Lawmakers revive outsourcing bills
As White House officials consider new rules to replace the A-76 process for private-public competition, several lawmakers are preparing to re-introduce legislation that would make it more difficult to outsource government work to the private sector.
As White House officials consider new rules to replace the A-76 process for private-public competition, several lawmakers are preparing to re-introduce legislation that would make it more difficult to outsource government work to the private sector.One bill, the Truthfulness, Responsibility and Accountability in Contracting Act, would temporarily suspend all outsourcing, and thereafter would require any contracting to be based on a public-private competition that compares costs under the A-76 process.Introduced last year by Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Md., the TRAC bill would require an equal percentage of federal employee and private contractor positions to be put up for competition each year.Another bill aimed at giving government employees better opportunities to compete for work against the private sector was offered as an amendment to the House Defense authorization bill. The amendment, offered by Reps. Tom Allen, D-Maine, and Robert Andrews, D-N.J., was not approved by the House last month.Wynn said he would look to include the TRAC act this year as an amendment to one of the appropriations bills. Both industry and congressional sources said they expect an amendment similar to Allen-Andrews to be offered this month when the Senate considers its version of the Defense authorization bill.The Allen-Andrews amendment says no Defense Department work may be moved to the private sector unless at least 10 percent of the cost will be saved by doing so. It provides exemptions for compelling national security interests and for services related to the design and installation of information technology.It also says new work may not be awarded to the private sector unless a cost comparison finds contractors can do the work cheaper. Exemptions are provided for jobs less than $1 million and for information technology design and installation services."The amendment does not mean that all federal work should be done by federal employees," said Mike Sullivan, spokesman for Allen.But Booth Jameson, director of global government affairs for the federal unit of Electronic Data Systems Corp. of Plano, Texas, said the amendment, if it had been approved, "would have severely limited the ability of DoD to competitively source noncore functions with the private sector in a timely manner."Industry opponents also said the IT exemption won't help because design and installation are embedded with the management, operation and maintenance of IT systems.Wynn said the TRAC act and amendments such as Allen-Andrews are a recognition that the government contracting process needs to be fixed."The people understand there are legitimate questions about whether customers are getting best value using current [procurement] schemes," he said. "No one has come up with a definitive study showing you save money or get quality work [with outsourcing]."Wynn acknowledged that there are certain types of work the government does not do, such as cutting-edge IT, engineering and biotechnology, that industry would probably win fairly easily in competition, and so would not be adversely affected by TRAC."What I object to," he said, "is a situation where government can do the job. If they have the capacity to do that, they should have to the opportunity to hire a few more people to do the job and compete for it."Capitol Hill jockeying over outsourcing comes at a time when members of Congress are still studying a new report on the process of conducting public-private competitions for work under Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76.The congressionally mandated Commercial Activities Panel issued its report on the A-76 process April 30 after a year of study. The process has been widely criticized as too expensive, too lengthy and too disruptive for federal employees. The panel, a group of government, industry and federal union officials, agreed on 10 principles for conducting competitions, but was not unanimous on how those competitions should be conducted.Two House subcommittees are expected to discuss outsourcing, including the panel recommendations, at hearings this month. The House Government Reform subcommittee on technology and procurement policy will address the Commercial Activities Panel report June 20. The House Armed Services subcommittee on military readiness will discuss outsourcing June 26, congressional sources said.The panel's report recommended the A-76 process be replaced by a new method based on the Federal Acquisition Regulation. That process should allow for consideration of "best value," not just low cost, in making sourcing decisions, the report said.A small interagency group led by OMB has convened to implement changes to the A-76 process recommended in the CAP report, said Angela Styles, director of OMB's Office of Federal Procurement Policy and a panel member.So far, "OMB hasn't really delved into details of implementing the recommendations. It behooves Congress to ask for some details on the changes" at the June 20 hearing, said Victoria Proctor, a professional staff member of the subcommittee on technology and procurement policy. Styles said many on all sides of the issue are wondering what happens next."People are interested in changes we make to the circular. The question is how we create a fair process that is better for everyone concerned," Styles said. She said the President's Management Council will review OMB's proposed changes, which could be ready by June 30. The changes will be open for comment for 60 days before final changes are made, she said.Public-private competitions under Circular A-76 have many elements of the FAR, Styles said, but they were set up to determine if the private sector could deliver products and services at a lower cost, not at a better value, than the government."We're looking at more of a system of true public-private competition," she said. But John Threlkeld, a lobbyist for the American Federation of Government Employees, a Washington union representing 600,000 federal and District of Columbia workers, argued that federal employees still won't have the same opportunities as private-sector workers. The government is "not going to subject outsourced work to competition," he said.Styles disagreed."One of the criteria [outlined in the CAP report] is that you have to give consideration to [in-sourcing]. I think you will find some departments and agencies required to do that and want to do that," she said.It's uncertain how or if Congress will act on the CAP report. Most changes can be made administratively, said staff members of the House Government Reform subcommittee on technology and procurement policy.However, in order to fully implement the panel recommendations, Congress would have to act in two areas: It would have to pass legislation to authorize the competition process at the Department of Defense, and it would have to pass legislation to give federal employees appeal rights in connection with civilian agency competitions, said Comptroller General and panel Chairman David Walker.Congressional action would be discussed at the military readiness hearing, a congressional source said. However, a Senate source said he didn't think it likely that Congress would enact legislation pertaining to the CAP panel recommendations.Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, "said all along that he did not find it likely that Congress would enact or he would support enacting something that was not a consensus report," the source said.IT industry executives said that regardless of the Hill debate on outsourcing, they don't see the practice slowing."Both the Clinton and Bush administrations emphasized privatizing functions that are not inherently governmental in nature or which [do not] affect the agency's critical mission, and we don't see that changing in the near future," said Mac Curtis, president of NCS Pearson Government Solutions.Staff Writer Patience Wait contributed to this story. Staff Writer Gail Repsher Emery can be reached at .