Army Corps looks at outsourcing IT

Draft Performance Work Statement for Department of Defense Public-Private Competition of Information Management/Technology Products and Services performed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

The Army Corps of Engineers issued today a draft Performance Work Statement in anticipation of a competitive sourcing study scheduled for next May of the service's entire information management function in the United States.

Work performed by the service's domestic branch of the Information Management and Information Technology (IMIT) function is not inherently a government activity, according to the draft work statement.

Competitive sourcing, a controversial part of the President's Management Agenda, encourages agency officials to cut costs by forcing federal employees whose work is not deemed to be inherently governmental to compete against private-sector bids for the same work.

IMIT work includes "classified and unclassified services in the areas of IMIT Management, Automation, Communications, Information Assurance, Records Management, Printing and Publications, and Visual Information," according to the draft statement.

A free industry forum for companies interesting in bidding on the contract will be held Dec. 8 in Baltimore. The actual Request for Proposals for bids on the IMIT function will be issued in late May, according to a Corps statement.