Catching Up on Competitive Sourcing
Christopher Lee of the Washington Post did a nice job today detailing how President Bush's effort to put federal jobs up for competition from the private sector has fallen short of its goals. But pride compels me to note that from where I sit, Robert Brodsky did just a little bit nicer job more than a month ago with the same subject in the pages of Government Executive.
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Government Executive Staff Correspondent Alyssa Rosenberg takes a look at news affecting the management and operations of the massive federal bureaucracy.
The headline for the article was way overblown as were the comments from Professor Light. What the article proved was that A76 or MEO is a boon for the taxpayers eliminating feather bedding in Federal activities. The only time it doesn't work is when Congress intervenes or the unions force a schedule that is too broad to compete.
Congress should mandate that every activity must compete their jobs every 5 years or automatically suffer a 5% reduction in personnel
dan ketter Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 11:59 AMOnly in Government could an average 5-1 return on investment, be considered a "disappointing result." It will be Congress' legacy of failure for putting the self-interests of the federal employee unions over those of the taxpayer, our military and our law enforcement officers that will be remembered - not any failure on the part of the Bush Administration for trying to improve things. The high in-house win rate is due to the excessive use of the Streamlined competition process, which lets the Agency estimate the competitive contract costs - duh. Oh, and then there are the statutory costing changes -made without any hearings and after the congressionally mandated GAO Commercial Activities Panel found no need for them. Unbelievable! Someday cost, efficiency, security and service quality will be important again - someday, but not until this Congress is over.
Voter Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 4:04 PMOnly in Government could an average 5-1 return on investment, be considered a "disappointing result." It will be Congress' legacy of failure for putting the self-interests of the federal employee unions over those of the taxpayer, our military and our law enforcement officers that will be remembered - not any failure on the part of the Bush Administration for trying to improve things. The high in-house win rate is due to the excessive use of the Streamlined competition process, which lets the Agency estimate the competitive contract costs - duh. Oh, and then there are the statutory costing changes -made without any hearings and after the congressionally mandated GAO Commercial Activities Panel found no need for them. Unbelievable! Someday cost, efficiency, security and service quality will be important again - someday, but not until this Congress is over.
Voter Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 4:04 PMOutsourcing is just a way to give more tax dollars to corporate America without proper oversight. If some had their way, you'd have contractors watching other contractors, reporting to more contractors, and somewhere way up the chain without a clue as to what is going on would be one lone overworked federal employee. All you have to do is look at the contractor abuse overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan to get a sense of what happens when no one is watching the store. This is what happens with the kind of aggressive outsourcing being proposed. I speak from experience.
JT Posted Tuesday, April 29, 2008 8:02 AMIf, by a "nicer job," you mean reflecting the insecurities and the emotional reactions to Competitive Sourcing by Federal employees, yes, I agree. But neither article reported on the facts. Neither article explored the costs of the legislative barriers, the agenda of their sponsors or the impact of those barriers on service customers. Neither article reported on the cost of conducting a competition, the ROI, the savings or the performance improvements -they simply repeated old and increasingly tired union pronouncements on those subjects. Chris' article at least made passing reference to the MEO savings being generated in the competition win rate. Both articles advocated an employee agenda while making full, open and transparent competition for commercial support decisions sound harsh. Neither article was written from the perspective of the program's success in the face of increasing inside the Beltway resistance. Is that what you mean by a nicer job?
DC Fed. Posted Tuesday, April 29, 2008 8:49 AMIf by "program success" you mean the purported "savings" by the MEO, then you live in a fantasy world. MEO savings are only on paper, they have not been verified and do not take into account intangibles like customer service and accountability. I have seen "efficiencies" proposed such as cutting back on security functions at sensitive locations, eliminating service personnel so that you wait longer for essential services from the remaining overworked employees, and my all-time favorite, making the operating offices take care of their own support functions, like taking out the trash, so that the cost of this is reflected in someone else's organization, not the one going through the A-76 process. Some efficiencies, eh? The whole process is a farce and a ruse to try to give more government welfare, I mean work, to corporate America. Fortunately for taxpayers it isn't working out the way they thought it would, but unfortunately for us it is creating inefficiencies in the Government workforce that will have to be fixed later.
JT Posted Wednesday, April 30, 2008 8:44 AMJT, I'm at a loss the word "accountability" is abhorrent to Feds just look at all the venom over NSPS. As for customer service, by definition Fed Service = no customer service. Looks at Customs and Homeland Security unless you are surly and nasty don't apply
dan ketter Posted Wednesday, April 30, 2008 11:22 AMA-76 brought high expectations. Unfortunately, Federal managers know it is not working. The FERS system is a lesser cost A-76. Why hire a contractor to do a job when a percentage of the salary goes to the contracting agency? The Federal government is paying too often, twice the cost for the same 8 hours of work. A-76 along with the FERS system enables new Federal employees to move in and out of government, resulting in serious loss of expertise and knowledge in many areas. You can not hire a new MBA and expect them to function at a level responsible for an agency budget to Congress. The base knowledge to put a budget together requires a level of knowledge gained over time. We are losing this knowledge more and more each day. The downside to A-76 and FERS is beginning to be a true problem. The expertise once available is losing ground as CRS employees leave. This is my fifth office with only FERS staff, who lack the knowledge base of a CRS GS 12. Two are going back to public positions after coming back again as a FERS employee a year ago. At least let me hire back retired staff without a penalty.
Who is Kidding Who Posted Thursday, May 1, 2008 9:05 AM