Ability to Meet Contracting Goals Questioned

The administration announcement also followed release of a General Accounting Office report questioning whether the Defense Department-which has by far the most positions eligible for conversion-would be able to achieve the goal of considering half of such jobs for possible conversion. GAO said that while DoD met the administration goal of considering 15 percent of such jobs by the end of this fiscal year, to achieve the 50 percent goal DoD would have to consider nearly twice the number of positions it has previously studied during a comparable time period, and “providing sufficient resources (financial and technical) to complete the studies may prove challenging.” One funding issue, it said, arises because the military departments plan to fund from the same accounts that pay for those studies the replacement civilian or contractor personnel for military personnel they expect to move into positions more closely associated with warfighting.