The Obama administration will require federal agencies to cut spending for management support service contracts by 15 percent by the end of fiscal year 2012.
As part of the White House Campaign to Cut Waste, Office of Management and Budget officials will announce Thursday their plans to reduce the bill for those services from $40 billion in fiscal year 2010 to $34 billion.
Management support services include such functions as program management, acquisition planning and information technology development. Spending on those services rose four-fold from fiscal year 2000 through 2010, according to administration figures.
Most of that jump occurred during President George W. Bush’s administration, which vastly increased the government’s contractor workforce, while allowing the corps of federal employees assigned to oversee the work of contractors to remain flat. As a result, in some cases contractors ended up managing contractors.
Jeffrey Zients, the administration’s chief performance officer and a deputy OMB director, and Dan Gordon, the federal procurement administrator, will lead the White House Forum on Accountability in Federal Contracting. Officials from the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development also are on the agenda.
White House figures show that government spending on outside contractors declined last year for the first time in 13 years.
— By Joe Davidson – The Washington Post – 06:00 AM ET, 07/07/2011 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/white-house-plans-cuts-to-support-service-contracts/2011/04/15/gIQAz9IR1H_blog.html
