The first thing you must tackle - and I mean literally the first - will be your departmental budget. My hand was barely off the swearing-in Bible before it was on the budget book. The President, I was informed, would expect my budget appeals immediately - preferably by the time I got back to my office.

Within four months, I had to master budgets for three fiscal years comprising roughly $45 billion. You will have to do the same in even less time. One of the flaws of our governmental structure is that so many critical budgetary decisions must be made almost the in- FIRST JUMP USE THIS stant that a new Cabinet officer takes office. (By law, the Federal budget must be submitted within 15 days of the reconvening of Congress in January of each year.) Moreover, nothing will make or break your reputation and your effectiveness - in Washington, these often come to the same thing - like the speed and the detail with which you master this task.

In one respect, at least, you are fortunate. You will not, as I did, have to create a new budget process while trying to digest pieces from several different old ones. You start with a unified and reponsive system in place and working well. It will be a comfort to you in the dark days of Office of Management and Budget appeals.

Throughout your budgetary travail, you will contend with good news and bad news on the organizational front. Some good news is that you will not have to start from ground zero and find departmental homes for 160 separate programs and agencies from five Cabinet departments and the National Science Foundation. The bad news is that you may face pressure to dismantle the tidy structure created during the past year and scatter its pieces back throughout the Federal Government (for instance, returning responsibility for the education of the children of some migratory workers back to the Labor Department).

More good news is that we have been able to negotiate adequate office space for your employees. The bad news is that Congress has not yet appropriated the monetary wherewithal. Meanwhile, your personnel remain scattered all over Washington, the nation and the world (chiefly 17,000 schoolteachers and administrative staff for military schools, mostly abroad, who are now in the process of being incorporated from the Defense Department). ED has space problems which would intimidate the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In fact, that's one of your problems. NASA is occupying part of your space.

When I came to Washington, many education programs had the reputation of being poorly managed. The good news is that the implementation of management by objectives, the imposition of strict financial controls and the appointment of an inspector general are helping to reverse that image. The bad news is that, thanks to the Carter Administration's freeze on hiring -which your President-elect hopes to make even chillier -ED's inspector general has fewer than half the people he needs to squeeze out waste and inefficiency.

There are, however, at least two pieces of unconditionally good news: First, we now know that it is possible to run a Government transition effeciently and economically: ED opened its doors a full month ahead of schedule and $9 million dollars below the estimated cost. Second, we also know that affirmative action is fully compatible with excellence: Some 60 percent of ED's assistant secretaries and other top officials are women and minorities, a record achieved without the slightest concession on quality. As you begin, you will face one obstacle that I did not. You will need to convince your President that your department, which formally came into being in May l980, is necessary. It may even be necessary to convince yourself. Whatever your present inclination, I am optimistic that you will succeed in doing both.