Letter to the editor

Regarding the July 26 article, "IT workforce hurting e-gov" by Diane Frank, the quality of the rank and file is not an issue so much as the quality of management.

Management continues to hire contractors with no training. Contractors are given high-level system accounts and proceed to do what they please.

Their interaction with anyone besides a contract officer technical representative is not required in their contract. No documentation is required from them regarding their actions on systems. No scrutiny is ever given to their actions because management doesn't really have the technical knowledge to know what would be technically correct.

Management in my office has stated that we do not want to do best practices. What? Now, as a technical employee, just what am I supposed to do?

Name withheld by request