Contracting-Out Restrictions Included

By: fedweek

The DoD bill further would impose several new restrictions on the contracting out program at DoD, which does the lion’s share of cost studies in the government. It would continue the general policy that contractors could not gain an advantage in bidding by paying less toward health benefits than the government does for federal employees, and also add a similar requirement regarding retirement benefits; similar language on retirement benefits made progress last year but ultimately didn’t make it into law. The bill also would: eliminate automatic recompetition of work performed by federal employees; require the establishment of guidance to allow federal employees to compete for new work or work currently performed by contractors in some circumstances; apply government-wide the requirement now applying to DoD that work could be converted only if the contractor showed savings of at least 10 percent or $10 million; and bar new contracting-out cost studies at military hospitals.