Mixed Bag on Contracting Policies

The vote on the spending measure also will be the final action for the current budget cycle on policies for considering federal jobs for contractor performance, a cycle that has produced a mixed bag of instructions. For example, language affecting the Defense Department and the Interior Department allows work to be contracted-out only if the contractor bid is the lower of 10 percent or $10 million less than the in-house bid. At agencies covered by the Transportation-Treasury spending bill-which is part of the catchall measure–that formula must be taken into consideration, but other agencies need not even consider it. Similarly, DoD, Interior and the agencies in the Transportation-Treasury bill must allow employees of functions with 10 or more jobs to reorganize into the “most efficient organization” before being put up for bid, a requirement that doesn’t apply to other agencies. DoD further can’t put any of the new policies under the revised Circular A-76 into effect until it issues a report on what effect the changes will have there-a restriction not applying to other agencies. And the Veterans Affairs Department was denied funding to conduct certain studies, effectively barring them even though no formal restrictions were placed on VA.