Performance based contracting versus counting contractor employees

According to a recent summary, the early markup of the FY 2010 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 2647 for those scoring at home) includes provisions to convert 11,000 contractor positions to DOD civilian personnel positions and will require, if passed,

“DOD to include contractor employee data for service contracts in annual budget documents...” and to “...report on how it plans to achieve its insourcing (using civilian employees for new work or work that is currently being performed by contractors) goals.”

This seems to go against the goals of performance based service procurements where the desired results were all that was important. Who cared how many people the contractor used (except installation commanders that needed to know how many people needed access to the post and its related services)? If the end result of their work was the correct and desirable one, that was the entire issue and the contractor got paid.

So now we need to count contractor employees for all our service contracts. That leaves us with two other questions. First, is the Contractor Manpower Report acceptable? Second, do they mean bodies (including part time employees) or do they want to count full time equivalents (FTEs)? For those services that do not need a full time employee year ‘round, do we need to hire one?

We will have to stay tuned.

Reforming Government Contracting- deadlines loom

In March 2009, President Obama sent a memorandum to the Heads of the Executive Department and Agencies outlining his plan to reform government contracting. Here is a link to a presidential press/media fact sheet on this memo. The intent of his memo is to call attention to the use of sole source and limited source contracting vehicles (that would include multiple award task/delivery order contracts), the need for greater contract management and oversight and the need to define "inherently governmental activities" that should not be outsourced.

Within the memo is a call to action for the Office of Management and Budget to issue guidance on how to award better contracts by July 1, 2009. That dealine is fast approaching. It would be great to be able to solve the government contracting problem with a piece of guidance written in less than 4 months.

September 30, 2009 is the date we will get the answers to these age-old contracting dilemmas (the answers are both basic and complicated, to say the least):

• How to use and manage sole-source and other types of noncompetitive contracts and to maximize the use of full and open competition and other competitive procurement processes;
• How to use and oversee all contract types, in full consideration of the agency’s needs, and to minimize risk and maximize the value of government contracts generally;
• Is there sufficient capacity and ability of the Federal acquisition workforce to develop, manage, and oversee acquisitions appropriately; and
• When is (or is not) governmental outsourcing for services appropriate.

Can't wait for the answers. Stay tuned.