The Reinvention of Public Personnel Administration 165 J. Edward Kellough University of Georgia Sally Coleman Selden Lynchburg College The Reinvention of Public Personnel Administration: An Analysis of the Diffusion of Personnel Management Reforms in the States Reform is a common theme in American public administration. During the twentieth century at least 12 major administrative reforms have taken place at the federal level and countless others in state and local governments. Frequently, these reforms have addressed the operation of public personnel management systems. Recent efforts associated with the reinventing government move- ment, for example, have proposed numerous alterations to civil service rules and procedures, and many jurisdictions have implemented significant changes in their personnel practices. This article examines the extent to which these kinds of personnel reforms have been implemented by state governments. A reform index is developed to document the considerable variation among the states in their approach to personnel practices. Several state characteristics are associated with scores on this index, including legislative professionalism, which bears a positive relationship to reform, and the level of unemployment within a state and the proportion of state employees asso- ciated with public employee unions, which are both negatively associated with reform. Administrative reform has been a common refrain in the history of American public administration. Govern- ments periodically and regularly have undertaken admin- istrative changes as they have struggled to find ways to continually improve public management and the delivery of public services. From the beginning of the twentieth century until its close, one can count as many as 12 sub- stantial and highly visible efforts to reform federal admin- istrative arrangements (about one every eight years on av- erage), and, of course, there were ground-breaking reforms in the late nineteenth century associated with the initial implementation of merit principles (Hays and Kearney 1997; Ingraham 1992; Kellough 1998). 1 There have also been innumerable reform efforts in state and local govern- ments (National Commission on State and Local Public Service 1993; Selden, Ingraham, and Jacobson 2001). Obviously, reform may be undertaken for political reasons as well as for more instrumental or managerial reasons (Kellough and Lu 1993; Thompson, Riccucci, and Ban 1991). Whatever the primary impetus, significant change in the administrative structure of government is often the result. Frequently, such effort has focuses on the public personnel system and the manner in which it is organized and operated. The focus on personnel practices as the object of re- form is not surprising given the central importance of per- sonnel management to effective government operations J. Edward Kellough is an associate professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the School of Public and International Affairs of the University of Georgia. His major area of academic interest is public per- sonnel management. His research addresses equal employment opportunity and affirmative action, representative bureaucracy, the reinventing govern- ment movement, and civil service reform. He is the author of numerous ar- ticles in scholarly journals. Email: kellough@uga.edu. Sally Coleman Selden is an associate professor of management at Lynchburg College. Her current research is focused on strategic human resource man- agement and collaboration between public, nonprofit, and private organi- zations. Articles have appeared in Public Administration Review, American Journal of Political Science, Administration and Society, American Review of Public Administration, Review of Public Personnel Administration, Journal of Public Administration Education, Journal of Public Policy and Management, and Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. Email: selden@lynchburg.edu.