The four levels of program definition: Part 2
[Continued from Part 1]
In Part 1, I dealt with statutes and regulations. Once they are in place, we move to the next two levels: administrative guidance and case decisions.
3. Administrative guidance
Now that our hypothetical program is up and running, there’s one more level of detail to prescribe: administrative guidance. These are issued whenever the administering agency wishes, and change whenever the agency wishes. HUD publishes administrative guidance in the form of HUD handbooks, which not only specify rules for program participants, but also for administrators. In effect, HUD handbooks tell HUD field staff how to rule when confronted with participants making requests.
In administrative guidance, no item is too trivial. For instance, HUD Handbook 4350.1, everyone’s favorite the Multifamily Asset Management Handbook – in effect, the bible for property managers — specifies what may and may not be included in owners’ pet policies (4350.1, Chapter 32-12, if you’re scoring at home), when owners must hole a per rule violation meeting (32-7), and when owners may not exclude guide dogs and other assistant pets under a no-pet policy.
Administrative guidance is the fine-grain gritty detail that governs quotidian interaction between program administrator/ regulator and program participants. Theoretically, administrative guidance has no ultimate resolution, its detail can evolve forever.
Big fleas have littler fleas that bite ‘em
And so ad infinitum
It is to the nation’s credit that:
- Administrators are required to adhere to published guidance.
- All this administrative guidance is in the public domain (as the hyperlinks demonstrate).
So if I want to buy a HUD property, I can find out all HUD’s rules for approving my transfer (4350.1, Chapter 13), and (under the Administrative Procedures Act) I can hold HUD accountable for following its own rules. Because I know what I’m getting into, I can proceed with confidence without having to engage HUD beforehand. That’s good governance structure, and it encourages transaction activity, which in turn revitalizes properties.
Administrative guidance, being established by the administrator, can be periodically changed by that same administrator. Knowing this, and if they have confidence in their administrators, legislators can legislate resources and outcomes (inputs and ouputs) without concerning themselves with process. This streamlines the decision hierarchy and leads to better laws (except when the legislative environment is turbulent rather than laminar, about which I’ll post soon).
4. Decisions that set precedent
With three levels of program definition, we’ve specified it all, haven’t we?
Baffled once again by the clear substance ….
What else could there be?
Life is the blinkin’ awful cussedness o’ things in general.
– Carter Dickson, Sir Henry Merrivale
Just as no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy, no amount of ex cathedra program design (no matter how intelligently advised) ever captures the blinkin’ awful cussedness o’ actual transactions. Fact patterns that no one envisioned pop up:
- Unicorns — counterfactual situations that ought not to exist but do — whinny for attention.
- Dodos — legacy programs everyone thought deservedly extinct — resurface, squawking for resolution.
- Mohicans — sole survivors about whom no one remembers anything — are still operating.
- Faeries – fantasy creatures not yet in existence — ask to be admitted. (IRS private letter rulings are a wonderful source of faery tax lore.)
We specialize in dodo revivification …
Administering programmatic justice for these outlyers is tricky, for decisions become precedent, and as the lawyers like to say, “hard cases make bad law.” So decisions, especially of early case, often takes a while.
In this decision and precedent is much like the Benedictine monastery’s morning chapter house meeting, where yesterday’s events are reviewed in light of the Rule of Saint Benedict, and today’s work scheduled.
Chapter house, Llangollen Abbey
Summarizing
So, to summarize:
“Oh, is he finally done?”
by the time it is mature, a well-structured program has four levels of program definition and governance: statute, regulation, administrative guidance, and case decisions, as follows:
Levels of program design
Creator, when created, major function
|
Level of program design |
Creator |
When created |
Major function |
|
1. Statute |
Legislature |
At inception |
|
|
2. Regulation |
Ministry/ department |
Before activity |
Boundaries, procedures |
|
3. Administrative guidance |
Division |
Periodic during activity |
Updates, details |
|
4. Case decisions |
Case officer |
As needed by facts |
Fact patterns |
A future post will address some do’s and don’ts of good program definition.
“You mean there’s hope?”
