Contractors eye job lists; agencies try to retain work

As private companies scan newly released inventories of the federal workforce for contracting opportunities, federal agencies' plans for the moment are to keep most jobs in-house.

Last week, 52 agencies released inventories of their workforces that identified all jobs that could be performed in the private sector. Of the 320,000 jobs in those agencies, more than 100,000 could be outsourced, according to an analysis by the Office of Management and Budget.

Contractors have begun scanning the inventories, which were required by the 1998 Federal Activities Inventory Reform (FAIR) Act. Under the FAIR Act, private companies can challenge an agency's categorization of a job. Andrew Fortin, manager of privatization policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber is reviewing the lists to see if challenges are in order.

"The FAIR Act provides a pool of data that's going to allow Congress and industry and managers within the agency to make some rational decisions on how it's doing what it's doing," Fortin said. "Information is a dangerous thing. You'll see some increasing pressure from the private sector and Congress to compete the work or outsource it directly, much like private sector companies have focused on their core businesses and outsourced non-core activities."

For the time being, however, most agencies are saying that even work that could potentially be performed by the private sector should not be outsourced. NASA, for example, identified nearly 8,000 jobs that could be done by private firms, but said all of the jobs are "core" activities of the agency and should not be outsourced. The Education Department also said none of the 3,624 jobs on its list is ripe for outsourcing.

Of the 15 agencies whose data has been analyzed by GovExec.com so far, the General Services Administration has identified the most outsourcing opportunities: 4,556 of the agency's 14,278 jobs.

Just as companies can protest an agency's contention that a certain activity is inherently governmental, employee unions can protest the inclusion of activities on the outsourcing lists.

Bobby Harnage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said recently that the administration is not following through on a promise to try to count the number of contractor employees who perform government work. The government should "contract in" work by allowing in-house employees to bid on work whenever a contract comes up, Harnage said.

Under the FAIR Act, OMB is requiring agencies to submit annual reports detailing their outsourcing efforts. For now, it's up to the agencies to decide which jobs are outsourced and which are kept in-house.

Deidre Lee, acting deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, said the next set of agency lists should be released by the end of October.

"We're certainly going to learn something from this first group," Lee said.

GovExec.com will continue to monitor agencies' outsourcing reports and update the results in our database of FAIR Act jobs lists.