Civil service

When I started in the financial planning business all federal employees were civil service which meant ,among other things, they had their own pension plan. The other main difference was the unwritten law that you could not be fired. This was hyperbole because you could be fired but it was very difficult. Over the years it has become easier to fire someone but they still have more protection that many other jobs. The VA was a case in point as many incompetent people were allowed to stay on the job even though they were not performing up to standard. Trump made such an issue of this that the VA came under pressure to evaluate employees like is the case in other businesses. One of the more important changes Trump made was to allow VA patients to visit non-VA facilities to get quicker treatment. Giving Veterans more options didn’t mean VA stopped providing care at its medical facilities. In fact, VA is seeing more patients than ever before, more quickly than ever before and studies show VA compares favorably to the private sector for access and quality of care – and in many cases exceeds it. This lax approach to hire and fire was around for many years and only recently has progress been made. In 1984 civil service was replaced with social security. Employees at that time had the option to remain under civil service or move to social security. All stayed with civil service as it was a better plan. There are very few of the original civil service employees still around. It was the general opinion that getting a civil service job was like getting tenure at a university.