GAO: Labor Dept. Misled Congress ("lied" to Congress works better)

[babylonsister]

GAO: Labor Dept. Misled Congress
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 25, 2008; Page A13


The Labor Department gave Congress inaccurate and unreliable numbers that understated the expense of contracting out its employees' work to private firms, according to a Government Accountability Office report released yesterday.

The department's decisions in allowing contractors to compete for bureaucrats' work -- known as "competitive sourcing" -- also demoralized workers, according to most of the 60 agency employees interviewed by the GAO.

"DOL's savings reports are not reliable: a sample of three reports contained inaccuracies, and others used projections when actual numbers were available, which sometimes resulted in overstated savings," the GAO report said. "Because of these and other weaknesses, DOL is hindered in its ability to determine if services are being provided more efficiently as a result of competitive sourcing."

Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao began having some agency workers compete for their jobs in 2004, but since then few employees have actually lost their jobs and had their pay cut as a result of the privatizing effort, GAO found. Of the 314 federal workers who had a job change as a result of competitions with private firms, 263, or 84 percent, were either reassigned to positions with the same title and pay or were promoted. Of the 16 workers who were demoted, 14 kept their same professional grade or pay.

Twenty-two employees were demoted or laid off, and all were African American. An additional 29 employees left voluntarily.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/24/AR2008112402796.html