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Washington, D.C.—The Bush administration “is heading down a reckless path” with its quota-driven contracting out efforts, the leader of the nation’s largest independent union said today. She urged Congress “to force the administration to immediately suspend its competitive sourcing initiative” centered on agency quotas for work contracted to the private sector.

In testimony before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy, President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) sharply criticized quotas imposed on agencies by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as “arbitrary” and “counterproductive.” OMB has directed that agencies open up to the private sector by the end of fiscal 2003 15 percent of its positions considered “commercial in nature.”

The subcommittee is examining a report arising from a year-long study of government contracting by the congressionally established Commercial Activities Panel (CAP). Kelley served as one of its 12 members.

The NTEU leader dissented from the final CAP Report, and urged the subcommittee to reject its recommendations. “I do not believe the (CAP) recommendations should even begin to be evaluated until the administration puts the brakes on its quota-driven outsourcing initiative,” she said.

President Kelley said that instead of rushing to contract out more government work, Congress and the administration “should make the necessary investments today” in increased staffing, resources and better employee training “so that the taxpayers can get government services delivered by federal employees at even lower costs and increased efficiency tomorrow."

As for suggestions from OMB indicating that the quotas are no longer being applied “in a rigid or arbitrary manner,” the NTEU leader urged that the subcommittee “not be misled by OMB’s empty words.”

Kelley repeated her opposition to the CAP majority report for recommending what she called a “very risky, more complicated” government outsourcing system that “will likely leave the taxpayers picking up the tab to pay contractors for costly services they do not need.”

Any new “revolutionary government service delivery system” that will determine the expenditure of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, she said, “ought to be tested on a limited basis, independently reviewed, and modified based on lessons learned,” the union president said. “Unfortunately, the CAP Report sets this untested program in autopilot mode, with a very limited role for Congress.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.