GovernmentExecutive.com

Return to Article: Legislative amendment would suspend competitive sourcing at Defense

• 51052
  

  SB: your argument is a non-sequiter. Let's say the government hires a civil servant who is a poor performer. By the standards of your argument, nothing should be done because, after all, the government hired the person the first place. The individual beat out all the other candidates for the job. Therefore, it's the government's fault that the person is a poor performer, and nothing should be done about it. If this argument is nonsensical for government workers (which it is!), then it is for contractors who are corrupt / dishonest / incompetent as well. You can't have it both ways.

  Also, the statement about who is going to "force" govt agencies to improve is mis-guided. The premise of your argument is that all government agences / personnel strive to do the worst job that they can. There may be cases where this is true, but the same can be said of contractors (think Halliburton!). In the end, double-standards don't resolve anything. Period.

  DSR

  David Posted May 21, 2008 10:59 AM
• 50957
  

  For those that think the Contractors aren't performing up to par; remember that the GOVERNMENT wrote their statement of works, determined the performance measures, and picked them, and paid them. Remember it is better to compete for a job than to loose it because of limited DoD money to pay for labor. The government must become more efficient to save taxpayer's money; who is going to force them to do so?

  SB Posted May 20, 2008 9:17 AM
• 50956
  

  There are always arguments, with valid points from those participating, that can be made on all sides of any issue. There are government employees that are dedicated and highly motivated in their job seeking the betterment of the government and there are those that shouldn't be employed at all. The same is true for contractors. Making a sweeping change rarely results in the type of improvements desired. The competitions were established for a reason and should be conducted in that spirit. Contractors can more quickly react and provide services and products that can serve the entire government in a way that an agency or group within the government can't. Areas such as security, government compliance issues and management oversight are places that government employees should be employed. Bottom line, due diligence is what is required, not sweeping mandates which only cause the pendulum to swing excessively in the other direction.

  Rob Posted May 20, 2008 9:13 AM
• 50915
  

  By contracting out services you trade a long term cost for short term cost. In the Mid-East, contractors have replaced Active Duty E-2 thru E-5s driving the buses around US bases. DoD has replaced an E-3 making $2,000 a month or $24,000 a year with a contractor making $80-110,000 a year. DoD claims that it saves long-term (retirement and health-care) cost by using contractors. But is this really true? All of the contractors are employed by companies that change DoD roughly $250,000 per contactor. The 4 year cost of one contractor is $1 million while an E-4/5 having served his 4 years cost DoD less than $100,000 in base pay plus at most $50,000 in allowances. The 20 year cost of a contractor is $5 million while an E-7 retiring at 20 years has only cost DoD about $750,000 in base pay. Yes, housing and other allowances would add another $500,000 to this, up to $1.25 million and a 40 year retirement would add another 1 to 1.25 million dollars. This totals 2.5 million dollars, this is half of what a contractor cost. Does the DoD really expect to spend 2.5 million dollars on medical care for each retiree? Considering that over 50% of first term enlistees do not re-enlist, paying a contractor $100,000 a year to do the work of an E-4 is financially irresponsible. All current A-76 proposals should be stopped and all previous A-76 programs reviewed to see if they actually save the money they claim to.

  Ivan Posted May 19, 2008 1:44 PM
• 50911
  

  All of the people who believe that contracting out government jobs is categorically the best way of doing business are apt to have a rude-awakening when they come into contact w/the facts. The GAO has calculated that the government wastes $24 billion a year on contracts in Iraq. That is to say, that's $24 billion down the drain due to price gouged contracts, half-baked projects that either had shoddy workmanship and / or were never completed as well as a host of corruption cases. The Bush administration decided to outsource the transportation of fuel & MREs from the Department of Energy & Transcom and gave a billion $$ no-bid contract to Halliburton. This led to a frenzy of well-documented cases of fraud, waste & abuse by the giant corporation.

  The bottom line is this: there are poor performers in government, and there are scheisters who work for contractors. Nobody is arguing that poor performers should be given a free ride. Rather, the argument is that the government should stop blindly wasting $$ on outsourcing. This should not be an unreasonable thing to ask. The people who believe that all contractors have the brains of Stephen Hawking, the integrity of Aristides the Just the the work-ethic of Alaskan crab fishermen live in an alternate reality to ours (kind of like the Bush administration!).

  DSR

  David Posted May 19, 2008 1:25 PM
• 50898
  

  Let's face it. The excesses of the current administration will force all of us to change the way we do business in the future, Government and contractor. The DOD budget is going to shrink drastically in the years to come. We will need to come up with ways to accomplish the work with less funding. Based on my experience, past and present, the most efficient way to get work done is with dedicated and loyal Federal Employees! They don't get cost plus contracts!!

  KO Posted May 19, 2008 11:04 AM
• 50854
  

  All of the people that are so opposed to the competitive sourcing program and ultimately accomplish their goal of eliminating it may be even more unhappy with the alternative. It is a fact that Government is too big and cost savings are inevitable. Competitive sourcing does at least give CS employees a chance to compete and the MEOs win over 70 percent of the competitions. Also, with save pay or reassignment to a different position, how many employees actually lose anything? The alternative may be to directly convert many of these functions to contract. When a private sector company loses a contract, there is no save pay and many times no other job to go to for the contractor employee. They lose their job -- that's the way it is. No one is promised a 100% secure job - unless you are a civil servant.

  Steve Posted May 16, 2008 8:20 PM
• 50853
  

  Eliminate competition and you simply guarantee the continuing mediocre level of performance which is all too common among government workers.

  William Posted May 16, 2008 6:42 PM
• 50848
  

  It is true you have alarge number of contractors, in fact at present they out number troops on the ground,and CS workers combined. They have a place yes but that place should be limited. I have been a contractor more than once, and I can tell you I made better money than I do now as a Civil service worker. Unlike a contracter doing almost the identical job I do; I am trying to put myself out of work by training advising and assiting the Troops and commands to be self sufficent and use their mechanics and save that high hourerly cost the commands pay the contractors. I have deployed twice and worked with hundreds of soldiers and most will tell you that comanders and soldiers have gotten so use to contractors doing everything for them from changing a tire to changing an engine they no longer see why we should continue to have jobs such as wheel mechanic,track mechanic or power generation mechanics. Contractors do the job for large incomes, most of us do it because we do care about the troop and our military, and for the most part do the same jobs and yes sometimes other jobs at less cost and make a soldier better at their job so they can fight and maintain their equipment. As well as move when when we are told like the soldier we deploy because it is our job,like the soldier we PCS and we many times have to give up a home completly due to the job, but we do it. will a contracter deploy for example as a mechanic for 1800 to 2000 every two weeks without being tax exempt,and Go from FOB to FOB and be limited to only 12 hours a day meaning payed for only 4 hours of overtime after being up and working 24 to 36 hours? I and many of my counterparts do, and I have not yet ran into a contractor that said they would do it, and have not ran into one that will say I do this so I can train the solder to do my job so I can end up without one. So my question is where is the savings,and where do we draw the line A-76.

  Randy Posted May 16, 2008 4:10 PM
• 50841
  

  Contractors have their place, and it should be to suppliment the federal work force. A-76 studies do decrease moral, and productivity. As for the contractor who's "TEAM" replaced 4 civil service employees with a 200% increase in productivity, good job. Now let's ask this, are you doing the same EXACT job. Does your contract cover more than what their job requirements were. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but where I live the public-private venture military housing experiment is out of control. No fire protection, but worse than that is no police protection. It has become the gang lands. The cvil servents are held to a different standard than our private competitors, plain and simple. If you are looking in from the outside, you won't see the whole picture.

  Mike Posted May 16, 2008 1:08 PM
• 50829
  

  It would appear as though the comments made so far reflect the concerns of existing civil servants worried about losing their jobs to contractors. If the civil servant would do his/her job and not sit in a cubicle and wait for retirement to kick in, then maybe I could see a need to support this reform. But all I see after 21 years of military service and the last five years of working with the civil servants (as a contractor) are that they are lazy and inefficent and should have be fired a long time ago. My team replaced four civil servants (20+ years tenure) who were asleep (literally) at their jobs. We perform at a 200% increase in assignments and are paid LESS than our civil service counterparts. Without this competitive outsourcing, the civil servant will continue to cost the taxpayers untold billions in non-work performance. Sorry folks, you're missing the boat.

  Dave Posted May 16, 2008 10:49 AM
• 50823
  

  Gosh all of a sudden we have bureaucrats wrapping them selves in the flag to justify there jobs!!! Non of the posts said anything about reducing the self imposed red tape, archaic work rules and simplifying the firing process. Lets see if a CS woks on a deployed navy ship they are paid for 16 hours everyday they are at sea, boy those guys really are supporting the troops. Lets be honest this is all about feather bedding and protecting the landcrabs, the military would be happy to see more jobs competed and streamline the organization to actuality work FOR the troops not against them. Terms like "that's the way we have always done it" Its not in the scope of my PD" "the reg says ..." would forever be eliminated

  Dan ketter Posted May 16, 2008 10:30 AM
• 50806
  

  The A-76 moratorium should be applied government wide. The claimed cost savings are baloney! They do not take into account the full, upfront costs of conducting the competitions, and how do you measure the impact of severely damaged morale in the organizations affected? You don't and nobody is trying to measure this cost. Oh, and who is measuring the diminishment of the quality of the work produced? No one. MEOs that "win" are left to be a shell of their former incarnation and are not able to function at an effectiveness level that they were pre-A76. Their ability to contribute to organization mission is damaged for the sake of a misguided "leave it to the free market" approach to the business of government.

  Been There, Done That Posted May 16, 2008 8:06 AM
• 50802
  

  A76 is all about politics - savings aren't real. It started out as an attempt to give away federal jobs to the private sector, but when they realized that didn't work out the way they planned, they trumped up the "savings" from MEO (most efficient organization) reorganizations primarily by deferring services or costs or transferring them to other organizations not involved in A76 studies. Like, we can save $150,000 per year in logistics by eliminating the supply room and technician. This means every office now has to have one of their own staff get supplies. The need didn't go away, it is just that the logistics folks are no longer doing it, hence a "savings". How is this a savings? It is just a transfer of costs. The whole thing is political BS.

  Real World Person Posted May 16, 2008 7:37 AM
• 50795
  

  Outsourcing jobs doesn't really deal with the overall problem of the DOD being way to big, wasteful and inefficient. It is far from patriotic for the Pentagon and other DOD leaders to just sit on their butts when our troops need the best support they can get.

  If the higher ups in the DOD had been doing their jobs to begin with instead of planning cushy retirement jobs with contractors, the DOD would be fit and ready instead of fat and pathetic. Many lives would not have been lost for lack of support.

  Perhaps, it's the SES jobs that should be competed for like in the real world. Performers get promoted. Non-performers are shown the door.

  Robert M. Posted May 16, 2008 6:47 AM
• 50787
  

  I'm sick and tired of listening to the tired old cliche "support the troops" uttered in the hopes of legitimizing some agenda. Shame on you. If you really want to support the troops then you'll push to stop the A-76 and keep the experienced Fed on the job and not the money oriented contractor who will cut and run if the pay doesn't add up. Support the troops by pushing your congress reps to fund the various measure they have already passed like Concurrent Receipt. I'd really like to get my retirement check and my disability check at the same time thank you. So go ahead support the troops, support the disabled troops. What's really happening is a national disgrace.

  RetAF Posted May 16, 2008 1:23 AM
• 50781
  

  The major labor cost for the government is for contractor support. When do we start studying those costs to see if it is less expensive for the work to performed by military or civil service. I read one report that estimated the contractor workforce at 15 Million people. The government is looking in the wrong place to find cost savings.

  Tom Posted May 15, 2008 7:43 PM
• 50766
  

  Ok, I agree, stop the competitions at DoD. The Circular A-76 can be waived in a time of war, but don't put me or mine in danger during an ongoing conflict by preventing the Services from getting the resources, skills, capabilities, and yes, economies that they require to support the troops! Allow contracting and conversions of work, as determined by the Services, and prove that this is not just an election year pay-off. If you don't care about the taxpayer, at least give the troops what they need. Strong language regarding patriotism and accountable leadership to follow!

  DC Fed Posted May 15, 2008 3:13 PM
• 50754
  

  It's about time!!!! Outsourcing is no longer a cost savings initiative. The government can not achieve a 33% savings as the did back in the 70's/80's. It's just not there. Now, it cost more to contract than have government workers.

  Catz Posted May 15, 2008 12:34 PM