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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