Congress Wednesday approved a fiscal 2000 Defense authorization bill that supports the Pentagon's efforts to reduce its civilian workforce. But lawmakers showed signs of wariness toward DoD's plan to outsource thousands of jobs.
Under the authorization bill, which will be sent to President Clinton for his signature, the Defense Department will be able to offer employees buyouts of up to $25,000 until September 2003. The bill extends the Pentagon's authority to offer buyouts by two years; the authority is currently set to expire on Sept. 30, 2001.
The buyouts will help the Pentagon cut about 100,000 civilian jobs over the next five years. Under DoD's reform efforts, the jobs of 230,000 civilian employees are slated to be put up for competition with private contractors. The competitions, held under Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76, determine whether it's cheaper to perform work with in-house employees or outside firms. About half the time under A-76, jobs are moved into the private sector.
Lawmakers most want to see downsizing happen in headquarters and in the acquisition workforce. The authorization bill cuts headquarters management positions by 15 percent and orders DoD to reduce its acquisition workforce by at least 14,000 personnel in fiscal 2000.
But in a sign that Congress is skeptical of outsourcing efforts, the bill orders the Pentagon to figure out how many contractor employees perform DoD work.
"The administration has declared that the era of 'big government' is over based mainly on the fact that the executive branch non-postal service civilian workforce is now the smallest it has been since the Kennedy administration," lawmakers said in the conference report on the bill. "Many of the functions, however, that used to be performed by government workers are now being performed by a shadow workforce of contractors."
The report is due by March 1, 2001.
Congress is also requiring the Defense Department to notify Congress within 10 days when DoD decides to outsource an activity without first conducting an A-76 competition.
In an example of one such effort, the Army is outsourcing a logistics modernization program without a public-private competition. A provision contained in an earlier version of the bill called on the Army to allow the logistics employees to compete for their jobs, but the final version contains only language urging the Army to make sure that the modernization does not jeopardize military readiness.
Additional provisions in the $288 billion authorization bill include:
- Eliminating the "dual compensation law," which establishes a ceiling on pay for retired military officers who work as civilians for the federal government. The current ceiling is $110,700. About 6,000 military retirees are affected by the ceiling and lose an average of $800 per month in benefits, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
- Extending the expiration date for the authority to pay severance pay in a lump sum from Oct. 1, 1999 to Oct. 1, 2003.
- Improved dental insurance coverage for military retirees.
- Easing cost accounting standards for federal contracts.
- Providing a 4.8 percent pay raise for military personnel in 2000, followed by annual pay raises thereafter set at one-half percent above the annual increases in the Employment Cost Index. Pay raises are currently set at 0.5 percent below those increases.
- Permanently requiring quadrennial defense reviews.
- Requiring that DoD provide a minimum of two uniformed military personnel for the funerals of honorably discharged veterans.
- Requiring a study comparing military health care benefits with civilian health benefits.
- A reduction in funding for declassification efforts at DoD from $200 million a year to $51 million in 2000.
- Increasing the pay cap on senior executives paid out of nonappropriated funds to Level III of the Executive Level pay schedule.
- Providing restoration of leave to civilian personnel who lose leave while serving in combat zones.
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