Forest Service makes fresh beginning on job competition effort

The Forest Service has received permission to partially clear its slate after completing a number of small job competitions that are not expected to yield any savings.

Office of Management and Budget officials agreed to let the agency out of overseeing the in-house teams that won 142 contests for maintenance jobs, said Christopher Pyron, the Forest Service's deputy chief of business operations, last week. The studies involved only a few positions each and, if implemented, promised few improvements in efficiency.

"It would not be reasonable to expend additional agency resources to monitor those studies," Pyron said. The freed-up money won't total much since the studies were small, he said, and likely will be applied toward the agency's "normal project work."

Recent reports from congressional investigators and OMB revealed that the Forest Service last year completed a number of small contests bearing a high price tag, inadvertently straying from the competitive sourcing initiative's objective of spurring savings through enhanced efficiency.

In fiscal 2002 and 2003, the Forest Service initiated 171 job competitions and spent roughly $23.6 million, staff members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies found in a bipartisan report released late last month. Of 169 contests completed by February 2004, 78 encompassed fewer than two full-time equivalent positions and 26 involved only a fraction of a an equivalent full-time position.

As a result of the investigators' findings, lawmakers have altered competitive sourcing requirements in a preliminary version of the agency's appropriations bill for next year. Language in the 2004 Interior bill, enacted late last fall, placed a $5 million limit on the Forest Service's competitive sourcing spending. A version of the 2005 Interior bill passed by the House Appropriations Committee on June 9 would tighten the limit to $2 million.

While the Forest Service is part of the Agriculture Department, it receives funds from the Interior bill.

Language approved by House appropriators last week also would exempt the Forest Service from implementing letters of obligation and "post-competition accountability guidelines" for completed streamlined competitions-those involving fewer than 65 full-time jobs-where work stayed in house and the study failed to achieve net savings.

This language would add about 19 streamlined studies to the list of 142 competitions OMB aleady has granted the Forest Service permission to scratch, Pyron said, adding he is "neutral" to expanding the list.

The language in the preliminary version of the appropriations bill "recognizes that past mistakes have been made and obviates the Forest Service from continuing expensive monitoring and recompeting previous sourcing efforts, which should have never been contemplated," a committee report stated.

Though these contests didn't help the agency produce savings, they were not completely without benefit, said David Heerwagen, the agency's associate deputy chief for business operations. "It was a very good learning experience," he said. The Forest Service is now concentrating on moving forward with larger contests of strategically grouped jobs-more in keeping with OMB's intent.

House appropriators also altered language detailing requirements for competitive sourcing reports called for in last year's Interior appropriations act. In guidelines on implementing the reporting requirement, OMB asked that agencies only record the "incremental" costs directly attributable to competitive sourcing, and exclude the salaries of employees working on job contests during regular hours.

Critics have argued that this method of calculating expenses significantly understates the true cost of competitive sourcing by ignoring the salaries of employees diverted from normal duties for substantial chunks of time to implement the management initiative.

For instance, only a portion of the $23.6 million the Forest Service spent on competitive sourcing in fiscal 2002 and 2003 would show up in the agency's report, the congressional study found. Most of the $11.7 million the Forest Service "spent on salaries and benefits associated with studies will not be reported because most was incurred during normal working hours," the report said.

In the preliminary version of the fiscal 2005 Interior spending bill, the appropriations committee modified the language, expressly asking agencies to include in reports all costs "attributable to developing, implementing, supporting, managing, monitoring and reporting on competitive sourcing, including personnel, consultant, travel and training costs associated with program management."

OMB did not respond to calls for comment.