US Earthquake Safety Relies on Federal Employees’ Expertise

This paradigm has been made possible by the technical expertise and lack of political agendas among the federal staff. Without that professionalism, we believe experts from outside the federal government would be less likely to donate their time.

The impacts of these and other programs are well documented. We can point to the limited fatalities from U.S. earthquakes such as the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake near San Francisco, the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles and the 2001 Nisqually earthquake near Seattle. Powerful earthquakes in countries lacking seismic preparedness, often due to lack of adoption or enforcement of building codes, have produced much greater devastation and loss of life.

The U.S. Has Long Relied on People with Expertise
These programs and the federal agencies supporting them have benefited from a high level of staff expertise because hiring and advancement processes have been divorced from politics and focused on qualifications and merit.

This has not always been the case.

For much of early U.S. history, federal jobs were awarded through a patronage system, where political loyalty determined employment. As described in “The Federal Civil Service System and The Problem of Bureaucracy,” this system led to widespread corruption and dysfunction, with officials focused more on managing quid pro quo patronage than governing effectively. That peaked in 1881 with President James Garfield’s assassination by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled supporter who had been denied a government appointment.

The passage of the Pendleton Act by Congress in 1883 shifted federal employment to a merit-based system. This preference for a merit-based system was reinforced in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. It states as national policy that “to provide the people of the United States with a competent, honest, and productive workforce … and to improve the quality of public service, Federal personnel management should be implemented consistent with merit system principles.”

The shift away from a patronage system produced a more stable and efficient federal workforce, which has enabled improvements in many critical areas, including seismic safety and disaster response.

Merit-Based Civil Service Matters for Safety
While the work of these federal employees often goes unnoticed, the benefits are demonstrable and widespread. That becomes most apparent when disasters strike and buildings that meet modern code requirements remain standing.

A merit-based civil service is not just a democratic ideal but a proven necessity for the safety and security of the American people, one we hope will continue well into the future. This can be achieved by retaining federal scientists and engineers and supporting the essential work of federal agencies.

Jonathan P. Stewart is Professor of Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles. Lucy Arendt is Professor of Business Administration Management, St. Norbert College. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation.