The Internal Revenue Service has plans to cut 274 jobs in
its three area distribution centers as well as 218 IT
positions from its “MITS” modernization and IT services
operations, following competitive sourcing studies.
Two distribution centers will be closed, one in Richmond,
Va. accounting for 139 positions and another in Rancho
Cardova, Calif., where 49 positions will be terminated.
The Bloomington, Ill., center will stay open and lose 86
positions.
The number of campus-operations MITS employees in its 10
service centers will be cut from 278 to 60 and each site
will be reduced to five employees from the 19-36 campus
operations employees currently at the service centers.
The National Treasury Employees Union said IRS carried
out the competitive sourcing studies, “to fulfill the
administration’s unstated quota of forcing federal agencies
to compete certain percentages of jobs against the private
sector,” and said the losses could have been minimized
through reorganization and streamlining to achieve its
workforce goals.
IRS has released a strategic plan for 2005 — 2009 stating
its intention to tighten operations and modernize business
processes, and said it would devote more people to front
line positions, leverage new technology, implement an
improved personnel system and consolidate back-office
case processing activities.
IRS also said it would streamline the examination process
to improve workload selection and casework quality and
reduce cycle time, said NTEU.
It said it is urging IRS to use buyouts, priority placement
and a hiring freeze to safeguard current jobs, and to look
into attrition and retraining to achieve workforce goals.
