OPM employees sustain first competitive sourcing loss

More than 100 administrative workers at the Office of Personnel Management failed in an attempt to defend their jobs against contractors, agency officials announced Wednesday.

OPM awarded Transtecs Corp., a small business based in Wichita, Kan., a 52-month, $16.8 million contract to handle clerical work previously performed by 163 full-time employees, said Clarence Crawford, the agency's associate director for management and chief financial officer. OPM expects to reap $15 million in savings over the life of the contract.

The decision casts a shadow on OPM employees' otherwise flawless job competition record. The personnel agency has boasted green lights - the highest possible score-on the competitive sourcing section of the White House's quarterly management score card for nearly a year, and has earned those marks without an in-house team ever losing a job contest.

OPM started the administrative support competition in 2003, Crawford said. Asked why the jobs seemed good candidates for a competitive sourcing study, he noted that the agency classified them as commercial in nature on Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act lists. OPM has been relatively aggressive about holding job contests and is running low on commercial positions available for contests, he noted.

The competition entailed 163 full-time positions, but roughly 40 of those employees already have decided to leave, said Doris Hausser, senior policy adviser to the director. OPM is working on "soft landing" packages, including early retirement and buyout offers, to assist the remaining clerical workers and the 50 or so additional employees who could be left without a job after the reduction in force is over, she said.

John Zottoli, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 32, the union branch representing OPM employees, noted that in some cases the administrative workers whose positions are being eliminated might end up bumping out members of the in-house teams that prevailed in past job competitions. "That seems very unfair," he said, adding that he hopes such a situation will be avoided.

There are about 100 employees in line to lose jobs over the outsourcing decision, Zottoli estimated. "I would like to see OPM place every one of those 100 people," he said. Agency officials could create positions for the affected employees or hire them into existing vacancies, he noted, adding that this could require restructuring some work to open jobs at suitable grade levels.

Acting OPM Director Dan Blair has announced a hiring freeze for in-agency, clerical and technical positions at the GS-7 level and below "in an effort to match qualified displaced employees with other, unfilled jobs." The agency is committed to ensuring that "as few employees as possible will actually be separated involuntarily," he wrote in an e-mail message informing workers of the contest's outcome.

Transtecs also is hoping to hire some of OPM's clerical workers and in theory could provide jobs for up to 90 people, Hausser said. Company officials would like to hold a job fair as early as next week, she said. The contractor is required to open positions to affected employees before outsiders and must provide salary and benefits packages meeting Labor Department standards. Company officials will likely want to offer attractive benefits to entice the OPM employees, Hausser noted.

The transfer of work will take place in two stages to spread associated costs over a longer time period, Hausser said. Transtecs employees will take over in Washington, D.C. and at three affected field offices (in Dallas, Philadelphia and San Francisco) by June, she said. In Boyers, Pa., where about half of the 163 positions studied reside, the transition would take place by November.