These awards honor the best US civil servants. What ‘best’ means may be changing.
The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that works to improve government, is sifting through applications for an annual awards ceremony honoring federal workers this spring — an event that continues despite a year of upheaval that threatens to change how good public service is defined.
The most recent ceremony of the Samuel J. Heyman Medals for Service to America, or the “Sammies,” illustrated the tensions over the honor of public service under the Trump administration, which has fired tens of thousands of federal employees and criticized others as useless or against the interests of Americans. June’s honorees — including one that helped return $1.2 billion in stolen COVID-19 relief funds and another that reduced wait times in the U.S. passport system — were not invited to take the stage or speak, Partnership CEO Max Stier said. He wanted to protect them from the Trump administration’s cost-cutting measures.
The only honoree to speak at the summer ceremony was Sammies Federal Employee of the Year David Lebryk, a former acting secretary of the Treasury Department who was cited for effectively overseeing the government’s financial operations. Mr. Lebryk had previously left his job following a clash with allies of then-Trump adviser Elon Musk after resisting efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency to access the department’s payment system.
Why we wrote this
Cuts and changes to the federal workforce by the Trump administration have forced groups that reward good governance to hold up new standards for exceptional public service.
Amid these tensions, Sammies staff are trying to find a way to continue a decades-old tradition of honoring those who, they say, significantly improve the lives of Americans.
The complications surrounding the awards ceremony reflect a tension over the role of government bureaucrats, also called civil servants — the people responsible for everything from operating national parks to ensuring food security. To protect them from political pressure, these workers cannot be fired without cause. And they are meant to serve as nonpartisan experts who can keep government running smoothly from one administration to the next.
But Mr. Trump has made sweeping changes to the federal workforce — cutting staff numbers, introducing merit-based hiring criteria and requiring federal workers to show support for the administration’s goals. He may be able to go further: The Supreme Court appears ready to allow the Trump administration to have direct control over the direction of the agencies, even though Congress established the agencies as independent of the presidency.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP/File
“We’re breaking up what was more or less a century-old system where we had political appointees,” says Don Moynihan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan. “But we also had a civil service system that aimed to maintain continuity, expertise and impartiality as core values of our government.”
The Trump administration and many Republicans say these drastic cuts and other changes are necessary to ensure government efficiency. And the administration’s actions show that it is elevating its own vision of good governance, redefining the ideal that these awards have honored and the way public service has operated for the past 140 years.
A lifelong vocation
Another program, the Arthur S. Flemming Awards, is run by George Washington University and also seeks to honor federal employees who find innovative approaches to solving wicked problems. But the Flemming Prizes have an additional criterion: they are awarded only to people who have spent three to fifteen years in government. This is about encouraging employees to stay in this job and view it as a long-term commitment.
“Public service is a calling,” said Kathryn Newcomer, chair of the awards committee. “It’s not just a simple job or a way to make money, but it’s something you really believe in.” »
She thinks of people like Alex Maranghides. After nearly a quarter century of research, this Sammies finalist created rescue tips to protect evacuees during wildfires.
In the field he works in, he says, it can take decades for a person to acquire a high level of expertise.
In fact, Mr. Maranghides retired from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in April. But he continues to work, without pay, to ensure that the new generation is well prepared to continue his work.
“This is absolutely essential, because if we break this chain, then it will be extremely difficult to rebuild,” he says.
But Daniel Greenberg, senior counsel at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, says a culture that honors longevity comes with tradeoffs. Firing low-performing employees who are longtime, loyal workers can be difficult and, he adds, the Trump administration is trying to change that culture.
Mr. Greenberg says the Trump administration may be trying to model the federal workforce on a characteristic of the gig economy, in which a “gifted administrator” steps in for only a short time, primarily to make structural changes. Then that administrator moves on.
“If you have that type of model, it suggests a different type of workforce and different types of incentives,” he says.
Courtesy of the National Academy of Public Administration
Fidelity and efficiency
Mr. Musk, a billionaire whom Mr. Trump tapped to run the new Department of Government Effectiveness, at one point asked federal employees to list five things they had accomplished that week. (The Office of Personnel Management ended this requirement in August, but it still encouraged managers to track their employees’ progress.)
OPM also drafted new regulations that prioritize performance over seniority when deciding which employees to retain.
“President Trump rightly recognizes that the federal government must operate under the same fundamental practices. [as] do all modern organizations as a whole,” OPM Director Scott Kupor wrote in an October blog about the agency.
Mr. Greenberg says he understands why Mr. Trump has sought to reform the federal workforce.
“If you’re a car salesman, there’s a reason your salary depends on the number of cars you sell,” he says. “It’s relatively easy to measure the value of a worker to a company in many areas of the private sector. It’s really difficult…in the public sector.”
The Trump administration is also emphasizing support for its priorities. In late May, OPM implemented a new “merit hiring program” that includes four open-ended essay questions that applicants for federal positions at certain levels must complete. One question asks candidates to identify Trump executive orders or policy priorities that are “important to you” and explain how, as government employees, they would help implement them.
Civil servants typically serve in multiple administrations and are required to implement each president’s policy priorities. However, they are also intended to be nonpartisan, and some experts view the new questions asked of job applicants by the Trump administration as contrary to that goal.
“In the past, public servants have never been asked to demonstrate how aligned they are with the president’s goals, and that’s because we expect them to serve presidents of both parties,” says Moynihan.
Mr. Stier, head of the organization that awards the Sammies awards, is still working to plan how this year’s ceremonies will work in the changing government climate. They’ve already made some changes: It plans to award the prizes months earlier than their usual date because “we don’t know what’s going on around the pike,” and recipients could include people the government no longer employs.
Still, the rewards program is moving forward.
“We need to not just focus on what is not working right now, but think about what needs to change and what we can change,” says Stier. “And this idea of building a culture of gratitude for our government is really important.”
