The United States witnessed the successful transition of power last week as former President Barack Obama transferred the reins of the country’s federal government to President Donald Trump.

But for Sean O’Keefe, University Professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the transition is far from over.  As one of six senior advisers for the National Academy of Public Administration’s Presidential Transition panel, O’Keefe has been providing recommendations on challenges of public governance and public administration to both Trump’s and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the last six months.

“Both (camps) came equipped with people or talent … who understood exactly the kinds of issues that needed to be taken on,” he said.

The academy, where O’Keefe has been a fellow for 20 years, is a non-partisan, nonprofit organization chartered by Congress in 1967 to help government leaders navigating complex public administration and public governance issues.

The transition process —  contrary to the perception that it starts after the election — begins three days after candidates accept their party nomination at their respective party convention, as is outlined by the Pre-Election Presidential Transition Act of 2010. The legislation allows political parties’ nominees and their campaigns to have access to federal agencies and information necessary to understand the challenges of transition.

“It is extremely difficult because there is a whole array of things that the new administration has to consider to take a role and to understand how you select people and how you go about the process,” O’Keefe said. “This is not easy step to begin with even the best circumstances.”

The 2010 legislation was enacted because the transition is the most vulnerable time for the nation, O’Keefe said, adding that those who seek to undermine society may take advantage of the void of leadership to carry out terrorism.

O’Keefe, who has experience being part of a transition team before, said former President George W. Bush was cognizant of how the consequences of 9/11 might put the nation in jeopardy during the transition time.

“In the spring of 2008, he was very explicit in telling all of the staff that we are going to make this the most seamless transition we can make it in order to assure that the next president, whoever that is — not knowing at that time who is going to win — would be best equipped to deal with those kinds of challenges if they surface on day one,” he said.

Some of the public governance challenges facing Trump’s administration, O’Keefe said, include the standardization of information technology across departments, the consequences of budget decisions and talent acquisition.

For example, anyone who is applying for a government position must meet security clearance to establish security credentials, he said. O’Keefe said the process is so “laborious” that it can take nine months, denying opportunities for individuals whom the federal government and citizens can benefit from to be civil servants since they may be tempted to work somewhere else because of the waiting period.

The new president, O’Keefe said, not only needs to nominate secretaries of departments and government agencies, but also appoint about 4,000 minor positions such as deputy secretaries and assistant secretaries. The typical period it takes to fill out all of the positions while going through background checks and nomination and confirmation processes through the U.S. Senate, he estimated, is about 18 months.

“That’s a really, really long amount of time for everyone to get organized and to figure out what’s going on and, you know, understand the mechanical pieces of what their job requires,” he said. “We’re just at the beginning of this, so it’s got another 3,800 people to go that will be in the positions of actually making decisions about manners of public governance that are yet to be named and yet to be vetted at this stage.”

O’Keefe said the pace of nomination accelerates after the inauguration, which is typical for every new president. He said his role as a senior adviser will come to the end sometime around this spring.

“We’ve got a long way to go and this is going to be the greatest challenge I think to the leadership team of any president coming in the door, having the right combination of people in place and getting them in to those capacity to demonstrate their skills or not,” he said. “That is a huge undertaking.”

Published on January 23, 2017 at 10:40 pm

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