--- Tim Atherton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I'm still not clear, when it is government policy to privatize suitable jobs
> and reduce the size of government, what exactly the arguments in this case
> are for keeping the Park Service archaeologists as government employees -
> other than the broad general arguments against any kind of privatization of
> "government work"?

Here is my take on the situation as a govie contractor for the Department of
Defense for the past 4+ years. I am by no means an expert and there are a
multitude of situations out there but I think there are some basic
generalizations that can be made.

Traditionally, the major use of contractors was to do specialist jobs that
require specific expertise not found elsewhere in the government. For example,
you contracted out technical scientific support to people who were doing the
research in the area you needed consulting in. Or you hired back military
retirees or long-time government workers (known as "grey-beards") to do
part-time consulting work because you still needed their expertise and either
they didn't want to be employeed full-time or you didn't need them full-time.
The government also uses the "grey-beards" to help write and negotiate
contracts with companies that will be doing major production work or research
in a specific area.

The other type of contracts were for production work on an as-needed basis. For
example it wouldn't be cost-effective for the government to have its own jet
manufacturing plant because it doesn't have enough work in a year to hire a
full-time crew or run a major productions plant. But a company that
manufactures commercial jets can also make government jets on the same
equipment with the same crews.

Budget cuts are forcing the government to rely more and more on contract labor
rather than federal employees, even for day to day paper-pusher type jobs. For
some reason unknown to me, the government thinks that contract employees are
cheaper than federal ones. I have yet to figure this one out but stick with me
for a bit. Because of the way money is allocated, an agency might have more
money to hire contractors than they would to hire federal employees. Thus more
and more jobs are being contracted out. I know of organizations that are
entirely run by contractors with only enough federal employees to manage the
contracts. When I worked at NASA Goddard, the contractor-govie ratio was like
3-1. Contractors ranged from secretaries to scientists which I think is getting
a bit ridiculus.

I used to do contracting workshops for other DoD agencies which dealt with
hiring contractors. All of them said that if they had the funding to hire
government employees for routine jobs like secretaries, maitenance workers or
even computer support people, they would. And again, I don't understand how
hiring contractors for these positions is cheaper or better. The main advantage
is that the government can terminate a contractor pretty much whenever it wants
to, even with a long-term contract. I supposed in these days of funding
uncertainty, it's easier to hire contractors and to be able to cut them off
immediately than to deal with the expense and hassle of RIFing people
officially. If the contracting company cannot find other work for their people,
it's their problem and not the government's which is ultimately cheaper for the
government. Plus hiring procedures are easier for corporations than with the
government where hiring can take months. A company can basically pick whomever
they want and get them on immediately rather than go through OHR which is
always swamped with paperwork.

So as far as national parks go, if there is full-time archaeology work to be
had, I don't understand why the government wouldn't want to hire full-time
government people. But if the funding is shakey or there isn't guarenteed
full-time work, I can see why the government would contract it out. It's much
easier to dole out contracts on an excavation by excavation basis than to hire
on govie employees the same way. Or else create positions for itinerant
archaeologists than travel to the sites that need excavating, especially if the
different sites are essentially independent from each other.

If anyone else has insight into this situation, I'd love to hear it. Government
contracting is a really huge beast and each organization handles it sightly
differently.

Ah, bureacracy. :)

Deb

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