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Appendix F:
Progress in Downsizing the Federal
Government

In January 1996, the Clinton Administration reported that the count in the number of civilian executive branch federal employees excluding employees of the independent Postal Service had been reduced by almost 240,000 since the Administration took office in January 1993.(1) This is the smallest federal workforce in 30 years (see Table F-1).

A variety of mechanisms have been used to accomplish this, thereby keeping the use of involuntary terminations to a minimum. In fact, of the 239,286 person reduction, only 20,702 have been involuntarily separated. Most of the reductions were in three categories: administrative staff (44 percent); blue collar staff (33 percent); and engineers, scientists, or medical personnel (22 percent).

Major Trends in Staff Reductions

Thirteen of the 14 executive branch departments have reduced their employee count since President Clinton took office in January 1993. The exception is the Department of Justice, which is hiring additional law enforcement employees. Six cabinet agencies have had reductions of 10 percent or more. Other major agencies have experienced relatively large cuts in percentage terms; for example, the Office of Personnel Management had reduced its staff by 38 percent, as of January 1996 (see Table F-2).

Defense civilians comprised 154,000, or 64 percent, of the reductions. To put this figure in context, note that Defense civilians accounted for 43.2 percent of the executive branch workforce in January 1993 and 41.7 percent in January 1996. Note too that the scale of the Defense Department is enormous compared to civilian agencies. For example:

The Defense Logistics Agency has four times the number of employees as the entire Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The staff at the Defense Contract Audit Agency is larger than that of the Department of Education; the Defense Department's civilian school system has three times the number of employees as does the Department of Education.
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service has as many employees as the State Department.
The Defense Commissary Agency has a larger staff than the Environmental Protection Agency.

Defense employment is decreasing primarily because of the end of the Cold War; however, a large number of positions are also being eliminated through reinvention initiatives. The civilian Defense cuts are being driven by budgetary necessity, but the proposed reengineering efforts of the National Performance Review (NPR) have enabled the Defense Department to downsize without impairing readiness or service delivery. Of the 110,100 positions that Defense eliminated in fiscal years 1994 and 1995, over 12,000 were in occupational areas targeted specifically by NPR for reduction:

Nearly 5,800 Defense procurement positions have been eliminated.
Over 2,500 personnel specialist positions and nearly 3,700 financial management positions have been eliminated.
Another 5,000 positions in these occupational areas are expected to be eliminated in the next two years.

Staff Reductions
Based on Doing Things Better With Less

Thousands of positions on the civilian side of the government have been eliminated because of reinvention's new ways of doing things better with less:

Overall, agencies have reduced the number of supervisors by 20 percent 54,000.
The Department of Agriculture has eliminated 14,954 positions by reducing its agencies from 43 to 30 and consolidating or eliminating 1,200 obsolete county-level field offices.
The Department of the Interior has decreased its staff by 9,400 positions by reducing its support staff and eliminating entire organizations such as the Office of Territorial and International Affairs and the Bureau of Mines.
The Department of Health and Human Services, including the Social Security Administration, has reduced its staff by 7,259 positions by eliminating an entire layer of management, by consolidating personnel and support functions, and through other streamlining measures.
The General Services Administration has eliminated 4,839 positions by streamlining its real estate and procurement functions.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has reduced its staff by 3,795 positions.
The Office of Personnel Management reduced its staff by nearly 45 percent 2,616 employees in part by privatizing its training and investigations functions

Federal Employment

Table F-1. Executive Branch Employment January 1965 January 1996 (excludes U.S. Postal Service)

	Employment
	Total	Defense	Non-Defense
1965	1,857,958	1,016,967	840,991
1966	1,917,888	1,063,005	854,883
1967	2,137,148	1,246,345	890,803
1968	2,190,618	1,267,152	923,466
1969	2,227,583	1,315,260	912,323
1970	2,165,642	1,251,982	913,660
1971	2,095,532	1,149,802	945,730
1972	2,105,708	1,126,301	979,407
1973	2,087,984	1,080,747	1,007,237
1974	2,052,268	1,034,180	1,018,088
1975	2,103,387	1,038,071	1,065,316
1976	2,128,006	1,023,255	1,104,751
1977	2,119,037	993,516	1,125,521
1978	2,138,374	982,198	1,156,176
1979	2,150,696	971,968	1,178,728
1980	2,173,917	963,598	1,210,319
1981	2,187,373	972,990	1,214,383
1982	2,128,336	1,008,366	1,119,970
1983	2,133,432	1,023,776	1,109,656
1984	2,153,005	1,041,586	1,111,419
1985	2,181,624	1,065,119	1,116,505
1986	2,208,577	1,094,743	1,113,834
1987	2,171,716	1,070,435	1,101,281
1988	2,216,059	1,081,659	1,134,400
1989	2,205,165	1,058,198	1,146,967
1990	2,241,361	1,070,529	1,170,832
1991	2,193,358	1,014,212	1,179,146
1992	2,221,483	1,006,003	1,215,480
1993	2,188,647	966,087	1,222,560
1994	2,113,645	905,167	1,208,478
1995	2,028,022	859,598	1,168,424
1996	1,949,366	812,323	1,137,043

Source: Office of Personnel Management, Monthly Report of Federal Civilian Employment (SF 113-A).

Table F-2.Changes in Federal Civilian Employment, by Major Agency, January 1993 January 1996

	Civilian Employees
Department or Agency	Jan 93	Jan 96	Change	Percent Change
Agriculture	113,687	98,733	-14,954	-13.2%
Commerce	37,608	35,497	-2,111	-5.6
Defense (civilian)	966,087	812,923	-153,164	-15.9
Education	4,995	4,795	-200	-4.0
Energy	20,706	18,983	- 1,723	-8.3
Environmental Protection Agency	18,351	17,476	-875	-4.8
Federal Emergency Management Agency	4,554	3,853	-701	-15.4
General Services Administration	20,690	15,851	-4,839	-23.4
Health and Human Services	131,066	123,807	-7,259	-5.5
Housing and Urban Development	13,292	11,575	-1,717	-12.9
Interior	77,313	67,913	-9,400	-12.2
Justice	97,652	104,244	6,592	6.8
Labor	17,719	15,722	-1,997	-11.3
National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration	25,191	21,396	-3,795	-15.1
National Science Foundation	1,270	1,269	1	0.1
Office of Personnel Management	6,861	4,245	-2,616	-38.1
Small Business Administration	5,768	4,827	-941	-16.3
State	25,982	24,538	-1,444	-5.6
Transportation	70,086	62,782	-7,304	-10.4
Treasury	165,904	154,920	-10,984	-6.6
United States Agency for International Development	4,218	3,484	738	-17.4
U.S. Information Agency	8,283	7,280	-1,003	-12.1
Veterans Affairs	260,349	258,275	-2,074	-0.8
Subtotal	2,097,631	1,874,389	-223,242	-10.6%
All Other Agencies	91,216	74,945	-16,241	-17.8%
Total	2,188,847	1,949,364	-239,483	- 10.9%

Source: Office of Personnel Management, Monthly Report of Federal Civilian Employment (Form SF 113-A).

(1)This appendix is based on the monthly head count of federal employees compiled by the Office of Personnel Management. This measure counts part-time, full-time, and seasonal employees employed on the last day of each month. An alternative count of the federal employment is also used, called "full-time equivalent" (FTE). An FTE is equal to one work year, or 2,080 non-overtime hours. This number is normally calculated at the end of each fiscal year. A special estimate was calculated in January 1993 that serves as a baseline used by the Clinton Administration to measure its progress in reducing the size of the federal workforce. Between this baseline and September 30, 1995, about 185,000 FTEs have been cut from the executive branch agencies. In the President's fiscal year 1997 budget, the Office of Management and Budget estimates that the number of FTEs will have been cut by 214,400 by September 30, 1996.