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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) strongly opposes the creation of a statutory commission to review the performance and ‘transformation’ of government agencies, NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley told a key House committee today.

She said the commission, which would be created under a plan drawn up by an organization known as the Government Transformation Initiative and which would be modeled after the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, would simply be an unwise and unnecessary duplication of the duties of Congress. BRAC’s work is to address the question of possible military facility closings.

In testimony submitted to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, President Kelley questioned the value of such a commission, noting that it would review what the government does, how it does it, how it performs, how it is financed and how it measures success. “Isn’t that what the oversight, authorizing and appropriations committees of the Congress do now?” she asked.

The NTEU leader added: “Short-circuiting congressional oversight and debate on something as critical as the role of, and funding for, federal agencies risks making Congress irrelevant. Congress’s role is to legislate, with input from interested parties, expert advice and healthy debate—not to potentially rubberstamp a commission’s proposals.”

The Government Transformation Initiative, Kelley said, bills itself as a coalition of corporations, non-profit organizations, academics and others interested in contributing to the transformation of the federal government—including the Professional Services Council, a group representing many private sector companies doing business with the federal government.

“What is not said,” she emphasized, “is that many coalition members themselves do a lucrative federal contracting business.” Thus, the NTEU leader said, it is necessary to ask whether such a commission “is just another way to increase market share for their members?”

President Kelley has for many years been in the forefront of the effort to rein in runaway federal contracting. She noted its growth for the committee, pointing out that between 2001 and 2008, federal spending on contracting out increased by almost 140 percent, from $222 billion to some $532 billion. That led to “a dramatic increase in the size of the federal government’s contract workforce, which already exceeds the size of the federal workforce,” she said. Since then, however, the White House has taken steps to reduce federal contracting.

Nonetheless, Kelley cited the findings of a media analysis showing that a majority of the top 200 government contractors made more money on federal awards in 2012 than they did in 2011, despite major budgetary cutbacks.

Moreover, she added, the Office of Management and Budget has expressed its concern that excessive reliance on contractors has eroded the in-house capacity of agencies to perform many critical functions and has undermined their ability to accomplish their missions.

“NTEU is skeptical of the need to establish a commission to transform government,” Kelley said. “Perhaps what we really need is a commission to examine and propose a transformation of the federal contracting boondoggle.”

She added: “To take extremely scarce dollars from federal agencies struggling to deliver their missions during these times of austerity in order to fund a commission that is being promoted by some who could financially benefit from its recommendations would be irresponsible, at best.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.