Read and comment on this excerpt from Charlie Peter's Washington Monthly on the two and a half year rule he saw applied at the Peace Corps when he was head of the Evaluation Division in the 1960's at:
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Tilting at Windmills
DID YOU READ ABOUT THE PENtagon civil servant who used her government credit card for $12,000-worth of personal expenses? The bureaucratically innocent may assume that she was fired. Those who know the civil service know better. She has transferred, but she still works for the Pentagon. She wasn't even asked to repay the $12,000. Can anything be done about this problem? Do we have to keep incompetent or misbehaving civil servants forever? There is an answer to the problem, and it comes from the Peace Corps, which has a system of two-and-ahalf-year appointments. It's still hard to get rid of the bad apples immediately, but you don't have to keep them around for life.
When their appointments are up, you simply don't renew them
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This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Peace Corps Washington
