Dwight, No politics in this, unless you include ALL administrations for more than 2 decades and could probably extend that back most of 50+ years. The latest was a little-known 1998 law with the delightful acronym FAIR (the Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act) opens the door to wholesale outsourcing of Forest Service personnel. Under FAIR, each federal agency must classify its employee positions as either “inherently governmental†or “commercial†in nature.
That is about all I am going to inject myself into that part of it.
Most of the outsourcing goes to medium and large US companies. They have to be large enough to take over the entire Forest Service department they are bidding for – it is up to us to show we can do the job "cheaper" or our jobs are inherently government (inherently government is very hard case to make). From what I have seen first hand, if outsourced, it starts out being cost effective, but within a very short time ends up costing much more than having left it alone. Time will tell, some have gotten through the evaluations and stayed, others have not made it. IT and auto/equipment repair shops did not make it. I know there are some more, but can not think of them off hand.
