Forest Service in legal wrangle over outsourcing analyst jobs

The Forest Service violated rules in recently enacted fiscal 2004 budget legislation in an effort to replace federal policy analysts with private sector workers, an environmental advocacy group claims.

Forest Service officials announced on May 20 that they planned to outsource approximately 60 analyst jobs in Missoula, Mont., and Salt Lake City. They asked contractors to submit proposals for the work, which involves assembling reports on the public's reaction to proposed policy changes, by Jan. 5, 2004.

At the time of the announcement, Office of Management and Budget guidelines permitted agencies to shift small chunks of federal work to the private sector without holding job competitions. Roughly a week later, OMB published revised rules prohibiting this procedure, known as "direct conversion," with some exceptions.

While the Forest Service's decision to outsource the analyst positions using the direct conversion process was legal on May 20, a provision in the 2004 Interior Department appropriations bill, enacted in early November, prevents the agency from moving ahead with its plans, according to Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, a nonprofit group based in Eugene, Ore. The group on Wednesday filed a lawsuit at the U.S. District Court in Missoula, asking the court to order the Forest Service halt the direct conversion.

Language in the final version of the Interior budget measure requires the Forest Service, which is covered under Interior appropriations even though it is part of the Agriculture Department, to conduct public-private competitions any time more than 10 jobs are at stake. Contractors must submit a proposal that is 10 percent or $10 million cheaper than the in-house team's bid in order to win work.

These rules state that the Forest Service and other agencies covered by the bill cannot outsource work performed by more than 10 federal workers as of Nov. 10, the date Bush signed the legislation, without first holding a public-private competition and granting the in-house team the requisite cost advantage. As of Nov. 10, the Forest Service employed 18 content analysts, said Andy Stahl, the environmental group's executive director.

Thomas Mills, the Forest Service's deputy director for business operations, did not return calls for comment on Friday.

Stahl said he believes Forest Service officials are determined to outsource the analysts' jobs because they have become "notorious for telling decision-makers exactly what the public is saying." He speculated that the Forest Service would like to award the work to a contractor sympathetic to the Bush administration's land use and environmental policies.

In an April 20, 2003 statement justifying the Forest Service's plan to outsource content analysis work, rather than conduct a public-private competition, an agency official noted that many of the content analysts are only authorized to remain in their jobs for two- to-four-year terms. This factor would complicate any job competition, regardless of the winner, the official explained. Many of the analysts' terms would expire before the competition ended, the statement said.

But Stahl said the Interior Department budget measure does not make any distinctions between permanent federal employees and those who serve for limited terms. He added that some content analysts have already lost their jobs as a result of the outsourcing effort. Nine of the analysts served two-year terms expiring in early November. Under normal circumstances, the agency would have extended their terms for another two years, Stahl said. But plans to outsource the work prevented agency officials from doing so.

In addition, the Forest Service has not said that cost will be a primary factor in the decision of which contractor wins the award for the work, Stahl claimed. "What we've seen is that outsourcing has been used more for political reasons than for cost savings," he said.