More political crap from * (In relation to forest service)

[The Straight Story]

E-mail message spurs concern over OMB competitive sourcing tactics

An e-mail circulated to Forest Service managers last week has triggered concern that the White House is pushing the agency to prematurely open jobs to private sector competition.

The Office of Management and Budget threatened to downgrade the Agriculture Department from a yellow to a red - the lowest rating - on the competitive sourcing section of the Bush administration's quarterly management score card, unless the Forest Service allows contractors to bid on at least 100 jobs.....

The May 3 e-mail represented a "compilation of various conversations" and was intended as an internal note to update field managers on "hall chatter," Pyron said, adding he had not verified the accuracy of the message's contents. "One of the criticisms we've gotten from the field is that not giving enough information" he said. "We're really ratcheting up the amount of information that we're trying to send out to the field so that can see the big picture."

....

But John Threlkeld, a lobbyist for the American Federation of Government Employees, said union members have documented multiple instances where "the numerical privatization quotas, although outlawed by Congress and ostensibly repudiated by OMB, are, unfortunately alive and well . . . resulting in being conducted for political reasons, rather than policy reasons."


http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0505/051305a1.htm