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Washington, D.C.—President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) urged a House subcommittee not to move forward with legislation that would make it even easier to contract out federal work while doing nothing to enhance the capabilities of federal employees and their agencies to better serve the American public.

In testimony submitted to the House Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy, Kelley called the “Services Acquisition Reform Act” (SARA) legislation that “puts all its emphasis on risky private sector solutions” rather than addressing resource and personnel needs of federal agencies to make them more efficient.

“If Congress is serious about reforming the way the government acquires and delivers services,” Kelley said, “then legislation should be passed that makes investments in increased agency staffing, better pay and benefits, and better training so that government services can be delivered by federal employees at even lower costs and increased efficiency than they are today.”

At a minimum, the NTEU leader said, no legislative action should be taken until the work of the congressional-mandated Commercial Activities Panel (CAP), a public-private body of which Kelley is a member, that is reviewing all aspects of federal contracting completes its work. “The government should not contract out government work if we do not know if it is in the best interests of taxpayers,” she said.

Kelley is the leader in the fight against administration efforts to expand contracting out, arguing that there is insufficient information available about the cost and effectiveness of shifting work to the private sector where there is little government oversight or contractor accountability.

She called again for passage of H.R. 721, the “Truthfulness, Responsibility and Accountability in Contracting (TRAC) Act,” which would require agencies to implement “reliable systems” to track whether or not current contracting efforts save money, deliver services on-time and efficiently, and provide for the return to agencies of work when a contractor does not live up to its end of the contract.

The NTEU president said that even as the amount of contracted government work continues to increase —and with it the workload of agency contract officer—federal agencies have seen a steady decline in staffing levels for contract officers. “The increased workload and decrease in staffing has led to practically non-existent contractor oversight and inadequate and rarely-used public-private competitions,” the union president said.