Department a Haven for Clinton Loyalists

When Carol Moseley-Braun lost her U.S. Senate seat last fall, she didn’t worry long about her next paycheck.

Just before her term expired, the Illinois Democrat signed on as a consultant to the Department of Education at $453.84 per day.

Her contract called for her to provide expertise on “school construction issues,” although the agency has no money to build classrooms.

When Carol H. Rasco wanted out of her influential post as White House domestic policy chief, she also found a lucrative berth at Education. Rasco, who is paid $125,900 annually, runs a skeletal reading program that Congress has refused to fund.

Moseley-Braun and Rasco have plenty of well-connected company: The Clinton administration, which has made improving schools a top priority, is using the government’s lead education agency to provide employment for assorted Democratic loyalists.

Although the hiring of political appointees and consultants outside normal Civil Service channels is nothing new in Washington, the patronage system is more pervasive at Education than at any other federal agency.

The smallest Cabinet department, with 4,800 employees, Education has 167 appointees--one to every 29 workers, according to the Office of Personnel Management. The average ratio for Cabinet departments is one to 807.

Previous administrations have considered the Education Department, then an obscure agency that came under little scrutiny, an ideal holding spot for political appointees. The Clinton administration wanted to change all that and, in fact, managed to limit the numbers of appointees during its first term. But since Clinton’s reelection in 1996, it has resumed the tradition of packing the department with loyal supporters, campaign workers and their relatives.

At the same time, Education has grown in importance. The department’s mission of improving America’s schools has moved to the top of the national agenda. Clinton frequently calls it a pressing domestic priority, and polls show that voters agree.

Just four years after congressional Republicans tried to kill the department, lawmakers now are committing more money to Education than ever before, increasing its discretionary funding since 1996 by 46%, from $23 billion to $33.5 billion. And, for the first time since the agency’s inception in 1979, front-runners for both the Democratic and GOP presidential nominations are promising to expand it.

The Education Department is charged with addressing particular needs and problems in the nation’s schools, such as improving student performance, curbing violence and ensuring equal opportunities for poor, disadvantaged students. Local school districts, which receive federal grants, administer the programs.

Education Secretary Richard W. Riley says that the department’s new place on center stage is precisely why so many appointees are needed. To launch new initiatives, he said, his hires have “to forge political connections” with governors and school superintendents.

“I’m very pleased with the people we have attracted here,” Riley said.

Report Finds Flaws in Patronage System

But, in the past, a high level of political patronage at the agency has not corresponded with effectiveness. In the 1980s and ‘90s, the department was criticized repeatedly by the General Accounting Office for management problems and lackluster results.

A work force too dependent on appointees can hamper performance because the appointees seldom stay for even one full presidential term, experts say. At Education, it is also common for them to be diverted--for as much as a year at a time--for White House projects unrelated to improving schools. These include the president’s commission on race and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s historic-preservation effort.

The agency’s political ranks are a curious mix: a former Stanford University education dean, a onetime suburban New York school superintendent, the president’s goddaughter, the Transportation secretary’s sister-in-law and myriad Clinton-Gore campaign veterans. The children of a former Democratic governor, a former Democratic senator and a former Clinton Housing secretary have passed through the department’s payroll.

In addition, two men are working at Education despite having been scarred by professional scandal elsewhere. One appointee previously was named in connection with a cover-up of Treasury bond fraud. Another pleaded guilty to theft and possession of forged checks during a campaign.

“Here is a department that is promoting standards and excellence [for schools] but appears to have less of a commitment to high standards for itself,” said Paul C. Light, director of the Brookings Center for Public Service and an expert on the federal government.

White House spokesman Barry Toiv said the Clinton administration turned a neglected department into an instrument for helping states and communities improve education. “While Republicans have tried to weaken and even kill the department, the president has improved it with strong leadership and adequate resources so that it can carry out his ambitious agenda for improving our schools and expanding access to higher education,” Toiv said.

In 1993, the incoming Clinton administration was cautioned in a GAO report that the tradition of so many appointees at Education created “management challenges.”

Increases Began in Reagan Years

Education has accommodated progressively larger numbers of appointees since President Carter created the agency. According to reports published by Congress, about 75 appointees served under Jimmy Carter in 1980 and about 166 under George Bush in 1992.

The increase began when Ronald Reagan’s administration, which wanted to abolish the agency, used Education as a place to stash campaign supporters and appointees who had fallen out of favor at other departments.

Midway through Clinton’s first term, Education’s inspector general began warning that the department lacked employees with critical computer and financial skills and that it needed people with expertise to oversee outside contractors.

This shortage has continued while increasing numbers of appointees have been added, said Dianne van Riper, who retired in January as the department’s assistant inspector general for investigations.

“When you decide to spend a dollar on hiring one kind of employee and not on another, you’re making a decision,” Van Riper said.

In addition to its growing roster of political appointees, Education has 63 advisory board members--by far the most in the Cabinet, and retains 38 consultants, the second-highest proportion.

One of the consultants, Moseley-Braun, was “concerned, as anyone would be,” when she faced the loss of her Senate salary of $136,673 after election defeat last November, said a former aide, Steven Collens.

She told her Senate staff that she had been promised nomination as ambassador to New Zealand, a process that she knew could take months. She went to Riley.

The secretary offered her a contract to “develop outreach plans and initiatives to convey information on the need for school reconstruction to communities, officials of state and local government, parents, business leaders and school administrators.”

Before entering politics--where she became one of Clinton’s most dependable votes in the Senate--Moseley-Braun had been an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago. Her Senate defeat, after one term, followed questions about her personal and campaign finances and her meeting with a discredited Nigerian dictator.

Despite Moseley-Braun’s lack of education experience, Riley called her “a very logical choice.” As a senator, she promoted federal financing for school buildings. Twice, she led efforts to fund school construction, but Congress rejected the idea on grounds that it was a local and state responsibility.

Moseley-Braun’s contract called for intermittent employment, allowing her time to pursue other opportunities, such as speechmaking. From mid-January through mid-July, she received $23,145.84 from the department.

Rasco informed Clinton in 1995 that she wanted out of the hectic environment at the White House. The solution: a job at Education.

A former middle school counselor and longtime Clinton aide from Arkansas, Rasco had been a controversial choice among the president’s advisors as policy chief. Education provided her a similar six-figure salary and a position directing America Reads, a program she helped design while at the White House. But without funding from Congress, Rasco was left to give speeches around the country urging parents to read to their children and calling on colleges to get work-study students to tutor at local schools, even though no money was available to train tutors.

Perhaps the ultimate political plum at Education is held by former Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode: a $105,269-a-year post coordinating regional representatives whose public relations jobs are heavy on ceremony and light on substance. Goode served as the mayor of Philadelphia from 1984 to 1992 and as a Clinton fund-raiser in the ’92 campaign.

“It is somewhat puzzling,” said John Puckett, a University of Pennsylvania education professor who monitors Philadelphia schools. “I honestly don’t know what qualifications Wilson Goode would bring.”

As mayor, Goode had no direct oversight over schools. His authority was limited to appointing some school board members from a pool of nominees. In an interview, Goode said that he has nurtured “a passion for education for 35 years. My wife and I were active in our children’s public schools.” He also began teaching a political science course at Eastern University before joining Education in 1993.

Goode serves as Riley’s Philadelphia representative and also oversees the work of his counterparts and their assistants in nine other regions. The primary responsibility of these officials is to represent Riley at local school events and meetings.

Among the 16 appointees, whose combined salaries exceed $1.3 million a year, are many Democratic activists: two former teachers’ union officials, the wife of a Texas state senator, a former mayor of Berkeley, a longtime friend of Riley’s who worked at IBM, a former Senate staff member for Vice President Al Gore and a onetime Vermont House speaker who campaigned for Clinton there.

When George Bush was president, department officials contemplated eliminating the regional representatives. But a former Bush appointee said no one could summon the political will to do it.

Unlike regular government employees, appointees are not required to take Civil Service exams or compete for posted vacancies.

The Clinton administration has had its share of problem appointees. Among them: transferred White House aide Linda R. Tripp and presidential paramour Monica S. Lewinsky, who both got political jobs in the Pentagon’s public affairs office. Another: John Huang, who was awarded a political job at Commerce in 1994 through the influence of loyal Clinton donors. Two years later, Huang emerged as a central figure in the campaign-finance scandal.

The Huang saga led Secretary Bill Daley to vow to slash political positions when he took over at Commerce in 1997. “There is a place for politics in public life, but there is no place for politics in any of the decisions that are made at the Commerce Department,” Daley said at his confirmation hearing.

Appointee ranks at Commerce are down one-third, from 197 in 1996 to 131 this year.

By contrast, the number of political appointees at Education has grown by 19% since 1996, from 140 to 167.

Education is regarded as an executive-branch parking place for friends and campaign workers, particularly those who lack training for other administration posts, said Derrick Max, a former congressional staff member who dealt with education policy before joining the libertarian Cato Institute in 1998.

“You need to be a lawyer to work at Justice,” Max said. “You need to know something about health to work at HHS. But everybody went to school.”

The biggest growth at Education in Clinton’s second term has come in the categories of “special assistant” and “confidential assistant,” with salaries averaging $74,000 a year. The department added 30 such slots--a 28% increase since 1996.

While many of these employees are bright and well educated, it didn’t hurt that they also had well-placed friends or relatives.

Sarah Staley, the president’s goddaughter, is paid $58,027 as a special assistant in public affairs. After she’d worked briefly as a reporter, anchor and sales associate at television stations in Greenville, Miss., and Sulphur, Okla., Staley and her mother proposed the idea for “Bill Clinton: Rock & Roll President,” a 1997 documentary on VH-1 television about Clinton’s musical tastes. Angela J. Wilkins, sister-in-law of Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater and daughter of an Arkansas state lawmaker, is paid $68,570 to prepare briefings for Goode. She previously managed her mother’s legislative office, sold real estate and volunteered in the 1992 Clinton campaign. In 1990, her resume says, she spent three weeks teaching night school classes in English, math and office machines.

Judith H. Wurtzel makes $49.32 an hour as an Education consultant developing a math tutoring program. She is a 1983 graduate of Yale University and a 1988 graduate of New York University Law School. Her father is Alan L. Wurtzel, vice chairman of Circuit City electronics stores, who along with his wife has donated $171,600 to Democratic causes since Clinton first ran for president.

The two men working at Education who have been linked to professional scandals elsewhere are Donald M. Feuerstein and Sterling Henry Jr.

Feuerstein, 62, joined Education as a special assistant in 1993, two years after being forced to resign as chief legal officer of Salomon Brothers after the firm covered up false bids submitted at Treasury bond auctions. Feuerstein was not individually sanctioned, but was cited by name in a Securities and Exchange Commission report as one of four senior executives who failed to act after learning about the fraud.

The report led Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), now minority leader, to return a 1990 Feuerstein campaign contribution of $1,000. But Feuerstein’s role in the scandal “was never an issue” for the Education Department because he did not face criminal or civil charges, said Education spokeswoman Julie Green.

Feuerstein’s connections at Harvard University--where he earned his law degree and raised money for the education school--helped him get his federal job. Feuerstein has since returned the favor. The government pays him a $91,410 salary, which he said he donates to his alma mater.

He is assigned to research student loan processes and construction tax credits. Apparently, Feuerstein said, he qualified by virtue of his Wall Street work, even though he served as a lawyer, not a banker. “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, so I’m the finance guy,” he said.

Henry became a special assistant in the Historically Black Colleges section after running the Clinton-Gore campaign office in the District of Columbia in 1992. He took a vacation in 1995 to help bring out black voters for a Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Kentucky, where he was indicted for cashing checks made out to campaign workers. Though the amount involved was only $175, his guilty plea last year on theft and forgery charges brought him two years’ probation and a court-ordered ban from Kentucky politics.

Henry, 40, receives $67,697 a year from Education to develop federal goals for helping black colleges. The department decided that no action against him was warranted, Green said, “due to the nature of the charges and his job performance here.” Henry declined comment.

Other appointees at Education have been assigned to duties unrelated to education reform.

In 1997, General Counsel Judith Winston transferred out for a year to direct the president’s race initiative, taking with her four special assistants on loan.

“It’s not like she was going off on something that had nothing to do with education,” Riley said. When asked the connection, he added: “It was a major thrust of the president, and we support the president.”

Riley’s scheduler, Regan Burke, organized a 1996 White House ceremony to celebrate Clinton’s reelection effort while on the Education Department’s time and dime, Green said. Burke, whose salary is $99,474, continues to supervise various White House events.

Stephanie Jones, Riley’s Chicago regional representative, is taking a year’s leave from her $93,198-a-year post to organize Mrs. Clinton’s Millennium Tour. She is not being replaced.

Even junior staffers are drafted from all sections of the department--while remaining on Education’s payroll--for tasks that range from handling requests for the president’s appearances to arranging the first lady’s travels.

For example, Education special assistants served as support staff for Mrs. Clinton during a Los Angeles synagogue stop, a mosque visit in Egypt and a dinner given by the Greater Detroit Chamber of Commerce on Michigan’s Mackinac Island, an annual event for politicians and prospective campaign donors.

Diane Rossi, Education’s White House liaison, explained the rationale: “When people go on assignment for the president, the vice president and the first lady, well, they’re all very focused on education too.”

*

Times researchers John Beckham and Robin Cochran contributed to this article.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Appointees by the Numbers

The U.S. Department of Education, with the fewest employees of any Cabinet agency, has the highest ratio of political appointees to government workers. Overall, Education ranks fourth in the total number of political staffers.

*

Ranked by most appointees per number of employees

*

Note: Ratios exclude advisory board members

*Excludes ambassadors

*

Source: Central Personnel Data File, Office of Personnel Management, March 31, 1999