DoD fights Congress on ex-military employees

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DoD fights Congress on ex-military employees
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Oct 25, 2007 9:50:51 EDT

The Defense Department is trying to get Congress to back away from proposed regulations requiring detailed reports from defense contractors that list current employees who worked in a senior military leadership or procurement job during the previous two years.

The reports appear to have no purpose because hiring former military personnel is in no way illegal, defense officials said in an appeal aimed at House and Senate negotiators who are writing a final compromise version of the 2008 defense authorization bill.

Informal negotiations between the House and Senate are underway, with hope of reconciling the hundreds of differences between the two versions of the bill by Thanksgiving.

The disputed language, approved by the Senate in its version, asks that any contract of more than $10 million for goods and services include a stipulation that the contractor will provide an annual report of all of the former senior military or procurement personnel who left the Defense Department in the previous two years and are now on the contractor’s payroll.

The Senate provision requires that the report include the employees’ former military agency and the name of each defense system on which they worked. The report also would have to list the former defense workers’ current jobs, including details of exactly what they are doing and the defense systems on which they are working.

Any former flag or general officer would be covered by the reporting requirement, as well as any political appointee, member of the Senior Executive Service or any program manager, deputy program manager, procuring contracting officer, administrative contracting officer, source selection authority, member of the source selection evaluation board, or the chief of a financial or technical evaluation team under any contract with a value of $10 million or more.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/10/military_dod_contractors_071025w/