In The News

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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.