White House to move slowly on inherently governmental IT jobs

The Obama administration could move slowly to bring information technology jobs now performed by contractors back to agencies, say some federal spending analysts. But one industry group says it is less concerned with what the White House decides to do than about Congress mandating insourcing without clear guidelines. Agencies will err on the side of keeping IT functions in-house until the Office of Management and Budget finalizes a new definition of work that must be performed by federal employees, said Ray Bjorklund, senior vice president and chief knowledge officer at FedSources, a market research firm. On June 1, OMB stopped accepting public comments on proposed guidance that would direct departments to define work as inherently governmental when it is so intimately tied to the public interest that it must be performed by federal employees. The administration "is starting to swing the pendulum back to where it had been" before the Bush administration followed an aggressive policy to outsource federal jobs, Bjorklund said. "I think that throughout this year and the upcoming year, government agencies will have the standards by which they can evaluate all the positions and the functions that are now being done by contractors and make clear decisions about what should be outsourced." The proposal also tells agencies to avoid depending on contractors for positions that are closely associated with inherently governmental functions or are mission critical. The rule is expected to be finalized by early fall. Meanwhile, an amendment to the House-passed Defense authorization act is aimed at reigning in an impulse to contract out services, according to the measure's sponsor, Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md. The proposal will "seek to bring some analysis as to when it's appropriate to bring back in-house some of these functions and operations that have been outsourced according to very reasonable and rational standards," he said in introducing his amendment on May 27. The Professional Services Council, which represents government contractors, is lobbying lawmakers to rethink the measure, which the group says encourages arbitrary insourcing rather than stipulates conducting a strategic cost-analysis before making a decision. PSC expects senators to propose similar language after the July 4 recess, when the Senate negotiates its version of the bill. But the organization has complimented OMB's policy on inherently governmental work for providing precise directions on how to make hiring decisions. Stan Soloway, president and chief executive officer of the council, said he has not seen much movement by the administration to curb the number of IT jobs that are outsourced. For example, he said the government must continue to rely on the private sector for one of its biggest IT challenges -- cybersecurity. "The government is going to have to find a way to do something it hasn't traditionally done -- maintain high-level cyber skills. The competition for those skills is fierce," so the work cannot be done completely in-house, he said.