NSA Leaker's Six-Figure Pay Should Spark Debate: Why Are Federal Workers Being Replaced With Pricier
Contractors?
John Goglia, Contributor
It was not Edward Snowden’s intent to spark a debate on the high price of replacing federal employees with government contractors. But it should. Why is a 29-year-old high school drop-out making more as a low-level contractor than any senior manager in the federal government short of the President himself, and a very few other special category employees?
At a reported annual salary of $200,000, Mr. Snowden was making more than the highest-paid federal senior executive, more than District Court Judges ($174,000) or U.S. Court of Appeals Judges ($184,500), more than Congressmen and Senators and more even than the House and Senate Majority Leaders ($193,400). Even Supreme Court Justices and Vice-President Biden barely make more than Mr. Snowden earned as an IT contractor.
Revolving Door
Everyone who has worked in the federal government over the last few decades has seen a steady shrinkage in the number of federal employees, with many of them replaced by government contractors at a higher rate of pay than the employees they replaced. In the agencies I’m most familiar with, the NTSB and FAA, it was not unusual for government workers to retire from federal service on a Friday and show up at work on Monday – as contract employees, often sitting in their same chairs, at their same desks, doing their same jobs – except at a higher pay.
Federal salaries have been frozen since January 2011. President Obama recently extended that salary freeze to December 31, 2013. Furloughs necessitated by the sequester have affected front-line safety workers, including aviation safety inspectors. And it took public outrage at air travel delays to get Congress and the President to put furloughed air traffic controllers back to work.
If we can’t agree on whether Mr. Snowden is a hero or a traitor, maybe we can all agree that he was overpaid. This could be the time to revisit whether outsourcing federal jobs is truly saving the taxpayers money.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2013/06/10/leakers-six-figure-salary-should-also-force-public-debate-why-are-lower-cost-federal-employees-being-replaced-with-so-many-higher-priced-contractors/
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