The ayes have it in favor of Tech Corps

The House of Representatives approved April 10 by voice vote H.R. 3925, the Digital Tech Corps Act of 2002, which would establish a exchange program for midlevel information technology staff of private-sector organizations and government agencies.

"The bill has a simple premise: Through partnership, the public and private sector can do a better job of tackling government's IT skills shortage than the government can do alone. The Tech Corps is also an innovative and inexpensive solution to one of the federal government's most pressing problems ? the shortage of trained IT workers," said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.

Davis sponsored the bill with Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. Burton chairs the Government Reform Committee; Davis chairs its subcommittee on technology and procurement policy.

Employees would participate in the public-private exchange for six months to two years. Federal employees would have to fulfill service commitments to their agencies after participation in the program, and all participants would be required to obey strict federal employee ethics rules.

Employees would retain pay and benefits from their respective employers while on assignment in the Tech Corps. A number of private-sector companies, including Accenture, have said they will commit employees to the program upon enactment of the legislation.

Accenture of Hamilton, Bermuda, challenged other high-tech companies to match its pledge to loan managers to the Tech Corps program, saying the program would provide a constant renewable pool of talent to tackle some of the nation's most pressing IT challenges, such as e-government and homeland security.

The program would help the federal government better manage complex IT projects and would expose federal IT managers to cutting-edge management trends in the private sector, Davis said.

He added it would help federal agencies recruit and retain talented IT managers by offering them a valuable career development tool and allow private sector IT managers to apply their skills to challenging IT problems at federal agencies. The government would get an infusion of IT talent to kick-start e-government initiatives and help fight the war on terrorism, he said.

The bill was approved with two amendments. One requires the Office of Personnel Management report to Congress about the adequacy of existing IT training programs available to federal employees and how the programs can be improved, and prohibits charging of costs associated with the Tech Corps to contracts that companies receive from the government.

The other amendment requires 20 percent of the federal workers detailed to the private sector to be placed with small businesses.