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."

Comments

Here's a better question to answer:

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

What didn't survive the 'budget deal'?

Re:Here's a better question to answer:

[mr1911]

What didn't survive the 'budget deal'?

Any meaningful deficit reduction.

Re:Here's a better question to answer:

[flaming error]

Exclusive power was designed out at the time of the constitution - it's a checks and balances thing.

The Constitution is openly ignored now, of course, but if any branch has any exclusive power, it's definitely not the legislature and definitely not over the budget.

Re:Here's a better question to answer:

[Maltheus]

The US dollar.

I;ll clue you in:

[geekoid]

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

Re:I;ll clue you in:

[NevarMore]

I would like to look at the actual numbers. How can I find them?

Re:I;ll clue you in:

[XanC]

Corporations are in business because they offer a good deal for their customers. "Waste" isn't something that the customers have to worry about, but they will select the least wasteful company, since a wasteful company will soon have a less wasteful competitor.

Government, well, we have no choice. We're all their "customers" whether we want to be or not. Since there's no voting with the wallet possible, there has to be stringent oversight.

You may point out wasteful corporations that continue to survive with no competition. Pretty much always that means the government is involved with that corporation, somehow guaranteeing its existence.

Re:I;ll clue you in:

[cowboy76Spain]

As I am from another country, YMMV, but what I see here is while there is pressure in the middle and lower level to cut costs, at higher level the game is a little different.

Let's say you have to build another hospital in the public network and (given that the specs are still open), the IT department asks for a place where they can put their CPD (thus being able to provide services currently outsourced at no low price). So they specify that they need so many square meters, must be able to bear a given weight of the servers, and so on.

When the hospital is built, the IT department checks and in effect the room is there, but it has not been built to bear the load. There is a meeting with the higher-ups of public government and the architect, and the only solution offered is to strengthen an area that happens to be above some columns so that a small area is able to meet the specs.

What do you think that would happen:

1. The political leadership would assume there has been a mistake (by the builder) and fault of oversight (by themselves). Even at the risk that the press could know about the mistake and make it public, and ignoring that they are hard pressed so that the hospital can be inaugurated before the upcoming elections, they stand by the IT department and force the builder to act responsibly and provide a valid solution, or
2. They tell the IT staff to "shut up" and keep spending (wasting) thousands of € monthly for the hosting of their servers.

Of course, this example is just a product of my imagination and has nothing to do with the recently build hospital in the region where I live.

Re:I;ll clue you in:

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

I'll share evidence explained directly to me by the person who was involved.

A friend of mine in the Navy was sent to shore duty to work with shipyard employees. This is a fairly common duty for people in the program I worked in.

The small division he was working for was all civilians and tasked with rebuilding and repairing complex mechanical equipment on ships and subs. His group was tasked with the replacement of a large valve on a critical ship's system. He took the usual squid work mentality and worked long hours to complete the job in less than 3 days, sleeping on the ship one of the days to get the work done. When he reported to his supervisor that the work was complete, the supervisor was livid.

The supervisor explained to my friend that this valve replacement was expected to take 5 people 3 weeks to complete, with the final week being 12 hour days with overtime pay. This supervisor was so angry that he told my friend never to work on another project for this division again. So my friend stopped going into work altogether. Since he was not assigned to a military base, nobody kept track of what he did or where he was. For the next two years he spent all of his time SCUBA diving and hang-gliding while making a nice salary and receiving full benefits.

I have yet to see in a corporate world not only with this amount of waste (500 man-hours billed to do 45 man-hours labor) as standard policy, but also someone making a nice salary that nobody tracks any of their productivity or even knows where the employee is.

Re:I;ll clue you in:

[dbIII]

I've seen exactly the same thing in private enterprise many times - especially during plant maintaince shutdowns or at mine sites. It's called corruption if they have an inside man or just plain ripping off the customer if they don't.
Not all of the gangsters in the USA went into government.

No offense, but citations please?

[Shivetya]

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.

Re:Bullshit

[k6mfw]

>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.

The Job Loss Dichotomy

[damn_registrars]

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"?

Re:Backwards example?

[dbIII]

YOU are the one saying government workers are bad by comparing government workers to different government workers.

You are insulting our intelligence if you are trying to use that as an example as to why private enterprise is better.

If you can't bust those people then their management is dead wood that should be removed and whether they are government or otherwise simply means the methods have to be different. It doesn't matter how badly fucked up the system is - there are people that theoretically have jobs where they can change it. It's nothing at all about government or not but about what the goal of those in charge are, which in the case of the shipyard is probably look the other way and just wait lazily for another payday.