This is the third installment of a Shadow Elite series, investigating the game-changing effects of government contracting on the most vital government functions.
How far does the crisis of government contracting oversight go? Apparently, it extends deep into some of America's most hallowed ground: Arlington National Cemetery.
The Army Inspector General and the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight this summer have issued scathing reports on mismanagement at Arlington which they say has resulted in hundreds, even thousands, of graves mismarked. Salon broke the story last year, and here are some of the findings confirmed by government investigators.
We know that nearly every possible problem in contracting occurred, and consequences are appalling....I'm looking forward to talking with those responsible.
Just who is responsible? Of course cemetary management is taking the heavy knocks but the Arlington case is also a symptom of a far bigger, government-wide crisis in the capacity to adequately oversee contract work. Janine studied this as part of her research for her book Shadow Elite, and in a follow-on study (supported by the Ford Foundation), Selling Out Uncle Sam: How the Myth of Small Government Undermines National Security, that's just been released.
In theory, contracts and contractors are overseen by government employees who would guard against abuse, but there are simply not enough of them to keep up with all the outsourcing.
In a 2008 survey of federal acquisition professionals, one respondent described the perception that contract officers have gone extinct, that they are "....as rare as white Siberian tigers."
That's an overstatement of course but the numbers are not encouraging. The number of civil servants who could potentially oversee contractors fell during the Clinton administration and continued to drop during the Bush administration. The contracting business boomed under Bush, while the "acquisition workforce"--government workers charged with the conceptualization, design, awarding, use, or quality control of contracts and contractors--remained virtually constant. In 2002, each federal acquisition official oversaw the disbursement of an average of $3.5 million in service contracts. In 2006 the average workload expanded to $7 million and, in 2008, to $10.6 million, while also demanding of the workforce increasingly complex contracting skills.
One big area of concern: the Department of Defense, where the number of procurement professionals has been shrinking since the early 1990s, even as the volume of contracts (both the numbers of contracts awarded and the value of these contracts) has risen rapidly. This disproportion puts the government at risk of losing control over mission-related decisions and the decision-making process, the Government Accountability Office has concluded. Government officials are made responsible for not only properly awarding contracts, but also supervising and evaluating the performance of contractors on the job. There is not enough capacity for them to do all this effectively. As the U.S. Comptroller General expressed:
At the same time procurement spending has skyrocketed, fewer acquisition professionals are available to award and--just as importantly--administer contracts. Two important aspects of this issue are the numbers and skills of contracting personnel and DOD's ability to effectively oversee contractor performance.The Comptroller General concluded that "The acquisition workforce faces serious challenges" in such matters as "size, skills, knowledge, and succession planning."
Certainly the public interest hasn't been served at Arlington National Cemetary, and in fact a criminal probe has reportedly been launched. But it seems likely that simple, perfectly legal mismanagement and poor oversight was a key culprit here: cemetary officials saw their budget nearly double in less than 10 years, an increasing portion went to contractors, they were not trained to deal with contractors and they did not have a strategy before handing out the deals. This is a disturbingly familiar story in various corners of federal government. The difference here is that faulty oversight has led not just to waste and inefficiency, but real heartbreak for hundreds of families whose loved one or ancestor served their country, and assumed, in the end, that their country would do the same for them. They assumed wrong.
Follow Janine R. Wedel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/profjanine
Why do the MAJORITY of people that make up our "DEMOCRACY" (the American Middle) tolerate and elect Representatives / Government that sells out / destroys OUR livlihoods in favor of foreign interests ?
Then when we see that we do not have to, we should fix it by electing Representatives / Government that nurtures and builds OUR livlihoods over foreign interests.
Sounds simple doesn't it.
I guess it's easier said than done.
Time someone takes a hard look at the money trail - follow the greenback road and you will usuallly find a politician at the end of it with his hands out for the dough.
The Prime Directive of every government agency and every contractor is the continuation of funding.
Aug 19, 2010 5:24pm EDT
By Andrew Quinn
WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) - With the United States drawing down troops in Iraq, the State Department plans to double the number of private security contractors it uses to ensure the safety of the huge civilian development effort, officials said on Thursday.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the plan would bring to some 7,000 the total security contractors employed by the government in Iraq, where since the 2003 U.S. invasion private security firms have often been accused of acting above the law.
Crowley said the U.S. military's plan to cut troop numbers to 50,000 by the end of August -- down from 176,000 at the peak of the deployment -- left a security gap contractors would have to fill.
"We will still have our own security needs to make sure that our diplomats and development experts are well protected," Crowley told a news briefing.
"We have very specific plans to increase our security ... as the military is leaving. This will be expensive. this is not a cheap proposition," he said, although he added the costs to the U.S. taxpayer would still be far less than those incurred by the military deployment.
The employment of contractors has caused anger in Iraq, particularly after a U.S. court dismissed charges against Blackwater Worldwide guards accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1988632
I worked with one man who said upfront he had no idea what was going on. He asked his son who understood computers and code writing to over see the project. Even then some of the people in charge decided to save money by hiring a company from India to create the datebase. This cost a whole year and $2 million wasted because the uper level management had heard somewhere that significant savings can be had by sending projects overseas.
If you don't understand even teh basic terms used to discuss the software, hire someone who has successfully completed a project like the one you are undertaking.
The VA's first effort at computerizing medical records was a major drag because the low bidder had never had any experience in the field.
I’d like to know that, because if it is, I might want to go round me up some money and buy me one of them there contract thingys…might want to supply toilet paper...sounds like easy money to me…
These trained military men who get contracted out as private road warriors pledge no allegiance to their country only to the company they work for. Their behavior isn't under the Geneva convention but corporate laws. Who is held accountable under such conditions? The Company, the United States, the individual? Too many loop holes to conduct a diplomatic or military exercise in anything from engagement to burying the dead.
There's a reason we have separation of powers in the Government contract as well as the social contract.
We are on the wrong track people!
contracting????
simple
save bid review time, costs, and hassle..
hand the job to Halliburton and the like..
no bids, no questions, no audits, no accountability
no problem.
.
This Hemorrhage MUST STOP!
98% OF WELFARE GOES TO THE RICHEST 1% AND BIG CORPORATIONS:
$23.7 TRILLION TO WALL STREET
WARS = WELFARE TO THE RICH
WELFARE TO BIG 01L
WELFARE TO BIG PHARMA
WELFARE TO RICH - 16.1% TAX RATE - LOWEST IN CIVILIZED/INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD
WELFARE TO BIG INSUARANCE - Health Care NON-REFORM gives 30 Million Government paid customers to them
1. WAR - ENRICH THE RICH - $1 Trillion in Direct Funding and $3 Trillion in Indirect Funding. LOW INCOME SOLDIERS GET PAID FOR THE HARD WORK THEY DO AT ALMOST MINIMUM WAGE! WHILE CONTRACTORS RIP-OFF THE TAXPAYER!
2. $23.7 Trillion in Welfare to Wall Street
3. Big Pharma gets Half a $Trillion in BUSH Giveaways - BUSH MEDICARE WELFARE DRUG BILL FOR BIG PHARMA!
4. LOWEST EFFECTIVE TAX RATE (16.1%) for RICH in the CIVILIZED WORLD! Effective Tax Rate for TOP 1% is 16.1% - MOST USE CAP GAINS AND EVEN WITH THAT MANY RICH OFF-SHORE THEIR INCOME!
5. BIG 01L SUBSIDIES
6. Welfare to INSURANCE COMPANIES - 30,000,000+ MORE Government Paid for CLIENTS. BUSH ALLOWED THE OUT OF CONTROL RIP-OFFS OF THE INSURANCE
7. Welfare to MILITARY CONTRACTORS OVERCHARGING FOR SUPPLIES+SERVICES + Wasteful CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS -- $40 FOR A SOLDIER'S BREAKFAST + $500 for a GALLON of GAS from BP +$100 for a Bag of LAUNDRY!
The outsourcing solution is not the preeminent solution of smaller government proponents. The true smaller government movement is opposed to government as the default implementer of policy directives. It is this philosophy of government as the primary executor of the public interest that is the heart of the problem.
Yes, the scandal at Arlington is bad. But it is just a minor peripheral symptom of the major disease of the military industrial complex. The much more significant issue is our unaffordable imperialist ambitions.
Tax and spend is just plain bad. The minutia of the spending details is a misdirection.
" The true smaller government movement is opposed to government as the default implementer of policy directives."
Just who is it you would have to implement policy directives? I would suppose following your logic government shouldn't be setting policy?
If I walk to work, why should I pay taxes to subsidize Mideast oil with aircraft carriers?
If the business model of Exxon can't support the security or insurance on their property, then we should not be using that oil.
If I rent a house, why should I subsidize home owners with tax policy and Fannie and Freddie?
If I am a saver why should the rate I receive subsidize the banking system through Fed policy?
Why do we subsidize corn farming? White pine tree growing or anthing else?
All this is misguided with unintended consequences worse than the initial problem government was trying to sole.
If I remember right in 2005 it was estimated that all the taxes collected by the IRS from citizens making $100,000 a year or less went to pay off the cost of paying for privatized government services and contracts. The number of those services and contracts provided and held by the privateers of privatization is larger today.
These kinds of things never change.
If by some miracle the populous does arise, the corporations will find it's weakest link, pay them off, and gut it from the inside. There is ALWAYS a weakest link and they ALWAYS betray their fellows.
Always.