GAO, whose 1982 audit critical of hiring freezes imposed by the Carter and Reagan administrations has been often cited by opponents of the similar Trump administration order, has been asked to conduct a similar review of the current freeze.
“While we applaud efforts to streamline government, ensure efficient operations and encourage good stewardship of taxpayer dollars, we are extremely concerned about the potential for increased government spending and waste under this freeze,” Sens. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D. and Gary Peters, D-Mich., wrote. They are the top Democrats on subcommittees of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs panel.
They wrote that in its review of the Carter and Reagan freezes, the GAO “found that agencies used contractors to compensate for in-house resource shortages despite the prohibition against doing so”–and they raised concern that the same will happen again despite a similar restriction in the Trump-ordered freeze. “Contracting out for tasks that are inherently governmental in nature goes against long-standing federal contracting law and can waste federal resources,” they wrote.
“We are also concerned that this freeze will do little to save money or reduce the size of the federal workforce,” they wrote, citing the earlier report’s findings that the prior freezes did not demonstrably reduce employment while they “actually increased certain operational costs and reduced efficiency.”
“Finally, we are concerned about the important programs and customer service needs that could be disrupted under this freeze,” they wrote, citing the prior report’s conclusion that the freezes “hindered agency missions, caused inefficient staff utilization and clerical shortages, and resulted in lost revenue and uncollected debts.”
