Numeric Goals Downplayed

OMB officials say the starting point for deliberations on contracting out is the annual inventory of commercial-type jobs that shows some 850,000 such jobs in the federal workplace. The Bush administration earlier set a goal of having 15 percent of such jobs government-wide either formally studied or directly converted to contract by the end of the current fiscal year, September 30, 2003. The administration’s long-term goal remains to either study or directly convert half of those jobs, although there is no deadline for reaching that goal. Officials have indicated that no further interim goals likely are to be set. However, compliance with the larger goal is one of the categories on which agencies are assessed for progress in the administration’s management agenda, providing pressure to reach that goal.