Army Corps delays announcing winner of contest for IT jobs
Number of positions involved has shrunk from 1,350 to 1,100 as employees await result.
The announcement of a decision in an Army Corps of Engineers public-private competition encompassing 1,100 information management and technology jobs has been delayed by a second internal review and likely will be pushed back to at least late June, according to agency officials.
In a memorandum e-mailed last week, Ray Navidi, competitive sourcing program manager for the Army Corps, informed employees of the second additional review to affect the competition.
"Unfortunately, we are still in a holding pattern," Navidi told employees. "As you all know, the performance decision was made [in] early March as scheduled."
Navidi said Army headquarters had requested a review of the selection process. That was completed and arrangements were made for town hall meetings to announce the results when an additional analysis of the decision was requested. He declined to elaborate on the source of the second request, except to say it came from within the Army.
That second review is in progress, Navidi informed employees, adding, "I am hopeful that by late June we may have a breakthrough and will be able to tell you the outcome."
The competition, announced two years ago and originally slated to encompass 1,350 positions in seven functional areas at 45 locations around the country, is the largest undertaken by the Defense Department since the Office of Management and Budget's competitive sourcing guidelines contained in Circular A-76 were revised in May 2003.
Navidi said size alone is reason enough for the department to take extra care before announcing a decision, and that the review is a routine step being taken in light of the competition's significance. Until a winner is announced, the process is officially in the source selection stage, he said, restricting the department from sharing information about it.
Navidi said over the past two years as the competition has taken place, a hiring freeze has been in effect, reducing the number of employees in potentially affected roles.
"Once the competition is over, regardless of the outcome … the number of federal employees is going to be less, not more," Navidi said, referring to the cuts that generally result from workforce realignment even if the agency's in-house bid is successful over contractor proposals.
Matthew Biggs, legislative director for the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, an AFL-CIO affiliate that represents some of the affected employees, said drawing out the process is unfair.
"Right now, as you can imagine, everyone's pretty much on edge and anxiously awaiting the decision," he said.
Biggs said the union will seek to appeal if a contractor wins the competition. Federal employees can only do so if the agency tender official, their sole designated formal representative, agrees to file such a protest.
This competition, announced in June 2004, is almost two years old and thus exceeds an 18-month OMB time limit on contests. Navidi said OMB is "up to speed" on the competition's status through discussions during quarterly reviews of President's Management Agenda accomplishments.
The Defense Department also is subject to a statutory 30-month limit for competitive sourcing studies imposed by Congress, and bumping up against that deadline could have more serious implications for the department's ability to continue the process.
A public-private competition to provide support services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which also falls under Army jurisdiction, has gone on for six years and has become entangled in numerous challenges and reviews. Legislators have recently questioned spending on that competition, though the process has not been formally challenged on those grounds.