Lawmakers want to know how many Defense Department jobs have been outsourced in the past four years-and how many contractor jobs, if any, have been brought back into the department.
As part of the Defense appropriations bill passed last week, the House called on Defense Secretary William Cohen to provide a report to Congress on the results of public-private competitions under Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 since 1995. DoD has targeted 230,000 jobs for such competitions, which determine whether it is cheaper to perform work in-house or with contractors.
"The report shall include a description of the types of missions or functions, the locations where the missions or functions are performed, the name of the contractor performing the work (if applicable), the cost to perform the missions or functions at the time the review was conducted, and the current cost to perform the missions or functions," the bill, H.R. 2561, says.
The House also wants the Defense Department to identify any instances where poor-performing contractor employees were replaced with in-house civilian or military personnel.
In a report accompanying the bill, House lawmakers expressed reservations about DoD's estimate that the public-private competitions will save the Pentagon $11.2 billion through 2006. "The cost savings benefits from the current outsourcing and privatization effort are, at best, debatable," the House Armed Services Committee said in the report. "Despite end-strength savings, there is no clear evidence that this effort is reducing the cost of support functions within DoD with high-cost contractors simply replacing government employees."
The committee also said it was nervous about the Pentagon's growing reliance on contractors.
"DoD appears to be moving toward a situation in which contractors are overseeing and paying one another with little DoD oversight or supervision," the committee said.
In the Defense Authorization bill passed last month, the House called on the Pentagon to calculate how many contractor employees perform work for DoD.
A Clinton administration statement on the authorization bill objected to the contractor tally because of the administrative burden the count would impose on DoD.
"The administration would oppose any other provision that seeks to add administrative burdens on competitive sourcing, reinvention and privatization initiatives," the statement said.
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