Summaries for June 3, 2008

OUTSOURCING QUESTIONS CONTINUES
A startling statistic: In the first quarter of 2008, the federal government hired 13,800 people.
-> Read More

WHAT'S THIS? REPLACING CONTRACTORS WITH FEDS?
If anything demonstrates the extent to which outsourcing is under fire, it is S 2996, the Senate's Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal 2009. -> Read More

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Save the date for GSA's IRMCO 2009!
Plan now to attend IRMCO 2009 on April 19-22, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay in Cambridge, Maryland.  The 48th annual government-only gathering of agency career and political leaders is the premier place to network and discuss the government's challenges.

IRMCO, GSA's Interagency Resources Management Conference, has been produced by GSA since 1961 to serve the needs of the government's senior executives.  The three-day retreat provides these leaders the opportunity for dialogue with experts in organizational change, peer-to-peer discussion of strategies to transform their agencies, and insightful keynotes from industry and government visionaries.

Bookmark www.irmco.gov to register early for government management conference.

BIG PROJECTS HOSTAGE TO POLITICS
Federal program managers are used to the routine in which their programs get trimmed, or occasionally fattened, as they make their way through the congressional grinder. -> Read More

A FEW "POINTERS" FOR GOVERNMENT
For those of us in journalism, the Columbia Journalism Review has always been a worthwhile read. -> Read More

• Outsourcing Questions Continue

  A startling statistic: In the first quarter of 2008, the federal government hired 13,800 people. The personnel splurge was part of a general expansion by 76,800 of public sector payrolls, including state and local governments. Reported in USA Today, this statistic was framed as a small antidote to the downturn-induced reduction of employment in the private sector.

  But the hirings also reflect the government's still-expanding range of duties. For example, the Border Patrol, part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Homeland Security Department, is in the midst of hiring thousands of new agents, even going to far as to recruit among active military to snag war fighters who are mustering out. The Food and Drug administration is trying to find 1,900 new people in a variety of technical and policy jobs. And even more if the agency and Congress can ever agree on funding and staffing for overseas food and drug factory inspection.

  This all comes at a time when serious revisionist thought is taking place about outsourcing. To wit:

  • Use of contractors for tax collection is about dead in a squeeze play between Rep. Henry Waxman's House Government Reform and Oversight Committee and the National Treasury Employees Union.
  • The Coast Guard has abandoned its use of a lead contractor to oversee its long-term Deepwater modernization program. And just to make sure, that change is written into Title VIII of the Coast Guard Authorization Act, H.R. 2830, which has headed to the Senate.
  • The CIA would be banned from using contractors to interrogate detainees under the Senate Intelligence Committee's version of the intelligence authorization bill for 2009, the Associated Press reported.

  Back in 1988, the Democratic nominee for President, then-Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, famously said that the election was about “competence” and not ideology. For this, and a host of other reasons, he was hammered by George H. W. Bush. Presidential elections are never about competence alone, but failures in large-scale emergency response, food and drug safety and border interdiction have brought federal competence to the forefront. Sixteen years of both parties pushing outsourcing looks to be a factor in whether the government is competent at the tasks that define its missions.
  
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• What’s This? Replacing Contractors With Feds?

  If anything demonstrates the extent to which outsourcing is under fire, it is S 2996, the Senate's Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal 2009. There it is, right there in report Sec. 331: The Director of National Intelligence must report to Congress on which jobs now done by contractors can be brought in-house to be done by federal employees. Here is the language:

  “Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of National Intelligence shall submit to the congressional intelligence committees a report that describes —

  1. any activity that is being conducted by 1 or more contractors on behalf of an element of the intelligence community that the Director believes should only be conducted by employees of an agency or department of the United States;
  2. an estimate of the number of contractors conducting each such activity;
  3. the plan of the Director, if any, to have each such activity be conducted by employees of an agency or department of the United States . And the DNI must also submit a plan for taking back the work from contractors.”

  At first hearing, the language sounds strange, so familiar have phrases about replacing government workers with contractors become.

  The Senate bill also puts its money where its mouth is. It gives the intelligence agencies authority to hire employees equal to the number of contractors performing work that is to be brought in house—subject to concurrence of the DNI and Office of Management and Budget.

  This is the same bill that prohibits contractors from participating in foreign interrogations conducted by the intelligence community. Other portions of the bill require detailed reports on costs and schedules of major systems acquisitions, and put strict requirements for proceeding with intelligence systems modernizations.

  Should this type of provision spread to other authorizing legislation in the years ahead, the relationship between government and industry would adjust, with a subtle power shift towards government agency heads and program managers—to say nothing of public employee unions.

  Next on my list of possible fight cages over private versus contractor employees: oversight of companies using the nation's ports. The Transportation Security Administration gives streamlined security access to some 8,000 importers, customs brokers, carriers and freight consolidators who certify they have certain security measures in place. They must agree to let TSA monitor their stated security practices. It's all part of the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program, or C-TPAT.

  Trouble is, a new Government Accountability Office report has found, TSA rarely monitors those to which it grants special clearance. The agency doesn't have the manpower. So, should Congress decide to lean on TSA to beef up these checks, who would do the work?
  
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• Big Projects Hostage To Politics

  Federal program managers are used to the routine in which their programs get trimmed, or occasionally fattened, as they make their way through the congressional grinder. For example, the Army's Future Combat Systems project, for which the service requested $3.6 billion, was trimmed by $200 million in the House Armed Services and Land Forces Subcommittee. As CongressDaily reported, the Senate Armed Services Committee left FCS funding as requested and chose instead to cut the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter project.

  But now contractors and federal program managers alike are coping with that propensity in Congress to hold one initiative hostage to another. As in, the president wants supplemental funds for military operations in Iraq? Then he'll also have to swallow more economic stimulus. And a big new GI benefits program. And $275 million extra for the Food and Drug Administration. This bill is to be re-considered in June.

  Now some IT programs are caught in the back and forth. Of particular note is the Aviation Investment and Modernization Act, which was grounded when Democrats and Republicans in the Senate couldn't agree on how to proceed with amendments to the bills.

  This was a huge bill for FAA, laden with provisions for everything from safety inspection to whether passengers should be guaranteed adequate water and restroom service during those long tarmac delays.

  And, most importantly for this community, it would have gotten the ball rolling on the Next Generation Air Transportation System—establishing an oversight board and a program office for this long-term project. Now all this will probably have to wait until the next session.

  Expect Congress to be highly skeptical of FAA's ability to manage a 15 year, multi-billion dollar project given recent management snafus in air traffic control and airline inspections.

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A Few “Pointers” For Government

For those of us in journalism, the Columbia Journalism Review has always been a worthwhile read. One of my favorite features is the editors' darts and laurels. They choose events in journalism, and grant their perpetrators either a scolding a dart or a laudatory laurel.

Why not darts and laurels for the federal IT market?

Here are a few darts I could lob:

• Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) for the Guaranteeing Real Accountability in Federal Transactions Act—the name of which alone bruises the dignity of the Senate. This bill (S 2916) would require federal contractors to report their criminal activities or government overpayments. A web site would be created to list this information. A silly idea on its face that would do nothing to guarantee accountability by contractors.
• The CIO office of the Bush White House, which is apparently going along with political games over e-mails from the period immediately before and after the invasion of Iraq. The backup tapes are lost, or at least seriously misplaced, the White House told the D.C. District Court. They'll keep looking, though.
• To Special Council Scott Bloch, who turned his Office of Special Council into a weird fiefdom accountable to no one—not the White House, not Congress and not his professional staff. Thought he could get away with seven-level erasure of his government-issued computer. Until the FBI showed up at his home and office in early May.

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