How to Cut 100,000 Contractors

It's John Kerry's signature management proposal. But it could be the hardest to implement. "Cutting contractors might be more difficult than competitive sourcing," says Angela Styles, an attorney who ran the Bush administration's job competition campaign until last September.

Robert Gordon, a Kerry domestic policy aide, says Kerry plans a review of existing contracts before making any cuts. Campaign aides see the 100,000 cuts as a governmentwide initiative and emphasize it would not affect contractors that support troops overseas.

But experts predict the Kerry cut would hit choppy water. For starters, few agencies even try to count their contractors. One that has, the Army, estimates it had anywhere from 144,000 to 562,000 contract workers on its payroll in 2002-hardly a precise figure. With no firm tally of contract workers, Kerry would be hard-pressed to apportion a 100,000-worker reduction across agencies, experts say. "The problem with the proposal is that we simply don't have the mechanism to implement it," says New York University professor Paul C. Light.

If Styles was told to slash contractors, her first step would be to seek out experts at the Army, who have the most experience at counting contractors, she says. Then she would look for large-dollar contracts coming up for renewal. In theory, agencies could tally the contract employees working on these pacts and then transfer their jobs to federal employees. Says Styles: "That would be the way to get the best hit immediately."