Passport renewal may be the most efficient program in the federal government. How did that happen? (Dreamstime/TNS)

In these days when it seems like the current administration couldn’t organize a utensil drawer, what with a military parade witnessed by empty bleachers and immigrant dragnets snaring American citizens and such, it seems like it would be a shock to find a government function that, you know, actually works.

I found it.

On June 14, I applied to renew my passport, bracing for months of frustration with bureaucratic apathy and torpor. The State Department website that took my application warned that the turnaround time was four to six weeks, which I figured would be the minimum wait.

Yet I received my new passport by mail on June 28, or a crisp 14 days later. If you can think of another government service that can perform its task in two weeks from application to consummation, let me know.

This was nothing like the old system, which Ben Cohen of the Wall Street Journal described as: “Fill out a paper form. Attach a check or money order. Get photos printed — and hope they don’t get rejected. Then schlep to the post office, mail back the old passport and wait too long for a new one.”

The State Department launched its online passport renewal portal last September, after years of seeking a solution to a tsunami of passport applications. One pilot project went disastrously awry — increasing the time needed to process the paperwork.

Eventually all the glitches were ironed out, and the result has been a spectacular success. In terms of customer service, it certainly ranks as one of the triumphs of the Biden administration.

Leading the hundreds of workers who implemented the scheme were Luis Coronado, chief information officer for the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, and Matthew Pierce, then the managing director for passport services.

Their accomplishment earned them Service to America medals from the Partnership for Public Service, which honor “outstanding public servants who improve our lives.”

Said Robert Thomas, principal deputy assistant secretary of consular affairs at State, in the award certification, “Luis and Matt led the transformation of a seriously outdated government service into a leading government service that’s oriented around the customer.”

They did more than that. They struck a blow on behalf of all the public servants who remain invisible and unappreciated when they do their jobs right, but get held up to public vituperation when something goes wrong on their watch.

Ministerial functions like car registration and Medicare enrollment and, sure, passport issuance always take the brunt of grousing about the government being so ineffectual. The public has been groomed to think that when you’ve fallen among government bureaucrats you’re hopelessly trapped in an infinite loop.

This notion was retailed by Ronald Reagan, with his quip about “the nine most terrifying words in the English language: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.'”

Particularly baroque screw-ups generally make it into the media, but for the most part these things don’t get screwed up. For the record: I’ve also had trouble-free experience with the California DMV, even on the one occasion when I had to go in person to get my Real ID. And when I’m due a tax refund, it gets paid.

The public image persists of government offices being filled with drones sitting with their foreheads on their desks. Accordingly, on the subreddit where people have been posting their passport renewal timelines — 14 days, 10 days or even less, the tone of the threads is a sort of delighted stupefaction, like someone suddenly blessed with a great stroke of luck.

“This must seriously be the most efficiently run government office that exists,” wrote one Redditor who submitted her application on July 10 and had her passport in hand on July 16.

For now, however, this is a service that really works. I haven’t seen any public complaint about an online renewal application getting swallowed up in the gears; thus far, every public comment I’ve seen for the service is praise.

Let’s hope that it lasts, and that the determined effort that brought it about can work the same magic on less efficient corners of the government. Don’t we owe that to ourselves?

Michael Hiltzik is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.