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?

DoD Needs to maintain flexibility to deliver better outcomes to warfighters, taxpayers

The Defense Department plans to slice more than $100 billion from its budget over the next five years and, happily, it has decided to do so with the input of industry, the acquisition workforce and other stakeholders who would be affected by the trimmed back spending.

PSC was one of a handful of industry associations invited to a special meeting with Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Ashton Carter on June 28. PSC’s Executive Vice President and Counsel Alan Chvotkin participated in the meeting where Carter presented proposed guidance that includes calls for acquisition professionals to buy competitively, choose the right contract for the job, include small businesses in multiple award contracts, and reward excellent contract performance.

“We share the goals that Undersecretary of Defense Carter has identified for the department and while many of the recommended guidelines—such as increasing competition and choosing the right kind of contract—are laudable, PSC is concerned about how the department proposes to implement them,” Chvotkin said after the meeting.

“Services covers a broad span of activities and no one size fits all. Yet some of his initial recommendations may unnecessarily limit flexibility,” Chvotkin said. “For example, the department is right to focus on choosing the right contract vehicle, but why take a tool out of the toolbox by eliminating time and material contracts?”

PSC will present its recommendations in meetings with department officials over the next few weeks. What DoD will do with this information remains to be seen. Carter said he will issue final guidelines by the end of the summer. But the fact that he asked industry for feedback is an encouraging sign that the forthcoming guidance could result in smart contracting.

Smart Contracting Outlook: FY 2011 NDAA is a Mix of Smart and Not-so-smart Contracting Policies

The Professional Services Council’s own Stan Soloway and Alan Chvotkin briefed the media on our take of the House and Senate versions of the fiscal 2011 National Defense Authorization Act.

Conclusion: some provisions are smart contracting, others…not so much.

Take the House provisions on insourcing. The provision that prevents agencies from setting insourcing quotas: Smart. Agencies should think strategically before insourcing to ensure what is brought in house truly needs to be performed by the government to provide the essential “organic” capabilities needed to keep the government in the driver’s seat.

However, a provision telling agencies to insource any work currently contracted out or any new work, thus encouraging insourcing of non-strategic functions found in any phone book: Not smart. Budgets are already tight and hiring authorities are limited. Agencies shouldn’t be wasting time and money insourcing work that is not mission critical and won’t save taxpayer dollars.

OFPP Proposed Workforce Policy Too Complex, Lacks Clarity

The Professional Services Council, through the Council of Defense and Space Industry Associations (CODSIA), made recommendations to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy on how it can improve its proposed policy letter “Work Reserved for Performance by Federal Employees” to avoid creating an environment that would promote arbitrary insourcing at federal agencies.

The proposed policy letter sought to clarify the definition of what constitutes “inherently governmental” work that must be performed by federal government employees and to provide guidance to agencies to help them identify functions “closely associated with inherently governmental” and “critical” functions that should also be reserved for federal employee performance.

But we felt that agencies could misinterpret the proposal as a mandate to insource work that is neither inherently governmental nor critical to government’s mission performance, such as base maintenance, information technology support or other tasks found in the yellow pages.

To avoid a final policy that results in wide-scale, non-strategic, quota-driven insourcing, we recommended OFPP:

• Provide a clear definition and examples of what constitutes inherently governmental work;
• Combine the categories of “closely associated with inherently governmental functions” and “critical functions” into one narrowly defined category to eliminate duplication and confusion;
• Require that agencies to submit and publicize a list of their inherently governmental and critical functions and define which critical functions must be reserved for performance by federal employees;
• Require agencies establish a comprehensive human capital plan and conduct in-depth cost comparisons before making insourcing determinations for work that could be performed by either the public or private sectors.

Abt CEO Flanagan: Company Mission is “Improving People’s Lives”

Two weeks ago, PSC testified at a hearing where the commitment of federal contractors and their employees to the government’s mission was questioned. Obviously those questioning that commitment haven’t talked to contractors the way the Boston Globe’s Beth Healy did in this May 23 profile of Kathleen Flanagan, the chief executive of Abt Associates, a PSC member company actively involved in our International Development Task Force. The entire piece is worth a read, but I’d like to highlight Flanagan’s response to Healy’s question of what drew her to the development field.

Flanagan said:

"I’m very passionate about making a difference, and Abt is a mission-oriented company. Abt is dedicated to improving people’s lives, to helping our clients improve programs, and going into fragile countries or underdeveloped countries and raising them up.”

That sounds a lot like dedication to mission and public service to me. And it serves as a good reminder to those who question the motives of for-profit contractors: it IS about the mission.