OMB Says Cut Government Contractors

The Washington Post says that the White House is getting ready to start Operation Drop Scumbag Contractors. Should I be worried?

The OMB memos flow from a March directive by President Obama that called on the OMB to assist agencies in identifying "contracts that are wasteful, inefficient, or not otherwise likely to meet the agency's needs." The OMB's guidance in the matter was due July 1, so it is running a bit late.

Obama also told the OMB to issue, by Sept. 30, further guidance covering such issues as the use of non-competitive contracts, the capacity of the government's acquisition workforce and when hiring contractors is appropriate.

Between 2001 and 2008, the years of the Bush administration, "spending on Government contracts has more than doubled, reaching over $500 billion," Obama's directive said. That includes "a significant increase in the dollars awarded without full and open competition." Reversing those trends could save billions, he added.

The OMB wants a 10 percent reduction in contracts awarded with less than full competition in fiscal 2010.

One of the big criteria for identifying the "bad contractors" is that contracting officials have to identify those who are doing "inherently governmental work." In an ideal world, government workers should do government work, and the contractors should do that work which adds value to the government's efforts but that can be performed off-site. There's a lot of contractors doing "technical assistance" sitting right next to government workers, full time on site. They're doing good work too, but they're the ones at risk.

The problem is this. In that ideal world, all the government civilians would be hard working, highly qualified people. But they aren't. In that ideal world, the government personnel offices doing the hiring work quickly and efficiently to identify the ideal candidates for government positions and get them into the jobs within a month. But they don't. In that ideal world, government leaders have time to work budgets and get all their studies completed without resorting to outside help. But they can't. 

No doubt that the Bush administration did the best they could to grow the government's power and influence without actually growing the government's manpower, because you can always fire contractors after the work gets done. If the work ever gets completed. But here's the funny thing - government agencies still depend on us slimy contractors. Some of them don't like it very much, but that's the only way that they can get all the work done that's assigned to their group, and that's the only way they can keep their budgets high. If you cut the contractors, your work goes down and so does your budget. 

So have a blast. Cut us back. The bad government agencies will suffer, and the good contractors will still find good jobs somewhere else. You don't have any real choice here.

Comments

[Kilo]

Ooooh tell us what that "Seeds of terror" is like. I've been considering buying that.

[daskro]

On this subject, I'm curious how this will impact the "cyber" overhaul that every major defense contractor seems to be clamoring to. It seems to me that many of the cyber-security jobs are really IT jobs in everything but name. Should these jobs really be given to contractors?

[J.]

daskro, that's a very good example. I know a guy who worked as a contractor in that area, very IT-focused, his client, a military service agency, had to use contractors because no one with the required skills and abilities would take a govt job salary to do the work. Not as if the military service agency in question had any choice but to hire contractors. Funny how that happens.

[Sock Puppet of the Great Satan]

"There's a lot of contractors doing "technical assistance" sitting right next to government workers, full time on site. They're doing good work too, but they're the ones at risk."

Yeah, some of that is the rigidity of hiring and inability to staff up fast enough in certain agencies.

However, using contractors to obtain staff with, say, high level clearances is just robbing Peter to pay Paul - one agency loses an employee to have them go off and work as a contractor to another agency at a higher cost.

From a security point of view, and just general business sense from the idea of switching costs, it makes sense that someone with unique skills or assets (like a high-level clearance) should be a direct employee rather than a contractor - if you've had to invest a lot of money and time on someone, it's better to have them on a gubmint defined benefit pension or civil service job security, things they can't get in the private sector, to increase retention and save the cost of having to re-invest that effort in a new employee. Switching costs in employment aren't always solely on the employee side.