GovernmentExecutive.com

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.

COMMENTS

• "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" Wow, the Army is wasting our money doing outsourcing that never gets outsourced. Think the Army may not be capable? The Corp of Engineers is a joke! They are the organization that flooded New Orleans and continues to try and blame it on a hurricane! The flood was a result of bad building on flood walls that fell and flooded a city! The Corps has many walls along the Mississippi (St. Louis for example). Many of these are likely to go as was seen in 1996 floods that were tremendous and generated because the Corps had tried to trap the great father of waters and was not successful! However, the Corps continues and continues to rebuild to low standards without a public outcry. If the locks and dams are a government job that supports great amounts of commerce, then the commerce supported should pay for the locks and dams! Why are we paying for the support of this great commerce (a subsidy for the farmers and oil companies that transport by river)? This transport is extremely expensive but the expense is placed on the taxpayer and the users are not paying for the services. The entire operation should be taken over by those that use it! If we sold off the locks and dams to the users (even at significantly below cost levels) we would save money if we stopped supporting the operation, maintenance and building of the facilities. I think we should take the Army Corp and put it back in the Army to help fight wars and not subsidies river transporters and build flood "control" facilities that should never have been built. Taxpayer Posted June 1, 2006 8:07 AM
• I have been an IT Specialist with the Corps of Engineers for about five years. From what I have seen in the Corps, almost every person in an IT/IM position works very hard every day to accomplish the IT mission and the challenges are never-ending. The A-76 process has been yet another challenge, and a morale-buster from the beginning, and it seems to just keep getting worse. Of course, we are all on edge because of the potential loss of our jobs. In my district, we have already lost four good IT employees who will not be replaced. Corps headquarters is not keeping us informed at all. Most of what we hear is through articles like this one in GovExec.com and through rumors. Thank you for doing a better job with passing along this information than our superiors have. When the A-76 decision announcement was postponed indefinitely for the second time in early March, we did not hear anything from headquarters or anyone until the e-mail from Mr. Navidi, which only gave us the faint glimmer of hope that there would be a "breakthrough" by the end of June. We did not get any message stating that headquarters and Army was working on the problem and they were "sorry," but they would tell us just as soon as they knew something. We got nothing. I don't understand the total lack of communication from headquarters. Are we supposed to just keep our noses to the grindstone, not listen to any rumors, not waste any time by talking about the rumors, not let the lack of communication affect our attitudes and just be patient and wait for the official word to come out? I can tell you that is just not going to happen. I believe we have already lost some of our best employees simply because of the lack of communication. Good people are leaving quickly, and we have no idea what the A-76 performance decision is yet. Some people have even speculated that the lack of communication is intentional. The idea is that if we are not told anything that people will leave on their own accord and the downsizing will commence through attrition before the A-76 decision is even announced. Attrition is beginning to take its toll, mostly due to the total lack of communication. The very thing we, as IT professionals, are responsible for maintaining. Paul Fowler Posted June 1, 2006 9:33 AM
• More than 1,200 IM employees nationwide have been drastically affected and to some degree neglected due to the surreptitious manner in which this study has been handled. Should a process so fatal and unmanly be allowed to continue under the veil of secrecy that now persists, the character and word of those involved will be indelibly affected. How shall we have faith in the A-76 committee’s recommendations? Our jobs, livelihoods and futures and the welfare of our families have been strenuously awaiting announcement of the winner of the competition. The committee has responded to our concerns by scheduling the announcement and abruptly canceling the announcement, without explanation four different times. How can we be expected to continue to deal with this mental anguish and abuse? Yet the committee has callously continued to play with our jobs, livelihoods, futures and the welfare of our families with no regard to our needs and concerns. In addition, for over two years, the study also denied and continues to deny IM employees promotions, raises, career development and the filling of vacated positions. These detrimental restrictions have lasted for more than two years and due to the committee’s lackadaisical efforts in regard to the announcement, IM employees are forced to continue their high level of work with no chance of receiving promotions. The alarming lack of concern and interest in the well-being of its employees is deplorable. Though we must be thankful for being employed, this treatment that we have been forced to endure for the past two years and will be forced to endure in the future cannot be considered anything less than horrendous. The IM offices support all other offices in the Corps of Engineers worldwide. To be dealt with so feebly and incongruously is quite distressing. Despite the enormous burden placed upon our shoulders by the series of attacks over the last two years, the targeted people in IM continue to be very loyal, dedicated and talented employees. We all need to cling to the hope that the A-76 committee still maintains some degree of rational thinking and will finally step forward from behind the cloud of suspicion and illustrate some sense of justice by giving us the decision and in essence affording us the opportunity to see what we are up against. We have certainly earned that right! Sean P. McCann Posted June 1, 2006 12:42 PM