Forest Service defends effort to outsource analyst jobs

Competitive sourcing provisions in the Interior Department's fiscal 2004 budget measure, enacted in early November, are already causing a headache for the Forest Service.

The Forest Service, which is part of the Agriculture Department but is covered by Interior appropriations, is involved in a legal dispute over the new law. Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, an advocacy group based in Eugene, Ore., last week sued the agency, claiming that its plans to outsource roughly 60 analyst positions violate the Interior budget measure.

Andy Stahl, the environmental group's president, claims the Interior law prohibits the Forest Service from awarding work performed by more than 10 federal employees as of Nov. 10, 2003--the date President Bush signed the budget bill--to a contractor without first holding a public-private competition. The contractor would also need to submit a proposal for completing the work at a 10 percent or $10 million lower cost than the in-house team, Stahl contends.

But Thomas Mills, the Forest Service's deputy director for business operations, said that to his knowledge, the law would not prohibit the agency from moving forward on outsourcing plans initiated well before November. The Forest Service announced in May that it would like a contractor to take over the analyst work, which involves assembling reports on the public's reaction to proposed policy changes.

Contrary to the environmental group's claims, the Forest Service has no political motives for outsourcing the work, Mills said. Rather, the agency thinks the jobs are more appropriate for private companies with flexible workforces. Right now, the federal employee analysts work for limited, two-to-four-year terms, Mills said. But even those terms can be too long, he explained, because the workload fluctuates frequently.

The Forest Service is "seeking some additional clarification" of the Interior budget law, and has extended the deadline for contractor proposals by about a month, to Jan. 5, 2004, Mills said. That may be enough time to resolve the court case, he said. But he added that he is "fairly confident" the outsourcing would be legal, since the Interior budget measure is designed to provide funding and guidance for fiscal 2004.

Agencies will have additional sets of standards to mull over if Congress passes the conference report on the fiscal 2004 omnibus appropriations bill. That budget measure establishes multiple policies for running job competitions in which 10 to 65 positions are at stake. Agencies covered by the Transportation-Treasury section of the bill would have different rules than those receiving funds from the other six appropriations measures wrapped into the omnibus bill.

The House passed the $820 billion omnibus Monday, but the Senate decided Tuesday to delay a vote on the bill until Jan. 20. White House officials and some lawmakers had pushed for a vote this week, but Democrats sought additional time to debate the legislation.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., criticized the White House for sneaking "egregious" measures into the bill at the last minute. Among other problems, the omnibus contains provisions that would "undermine" protections for federal workers forced to defend their jobs against contractors, he said in a Tuesday floor statement.

"This is a Frankenstein monster of a bill born of a badly broken process," Daschle said. "It is time to send it back to the laboratory."

Alan Chvotkin, senior vice president and counsel at the Professional Services Council, an Arlington, Va.-based contractors association, said Monday that he is not surprised the Forest Service is already under fire for its interpretation of the Interior Department law. He added that he would not be surprised to see disputes crop up over whatever competitive sourcing language ends up in the final version of the omnibus.

"From an advocacy standpoint, if you're opposed to competitive sourcing, you take advantage of every tool that the law provides," Chvotkin said. "We're going to do the same thing."