Acquisition Workforce Playing Catchup

In the world of contracting oversight, it's not every day that you come across a striking image. But after looking through the this week's "Acquisition Workforce Development Strategic Plan for Civilian Agencies – FY 2010-2014" from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), I thought this one was worth sharing:

The OMB explains:

Between FY2000 and FY2008, acquisition spending by civilian agencies expanded by 56 percent, from $80 billion to $138 billion (in inflation-adjusted dollars). Over this same time period, the number of contract specialists (GS-1102s, the only segment of the acquisition workforce for which historically consistent data are available) grew by only 24 percent from 7,995 to 9,921 (see figure below). In contrast, both acquisition spending and the number of contract specialists in civilian agencies were little changed during the previous decade.

Though the image doesn't paint a complete picture — it omits spending data from the Department of Defense and acquisition workforce data beyond the GS-1102s — it highlights a concern we've had for some time: the acquisition workforce is stretched too thin. 

-- Bryan Rahija

Comments

[Dfens]

Wow, Rob, did you get that answer off the RNC talking points memo? So you think government contracting is going to magically trend down all of the sudden even though the trend has been for it to go up for decades, not just over the war years? I'm sure the government is deeply concerned about what happens to their "procurement specialists" that's why we see the trend we have seen, which is government outsourcing going up at an exponential rate while the oversight has dwindled or risen at a comparitive snails pace.

If you think procurement people have lots of sway over what our government does, how much more sway do you think the CEOs and other corporate elite like Blackwater, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin have over our government? Do you think these billionaires that run these corporations have enough money and influence to do things like prolong wars or cause our government to contract services in such a way that their contracts provide little oversight, few to no penalties for incompetence, and no incentives for good performance? See, I think they do. And I think as long as people like you are stupid enough to believe that these corporations have your best interests at heart instead of their own bottom line, then you deserve the very kind of expensive, low performing government you have. That is to say, I believe stupid people and their money should be seperated, and we obviously have a country full of them.

[Rob]

Once the phony war in the Middle East & the stimulus scam are over, federal spending will return to pre 2002 levels were it should have been all along. Hiring more employees whose job it is to basically spend tax dollars only encourages more spending to keep the people employed. Remember, employees determine grade levels and budgets and empire building is never out of fashion!