Washington's Mayor Wants to Cut City's Work Force by 25%

Mayor Marion S. Barry Jr. today offered his vision of the future for the nation's capital, an ambitious plan to reduce the size of the city work force by 25 percent and to privatize some operations that have contributed to the city's financial crisis.

In disclosing ideas to make the District more "competitive, business-friendly, user-friendly and people-oriented," Mr. Barry used some of his harshest language ever to condemn the way the government runs and to criticize employees whose skills and manners have undermined public confidence in and respect for government.

Here in Washington, D.C., this government transformation comes none too soon," Mr. Barry said after distributing a 120-page report that outlines his strategies. "Too many services are being performed badly. Many have been discontinued. Far too much of our equipment is antiquated and is in sorry shape. Our management and financial systems are old-fashioned and out of step. The lines for service are too long."

He added, "The D.C. government as measured by any reasonable expectation of the residents comes up short and is headed in the wrong direction."

Symbolically, the plan is a major political shift for Mr. Barry, who has been Washington's Mayor for all but four of the last 18 years. His broad-based popularity has been built on creating jobs in the city government.

But as the employment rolls grew through the flush 1980's, so did the seeds of fiscal undoing in the 1990's. And neither Sharon Pratt Kelly, who was Mayor from 1990 to 1994, nor Mr. Barry, who won re-election after a six-month term in prison for using cocaine, took steps to reverse the pattern.