Home
Media Center
News Releases
Washington, D.C.-In the wake of a letter from 23 members of the House Government Reform Committee urging hearings, the head of the nation's largest independent union of federal employees today repeated her call for action on a bill that would require a thorough analysis of the extent and cost of using outside contractors by the federal government.
President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said the letter to Rep. Stephen Horn (R-CA), chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology, "emphasizes the point that there is considerable concern in the House about this issue."
H.R. 3766, the Truthfulness, Responsibility and Accountability in Contracting Act, known as the TRAC Act, was introduced by Rep. Al Wynn (D-MD), and has 203 co-sponsors. It would require agencies to track the costs of contracting out, conduct public-private competitions before contracting out work, abolish the use of arbitrary in-house personnel ceilings, emphasize contracting in as well as contracting out, and determine the impact on wages and benefits of the practice.
The bipartisan letter to Rep. Horn was sent by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Jim Turner (D-TX) and 21 other members of the Government Reform Committee, which has jurisdiction over issues related to government contracting out practices.
The number of co-sponsors for H.R. 3766 "indicates Congress's strong interest in contracting out issues," the letter said. "It is clear that many members believe that these contracting out issues should be further explored by the subcommittee."
Kelley said that the known cost of the contractor work force is greater than the cost of federal employee wages and benefits, but that "the true cost is not known because we have no reliable system" to gather and analyze the data. "The TRAC bill would cure that problem and allow us to proceed with a base of knowledge about how much taxpayers are paying and what they're getting for their money," she added.
NTEU represents more than 155,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.