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Federal IT Will Survive the Budget Deal
jfruhlinger writes "Like most people in America — and like most government workers in particular — federal IT staffers are wondering how the recent budget deal will affect them. It seems they won't suffer much, for two reasons: there was already a major tech consolidation effort underway, and everyone involved is hoping IT initiatives will result in cost-savings in other areas of government operations. In particular, federal moves to the cloud — which can yield considerable savings, despite a need for up-front investment that deters some shops — will continue."
What didn't survive the 'budget deal'?
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Any effort to "save money" by "cutting budget" that affects Corporate Persons (esp important ones) will not be affected. Anything else is "fair game".
Welcome your new corporate overlords, "citizen".
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Government workers are always under pressure to cut costs, and do more.
If you look at the actual numbers* and compare them to any corporation of equal size as the specific government group,. there is substantial less waste in government then corporations.
Oh, be people just point and say 'government waste' and everyone nods there head like a bunch of brainwash Scientologist at a 'retreat'.
Ask for evidence, data, comparisons and they got nothing except for the rare cherry picked item. Most, as in over 98 percent, of government work is at or slightly below the initial requirements.
Corporation can only dream to get the kinds of numbers most government agency get.
*you wont, but I can hope
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Shut up Comic Book Guy!
The cloud is not always a cost saving solution and it also requires trusting someone else with your data. If you have very little in the way of IT staff, infrastructure or no specialised needs then, as long are willing to trust the service, then it can be a cost saving.
Although you shouldn't be paranoid I would encourage you to think of the relative liability of the cloud. Like the ones made out of vapour there are no guarantees that the one you are using will there tomorrow, that you will have access to your data when you need it or that it ends up in a jurisdiction that may cause you problems, even for something seemingly innocent.
I am sceptical about the cloud (aka hosted services with no precise geographical location) and although I already use services like gmail and github, I also realise that I have put my trust in an entity that may bot deserve it for reasons of convenience.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
If there really were no waste in the federal government, then please tell me how it is NO ONE got laid off last year?
Oh really? So that's why they 12000 people were fired last year? Yes, as the story says that is less than private sector but is much more than the "NO ONE" you claimed. Plus there are thousands more coming this year as well.
And that they all got raises when the private sector is getting pay cuts?
Actually they had a 2 year pay freeze put on them.
Did you even bother to research a single one of your claims since they were easily disproved in 1 minute of Googling?
And even this is ignoring the reality that most federal dollars are spent on contractors instead of direct federal employees. Why? So those workers can be more easily fired, laid off, pay cut, whatever you wish to call it, simply by re-negotiating or not renewing a contract if it's not going well. Many (most?) federal government employee jobs are essentially just managing contractors. So, what percentage of managers are fired or laid off from the average corporation in a year? Many of the 3% of the private workforce that gets fired each year is dope-smoking kids with poor attendance at their fast-food jobs. There simply aren't any federal jobs at that level.
You boast some impressive numbers and they disclaim any opposing views as being cherry picked yet you do not provide any citations to back your claims.
Your talking about an organization (the US government) which is consuming nearly 25% of the GDP of the richest country on Earth that cannot balance its books. Yet you claim that it is efficient beyond the hopes of any corporation? It does not take much work to come up with your "cherry picked" counter points, government projects are notorious for over spending, F35 and Big Dig are two great examples of recent boondoggles. There over 1.6 million civilian federal employees, the average cost of each is just slightly over 100k.
So ya, most workers I know in private industry are also under pressure to get it in under budget and cut costs where possible. I haven't heard of a private business who wants their employees to not cut costs...
Regardless, no real cost savings are going to come from paring down the number of employees the Federal Government has. We have to knock down whole agencies and we have to tackle the real problem : Entitlements. They eat nearly two trillion dollars a year and when Obama Care rolls in around 2013 it will only get worse.
We are spending too much and there really isn't sufficient revenue to be gained through taxation. Historically we take in between 18 and 20% of the GDP with the spending close to that, yet now we are at less than 19% because of the weak economy and nearly 25% out because of reckless spending (keynesian fixes that don't work). We peaked at near 21% GDP for taxes during boom years (internet boom) yet even Clinton did not produce a balanced budget - go look it up, not one year did the deficit not increase.
So, citations if you make bold claims about government efficiency. Its hard to find favorable stories even in left leaning print (NYTimes and such) so I would love to see it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Why no layoffs? Perhaps because there's no shortage of necessary work for them to do.
My most recent shopping experience was at a store where only one register was open. It was very annoying. They could have had more people working at the registers instead of making us customers stand in line.
Sometimes, believe it or not, there's inefficiency in underemployment.
My state consolidated servers (my boss was in charge). I actually work a few yards from the servers. The various Windows server people in the other departments suddenly became Windows desktop support staff. The good thing so far, is that they do gradually go away, unless the people are dedicated government employees. And now the servers are being virtualized, or for database apps, being converted to z/os Linux.
You seriously point me as a counterexample to an article that states federal workers are more likely to DIE than lose a job?
Ok, there were 12k. The private sector has been losing that much (or more, sometimes much more) every week for a few years now. Come on!!
Your very article exactly makes the point I was making. The government simply does not lay off inefficient people in any meaningful way.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why no layoffs? Perhaps because there's no shortage of necessary work for them to do.
Hi there caption obvious, that's true of every worker I've ever met. Except in the private sector even when people have "no shortage of work" people are laid off ANYWAY. And then the company has to figure out how to really do more with less, so by necessity becoming more efficient instead of carrying on as they are.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oh, and an aside. The government workers in IT that I have run into there are yhose who are lazy and incompetent. But in my 10 years of working with them (as a contractor). maybe 1/4 are useless. The others are medically ill or close to retirement and counting the days. Are you going to be the person who fires someone with cancer? Or two months to retirement? I'd rather we figure out which managers to get rid of, before throwing labels onto all government IT people. (And yes, where I work they get great bennies).
>please tell me how it is NO ONE got laid off last year? And that they all
>got raises when the private sector is getting pay cuts?
Don't worry, layoffs will happen. Also benefits will be zeroed out. Those still working are expecting reduction in pay. There are agency wide emails kicking around about cuts though maybe the RIF word is not used. Also note that vast majority of people working federal government are contractors, including security guards and those working security clearances are contractors. And many contractors will be laid off (i.e. KSC Shuttle workers).
What burns me is this obsession to screw the commoners and working class. First with non-govt employees followed by govt. employees. And "we" continue to "admire" those with big salaries (take a look at all the grand publicity they get on mainstream TV and magazines). Of course don't be surprised in future where there is more corruption because lowlies need to steal/embezzle/accept bribes in order to make ends meet like in Mexico.
mfwright@batnet.com
>>everyone involved is hoping that IT initiatives will result in cost-savings in other areas of government operations The federal government is incapabale of doing anything that will result in a cost-savings.
Every month, every federal project in existence has to update a series of documents called an exhibit 300. This includes milestones, earned value calculations, and risk reports. This level of reporting is FAR more detailed than anything required in the private sector. Any program caught wasting money or missing deadlines is unceremoniously cancelled. Working in the federal sector these days is like working under the spanish inquisition. These reports are public knowledge and anyone can read them at the OMB. No one bothers, because they don't want to admit how hard they have made it for federal employees to do their jobs. It is easier to whine when one is ignorant and uninformed. The REAL waste in government isn't caused by laziness or inefficiency. It is caused by all the wacky laws that Clowngress passes. If Congress gives an agency a directive to study whale barf, the agency is forbidden by law (5 years in jail for lobbying Congress if you're a fed) from telling Congress that the study is a waste of time. If you want more effificient government, then READ the federal budget and VOTE to throw out the bums who are squandering your money. Abusing federal workers may be easy and fun, but it is also pointless and a waste of time.
Ever notice how when a politician does something that big business likes, it is received as "job creating", while something they don't like is automatically "job killing"? Yet when cuts to the federal budget can only be addressed with layoffs, that is somehow not "job killing" and infrastructure projects are somehow never "job creating"?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Double tap. You think it’s dead, one more makes 100% sure. Woulda, shoulda, coulda.
Actually they had a 2 year pay freeze [cnn.com] put on them.
Except that it is not really a pay freeze, the majority will still get their "step" increases. Even the article you link to tells us that much.
As for the 12000 people that lost their federal jobs last year, that is out of 2.1 million. The private company I work at has a 14% head count reduction coming up over the next 6 months...and it is the third head count reduction over the last two years (the other two were similar percentages).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
If you've been to DC lately. One word comes to mind:
**boomtown**
With all the road (NoVa beltway, ICC), building (downtown), infrastructure (IAD metro), homes (S. Woodbridge) development, and that politics/federeal work is seeing a lot of (and maybe the bulk of it) stimulus cash... DC is booming.
Yes, I did say it was less than the private sector as that was what the article said. The point was that the person claimed that NO ONE was fired. I was never at all claiming that the federal workers were laid off in a higher percentage just that the claim was total bunkus.
There are no real cuts in the debt deal. All they agreed to was that they would not increase spending by as much as they had said they planned on. Further, most of the "cuts" come two or more years from now. The people who agreed to this plan may not even be in office when it comes time to write the actual spending bills involved. This is how it always happens. Every so often the voters get upset and demand that Congress cut spending. A few Congressmen take it seriously and propose to reduce how much the government increases its spending next year over this year. Other Congressmen and various "community" groups wail and caterwaul about how they want to starve little children and throw grandma out in the street. After a few weeks to a few months of going back and forth (assuming that the voters are really upset about spending), they all finally agree to reduce the amount that spending increases next year by a token amount and a really significant number several years into the future. The thing is, the only spending number that means anything is the one for next year (and even that is only meaningful if they can't get some "emergency" appropriation bill through).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Out of 2.1 million, 12,000 is close enough to no one for me. According to that article, in a typical year the private sector lays off 3% of its workforce for poor performance. In a year where the economy was doing terrible, the federal government could only find 0.55% of its workforce to lay off?
According to the article you linked to, a rate of layoff/firing below 1% shows a failure of management. This indicates that the OP's (the grandparent to your original post) point is false. If private sector companies dream of the numbers that the government gets, it's a nightmare.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
the government spend god knows how much money on large time share computers, to replace them with individual workstations and now to move those workstations to the "cloud" which of course is marketing bullshit for time share computers.
how fucking dumb can these asswipes get, seriously
Oh sorry, but while a private company can say "No, let's not do that" when they feel like it, for whatever reason, the government has substantially more stringent obligations it has to meet. If your local McDonald's decides not to be open 24 hours a day, that's one thing, if the local emergency room tries that then there will be problems.
This may increase the leanness of operations, but it may also have a price. Just ask the California Fire fighters who had to lose a man off each of their crews. Yet they still had the same job to do, one with duties that would not be controlled by their own needs or operations.
Better hope your house wasn't lost because somebody wanted to save money. The government can't just decide not to do something and it not be costly.
Of course, it doesn't mean they don't expand their duties, they actually do. I've seen duty requirements go up all over. Instead of 10 inspections a day, it's 12, or 15. Instead of covering X miles, it's X+Y miles. This may not be an improvement either. But despite your ignorance, it does happen.
It just doesn't always pay off.
Really, why do you think underemployment is a universal good for the government? Do you like roads not getting paved on time? Do you enjoy bridges not getting inspected? Perhaps you like your trash not getting collected? People complain all the time about the Post Office not making money. I'd rather complain about them having to close local post offices instead. I don't want the USPS to be a lean-mean money-making machine. I want it to be a full-service provider.
Priorities, yours may be the wrong ones. Anorexia is not healthy. Stop trying to starve us all to death in your unhealthy fixation on being lean and chasing your sacred cow of efficiency. It's not as great as you make it out to be. At a certain point that makes things worse. But you don't even seem to care one bit about that, do you? The next time somebody in the anti-waste crowd admits that they can go too far will be the first I've ever seen it. Your focus is way too myopic.
Really, surprise me, admit that cutting can go too far.
Who hired them?
The politicians who were lobbied to hire them did, that's who.
Yet another part of the public/private relationship that bears scrutiny.
But don't blindly blame the government for it, it's not quite that simple.
I tend to agree. If your cloud project requires a large upfront investment, you're doing cloud wrong. Even NIST has said that it ain't cloud unless it's pay-as-you-go...
No shit. I would love to meet the idiots that actually thought it would even be cut a tiny bit, let alone suffer.
So you want them to fix the USA by doing a lot more things with less money and less people?
The USA really screwed itself when it cut education back in the early 1980s.
BTW, I work in private enterprise but still find your argument to be nonsensical and a poor reflection on yourself instead of a reflection on the topic. We are increasing headcount here because we have to do a lot more than last year and do not believe in magic. That means higher expenditure for wages.
Are you really trying to use the example of a government sailor being faster than civilian private enterprise workers to try to make government look bad? Even if it's a government owned shipyard (is there such a thing?) you are just comparing one part of government to another, so it looks like you are just trying to see if we are paying attention or easy marks in some silly game to fool the stupid.
I've seen far worse in a coal mine that had over 100 fairly expensive contract maintainance workers playing cards in a shed all shift five nights a week for months until their inside man called in sick and another manager woke up to what was going on. It's called crime, and that's what you stumbled on the that "standard policy" mentioned above. It thrives if nobody sees it as their job to prevent it and private enterprise is not immune.
Inefficient is the wrong word to describe it. You want to use corrupt.
They're quite efficient with their corruption.
But you want to do some good about that problem you do have to know how to approach it. One way would be to explicitly repeal Citizens United.