United
States House
of Representatives
Washington,
DC 20515
--
or --
Senator
United
States Senate
Washington,
DC 20510
Dear
Representative/Senator:
I am writing to make you aware of
contracting out problems at HUD. Under
the FAIR Act, the agency has published a list of jobs that are considered “commercial”
and could be contracted out. Our union
challenged many of the positions on the list, setting forth a detailed list of
job functions that we believe are either inherently governmental or so closely
tied to protecting the financial and public interest of the government that
they should not be contracted out.
The agency responded to the
challenge with a blanket denial. They
conducted no close review of the work performed. It is our experience that HUD uses this same method to contract
out work—a blanket statement of work without regard to the actual work
performed or the cost. Thus, the
quality of work suffers, payments are exorbitant and the contractors are the
winners. For example, the Inspector
General has confirmed that the agency used an inflated cost analysis to support
its decision to contract out oversight of Section 8 project-based contracts in
our Office of Multifamily Housing (see #99-PH-163-0002). These contracts cost hundreds of millions of
dollar more than if the work was done by HUD employees.
The mandatory contracting out quotas
being imposed by OMB make this situation worse. The quotas make it less likely that agencies will decide on a
case-by-case basis what works best for taxpayers and the agency’s customers. Pushing to meet hard quotas, agencies will
not have the time to carefully prepare statements of work or consider the
actual costs.
Please look into contracting out
problems at HUD, and oppose OMB’s mandatory contracting out quotas. And please let me know what your position is
on contracting out.
Sincerely,
name
and address