More “Top Secret America” Myths Debunked: Contractor Costs Edition

In the July 20 installment of “Top Secret America,” The Washington Post unabashedly states:

"Through the federal budget process, the George W. Bush administration and Congress made it much easier for the CIA and other agencies involved in counterterrorism to hire more contractors than civil servants. They did this to limit the size of the permanent workforce, to hire employees more quickly than the sluggish federal process allows and because they thought - wrongly, it turned out -that contractors would be less expensive."

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) largely debunked this myth in its July 19 briefing paper, which states:

"It is true that core contract personnel are, on average, more expensive than their government counterparts. However, in some cases, contractor personnel are less costly, especially if the work is short-term in nature, easily available commercially, or requires unique expertise for immediate needs."

Fair enough. But even ODNI’s statement ignores the fact that no apples-to-apples comparison of contractor and federal employee costs has been conducted. Not for intelligence work. And not for other government work.

Post’s “Top Secret America” Miscasts Contractors as Profiteers

The July 20 Washington Post article questioning the intelligence community for tapping the vast array of private-sector talent to meet immediate intelligence needs after 9/11 glosses over the government’s most basic need: to respond with agility to changing threat environments.

But it does not gloss over less factual points. Namely, the second installment leads with the idea that government contractors, and the employees who work for them, are money grubbing profiteers only interested in serving their shareholders and with no interest in doing the public good.

Development contractors face danger in war too

On July 4 the Washington Post Magazine published “This is War,” a sobering profile of U.S. Agency for International Development professionals working to improve conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq under exceedingly treacherous circumstances.

As the piece highlights, the work these dedicated civilians perform is as critical to establishing security and stability in both nations as the higher profile military activities we usually read about. However, the piece failed to mention that those government employees work alongside thousands of equally dedicated private-sector implementing partners supporting the agency’s missions.

Contractors Help CDC Prevent Flu Contraction

Pres. Obama receives his H1N1 flu shot
during the height of the crisis.

The public spotlight on H1N1 may have faded, but the matter is still a spotlight issue for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC hired PSC member Abt Associates last year to help the agency study the effectiveness of the H1N1 flu vaccine. Since December, Abt experts have worked closely with CDC officials to develop research protocols and operations procedures for these studies, which will track the effectiveness of this upcoming flu season’s combination H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccine in preventing flu in pregnant women, children, and health care providers.

The Irony of Freezing Financial Systems Modernization

There is no doubt the federal government’s budgetary climate is chilly. The national debt is growing at a rapid pace largely because of mandatory spending on Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, the latter two programs suffering from high levels of improper payments.

The government’s need for sound financial systems to accurately account for every penny spent is crystal clear. However, in the name of sound financial management, the Office of Management and Budget has frozen approximately 30 financial system modernization projects worth $20 billion, regardless of the success of the projects to date, until it can review each and every one of them.

Call us crazy, but shouldn’t OMB have completed the reviews before those proverbial horses left the budgetary barn? And why halt the programs now, in medias res, just as the government is in dire need of modern financial systems? Isn’t that…ironic?