GovernmentExecutive.com

Return to Article: Army contractor count stymied by red tape

• 16839
  

  The various DoD agencies, including the Army, are having great difficulty answering several basic business questions: How many contractors do we employ? Where do they work? What work do they perform? How much does everything cost? How can we get more bang for the buck?

  At a time when spending is at an all-time high, various industry groups continue to throw up roadblocks to prevent contract information from being captured and analyzed.

  For now, this stalemate will continue. But it is only a matter of time before well-intentioned Army and DoD officials begin answering the questions. Only then will we be able to determine if the contract information was useful.

  GovExec.com reader Posted May 22, 2006 6:08 PM
• 4984
  

  $550K/year PLUS expenses? For 3 employees?!? I certainly hope that you are just exaggerating and nobody would commit my tax dollars to a contract like that. If it's true, it should be reported to a watchdog agency for investigation because it sounds like extortion of some kind. The rules of supply and demand dictate that those 3 individuals either have a truly unique qualification set or that you should be able to get similar skills for one heck-of-a-lot less. That contract should be dropped.

  The sole advantage to a contractor, even when a bit higher priced than you would pay for a civil service worker, is the infrastructure behind the employee that the gov't doesn't have to fund, and that when you no longer need them you can get rid of them fairly easy by dropping the contract. There is a lot more difficulty in eliminating a civil service employee. Not as much as the average worker would like, but more none-the-less. However, if the civil service would like to make every position term...

  GovExec.com reader Posted June 9, 2004 2:33 PM
• 4978
  

  Lets set the record straight! The contractor here is being cheated!

  I have three contract employees in my division. We pay $550,000 a year for the three. That averages $181k per employee - a lot more than we would pay for a civil servant! We pay for travel, provide space and supplies. The $181k simply is salary and benefits and of course the contractor make up for overhead and profit. The $108k sounds low but I do not know what it covers. If I include the mentally challanged that clean the Pentagon and move the mail (they all are contractors) the cost would fall significantly. The author is onto something but has only unearthed the tip of the problem. Go get specific information about individual contract positions and equate them with grades to see how contractors are paid! Our contractors are considered as GS14's but only would be hired as GS13s if they were civilian civil servants. The contractors should be paid as GS13 and not GS14s but that is problem that no study will uncover.

  tax payer Posted June 9, 2004 7:29 AM
• 4977
  

  Haven't you all ever heard of STONEWALLING? They don't want this information public because it would show they are unprepared to accomplish their mission! Why did the Army have to ask the Air Force to provide basic services to troops? Because they outsourced it and the contractors would not go and the Army had no ability to do it! This whole outsourcing thing is crazy and uncontrolled.

  The contractor that works so much overtime without pay is simply stupid! Anyone can undercut any job by working as a lower wage! That is why the USA is sending so many jobs to India and China - because those people work for less money. Working more hours for the same pay is lowering the wage! the contractor is no hero he simply is a wage buster and in the old days of good unions he would be stopped but there is nothing today to stop him. The contractors in question and the one reporting data are the Vice President's boys - in that case I would ask how the contract was let. Was it bid, was it through the Army procurement office, was the independent government cost estimate really independent? The Army absolutely has no incentive to comply with this order and White is gone so why worry about it?

  tax payer Posted June 9, 2004 7:22 AM
• 4958
  

  Uncertain where the author got the figures reported below, but as a federal government contractor, I assure you that the average pay is FAR less than $108K and is likely a bit lower than that reported for civilians and military. It is appropriate to add benefits to salary if you are talking about costs to the government. (The contractors pay those to their staff and it comes out of the contract costs along with all materials, travel, etc.) If we are talking the average of contract dollars split by the number of personnel (a more likely scenario), then you would have to add the benefits AND travel AND materials (and anything else that a contractor has to pay out of the contract agreement) costs to the civilian and military pay values to be comparable. But I'd like to point out that if you don't know how many staff there are as reported in the article, you cannot come up with a valid average no matter how you calculate it.

  The other question asked; "How are we saving tax dollars through outsourcing?" can be answered many ways depending on the bias of the one answering.

  Pro - I don't get an hourly wage and routinely must work a 12 to 14 hour day without overtime. Try that with a civil service worker (and yes, I know there are some that do additional work that isn't on the clock in violation of policy in order to get it done).

  Con - The touted numbers are an 89% in-house win rate in the "competitive sourcing" results. What out-sourcing?

  Remember that the regulations add 10% (up to a maximum of $10 million) plus all contract administration costs to every bid in competition with a government MEO to "level the playing field" and ensure functions are NOT outsourced for minimal gain. For a contractor to win, they have to beat the government costs by about 18% on average.

  GovExec.com reader Posted June 8, 2004 7:24 AM
• 4946
  

  Bottomline...This is a total result of who is in-charge and the friends they have that keep them in-charge.

  Taxpayer $$$ and how it is spent does not matter anymore. No wonder this country has such a high deficit.

  Dave Posted June 6, 2004 10:40 PM
• 4938
  

  The Army should be given credit for a worthwhile effort. GovExec and the author deserve special recognition for continuing to follow this story.

  This is a quote from one of the author's previous articles before the Army study effort was stymied: "Army contractor employees earned an average of $108,000 in fiscal year 2000, while Army civilians made an average of $63,000 and military personnel earned an average $69,000, according to the Army study and data from the Army Cost and Economic Analysis Center. The contractor figure reflects wages alone, while the civilian and military figures represent wages and benefits, meaning the gap between average salaries in the public and private sector is even larger than these figures indicate."

  How are we saving taxpayer dollars through outsourcing?

  GovExec.com reader Posted June 4, 2004 10:18 AM
• 4936
  

  Maybe the Army beancounters need to retake elementary math to help them wade through the bureaucratic excuses. How many years will this take? And, the Navy is attempting to follow the Army's lead--give me a break.

  GovExec.com reader Posted June 4, 2004 9:05 AM