Elmer Boyd Staats And The Pursuit Of Good Government
Briefing Summary
Elmer Boyd Staats and the Pursuit of Good Government
Kathe Callahan
Public Administration Review: March/April 2006; 66, 2; ProQuest
Callahan’s Administrative profile of Elmer Boyd Staats, provides a summary of the transformative organizational changes under Staats leadership during his fifteen year appointment as the head of the General Accounting Office. Addressing what Callahan identifies as the pursuit of good government, Elmer Boyd Staats embarked on a career as a public servant spanning six plus decades. During this time, Staats public service to our country encompassed ten administrations. His formative years were shaped by growing up during the depression and living in the Kansas wheat belt (Callahan, p.160, para 1). His Midwest education and pursuit of a career in public service was not something Staats envisioned, however, his collegiate back ground where Staats earned a bachelor’s degree …show more content…
The movement towards good government sprung from the accountability movement in 1967, discussing the viewpoints surrounding the “three-way aspects of accountability”, the role of financial accountability, managerial accountability, and program accountability, and how it relates to good government (Callahan, p. 164). A perfect example presented itself, during President Johnson’s Great Society Program. Congress wanted to gage the performance of government programs. The GAO, set about examining all of the anti-poverty programs, and 9 months later, provided over 60 reports. The GAO provided evidence some programs worked, others provided little change, and some programs that made the problem worse. All of the effort and patience paid off for Staats, he was able to reach outside of the bureaucrat confines and elicit the expertise of universities and experts, producing well received evaluations and
Elmer Boyd Staats and the Pursuit of Good Government
Kathe Callahan
Public Administration Review: March/April 2006; 66, 2; ProQuest
Callahan’s Administrative profile of Elmer Boyd Staats, provides a summary of the transformative organizational changes under Staats leadership during his fifteen year appointment as the head of the General Accounting Office. Addressing what Callahan identifies as the pursuit of good government, Elmer Boyd Staats embarked on a career as a public servant spanning six plus decades. During this time, Staats public service to our country encompassed ten administrations. His formative years were shaped by growing up during the depression and living in the Kansas wheat belt (Callahan, p.160, para 1). His Midwest education and pursuit of a career in public service was not something Staats envisioned, however, his collegiate back ground where Staats earned a bachelor’s degree …show more content…
The movement towards good government sprung from the accountability movement in 1967, discussing the viewpoints surrounding the “three-way aspects of accountability”, the role of financial accountability, managerial accountability, and program accountability, and how it relates to good government (Callahan, p. 164). A perfect example presented itself, during President Johnson’s Great Society Program. Congress wanted to gage the performance of government programs. The GAO, set about examining all of the anti-poverty programs, and 9 months later, provided over 60 reports. The GAO provided evidence some programs worked, others provided little change, and some programs that made the problem worse. All of the effort and patience paid off for Staats, he was able to reach outside of the bureaucrat confines and elicit the expertise of universities and experts, producing well received evaluations and