However, the National Treasury Employees Union called the
estimates “premature and speculative,” as well as
“exaggerated.”
“The figures OMB demands from the agencies in no way reflect
the true costs to the agencies being forced to conduct
public-private job competitions,” said NTEU President
Colleen M. Kelley.
The union has criticized OMB in the past for instructing
agencies to ignore the time in-house staff may have spent
carrying out the competitions during regular work hours.
It also claimed studies prompt workers to retire or seek
reassignment rather than wait around to see if they’re
losing their jobs, which results in a loss of
“institutional knowledge.”
OMB claims an average savings of $22,000 for every job
studied for competition, an 85 percent increase over fiscal
2003 — with the greatest savings coming from studies of IT,
maintenance and property management, logistics, HR, and
finance and accounting.