Bolstering Buyers

During his Senate confirmation hearing less than a year ago, federal procurement chief David Safavian said shaping a workforce of top-notch acquisition professionals was one of his top priorities. Recruitment is especially critical because roughly 40 percent of senior contracting officers are eligible to retire in less than five years. "We seem to be losing more folks than we are bringing in right now, and that's a grave concern," he said.

Safavian remains committed to preparing the buying corps to oversee a burgeoning number of contracts. When he sat down to outline his procurement agenda for Government Executive in January, he at first neglected to mention the workforce. But he realized his omission soon after the interview ended and ran down the hall of the Old Executive Office Building to share his plans.

He hopes to complete an acquisition skills assessment and then provide contracting officers with training to fill any gaps. He wants to make procurement a more attractive career path at civilian agencies and is working with the Federal Acquisition Institute to develop a contracting certification program. He also would like to expand the scope of the acquisition workforce at civilian agencies to include program managers and others playing a significant role in purchasing decisions.

The expanded definition of the acquisition workforce would bring civilian agencies more in line with the Defense Department, which includes program managers, researchers and others in its acquisition workforce. The proposed changes, along with a plan to better align the Defense Acquisition University and Federal Acquisition Institute, would be beneficial to civilian agencies, but likely would take a while to enact, says Stan Soloway, a former Defense Department deputy undersecretary now serving as president of the Professional Services Council, which represents contractors. There were "ferocious battles" at the Pentagon over broadening the definition of the procurement workforce, he says.

Besides, broadening the definition and replacing retirees won't cure all the ills of the procurement workforce, says Steven Schooner, a George Washington University professor specializing in procurement law. Given the downsizing of the 1990s and the growing sums spent on purchases, agencies need more people to perform contract oversight, he says. That's one reason that interagency contracting appeared on the Government Accountability Office's list of "high-risk" management problems, Schooner says. "Would it be good for us to provide better training? Yes," Schooner says. "Should the Federal Acquisition Institute eventually be merged with the Defense Acquisition University? That's something we should be talking about." But those plans fail to address the need for more people, he argues.

As for plans to expand the acquisition workforce, Safavian notes that agencies must first determine how many people they need. "As part of [the] emphasis on human capital, we are asking agencies to conduct skills assessments . . . including determining the appropriate size and skills mix of the agency's workforce," he says. But Schooner believes the government should begin hiring more contracting professionals now. "I think there is sufficient information publicly available that we have an acquisition workforce problem," he says. "How many more people you need, we can debate that."

Steven Kelman, former federal procurement chief and now a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, says that a review of workforce needs would be useful, but he hopes Safavian will be prepared to ask for more money for new hires in time for the next budget cycle. "I wouldn't want to keep studying this and keep putting it off," he says.

The acquisition workforce was "at best lean and mean" in the late 1990s, he says. As the government spends more money on contracts, the workforce must expand in order to provide adequate oversight. Acquisition professionals also are taxed by the demands of competitive sourcing. Improved training is needed, especially in the business skills necessary to design contract incentives, write performance-based work statements, and structure and negotiate agreements for outsourcing, Kelman says.