FYI:

  NPS and Interior Agency "Professionals" Subjected to A-76 Outsourcing
Assessments

NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol. 9, #4, 30 January 2003
by Bruce Craig <[log in to unmask]>
National Coalition for History (NCH)
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>In an effort to identify as many as 850,000 federal jobs that could
>eventually be performed by private-sector employees, the Bush
>administration is examining about 1,700 full-time jobs in the National Park
>Service, including archeologists and others, as potential candidates for
>replacement by private-sector employees.  NPS director Fran Mainella has
>expressed a long-term goal to maintain a uniformed presence in the parks as
>a "public face" for visitors, and as a consequence park ranger and
>positions declared "inherently governmental" are spared, at least for
>now.  But many other employees -- maintenance workers,
>architects/engineers, administrative workers such as secretaries, fee
>collectors, and some scientists (this year only archeologists are singled
>out) may ultimately find their positions privatized.  According to some NPS
>sources, up to 50% of the bureau's positions may eventually be studied.
>
>Interior officials anticipate that no more than 4 percent of the current
>workforce may lose their jobs through outsourcing.  Officials also claim
>that decisions to let employees go would be based "on performance
>objectives, not strictly on cost."  Interior sources also maintain that
>downsizing goals of the federal workforce may be achieved through
>retirement and attrition. By some estimates about 20% of the NPS workforce
>will reach retirement age in the next five years.
>
>There is nothing new about the present administration's efforts to downsize
>and out-source federal jobs.   Past administrations have also attempted to
>reduce the federal workforce through  the "A-76 process" -- a procedure
>where a cost-benefit analysis is performed comparing the costs to deliver
>services by federal employees to costs of doing the same tasks through
>private sector sources. The operative theory behind A-76 staffing
>assessments is that any position that is not considered "inherently
>governmental" can be performed equally as well by private-sector contract
>workers.  The efforts have produced mixed results. At times, A-76
>assessments conclude that market-style competition is not cost-effective
>and that the federal employees provide better cost-effective service than
>the private sector can.
>
>In the past, however, previous administrations have not targeted the
>professional ranks of architects, engineers, and archeologists such as
>those based in archeology centers found in Santa Fe New Mexico, Estes Park
>Colorado, and Lincoln Nebraska. But according to a NPS spokesperson,
>archeologists were selected this year because  "there are a lot of them"
>and their positions are not "inherently governmental."
>
>Some NPS officials note that the cost of performing the assessments is
>"strangling" the parks.  Costs to perform the studies are coming from
>across-the-board-cuts from central and regional offices and parks. An
>assessment typically costs about $90,000 in direct expenses, not including
>the indirect costs of lost work time for employees at the centers under
>study. One NPS source estimated the total cost to perform this year's
>assessments alone is probably several hundred thousand dollars to a million
>or more -- money the parks desperately could use for more pressing concerns.
>
>Critics fear that outsourcing of the Park Service's entire corps of
>scientists, archeologists, and historians to private companies that are not
>steeped in the Park Service culture of resource protection would undermine
>protection and preservation of the nation's archeological, paleontological,
>and historical treasures. Moral is already impacted in professional
>ranks.  According to Roger Kennedy, a former Director of the NPS as well as
>the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, "The public
>understands that parks are not parking lots -- they are places that require
>a high degree of professional skill to manage.  Not just anyone can do it."
>
>Individuals and organizations wishing to express their views on outsourcing
>"professional" positions should write: the Secretary of the Interior Gale
>Norton and NPS Director Fran Mainella both at Department of the Interior,
>1849 C Street NW, Washington D.C. 20240; For Secretary Norton -- fax:
>202.208-6956; e-mail: [log in to unmask]; for Director Mainella -- fax 202.
>208-7889; e-mail [log in to unmask] .  Members of Congress should be
>contacted not by letter but via e-mail or fax (for a listing for members of
>Congress via zip code, tap into: http://www.house.gov/writerep/ and
><http://www.senate.gov/>.

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