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26 Oct 2009     Advocate says stimulus law causes outsourcing; contractor group disagrees A transparency advocate says the economic stimulus law causes outsourcing federal jobs, but a trade group for contractors isn't convinced. About $15 billion in federal contracts awarded under the stimulus law have been reported on the official Recovery.gov Web site to date. Of the total, about $800 million worth of contracts is going to 50 companies that are members of the Professional Services Council (PSC), a trade group that represents many federal contractors. This may suggest a trend of increased outsourcing, but Stan Soloway, president of the PSC, said that there is no indication of outsourcing of inherently governmental work and that contracts were awarded legitimately to meet the goals of the economic stimulus law, including job creation and revitalizing the economy, he said.

22 Oct 2009     GAO says West Point should cancel outsourcing of 400 jobs In an Oct. 20 ruling published today, GAO ruled the Army erred in comparing federal employee and contractor bids when it decided in March to outsource 394 Defense Department civilian jobs to Ginn Group Inc. of Peachtree City, Ga. GAO concluded that the errors “call into question the savings that the Army calculated would be achieved by awarding a contract for public works services to Ginn,”. Consequently, GAO recommended the Army cancel the procurement and keep the work with federal employees.

17 Jul 2009     House Passes Spending Bill With Outsourcing Provisions The House passed a bill that requires civilian agencies to create an annual inventory of their services contracts. The legislation will have agencies create an annual inventory of services they’ve outsourced to the private sector and review whether to return the work to government employees.

30 Jun 2009     Senate Bill Would Halt Outsourcing Studies The Senate Armed Services Committee wants to halt public-private competitions for Defense Department civilian jobs conducted under OMB Circular A-76 until the DoD complies with the 2008 authorization requirement that orders them to take an inventory on the activities performed by services contractors. Under the 2008 rules, the department also must determine whether any of those functions should be performed by federal employees and then bring those functions in house.

11 Mar 2009     Law Freezes Competitive Sourcing A fiscal 2009 spending law, signed by Barack Obama, prevents federal agencies from engaging in new competitive sourcing projects until Sept 30, 2009. The law also requires federal agencies to establish guidelines for bringing back government work currently being performed by private contractors. Federal employee unions approved of the change, but a business group warned that the provisions would result in less flexibility and efficiency for agencies.

08 Feb 2009     Union Press to Suspend Outsourcing The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) wants to suspend public-private competitions until outsourcing rules are rewritten to prohibit the outsourcing of work that is “inherently governmental,” “mission essential,” or “closely related to inherently governmental.” The AFGE also wants agencies to bring back federal employees to do inherently governmental work that is currently contracted out.

12 Jan 2009     New marching orders For eight years, the federal government has operated under a now-familiar set of policy initiatives and priorities. President George W. Bush established a businesslike approach to government early with the President’s Management Agenda and elevated the status of contractors with pushes for competitive sourcing and the creation of small-business set-aside categories.

12 Jan 2009     IG: Job competition saps staff Officials told auditors from the DOD Inspector General’s Office that competitive sourcing — a process intended to improve efficiency by having federal employees contend with private sector firms for work — saps their employees’ attention from their jobs and leaves offices with insufficient contracting support.

06 Jan 2009     Report finds OMB did not pressure Pentagon on competitive sourcing Officials with the Army, Navy and Air Force told investigators that "they were not directed by and did not feel pressure from OMB" to hold job competitions, the report stated.

15 Dec 2008     ADMINISTRATION IN REVIEW: THE TRANSITION CHECKLIST President George W. Bush leaves office soon with a diverse legacy. Although his business background was quickly overshadowed by the urgent need to fight terrorism, his administration was marked by an effort to create a more businesslike approach to government.

11 Dec 2008     Experts redefining government-only work As Bush administration officials try to define precisely the work that only government employees should perform, not being able to hire more of those employees could create serious problems, officials said Dec. 10.

25 Nov 2008     Agencies overstate savings from competitive sourcing A new report from the Government Accountability Office says agencies are overstating how much money they save when they let contractors compete for federal jobs, according to a story in Federal Times.

24 Nov 2008     GAO: Agencies overstate savings of competitive sourcing Agencies are overstating the savings they get when they allow contractors to compete for federal jobs, according to the Government Accountability Office.

24 Nov 2008     TSA scolded by Obama for $1.2B Lockheed award The TSA should have allowed agency employees to compete for the work, Obama wrote in an Oct. 20 letter to the American Federation of Government Em-ployees (AFGE).

19 Nov 2008     NTEU hopeful of change from Obama administration Federal employees are hopeful of dramatic improvements in policy that include reduced outsourcing of work and much more support for collective bargaining efforts under President-elect Barack Obama’s upcoming administration, the president of a federal employees' union said today.

17 Nov 2008     TRANSITION WATCH: OBAMA WILL CUT OUTSOURCING President Obama will reduce the number of contracts that outsource government work to private firms, according to a Washington Post report.

11 Nov 2008     In contracting, Obama will focus on oversight, transparency, ethics Obama pledges to review whether the government is over-reliant on contractors and said he already plans to cut contract spending by $40 billion. He has said the savings will be achieved through procurement reforms — such as using fewer cost-based contracts and requiring more competition — and contractor cuts.

06 Nov 2008     Obama wants changes to federal workforce President-elect Obama laid out ambitious plans for reorganizing the federal workforce during his campaign for the White House, but The Washington Post reports it's unclear how he plans to implement those changes or how successful he will be in doing so.

03 Nov 2008     Agencies improve internal processes On the latest Executive Branch Management Scorecard, agencies made the most improvements in commercial services management, which until July was called competitive sourcing, according to a quarterly review released today.

27 Oct 2008     EDITORIAL: THE CASE FOR THE STATUS QUO The coming transition could be especially trying for career executives because they have had eight years working under Bush administration policies and ini-tiatives — the President’s Management Agenda, competitive sourcing, lines of business and others.

22 Oct 2008     Government is doing worse at contracting with small businesses Agencies came up short in meeting their small-business contracting goals in 2007, according to a new federal report. Agencies awarded only 22 percent of their contracting dollars to small businesses, short of the governmentwide goal of 23 percent. That performance is worse than in 2006 when the government awarded 22.8 percent of contract dollars to small businesses.

14 Oct 2008     Also in the News: VA cancels contractor plans for GI Bill Contractors were reluctant to bid because of “external misconceptions” about the scope of the work involved, said VA Secretary James Peake. Outsourcing would have been faster and more efficient, VA officials had maintained, but now the VA’s own employees will take on the job, Air Force Times reports.

06 Oct 2008     Competition eludes easy fixes With less than a month to go until a new president and Congress are elected, candidates are giving renewed attention to reducing sole-source contracts.

06 Oct 2008     Companies show mix of competitive, noncompetitive contracts As the federal officials are pushing for more full-and-open competition, individ-ual contractors have a mixed record on competition, according to government data.

30 Sep 2008     DOD AUTHORIZATION BILL REINFORCES COMPETITION, TRANSPARENCY, OVERSIGHT The final version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2009 that passed Congress includes several provisions intended to increase competition, transparency and oversight in federal contracting.

21 Sep 2008     The case for insourcing The Navy “insourced” the work — as it is called when work is transferred from a contractor to in-house employees — after it calculated it would save 10 per-cent of the cost, or $3 million over five years, of what it was costing to have BAE Systems do the work.

17 Sep 2008     GI Bill contract won’t mean lost federal jobs, VA says With questions hanging over a Veterans Affairs Department decision to get a private contractor to run a new GI Bill educational benefits program, VA offi-cials tried last week to convince lawmakers that no federal workers will lose their jobs as a result.

12 Sep 2008     IRS cancels outsourcing deal, brings 700 jobs back in house More than 700 outsourced IRS jobs will be brought back in house after the agency decided to cancel a multimillion documents-management contract.

09 Sep 2008     White House threatens veto of Defense bill over anti-contractor measures The White House is threatening to veto the 2009 Defense Authorization bill if it includes provisions that would limit the Defense Department’s use of contrac-tors.

09 Sep 2008     Administration opposes curbs on contractors Bush administration officials objected to the Senate’s fiscal 2009 National De-fense Authorization Act (S. 3001), partly because of provisions that would re-strict the relationship between contractors and the Defense Department.

08 Sep 2008     EDITORIAL: A FRESH TAKE ON CONTRACTING The Office of the Director of National Intelligence made some headlines last week when it published a study showing that contractors made up 27 percent of the National Intelligence Program workforce. Much of the coverage raised the question that prompted Congress to request such reports in the first place: Does the intelligence community rely too much on contractors?

28 Aug 2008     Air Force to outsource nearly 180 jobs at Sheppard Air Force Base The jobs of nearly 180 civilian employees performing civil engineering work at Sheppard Air Force Base in north Texas will be outsourced to a private contrac-tor, the Air Force announced today.

28 Aug 2008     Contract employees cost intel agencies more than in-house staff The average contract employee employed by intelligence agencies costs 65 per-cent more than the average federal employee costs, a new study by the Office of Director of National Intelligence shows.

08 Aug 2008     Think tank calls competitive sourcing a winning tool for taxpayers This article examines a report released by a libertarian think tank, the Reason Foundation, which states that competitive sourcing is saving the taxpayers a considerable amount of money. However, this article states that the Reason Foundation is frustrated that not as many competitions took place in 2007 as was planned and that competitive sourcing is getting a lot of resistance from Congress.

07 Aug 2008     Agencies raise their grades on OMB score card Agencies scored the highest ranking on 80 percent of their progress measures in the latest President's Management Agenda score card, a slight increase from the previous report, which recorded more than 75 percent green.

11 Jul 2008     Competitive sourcing gets a new name Competitive sourcing no longer carries that name. The system's new name is "commercial services management," officials said today.

19 Jun 2008     House bill would put new A-76 competitions on hold for one year A House subcommittee has introduced a bill that would effectively end the Bush administration's already weakened competitive sourcing initiative.

18 Jun 2008     Bill would halt competitions for a year A House appropriations bill in its early stages seeks to block use of the pub-lic/private competition system for a year and let next president deal with the issue, a House member has said.

29 May 2008     GAO: DOD has not used best-value authority The Defense Department has not used its temporary authority to conduct pub-lic/private competitions for information technology services on a best-value ba-sis, and now time is running out, according to an official at the Government Accountability Office.

19 May 2008     Lawmakers seek curbs on DoD, intel contractors In bills to authorize the Defense Department and intelligence agencies, House and Senate lawmakers have called for a three-year ban on outsourcing Defense Department civilian jobs, new boundaries on what work can be outsourced, and new curbs aimed at preventing conflicts of interest when contractors assist agencies with their procurements.

15 May 2008     House committee approves limits on DoD contracting House lawmakers are calling for a three-year ban on public-private job competi-tions at the Defense Department.

15 May 2008     DEFENSE BILL WOULD HALT A-76 COMPETITION A House bill that passed out of committee late today would freeze competitive sourcing for three years and impose new contractor ethics requirements.

07 May 2008     AGENCIES IMPROVE PMA SCORECARDS Agencies are improving their compliance with the President's Management Agenda, according to the latest quarterly scorecard.

02 May 2008     Law hinders competitive sourcing, officials say Competitions between contractors and federal employees for government work dropped in fiscal 2007 because of provisions in law that ban the competitions, administration officials said today.

23 Apr 2008     Lawmaker: Score cards don't work without penalties Grading agencies on issues doesn't change their behavior if the grades aren’t backed up with consequences, Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-Texas) said at a hear-ing today.

22 Apr 2008     Navy: Frequently Asked Questions as of April 22, 2008 The Navy Competitive Sourcing website has posted its Frequently Asked Questions as of April 22, 2008. This database is compiled from questions from users in the field on A-76 & Functionality Assessment

20 Sep 2007     Defense Logistics Agency Announces DDRV A-76 Results The Defense Logistics Agency announced today that selected logistics functions at the Defense Distribution Depot Richmond, Va. (DDRV) would be contracted to GENCO Infrastructure Solutions, Inc., headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa. The tentative decision was made after a detailed public-private competition indicated it was more cost effective for the competed functions to be converted from federal employees to contract performance. There are 102 permanent civilian employees assigned to positions at the distribution depot which were included in the competition announced Feb. 18, 2005

10 Sep 2007     Unions press their case against A-76 Federal employee unions have taken their opposition to public/private job com-petitions to the Democratic-controlled Congress, which has responded by nearly doubling the number of provisions in its fiscal 2008 spending bills that would limit or restrict agencies’ participation in competitive sourcing, compared with last year’s spending bills.

01 Sep 2007     NEWS+ANALYSIS Between the Lines It was a passing comment in an altogether uneventful Senate hearing last month on ways to strengthen competition and accountability in federal contracting. Comptroller General David M. Walker told the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that "we need to re-look at when and under what circumstances is it appropriate to be contracting, and when is it not."

30 Aug 2007     Defense Department pays $1B to outside analysts Outside contracting demoralizes lower-paid federal employees and places criti-cal security tasks and sensitive information in the hands of private parties, said Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy specialist at the Federation of Ameri-can Scientists, a Washington privacy group.

22 Aug 2007     Union fights FDA outsourcing studies An employee union is fighting a Food and Drug Administration decision to study whether more than 300 federal jobs should be opened to private competition.

20 Aug 2007     Are they A-76 winners or second-class feds? Public/private competitions under the Office of Management and Budget’s Circu-lar A-76 policy have created opportunities for federal employees to learn new skills and provide public services more efficiently, although managers report that most employees dislike the job competitions.

08 Aug 2007     DLA Announces Public-Private Competition of Support Functions The Defense Logistics Agency today announced a public-private competition for selected installation management support services. These services are provided by DLA’s enterprise support organizations located at DLA headquarters, Fort Belvoir, Va. and at Defense Supply Centers, Richmond, Va., Philadelphia, and Columbus, Ohio.

31 Jul 2007     DLA Revised A-76 Commercial Activities Guidebook On August 2, 2007, DLA issued a revised A-76 Commercial Activities Guidebook. This site contains quick links to the different chapters and appendices in the guidebook.

11 Jun 2007     Big spenders compete two-thirds of contracts The government’s biggest purchasing agencies compete almost two-thirds of what they spend on goods and services, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

11 Jun 2007     OMB clarifies HR line of business NEW GUIDANCE FOR HUMAN RESOURCES LOB FOCUSES ON THE APPLICATION OF The Office of Management and Budget repeats the word “competition” almost as often as it uses the word “consolidation” when it advises federal agencies on using shared-services providers. Bush administration officials want agencies to hold public/private competitions to select shared-services providers for human resources and financial-management services.

06 Jun 2007     Labor employees rally against outsourcing decision Labor Department workers rallied in front of the Capitol building Wednesday, protesting the agency's decision to outsource 250 administrative jobs.

05 Jun 2007     Speed of FAA outsourcing could jeopardize savings Savings from a massive transition of aviation service stations to contractor op-eration could fall short during a critical move to consolidate facilities, according to a recent report from Transportation Department auditors.

04 Jun 2007     Measure protects nearly 3,000 jobs from outsourcing Language in the newly enacted emergency appropriation will rope off almost 3,000 federal jobs from possible outsourcing.

31 May 2007     OMB details approach for HR Line of Business migrations The Officer of Management and Budget late last week gave agencies the how-to guide for moving to a human resources shared service provider.

22 May 2007     SBA study shows perils of analyzing small business contracts Federal small business contracting is never as simple as it seems. That was the lesson the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy learned with the publication of a new report on how small firms fare in outsourcing contests.

21 May 2007     House targets contractor abuses Federal contractors better brace for battle — the House Oversight and Govern-ment Reform Committee is getting ready to launch a barrage of investigations, insiders say.

21 May 2007     Small businesses at a disadvantage in large jobs competitions Small businesses win a majority of the public-private competitions that are awarded to companies, though they win less than a quarter of the dollars spent on these outsourcing contracts, according to a new Small Business Administration report.

21 May 2007     Agencies have new choices in financial, performance reporting The Office of Management and Budget is starting a pilot program through which agencies can choose to produce an alternative format to the consolidated Performance and Accountability Report (PAR).

18 May 2007     Union urges Senate action after court upholds NSPS The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) urged the Senate today to pass legislation that would nullify portions of the Defense Depart-ment’s National Security Personnel System (NSPS). The House approved its Fiscal 2008 Defense authorization bill May 17, and that measure includes lan-guage that would strike down major portions of the NSPS.

17 May 2007     House passes 3.5 percent military pay raise The House approved a 3.5 percent pay raise for military personnel Thursday, also approving measures to scale back the Defense Department's controversial personnel system and limit public-private competitions for government work.

17 May 2007     Need help with your contracting workload? Hire a contractor By next month, agencies will be able to hire companies holding General Ser-vices Administration federal supply schedule contracts to perform acquisition support services, such as write statements of work, define selection criteria, re-view offers and write task order awards.

17 May 2007     GAO sustains more protests of contract awards The Government Accountability Office sustained more protests of contract awards in 2006 than it did in previous years, a GAO attorney said today at the General Services Administration’s GSA Expo here.

03 May 2007     Agencies say they will open 18,000 jobs to contractor competition this year Agencies intend to open almost 18,000 federal jobs to contractor competition for possible outsourcing this year, according to a new Office of Management and Budget report.

03 May 2007     JOB COMPETITIONS FALL SHORT OF TARGET The Bush administration fell far short of a plan to open more than 26,000 jobs to public-private competition in fiscal 2006, actually announcing contests that cov-ered fewer than 10,000 positions, according to figures released Thursday by the Office of Management and Budget.

02 May 2007     Federal Register Notice: Announcement for Release of DOT's CY2006 FAIR Act Inventory The Federal Activities Inventory Reform (FAIR) Act, Public Law 105-270, requires agencies to develop inventories each year of activities performed by their employees that are not inherently governmental. The FAIR Act further requires OMB to review the inventories in consultation with the agencies and publish a notice of public availability in the Federal Register after the consultation process is completed. In accordance with the FAIR Act, OMB is publishing the attached notice to announce the availability of inventories from the agencies listed.

01 May 2007     Union calls for end to AF jobs competition at Katrina-ravaged base A union is calling on the Air Force to cancel an 8-year-old jobs competition at a Mississippi air base that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

30 Apr 2007     DOL: 2006 Competitive Sourcing Report This report addresses the Department of Labor (DOL) Competitive Sourcing activities for FY06. The following documents can be found: FY06 Completed Competitions, FY06 Announced Competitions, Savings and Performance Update, and the Competitive Sourcing Program Alignment with the Strategic Management of Human Capital initiatives.

27 Apr 2007     Army Corps of Engineers reshapes IT management The Army Corps of Engineers is about to embark on a reorganization of its in-formation management and information technology (IM/IT) operations.

23 Apr 2007     Bad news for Army Corps employees in A-76 contest: They won It was a bittersweet victory for the 1,300 information technology employees and 1,500 contractor employees at the Army Corps of Engineers who last week emerged victorious from a bitter, three-year jobs competition with contractor rival Northrop Grumman.

19 Apr 2007     Army cancels public-private job competitions at medical facilities The Army has canceled all plans to consider outsourcing work at its medical facilities this year and in 2008.

18 Apr 2007     Army Corps IT employees win A-76 competition A team of 1,300 information technology employees at the Army Corps of Engineers in partnership with 500 contractor employees have won a 3-year-old outsourcing competition.

18 Apr 2007     Settlement allows Army Corps to shift IT work A losing bidder in a long-running Army Corps of Engineers public-private competition has agreed to settle its appeal, clearing the way for the agency to immediately begin shifting its information technology services to the winning team, Corps officials announced Wednesday.

16 Apr 2007     Contractors beat out federal employees in most NASA job competitions Since it was permitted by the administration four years ago to bypass A-76 rules when determining if new research work would go to its own employees or to contractors, NASA has used the authority in 38 competitions — and 89 percent of those were won by contractors, a new study says.

16 Apr 2007     Congress to act on workforce shortage REP. MORAN EYES DOD SPENDING BILL AS VEHICLE FOR ACQUISITION C Experts say the decline in the acquisition workforce has been a major root of federal procurement problems from the response to Hurricane Katrina to Iraq contracting and the General Services Administration’s previous contracting troubles.

04 Apr 2007     OMB READIES NEW GUIDANCE ON MEASURING JOB COMPETITION An administration official acknowledged Wednesday that measuring the savings that result from public-private competitions for federal work is not "a precise science," and said agencies can expect new guidance soon.

04 Apr 2007     Federal employee teams beat out private sector in 2006 competitions for jobs The Bush administration plans to begin tracking the performance of federal em-ployees who out-compete contractors for federal work, an administration offi-cial said.

16 Mar 2007     JUSTICE INSIDERS GIVE ADVICE ON JOB COMPETITIONS Competing on a team to keep work in-house can be one of the most stressful jobs in a government employee's career, but offers a unique opportunity to ex-perience the proposal process, according to two Justice Department employees who led a winning bid for operations support work.

05 Mar 2007     OFFICIALS SAY OUTSOURCING PARTLY TO BLAME FOR WALTER REED FAILURES During a Monday hearing to investigate widely publicized problems at the Wal-ter Reed Army Medical Center, lawmakers and Army officials placed partial blame on a public-private job competition that sapped the facility of workers, and on uncertainty about the slated closure of the center in the ongoing Base Realignment and Closure process.

14 Feb 2007     OUTSOURCING WILL GROW, INPUT PREDICTS Despite recent expressions of concern from government officials and Congress, there seems to be no end to the steady outflow of government information tech-nology work to contractors, and Input predicts an outsourcing market worth nearly $18 billion within five years.

12 Feb 2007     White House pledges to push job competitions The presentation of the president's proposed budget last week has again stirred up controversy around the administration's push to expand public-private com-petitions for federal jobs.

26 Jan 2007     DLA DDSP A-76 Results Announced The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) announced today that selected installation services support functions of its Defense Distribution Depot Susquehanna, Pa (DDSP) would continue to be performed by government workers. The functions competed included: facilities maintenance and repair: utilities systems operation, maintenance and repair; grounds maintenance and repair; equipment maintenance and repair; mail services; refuse, recycling, and hazardous material/hazardous waste services; and family housing.

10 Jan 2007     A-76 might be one of the first casualties of new Congress, Davis suggests According to Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), who spoke Wednesday via videoconfer-ence at the Consumer Electronics Show, one of the first casualties of the new Congress could be a program designed to create competition around commercial jobs performed by the federal government.

09 Jan 2007     TAXPAYER ADVOCATE URGES REPEAL OF OUTSOURCED DEBT COLLECTION The IRS's national taxpayer advocate Tuesday issued a stinging rebuke of the agency's program to use private agencies to collect delinquent tax debts, saying the initiative is "fatally flawed" and urging Congress to terminate it "once and for all."

04 Jan 2007     Compare Master Table Notice - Table 2 and 7 are Updated Master Table 2 and 7 have been updated in Compare as of January 3, 2007. Contact the help desk at the supplied link with questtions. TABLE CHANGES: The following table update(s) are complete and ready to download to COMPARE as provided in the release information section below: (1) Master Table 2: This change incorporates the 2007 General Schedule pay rates at Step 5 for the REST OF US locality as published by the Office of Personnel Management and implemented through Compensation Policy Memorandum 2006-19, subject: January 2007 Pay Adjustments, December 21, 2006. (2) Master Table 7: This change incorporates the 2007 Annual Salary Limit for Old Age and Survivor's Death Insurance Benefits (Social Security) as published in the Social Security Administration's 2007 Social Security Changes Fact Sheet. The maximum taxable earnings (salary limit) increased from $94,200 to $97,500. The factors for Old Age and Survivor's Death Insurance, Medicare and FICA did not change and remain at 6.2%, 1.45% and 7.65% respectively for 2007.

26 Dec 2006     SARA panel draft report: Key recommendations Here is a quick look at the key findings and recommendations of the final draft report of the Acquisition Advisory Panel. Comments on the report, released Dec. 22

18 Dec 2006     Procurement was a contentious issue in 2006 PEOPLE ALSO TOOK SIDES ON E-GOVERNMENT, INFORMATION SECU 2006 was a year of policy debates. Are federal procurement policies fair to small businesses? Are the government’s information security policies mis-guided? How far should the government go in outsourcing the work of federal employees? Those issues were debated but not resolved in 2006.

13 Dec 2006     DOD, GSA STRIKE DEAL AIMED AT IMPROVING INTERAGENCY CONTRACTING CONTRACTING 22-point agreement between the two agencies, released Dec. 12, is “a necessary step to improve our interagency contracting efforts with GSA and a recognition that both DoD and GSA needed to make improvements in the interagency con-tracting process,” Shay Assad, the Defense Department’s director of procure-ment and acquisition policy, said in a statement.

05 Dec 2006     OMB looks to boost use of interagency contracts Preliminary results of an Office of Management and Budget acquisition survey have prompted concerns that agencies may be creating their own contract vehi-cles when they could use arrangements already developed for use by multiple agencies.

05 Dec 2006     Denett expects to defend competitive sourcing The incoming Democratic-led Congress will take on the competitive sourcing initiative with the Office of Management and Budget, said Paul Denett, admin-istrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, who expects to be called to Capitol Hill early next year to defend it.

04 Dec 2006     POLICY-MAKERS HAVE WORKED HARD TO MAKE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RUN MORE LIKE A BUSINESS, BUT HOW FAR In recent decades, government leaders have tried to make government run more like a business and less like a bureaucracy. The Bush administration adopted a management agenda that rewarded agencies for business practices borrowed from the corporate world. The leaders’ ideas about entrepreneurial government gave new meaning to the term public service.

21 Nov 2006     IRS enforcement activities bring in record revenue for 2006 The Internal Revenue Service boosted the revenue it gained through enforce-ment of tax laws by $1.4 billion in fiscal 2006, sharply increasing the number of individual and business audits conducted.

17 Nov 2006     DOD PLANS MAJOR OVERHAUL OF SERVICE BUYS The Defense Department is mulling a change in the way it acquires and manages services, going from a largely reactive process to what DOD officials describe as a strategic, enterprise wide approach.

16 Nov 2006     ARMY CORPS NIXES PUBLIC-PRIVATE CONTEST FOR 2,000 JOBS The Army Corps of Engineers has called off a planned public-private job com-petition for the operation and maintenance of locks and dams on the nation's waterways, and instead will go through an internal reorganization to make op-erations more efficient, officials announced Monday.

16 Nov 2006     ARMY CORPS NIXES PUBLIC-PRIVATE CONTEST FOR 2,000 JOBS The Army Corps of Engineers has called off a planned public-private job com-petition for the operation and maintenance of locks and dams on the nation's waterways, and instead will go through an internal reorganization to make op-erations more efficient, officials announced Monday.

16 Nov 2006     GAO: DOD SERVICES PROCUREMENT LACKS PLANNING, OVERSIGHT The Defense Department needs to plan and keep better oversight over its services procurements, the Government Accountability Office has found.

13 Nov 2006     DEMOCRATIC WIN SIGNALS CHANGES FOR FEDERAL IT When the reshaped Congress convenes Jan. 3, 2007, Democrats, who gained con-trol in last week’s elections, will chair committees and have the majority in party-line votes. Democratic leaders have promised to conduct more vigorous oversight of procurement, contracting, the war in Iraq and other matters than their Republi-can colleagues had done.

07 Nov 2006     IRS still planning public-private contest for computer services The Internal Revenue Service still plans to conduct a public-private job compe-tition that could encompass the work of 2,000 computer services employees, despite a delay in soliciting proposals, a spokesman for the tax agency said Tuesday.

31 Oct 2006     OUTSOURCING OF TAX DEBT COLLECTION MAY NOT PAY OFF IN SHORT TERM Internal Revenue Service projections show that a controversial program to out-source some tax debt collection may not pay off during its pilot phase, following the story line of a similar program that the agency eventually abandoned.

27 Oct 2006     UNION QUESTIONS A-76 SAVINGS A prediction that taxpayers could be spared $5.6 billion in the next 10 years through competitive sourcing has come under fire from the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), one of the leading critics of the practice.

26 Oct 2006     Early Warning William Arkin Blog Analyses by former Pentagon military analyst William Arkin

25 Oct 2006     STATE DEPARTMENT GOES IN-HOUSE FOR PUBLISHING WORK An 18-month competitive sourcing contest for a 10-year publishing contract with the State Department has ended in a win for the agency’s revamped publishing house, Global Publishing Solutions (GPS).

25 Oct 2006     DLA Confirms Defense Distribution Depot San Joaquin California (DDJC) Competition The Defense Logistics Agency confirmed the performance decision announced on September 1, 2006 that selected installations services support functions of its Defense Distribution Depot San Joaquin, Calif., (DDJC) would be contracted out to NANA Services, LLP, headquartered near Seattle, Washington. The performance decision announcement culminated 18 months of public/private competition using the guidelines of OMB Circular A-76

20 Oct 2006     InfoReliance to Build Competitive Sourcing Database for OFPP The General Services Administration, acting as the procurement arm for OFPP, late last month awarded a contract to InfoReliance Corp. of Fairfax, Va., to construct a database that will gather information about each agency’s public-private competitions of inherently commercial federal jobs, as well as the agencies’ workforce inventories of which positions are considered commercial. InfoReliance will set up two secure online databases to track competitions and agency workforce inventories. The Web site will accept bulk input of data or users will input data through a graphical user interface (GUI).

19 Oct 2006     OMB OFFICIAL DISCUSSES POSSIBILITY OF REINVESTING IT SAVINGS Agencies that find ways to run information technology operations more effi-ciently may be eligible to spend the money saved on other technology work re-lated to their mission, an Office of Management and Budget official said Thursday.

14 Oct 2006     OMB’S DENETT VOWS TO PRESS FOR MORE COMPETITIVE SOURCING The White House will continue to promote more competitive sourcing across government despite the change in congressional leadership, the administration’s top procurement policy official said.

12 Oct 2006     ARMY CORPS COMPETITION FOR IT WORK STRAINS STAFF Information technology management at the Army Corps of Engineers is being stressed to the breaking point by staff shortages resulting from a stalled public-private job competition, according to senior Corps officials.

11 Oct 2006     FORUM DISCUSSION PROBES CONTRACTING CHALLENGES Federal acquisition work suffers from a poor image, as well as deeper capacity issues and a struggle to define the appropriate balance of employee and contractor roles, participants in a recent discussion concluded.

10 Oct 2006     Government uses outdated acquisition processes, panel finds Participants of a Government Accountability Office forum on federal acquisi-tion said buying in the 21st century is framed by three broad challenges: defin-ing the appropriate role of government contractors, ensuring federal employees can manage contractors and holding contractors accountable for results.

06 Oct 2006     Competitive Sourcing to be Used for Annual Reports With agency competitive sourcing reports for FY 2006 due to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy by Nov. 15, the administration hopes to use its new database, the Competitive Sourcing Tracking System (CSTS), to provide Congress an even more detailed picture of the effort to compete federal jobs that are considered commercial with the private sector.

28 Sep 2006     MEASURES TO RESTRICT OUTSOURCING OMITTED FROM DEFENSE SPENDING SPENDI NG BILL Two amendments to restrict outsourcing of federal jobs were dropped in a conference committee version of the Defense appropriations bill.

27 Sep 2006     SEVERAL COMPETITIVE SOURCING PROVISIONS DROPPED FROM DEFENSE BILL House and Senate negotiators removed from a major bill a Senate-passed meas-ure that would have eliminated the price advantage a contractor could gain in a public-private job competition by offering limited retirement benefits.

26 Sep 2006     OMB enlists bloggers' aid in pushing management agenda The Office of Management and Budget has launched a back-channel effort to reach out to political bloggers for their help in pushing the Bush administra-tion's management agenda on Capitol Hill, OMB officials said Tuesday.

26 Sep 2006     OMB CHIEF TALKS MANAGEMENT Office of Management and Budget Director Rob Portman addressed federal of-ficials and academics at a luncheon Tuesday, speaking specifically about man-agement issues for the first time publicly since he took office in May.

25 Sep 2006     GUIDELINES FOR FINANCIAL CONSOLIDATION DRAW FIRE Recently released final planning guidance for the Bush administration's effort to consolidate agency financial management systems has generated opposition from a labor union and skepticism from congressional overseers.

25 Sep 2006     Financial line of business still too murky EXPERTS: OMB GUIDANCE LEAVES TOO MANY GRAY AREAS Federal officials have released the final version of guidance for the Financial Management Line of Business initiative, but some of the policy-makers and analysts who are expected to interpret and use it say it contains too many gray areas.

19 Sep 2006     UNION WINS BACK PAY FOR FORMER IRS MAILROOM WORKERS The Internal Revenue Service and an employee union have announced a settlement agreement that includes modest lump-sum payments to former mailroom employees who lost their jobs in 2004 when their positions were outsourced.

13 Sep 2006     DATA PROBLEMS SURFACE IN REVIEW OF FOREST SERVICE CONTRACT SAVINGS Newly revealed documents indicate independent reviewers were unable to sub-stantiate savings from a public-private job competition that resulted in outsourc-ing of Forest Service fleet maintenance work in California.

08 Sep 2006     Measure to block Walter Reed outsourcing fails in Senate The Senate on Wednesday narrowly defeated a measure that would have blocked spending on a contract for operations support services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, awarded following a long public-private competition process. But a key Senate supporter said she would continue to pursue the mat-ter in conference.

05 Sep 2006     New procurement chief seeks to ramp up job competitions Paul Denett, the Office of Management and Budget's new procurement policy chief, wants agencies to ramp up efforts to put federal jobs up for competition from private firms, he said in a recent interview. Denett also pledged to focus on bringing the right people into government acquisition jobs through internship programs and to boost training efforts.

31 Aug 2006     IRS READIES TO START PRIVATE DEBT COLLECTION NEXT WEEK The Internal Revenue Service last week published guidance on an initiative to turn some tax debt collection over to private contractors, paving the way for three companies to begin receiving taxpayer data next week. But the initiative is facing stiff opposition.

21 Aug 2006     Army Corps upholds decision to keep IT work in-house An in-house bid to perform information technology and management work for the Army Corps of Engineers survived an appeal by the sole competing contrac-tor, the agency announced Thursday.

24 Jul 2006     Incoming: Vendor files protest over Army outsourcing pact Northrop Grumman Corp. is protesting the Army Corps of Engineers’ award of a six-year, $447 million A-76 outsourcing contract to a public-private partner-ship led by corps employees in conjunction with Lockheed Martin Corp.

19 Jul 2006     Small firms strive to win USPS business When the U.S. Postal Service adopted new procurement rules last year in an effort to streamline contracting, some expressed the fear that — among other bad consequences — small businesses would find it harder to compete for Postal Service contracts.

17 Jul 2006     Politics changes A-76 landscape: CONGRESS USES ITS POWER TO INTERCEDE IN PUBLIC/PRIVATE JOB COMPETITIONS Lawmakers forced the Interior Department’s U.S. Geological Survey to change its criteria for an A-76 jobs competition to give federal employees a better chance at winning and keeping their jobs. Because lawmakers intervened, USGS postponed closing the Mid-Continent Mapping Center in Rolla, Mo., which employs 130 people.

17 Jul 2006     A-76 veteran offers tips on what to do when employees win For agencies looking to develop systems for accountability following public-private job competitions, communication about performance obligations and thorough performance reviews are crucial tools, a competitive sourcing official said at an educational forum Monday.

13 Jul 2006     PROTEST FILED OVER ARMY CORPS DECISION TO KEEP IT WORKIN-HOUSE Northrop Grumman Corp., which entered the public-private competition for about 1,100 information management and technology jobs nationwide, filed its protest with the Corps on July 5, a company spokeswoman said.

12 Jul 2006     Protest filed over Army outsourcing pact Northrop Grumman Corp. has filed a protest against the Army Corps of Engi-neers for awarding a six-year, $447 million A-76 outsourcing contract to a pub-lic-private partnership led by corps employees in conjunction with Lockheed Martin Corp.

11 Jul 2006     COMPETITIVE SOURCING VETERANS SHARE STORIES, TIPS Veterans of competitive sourcing at the Forest Service and Energy Department on Monday shared lessons gleaned from three years of operation under revised rules for public-private job competitions, stressing the need for communication and a readiness to live with contest results.

06 Jul 2006     DEFENSE DEPARTMENT SEEKS INPUT ON MILITARY MAIL OVERHAUL The Defense Department is weighing options for reconfiguring the military postal system, in what could be a precursor to a public-private job competition for the processing and delivery of mail to the armed services.

05 Jul 2006     HOUSE AGREES TO PROVISION LIMITING COMPETITIVE SOURCING The House approved an amendment last week to block implementation of the Bush administration's competitive sourcing agenda in some agencies, using lan-guage that has been defeated in previous years but signals legislators' continued interest in shaping that effort.

03 Jul 2006     A flurry of HR LOB activity Task force readies private-sector RFP, additional guidance for agencies Over the next several weeks, the HR Line of Business interagency task force—led by the Office of Personnel Management—will issue additional require-ments that agencies and private companies must meet to be considered HR shared-services providers. OPM also will release performance metrics that will anchor service-level agreements and a formal solicitation asking the private sector to get in the game.

03 Jul 2006     Army Corps keeps IT services in-house The Army Corps of Engineers isn’t saying much about how a public-private partnership won the largest Defense Department competition under the new rules governing A-76, or how the partnership will go about saving the agency $1 billion over the next six years.

30 Jun 2006     Labor starts A-76 competition for program analysts The Labor Department is starting the clock on a public/private competition for jobs in its Bureau of Labor Statistics. In a recent notice, Labor said the jobs subject to the competition include program analysts within BLS’ Office of Technology and Survey Processing.

30 Jun 2006     UPDATED: Amendment blocks funds to A-76 revisions The House approved by voice vote an appropriations bill amendment that would halt funds for the Office of Management and Budget’s 3-year-old revisions to Circular A-76.

30 Jun 2006     DEFENSE IG TO RELEASE REPORTS ON INTERAGENCY CONTRACTING PROBLEMS Faulty contracting practices and violations of a law on federal spending will be the subject of five reports to be released in August by the Defense Department inspector general's office, a Defense official told an acquisition advisory group Thursday.

23 Jun 2006     HOUSE VOTES TO BLOCK WALTER REED OUTSOURCING; ARMY MOVES FORWARD Foes of a controversial public-private job competition at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scored a victory this week when the House approved language to strip funding for a contractor to take over base operations at the facility, com-plicating Army plans for a transition slated to begin in August.

22 Jun 2006     ARMY CORPS EMPLOYEES WIN PUBLIC-PRIVATE COMPETITION FOR IT The Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday announced that an in-house team won a public-private competition for about 1,100 information management and technology jobs. Details of the winning bid were not made public, but loss of some jobs is considered likely.

22 Jun 2006     Army Corps of Engineers to manage own IT The Army Corps of Engineers will continue to handle nearly $447 million worth of information management and IT work, Corps officials announced today after a heated, 18-month, public-private competition for the contract.

06 Jun 2006     Input critiques financial management line of business Vendors are likely to be crippled in their ability to compete for work under the Financial Management Line of Business until the Office of Management and Budget clarifies rules for Circular A-76 competitions, according to a June 7 report from Input.

05 Jun 2006     A-76 to play larger role in FMLOB Agencies or bureaus with 10 or more employees operating financial systems that do not comply with Financial System Integration Office requirements must now compete for, at minimum, the hosting and application management of their financial systems. The competitions would be with public and private-sector shared-services providers under OMB Circular A-76.

05 Jun 2006     NAPA says anxiety afflicts A-76 winners More than 25,000 federal employees are now part of new organizations created under competitive sourcing, a policy that Bush administration officials have promoted to improve government operations and save money. Now the chal-lenge is to identify promising practices to make those organizations as effective as they can be, said Matthew Blum, associate administrator for competitive sourcing at the Office of Management and Budget.

25 May 2006     OMB, Congress spar on competitive sourcing again Congress again is using the appropriations process to undermine the Bush ad-ministration's policies for competitive sourcing.

24 May 2006     Appropriations bill could save mapping center Currently, USGS is conducting an A-76 jobs competition to determine whether federal or private-sector employees will operate a new mapping center in Lake-wood, Colo. Agency officials decided to open the federal jobs to outside compe-tition despite congressional criticism of how USGS chose Colorado as the new center’s location.

23 May 2006     ARMY CORPS DELAYS ANNOUNCING WINNER OF CONTEST FOR IT JOBS The announcement of a decision in an Army Corps of Engineers public-private competition encompassing 1,100 information management and technology jobs has been delayed by a second internal review and likely will be pushed back to at least late June, according to agency officials.