Washington, DC - Change-minded Clinton Administration officials and equally determined human resources management professionals will meet with federal personnel stakeholders next week at a summit to brainstorm and debate on how to rebuild the federal personnel structure.

Their results will be used to assist Vice President Gore's National Performance Review task force. Jim King, Director of the Office of Personnel Management, will convene the gathering of top Administration officials and key personnel management experts who will attempt to obliterate the bureaucratic landscape of Washington and start over. The two-day June conference is entitled "Partners for Change: Steering Federal Human Resources Management into the 21st Century."

"Partners for Change" is the product of Jim King's desire to hear directly from people in the personnel community and about problems that keep them from serving their agencies and taxpayers effectively. Members of Vice President Gore's National Performance Review task force will participate in the discussions and take with them ideas presented in the working groups.

"Most of the personnel laws we use today were written for a troubled civil service of 1883," said Jim King. "We must cut the cord to regulations that were right for their time a century ago, but which hog-tie managers today. In their place, we need systems and mentalities that, while still based in merit and fairness, will let managers manage today and into the future."

The governmentwide conference on human resources management is the first since President Clinton and Vice President Gore established the National Performance Review. Participants and speakers hope to sound the death knell for the complex Gordian Knot of personnel controls in the executive branch, public service associations, academe, congressional staffs, and federal employee unions. The conference will be held June 2 - 3 at the National 4-H Conference Center, 7100 Connecticut Ave., Chevy Chase, MD. Plenary sessions are open to the press.

Our mission is to ensure the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce. OPM supports U.S. agencies with personnel services and policy leadership including staffing tools, guidance on labor-management relations and programs to improve work force performance.