Actually this is old news - the House voted down the effort to cut the Park
Service archaeology centers and staffs.
The following is an update on the NPS archaeology situation. The article was
copied from the online Archaeology Magazine web site.
Cheers!
Dave
____________________________________
ONLINE NEWS July 23, 2003
NPS OUTSOURCING DECLARED STUPID
In a victory for National Park Service archaeologists, the House of
Representatives blocked the Bush administration's "competitive sourcing" initiative,
which would have cost the government archaeologists their jobs, and the NPS
experienced employees. Under the initiative, jobs at federal agencies are
examined, and any position not found to be "inherently governmental" is marked for
outsourcing to the private sector. The initiative's goal is to ensure that jobs
are carried out in the most cost-efficient and effective manner, ultimately to
benefit the taxpayer. The National Park Service, under the Department of the
Interior, has recently been subjected to these competitive sourcing studies.
The initiative targeted archaeologists at the Midwest Archeological Center in
Lincoln, Nebraska, and the Southeast Archeological Center in Tallahassee,
Florida, for outsourcing. But on July 17, the House of Representatives voted 362 to
57 to preserve language in the fiscal year 2004 Interior Appropriations bill
that exempts NPS archaeologists from competitive sourcing studies. The
amendment was a bipartisan effort sponsored by Rep. Doug Bereuter (R-Neb) and Rep.
Allen Boyd Jr. (D-Fla), each representing districts that are home to the
archaeological centers.
Critics of privatization claim that employees of the NPS have already learned
to work efficiently through tight budgets. In a July 15 Washington Post
report, the superintendent of the Southeast Archeological Center, John E.
Ehrenhard, said that the centers "have been so underfunded and so understaffed for so
long, that we've had to learn to be efficient. This whole idea is almost
laughable, and it's an insult." Privatization, say the critics, would simply bring
archaeologists with less experience and less knowledge to run the parks. In the
same Washington Post report, Doug Scott of the Midwest Archeological Center
called the threat of privatization "a bitter pill." Last September, Scott was
awarded the Department of the Interior's highest decoration, and "two weeks
later our outsourcing study begins and they're asking, 'Are you really
necessary?'" In the past, the Midwest Archeological Center has conducted a range of
projects--from investigating the Little Big Horn battlefield (under Scott's
direction), to exploring a Hopewell mound, to teaching students the value of history
and archaeology.
The decision by the House will allow archaeologists with the highest level
of expertise and knowledge of the parks to continue to run the wide variety
of programs that they undertake, as well as care for the thousands of sites
studied and maintained by NPS archaeologists. "Here you have people doing an
outstanding job, and all of a sudden you have bean counters trying to close them
down," said Bereuter in a July 19 Washington Post article. "I've never used the
word 'stupid' on the House floor before, but this was stupid."--ALYSSA FISHER
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