More on DHS' Balanced Workforce

The Homeland Security Department announced last week that it has brought 44 positions back in-house via its Balanced Workforce Strategy, resulting in an estimated $2.3 million in savings as of January 2012.

But on closer look, I noticed those numbers do not match up with numbers reported by the department in early 2011. At that time, DHS spokesman Larry Orluskie said the department had identified some 3,500 jobs performed by contractors that could be eliminated or converted to civil service positions. As of January 2011, DHS had eliminated about 77 percent, or 2,700 of those jobs, and hired about 1,800 federal employees in their place. DHS reported a reduction of 11 percent, or $420 million, in contract spending as a result of the 77 percent reduction.

Many of the jobs eliminated, insourced or created as part of the department's balanced workforce strategy were information technology-related.

But Orluskie said Monday that the earlier plan was a standalone program that started in early 2009 and continued on a separate track while the chief human capital office launched the Balanced Workforce Strategy in mid-2010. The numbers cited by Debra Tomcheck, executive director at the Balanced Workforce Program Management Office at DHS, in congressional testimony on Thursday were solely from the BWS strategy, he said.

That means cumulatively, the department has insourced or removed around 3,541 jobs, Orluskie said Monday. Tomcheck testified Thursday that 241 more positions had been identified for insourcing in the remainder of fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2013.