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Federal Document Clearing House
Congressional Testimony
November 1, 2001, Thursday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 1095 words
COMMITTEE:
HOUSE GOVERNMENT REFORM
HEADLINE:
TECHNOLOGY AND PROCUREMENT POLICY
BILL-NO:
H.R.
721 Retrieve
Bill Tracking Report
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Full Text of Bill TESTIMONY-BY: COLLEEN M.
KELLEY, NATIONAL PRESIDENT
AFFILIATION: NATIONAL
TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION
BODY: November 1, 2001
Statement of Colleen M. Kelley
National President, National
Treasury Employees Union
Before the
Subcommittee on Technology
and Procurement Policy Committee on Government Reform
Chairman Davis,
Ranking Member Turner, and other distinguished Members of this subcommittee, my
name is Colleen Kelley and I am the National President of the National Treasury
Employees Union. I am also a member of the Commercial Activities Panel, an
independent panel set up by Congress to evaluate and make recommendations for
changes to improve the delivery of government services. As you know, NTEU
represents more than l50,000 employees in 25 federal agencies and departments,
including employees who work at the Department of Treasury, Department of Health
and Human Services, and the Department of Energy. I want to thank you for giving
me the opportunity to present testimony on behalf of these dedicated men and
women. During this tragic period in American history, our democracy continues to
flourish thanks in large part to federal employees who have risen to the
challenge of ensuring the health and safety of Americans. Whether it is at our
borders, in laboratories, in jobs enforcing our tax laws, or in other critical
government jobs, federal employees are on the front lines of fighting the war on
terrorism while continuing to deliver other critical government services to the
taxpayers in an efficient and cost effective manner.
Unfortunately, the
legislation being debated today, the "Services Acquisition Reform Act," does
virtually nothing to help improve the efficiencies of our valuable federal
workforce. And the bill fails to make changes necessary to help recruit and
retain federal employees so that we will be able to strengthen and maintain a
competent federal workforce - our government's most valuable asset.
The
SARA legislation provides many new incentives for contractors, but ignores the
need for comprehensive government- wide changes to ensure that contractors are
delivering services on time, on budget, and of the highest quality. The
legislation does nothing to increase the transparency and accountability of the
work performed by contractors. And the legislation totally ignores the immediate
need to implement systems to track whether contracting out is saving money or
improving the delivery of government services. Instead the legislation provides
incentives to contract out more services even though we know virtually nothing
about the contractor workforce and the work being performed by contractors.
While we do believe that more resources need to be dedicated to
recruiting, training, and retaining a competent acquisition workforce, we do not
believe that the sections of the bill in Title I dealing with the workforce go
far enough. NTEU is very concerned that as the amount of government work being
contracted out continues to increase - and with it the workload for contract
officers - there has been a steady decline in staffing levels for agency
contracting offices. The increased workload and decrease in staffing has led to
practically non-existent contractor oversight and inadequate and rarely used
public-private competitions.
In addition, we are especially concerned
with the sections of the bill that provide numerous new incentives for
contractors. This bill appears to be a contractor's wish list just in time for
the approaching holiday season. There is incentive after incentive for
contractors, but practically nothing to strengthen our in- house federal
workforce.
Before Congress considers policy changes that would contract
out more government work, such as those proposed in SARA, the taxpayers deserve
to know exactly how their tax dollars are being spent on current contracts. Even
though more dollars are doled out to contractors each year than are spent on the
federal workforce, there is little or no oversight of federal contracts once
they have been awarded. Agencies need to implement reliable accounting and
reporting systems and dramatically increase contract oversight to track the true
costs of contracting out and the quality of services being delivered by
contractors.
NTEU believes the best way to get a better understanding
about the costs and benefits related to contracting out would be for Congress to
approve H.R. 721, the Truthfulness Responsibility and Accountability in
Contracting (
TRAC) Act. The TRAC Act would require agencies to
implement reliable systems to track whether current contracting efforts are
saving money, whether contractors are delivering services on-time and
efficiently, and that when a contractor is not living up to his or her end of
the deal, the government work is being brought back in-house.
The SARA
legislation puts all its emphasis on risky private sector solutions rather than
looking at our existing resources and implementing changes to help the
government develop a more efficient in-house organization. If Congress is
serious about reforming the way the government acquires and delivers services,
then legislation should be passed that makes investments in increased agency
staffing, better pay and benefits, and better training so that government
services can be delivered by federal employees at even lower costs and increased
efficiency than they are today.
Now is not the time to pass legislation
that contracts out more government work. We know too little about the benefits,
and more than enough about the failures, of government services being delivered
by contractors. All we do know is that as a result of the lack of government
oversight of contractors, rarely are timely actions taken against a contractor
who is performing poorly or exceeding costs.
Mr. Chairman, I urge you to
not move forward with any legislation, including SARA, which will contract out
more government services. The most beneficial actions Congress can take to
reform the government's acquisition of services would be to swiftly implement
more accountability controls over current government contracting, such as those
contained in the
TRAC Act. And unless such TRAC-like systems
are implemented government- wide, I would urge you to hold off on any
legislation that promotes more government contracting.
Furthermore, I
hope at the very least you will delay further consideration of SARA until the
Commercial Activities Panel finishes its work. The government should not
contract out government work if we do not know if it is in the best interests of
the taxpayers.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify.
LOAD-DATE: November 16, 2001