of the term, they are all public servants working in a tradition that has endured since the earliest days of the United States.

Fast forward to Jan. 22, 2002, when the Florida Legislature will open its regular session to implement Gov. Bush’s initiative to cut the state employee workforce by 25 percent by 2006 — eliminating some 30,000 state jobs — replacing many under private contracts.

The governor and Legislature consider these employees dispensable and disposable. Contractors workers can do the same, only cheaper and better.

Once they get their way, all Florida will lose something important: the idea of public service. It’s an idea this community dedicated itself to long ago: to educate young people, to operate core government functions effectively and to protect consumers, the environment and public safety — and when a crisis happens, to pitch in tirelessly.

Have our leaders forgotten how state employees responded to the crisis of Hurricane Andrew nine years ago? Hundreds of career state employees from outside the area spent weeks in South Florida clearing wreckage, repairing damage and beginning to rebuild.

I know many who went, and they came back with renewed purpose and dedication to public service. They had provided public services beyond what any private contractor would have or could have.

The idea that contract employees will deliver the same quality of services as career employees is absurd. Someone poorly paid, with few or no benefits, working for a profit-making contractor, fearful of losing his or her job if a contractor who paid more in campaign contributions comes along is not thinking about public service and never will.

Consider how our federal government mishandled airport security. Instead of using a professional protective service like that which guards federal buildings, we contracted for near-minimum-wage workers, with no benefits and only a few hours of training to be our last line of defense, screening passengers for guns, knives and explosives.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) reported last year that more than 90 percent of the contractors’ screeners had been on the job less than six months, and often could make more at the airport’s fast-food restaurants. It found that the screeners lacked such skills as detecting suspicious behavior and that many had such vision problems that they couldn’t discern a dangerous object on X-ray screens.

The GAO noted that screeners at European airports are career government employees, averaged about $14 per hour with benefits, and were far more effective on the job.

However, lessons like these don’t travel well, especially to Tallahassee.

If Service First continues, it will result in the slow decline of morale, performance and service in many of our most important government functions. Gov. Bush, House Speaker Feeney, Senate President McKay: Stop this all-out assault on state career employees.

Let’s concentrate instead on good management, on prudent economies — and on keeping alive the idea and spirit of public service in Florida.