Intelligence Contractor Conversions

Congress wants the intelligence community to take a fresh look at its use of contractors. The Washington Post reports that the conference report on the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization bill orders National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell to prepare a report by the end of March on use of contractors at all 16 intelligence agencies.

On top of that, the legislation gives McConnell the unusual authority to increase personnel levels at those agencies (but by no more than 10 percent) in order to convert contractor jobs into government positions.

The conference report takes note of an estimate that a civilian employee costs the government an average of $126,500 annually in salary and benefits, while the average contract employee costs $250,000.

In her blog on outsourcing in the intelligence community, RJ Hillhouse notes that this is a problem largely of Congress' making:

By limiting the number of positions within the Intelligence Community while adding funds for services, Congress set the stage for the wide scale outsourcing we see today, with some 70% of the de facto workforce of the CIA's National Clandestine Service made up of contractors.

That's a story that could be told at a lot of other federal agencies, too.