National President Dougan Writes Letter to House Committee Opposing “Critical Blow” of Proposed Federal Job Cuts
Thursday, November 3, 2011(National Federation of Federal Employees)
This morning NFFE National President
William R. Dougan wrote a letter to the members
of the House Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform urging them to oppose a
measure they will be considering today, which
would slash 200,000 federal jobs by 2015.
Introduced by South Carolina Republican Mick
Mulvaney, the bill (H.R. 3029) would mandate a
10% across-the-board cut to the federal
workforce, permitting only one federal worker
to be hired for every three who retire,
separate, or otherwise depart from the
government.
The text of President Dougan’s letter is as follows:
On behalf of the National Federation
of Federal Employees and the 110,000 federal
employees we represent across 40 different
agencies and departments throughout government,
I urge you to oppose H.R. 3029, a bill that
would make drastic cuts to personnel in the
federal workforce. This bill would fail to save
tax-payers money and would undermine the
critical services that federal workers provide
the American people every day. This bill is
likely to be considered by the full Committee
on Oversight and Government Reform on November
3rd. I urge you to vote “No” on
reporting this ill-conceived legislation out of
committee.
I testified
before the House Subcommittee on the Federal
Workforce, U.S. Postal Service, and Labor
Policy on May 26, 2011 regarding arbitrary cuts
to the federal workforce such as those
prescribed in H.R. 3029, which would force a 10
percent reduction in the number of federal
employees at all executive branch agencies by
2015. As I testified then, we oppose these
arbitrary reductions in the federal workforce
because you do not measure the size of
government by the number of civilian federal
employees (FTEs); you measure the size of
government in dollars and cents.
While it may seem logical
that if you reduce the federal workforce you
have also reduced the size of the federal
government, arbitrary reductions in federal
agency staff do not truly reduce the size of
government at all. Reducing an agency’s
workforce without a corresponding reduction in
the agency’s mandate actually tends to increase
the size of government, because it forces
agencies to rely on contractor employees to
meet their workforce needs. In the
end, arbitrary staffing limitations tend to
cost federal agencies more than they save.
Contracting work to private firms,
though economical in some cases, has
characteristics that make it expensive for
agencies.
Contracting out requires the government
to conduct contractor oversight, which adds
cost if done properly, but is sure to be
expensive if not done properly. Private
firms have to pay executive salaries, which
make private firms more expensive than in-house
staff.
In addition, contractors have to make a
profit.
All
these factors make it difficult to deliver
contractor services at the same value to the
American taxpayers that the civilian federal
workforce can. In fact, a September of 2011
study from the Project on Government Oversight
found that contractor billing rates, i.e. the
amount taxpayers actually pay for services,
average 83 percent more than what it would cost
for federal agencies to do the work
in-house.
Forcing additional contracting out by
arbitrarily capping the workforce will not save
taxpayers money; it will cost them more. While
H.R. 3029 language
claims to limit shifting work to private sector
contractors, a loophole would fail to prevent
such a shift. Agencies could move work to
contractors when there is a claim of “financial
advantage.” This is a gaping loophole that will
allow agency heads to continue contracting out
to expensive firms.
H.R. 3029 would also be a crushing
blow to the critical services on which the
American people rely. Federal workers care for our
veterans, guard our borders, maintain our
military readiness, care for our national
forests and parks, and ensure our national
security.
Cutting the number of employees
available to do this critical work will
unquestionably hamper federal agencies’ ability
to deliver these critical services to the
American people.
NFFE strongly opposes this bill. We urge a “No” vote on reporting H.R. 3029 out of committee.
Sincerely,
William R. Dougan
National
President