Agencies set widely varying job competition targets

Two months after the Bush administration eliminated governmentwide numerical targets for competitive sourcing, 21 agencies have settled on a wide range of individual goals, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

On Friday, OMB issued a report on competitive sourcing developments since July, showing that agencies are aiming to place anywhere from 1 percent to 36 percent of jobs designated as commercial in nature up for bid.

OMB's report includes statistics on job competitions under OMB Circular A-76 at 24 of the 26 agencies evaluated quarterly by the administration. The report does not contain a profile of efforts under way at the Homeland Security Department or at OMB itself.

The report shows that some agencies are putting only a small percentage of their commercial jobs up for competition. The Veterans Affairs Department, for example, has designated 190,500 full-time-equivalent positions as commercial, but plans on subjecting only 2,500, or 1 percent, of them to public-private competitions. Jobs that could be up for competition range from property management to canteen services.

And in fact, the number 2,500 indicates a goal articulated by VA and approved by OMB, rather than actual competitions under way. Veterans Affairs has stopped almost all of its competitions because of legal concerns.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to compete roughly 36 percent, or 215, of its 600 commercial positions, the OMB report said. Under the agency's plan, human resources, payment processing and some risk analysis jobs would undergo competition.

In the past, OMB required most agencies to aim for placing 15 percent of commercial jobs up for competition in order to earn a yellow light on its quarterly traffic -light-style scorecard, which is used to indicate progress on implementing the five components of the president's management agenda. In July, OMB eliminated these governmentwide targets, deciding instead to let agencies set goals appropriate to their specific circumstances.

Under OMB's revised criteria, agencies will get a yellow light if they complete one competition that meets OMB standards. In the past two quarters, agencies must have finished 75 percent of all streamlined competitions-those where fewer than 65 full-time equivalent jobs are up for bids-within a 90-day time frame and must have followed through with at least 80 percent of publicly announced competitions.

Agencies aiming for a green light must have completed at least 10 competitions since January 2001. Over the past year, agencies deserving of the highest rating must have canceled less than 10 percent of competitions announced, completed 90 percent of all standard competitions in a year and finished 95 percent of streamlined competitions within 90 days, OMB's modified guidelines mandate.

Unions representing federal employees have said they are not convinced that OMB has dropped what they see as arbitrary competitive sourcing targets. Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said in July that OMB had simply traded one set of quotas for another that will remain largely unchanged.

The wide variation in agency targets likely reflects differences in the extent of expertise and resources each has at its disposal, Kelley said Monday. OMB's latest report adds "very little" to information released in July after administration officials abandoned governmentwide targets, she said.

Friday's report "provides insufficient documentation on some of the vital questions surrounding [OMB's] contracting out initiative," Kelley said. These "vital questions" include how OMB plans to track expenses related to administering the initiative and documentation of savings produced by putting jobs up for bid.

American Federation of Government Employees President John Gage said Monday that despite OMB's abandonment of the 15 percent overall target, the "bottom line for federal employees is unchanged."

OMB did not respond to a question on how much agencies' targets specified in the report have changed since it eliminated the governmentwide goal.

On average, the agencies listed in OMB's report have aimed to place roughly 12 percent of commercial jobs up for competition. Several agencies are well above the average, including the Army Corps of Engineers, which plans on placing about a quarter of its civilian jobs designated as commercial up for competition.

The Education, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice, Labor and Transportation departments aim to compete fewer than 10 percent of jobs designated as commercial. These agencies all earned red lights on OMB's latest management scorecard. OMB plans on releasing a new scorecard reflecting progress in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2003 in the next few weeks.

The Defense Department and the Office of Personnel Management hope to compete 17 percent of commercial jobs. These agencies improved from red to yellow on the most recent management scorecard.