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Washington, D.C.—The head of the nation’s largest independent union of federal workers today sharply criticized the Bush administration for proposing steps that almost certainly would expand federal contracting out, a move that came only two days after establishment of an independent panel mandated by Congress to review the policies and procedures governing such practices.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), one of 12 members of the newly-formed Commercial Activities Panel, said “it appears the administration intends to move headlong into even more contracting out of federal jobs before the panel charged by Congress with responsibility to focus on that issue can even get organized.”

Kelley’s comments came in the wake of remarks by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mitch Daniels at a conference on federal acquisition practices in which he suggested the government should change the rules for conducting public-private competitions for work as a step in the drive to shift the work of more and more federal employees to the private sector. The rules are contained in an OMB document known as Circular A-76.

“This is another indication that OMB’s agenda—and that of President Bush—is to contract out the work of increasing numbers of government employees,” Kelley said, noting that “at the very least, given creation of

the Commercial Activities Panel, the haste with which this administration is moving on contracting out undermines the work to be done by the panel.” The panel was created by last year’s Defense Authorization Act and is chaired by Comptroller General David Walker.

The Daniels remark on streamlining A-76 procedures is one of several steps the administration has taken which indicate its strong desire to contract out federal work, notwithstanding concerns raised in Congress and elsewhere that the true size, cost and effectiveness of the present contractor work force is not known, Kelley said.

The administration has said it wants a minimum of 42,000 federal jobs put up for public-private competition by next year. Separately, Daniels told the procurement conference that OMB believes that agencies have not met their responsibilities under the Federal Activities and Inventory Reform (FAIR) Act to classify jobs as potentially commercial and thus subject to public-private competition.

In addition, he said that in the next FAIR inventory, due by June 30, OMB would require agencies to list jobs viewed as inherently governmental as well—an action Kelley called “a signal of this administration’s true intention of contracting out not just potentially commercial work, but as much inherently governmental work as possible.”

The NTEU leader urged a suspension of all new federal service contracting out while the Commercial Activities Panel meets its congressional mandate. The work of the panel, Kelley said, “is a necessary, positive first step” in bringing real reform to federal contracting practices. “We shouldn’t do anything, much less take the kinds of steps OMB is taking, until there is a full accounting, and complete accountability, of the contractor workforce.”

NTEU represents some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.