Nearly the whole team is in place now. With Tuesday's appointment of Chicago Superintendent of Schools Arne Duncan to the Department of Education and Wednesday's appointment of Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture and Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar as head of the Interior Department (see LA Times reporter Michael Muskal's story, "Obama names Tom Vilsack, Ken Salazar to Cabinet"), there are only a few more slots to fill in the new cabinet.
While PEBO (Prez-Elect...) has been busy choosing his new appointees, we've been busy too: Over the course of the announcements, we've been mapping the top-level org charts for each department in OrgScope, i.e. we've just about finished filling out the new US government map. These charts detail the deputies, under-secretaries, assistant secretaries, and directors of the major agencies of the US government. Where are we acquiring this information? The internet, of course, where departments publish their org charts.
What that means is that we can now make at least a fleeting observation about what we're seeing. In the case of Mr. Duncan, it appears that he will take over an agency with an atypical organizational design.
So far as we can tell, most cabinet officers have similar org charts whereby a single deputy secretary runs the department, at least according to the official chart. For example, if appointed, Hillary Clinton will have three people reporting directly to her--the UN Ambassador, who also has a dotted-line report to the President reflecting the cabinet-level status; the USAID administrator; and the deputy secretary of State. That person, the deputy secretary (unannounced but rumored to be James Steinberg), again, according to the chart, will have 20 people reporting directly reporting to him. Similar to State, at Justice, nominee Eric Holder will have one person reporting directly to him, a deputy secretary with a span of 26.
By contrast, Education Secretary-nominee Duncan will have 15 direct reports, while his deputy has a mere handful of people, relative to deputies reporting into that position (six, according to the chart). By design, the current Secretary, Margaret Spellings, has a much more hands-on role in running the department, with duties split among her, her deputy, and an under-secretary.
It remains to be seen is how completely the new agency heads will reorganize their departments. But we're struck by how different the Education Department, in its current design, is from the rest. Take a look at these two pictures and you'll see. And for those of you running sizable organizations, what does yours look like at or near the top? Just a handful of direct reports to the top positions - or a lot?