subcommittee i am pleased to be here today to discuss our recent work on acquisition workforce issues at the department of defense the governments largest buying entity the federal governments current budget and long term fiscal pressures underscore the importance of a highly capable workforce our work has found that a lack of an adequate number of trained acquisition and contract oversight personnel has placed dod at times at risk of potentially paying more than necessary my remarks will focus on two topics based on our recent work first i will discuss dods progress in rebuilding the capacity of its acquisition workforce second i will offer specific insights into the defense contract management agencys efforts to rebuild its workforce as an illustration of the overall challenges  dod plans to reach its goal in two key ways hiring personnel using the defense acquisition workforce development fund and in sourcing functions that were being performed by contractor personnel using these two methods dod reports that hired about five thousand nine hundred individuals in fiscal year two thousand and ten however the departments plans for continued acquisition workforce growth are uncertain dod announced that it has halted the in sourcing initiative except on a case by case basis and announced a hiring freeze for the civilian workforce due to anticipated budget constraints dod has indicated that initiatives using defense acquisition workforce development fund including hiring for the acquisition workforce will continue but just as important as increasing the size of the workforce is building the workforce skills and expertise we found that dod has continued to make progress in completing the competency assessments which identify the skills and capabilities of the workforce and help identify areas needing further attention dod reports that it has used these competency assessments in part to help revise the training curriculum for its contracting career field while these actions are focused on what is considered the traditional acquisition  workforce we have also reported that dod needs to identify the other personnel outside this traditional workforce who have a role in acquisition such as those who help set the requirements or serve as a contracting officers representative to manage and oversee contractor performance these are functions that are key to sound acquisition outcomes dod notes that identifying this population is challenging in part because it is spread across many organizations also the acquisition duties these people perform often done as a secondary duty nonetheless dod agreed with several of our recommendations to help it get a better handle on who these people are and the skills they need to perform their roles in the acquisition process i will now briefly touch on  making increasing use of the defense acquisition workforce development fund to do so for example in fiscal year two thousand and eleven dcma hired a little over one thousand two hundred new employees under this authority dcma has also tak risks over the past two years dcma has hired almost two hundred and eighty new contract cost price analysts and cost monitors one challenge facing dcma is its large percentage of retirement eligible employees making the agency vulnerable to the loss of valuable technical expertise and organizational knowledge in part dcma plans to mitigate this risk to aggressive recruiting and bringing back retired annuitants to help raise the skill levels of the newer employees in closing dod has made some progress in terms of growing the acquisition workforce and identifying the skills and competency it needs however more needs to be done the fiscal and budget challenges facing this nation and d underscore the need for dod to strategically manage its workforce so that it has the right skills capabilities and training to effectively manage the billions of dollars it spends on goods and services each year whether dod achieves its planned growth and unrelated workforce improvement initiatives remains uncertain but what it certain is that dod can ill afford not to succeed in preparing its workforce to meet its future needs i would be happy to respond  federal contracting community believes in the need for a highly skilled well trained and adequately staffed acquisition workforce savvy businesses understand that the best customer is a well informed educated customer as a business when you have a client that accurately defines its needs communicates openly and clearly and recognizes the fundamental elements of the risks being adopted by your company through the partnership then you have a customer you can work with best to deliver real capabilities and enhancements to meet their mission needs but these important understandings are not always inherent as the critical cog between government and the private sector it is important that the acquisition workforce contain the expertise training continuing education and commitment to collaboration that fosters successful interfaces with the private sector the acquisition workforce suffered as a result of numerous factors dating back to the mid s and appropriately this workforce has garnered much needed attention in recent years as a result there are signs of improvement that considerable threats to the acquisition workforce remain and industry has a number of observations and recommendations first the biggest challenge facing the acquisition workforce is how the government will address pending budget reductions as workforce reductions related to the budget scenario continue to be debated psc recommends that federal departments engage in thorough human capital planning based on evaluated mission needs inclusion of the acquisition workforce should be a critical component of such planning and as a result psc believes agencies will discover that the acquisition workforce should not be slashed this certainly has been the finding of dod and as a result their efforts have exempted cuts to the acquisition workforce also as budget pressures p federal contracting will share in the burden savings may be achieved as government makes difficult decisions about what it is buying but of greater significance will be decisions about how the government buys for example the administration has pushed for greater use of firm fixed price contracts in conveying such guidance the administration also acknowledged that the use of such contracts is only encouraged where suitable to the nature of the acquisition however the latter message has not effectively filtered down to the field resulting in the use of firm fixed price contracts where inappropriate and thus creating inordinate risk to contractors and high cost to government in addition industry has witnessed a dramatic increase in the use of lowest price technically acceptable awards while lpta is an important component of the acquisition tool box its misapplication can lead to reduced quality in mission capabilities for the government where a focus on value may have produced greater benefits and long term cost savings to avoid misapplication of these approaches psc recommends training of the acquisition workforce to foster critical thinking and strategic decision making rather than simply teaching strict adherence to procedures and avoiding any government risk in addition for more complex procurements those involving cyber security for example the workforce must be encouraged to avoid over reliance on the cheapest proposals and instead being encouraged and supported when they apply appropriate costs and technical tradeoffs that is best value considerations communication and collaboration between the acquisition workforce and the private sector also diminished in recent years and in order to foster meaningful partnerships such communication must not be permitted to deteriorate further ofpps initiation of a  readily apparent the message has been adopted by rank and file acquisition personnel hence psc recommends that ofpp take additional steps to build upon the mythbusters campaign additionally psc encourages the examination of individual department efforts to increase the capabilities of their acquisition workforce gains have been made on this front as departments have established successful internship or training programs dhs and va are two examples psc believes that congress can take steps to enhance such initiatives the federal acquisition improvement act for example would build upon these initiatives by clarifying the role of fai and government wide acquisition workforce training and would increase fai responsibilities to include collaboration among existing civilian agency acquisition workforce training initiatives lastly i cannot stress strongly enough the importance of consistent funding for the various acquisition workforce training initiatives comprehensive acquisition skills are not developed overnight and the efforts that have been initiated in recent years are not likely to yield immediate results hence it is important that funding staffing levels and education and training for the acquisition workforce remain a priority as a result we strongly believe that long term savings taxpayers rely on the workforce to make critical business decisions they impact the lives of every american from protecting the homeland to supporting the small businesses that fuel our economy this demands an agile workforce with diverse and sophisticated sets of skills to def requirements make complicated tradeoff decisions among competing alternative and manage complex projects with tight budget and schedule constraints agencies have shifted from buying products requiring a process based procurement approach to ensure the right product is delivered on time to now an acquisition of complex services and technologies the success of which depends on a knowledge based life cycle management approach our professionals must navigate an evolving commercial marketplace driven by rapid advances in technology global supply chains and emerging security concerns keeping the workforces skills is imperative to our success improvements have been realized but we still face three fundamental challenges the first as mentioned by everybody else is the demographics of the acquisition workforce we do have a younger more educated workforce but they still require the necessary technical training to be successful we also need to ensure that the seasoned half of the workforce expected to retire over the next ten years transfers their knowledge to the new and less experienced members the second challenge is to make smart investments that result in shared workforce management tools and use technology to eliminate inefficient duplication across the government the third challenge is to continue to improve collaboration across the acquisition community we can no longer afford for each agency to solve its own human capital challenges we need to collectively develop tools training and share leading practices to improve standardization reduce redundancy and cost and cultivate a mobile workforce fai has been working with key stakeholders and collaborating on these challenges we are partnering with ofpp and the office of personnel management to establish the first ever acquisition track in the presidential management fellows program for fiscal year two thousand and twelve we are reaching a broader base of acquisition professionals and have added new training on critical topics such as price analysis and human  trafficking for the first time fai is training program managers and contracting officers representatives positions critical to responsibly defining the governments requirement and managing the contracts after award we are investing in technology that pays off this month fai trained five thousand six hundred acquisition workforce members in a single session through an online webinar class enrollment for fai sponsored courses increased by thirty percent in fiscal y is using a risk based approach to improve the certification programs now the highest level of certification for the contracting officers representative combines additional training and experience requirements to optimize the taxpayers return on investment in partnership with the department of homeland security fai has launched the federal acquisition institute training application system or faitas it is a robust workforce management tool faitas will eliminate the need for standalone stovepiped systems across government by providing agencies with a way to manage their workforce certifications warrants and training delivery programs soon agencies will be able to use the systems business intelligence tools to analyze the demographics of the workforce supporting more effective human capital planning fai has also worked to re energize its many interagency committees which helps shapes the initiatives program and training so that the government only has to invest in these items only once in conclusion with the support and leadership of gsa and ofpp fai has delivered innovative solutions which demonstrate the value of cross agency collaboration i appreciate the committees attention to this critical issue and ranking member connollys proposed members of the committee my name is katrina mcfarland and i am the president of the defense acquisition university i am really thankful for this opportunity to testify and i also appreciate your support to this very critical area and also to the panel members because they are right on target so my testimony will be brief and focused strictly on what the defense acquisition university has seen and has developed on the best way to ensure our warfighters get what they need and that our taxpayers get their moneys worth and that we combat fraud waste and abuse is a well trained and fully defense acquisition workforce is comprised of individuals from a broad spectrum of technical expertise program and business skills and institutional memory the workforce is approximately one hundred and fifty thousand strong the standing potomac and it spans fifteen career fields program management systems engineering logistics contracting with the draw down in the s as referenced we left our acquisition workforce and organizations in a significant reduction in capacity and capability especially in critical areas like contracting auditing pricing engineering still with us this bathtub effect as has been discussed means that many people are leaving us with that critical expertise and leaving behind less experience in the one thousand nine hundred and ninety one defense acquisition workforce improvement act dawia dod established a statutorily mandated career development program for people who are formally identified in the acquisition workforce this certification program consists of three pieces education experience and training dau provides the training piece of this program which has grown through our forty years of experience serving the acquisition community dod began  rebuild of its defense acquisition workforce in approximately april of two thousand and nine with the help of the defense acquisition workforce development fund dawdf established by congress in the fiscal year two thousand and eight ndaa we increased our workforce capacity and began  addressing our workforce capacity concerns but while workforce size is important and skill mix is important quality is paramount today we offer about one hundred courses both classroom and online entry level training is predominantly provided online as is continuous learning as a result of the funds from dawdf in addition to being able to expand our web based learning dau has been able to hire additional faculty and additional infrastructure for training and classrooms for what is our advanced defense acquisition training our faculty provide in addition to training in classroom consulting targeted training rapid deployment training and all of this to the acquisition organizations throughout the department and at call a combined total of our web and services are a larger part of what our spend is we have recognized the need to provide our workforce services acquisition training we have developed a services acquisition model online we have developed automated services requirements developments tool so that you stress on what is important on what you want before you issue forth a solicitation and deliver services acquisition workshops across the department we have worked this past year with the dod inspector generals office and the defense and services  agencies to identify acquisition training requirements for the auditor community and have signed an agreement to that we have also signed a memorandum with the defense contract management agency charlie williams to establish a new dau college the college of contract management for onsite management of major weapons systems contract and in theater contract operations we are increasing our training for these dod employees that are not included in the statutorily mandated defense acquisition workforce but whose rol critical for their successful acquisition outcomes to be had for example in response to the two thousand and seven ndaa we now train those dod employees responsible for generating requirements for major defense acquisition programs we have also increased training for deployed contracting officers and contracting officer representatives we are not alone in our training role as you see beside us we cooperate in training initiative with the federal acquisition institute the va academy nasa department of homeland security many others we currently working to achieve efficiencies in that area by sharing our curriculum our it infrastructure governance facilities in some cases and a great number of cross agency recognition of workforce credentials so our workforce can be transitory  contracting courses are a great example of this specifically tailored for the civilian use a process that we are expanding because dau is a provider of practitioner training what we teach particularly in classrooms is focused on what our people need to do on their jobs with that and the fact that we have trained and grown over the forty years in our own learning we have expanded and taken a look at how we can improve what we do and how we teach we are engineering right now our next steps to develop a qualified acquisition professional the departments most recent effort toward a fully qualified acquisition workforce is this qualification initiative our goal is to have a workforce which is both certified which is formal classroom and the associated sundry testing that comes with but also to take it into the workplace environment and qualify those folks on the job to effectively perform their duties as acquisition professionals we will ensure that the workforce both understands the job when they leave the classroom and also can effectively perform it successfully security we must increase our buying power and deliver efficiently and affordably and responsible stewards to do the taxpayers resources the justice it deserves we must always ensure that our warfighters have products and services they need to win to do this we need a fully qualified acquisition workforce the honorable frank kendall has said our legacy is to leave behind a stronger workforce a more capable workforce than we inherited i promise you we will do that and i thank you for this opportunity numbers in time for september th when we dramatically increased the number of contracts that are out there so we spent ten years trying to catch up on personnel and training about the time that we now start to slow down our purchasing again how do we hit a balance on this so that we do not overreact in the same way that we suddenly dramatically increase our numbers and our training and all the investment into it overdo that if that is imaginable right now and get out of balance again any quick ideas on that on how we manage that in the days to come because i would hate to see us ten years from now go through a cut and go through the same cycle again chairman the way i would frame that question is to make an intelligent decision one needs to know at each agency what you are buying what your current capability is in terms of an acquisition workforce and what are your needs to assure yourself you are going to get good outcomes for what you need to buy the extent to which you have gaps i think you need to identify those mister lankford who is the best person to track that is that the agency head in each area or who can best determine that  think it starts at the agency i think the procurement officials i think other stakeholders such as human capital people people from the cfo shop i think it takes a team like that to put it at a high enough level in an organization to have a good understanding of what the condition is right now also you need to look at the demographics if you have a lot of senior people in the organization and as it has been discussed here before bringing in a lot of new people they can get the initial training but they need that experience they need that  right that comes up consistently in a lot of the conversations that i have with contractors it is the we understand the process better than the person that is actually working through our contract and it is because they are occasionally getting someone new and as they work through that system it is frustrating for them because they are saying no this is how it is done it is frustrating because they know there is flexibility in contracting vehicles and they get frustrated mister jordan i think you mentioned the fixed price vehicle as being  preferential so all that challenge is something you have to work through with training and age and experience and all those things that you all live and breathe every single day to be able to work through it is getting that down to every single person in the organization tell me campaign there was a significant deterioration in the communication between industry and government dating back several years and the mythbusting campaign has really started to turn that around i still think it needs to be an additional focus like i said the direction from leadership has been right but how that message has permeated down through the field has been it has been a little slower i think that mister gordon has recognized that and recognized that that needs to be an additional area of focus so i would start with that and i think that with the drive toward more firm fixed price contracts again it is not necessarily the guidance from leadership has been direction but i cant tell you how many times i have heard that i am glad to do it but i am going to always charge more for this because i am assuming all the risk mister jordan that is true so it comes back to the guidance from leadership about using it where it is appropriate and that guidance has been right but again  there is not going to be a perfect way to be able to determine that what is your suggestion on how to process through that ms mcfarland well i am going to start if i could back on the original premise which is how do we get there how do we get in the midst of this economic decline attention to the detail that you brought to the attention of the workforce competency and i think one of the things the department of defense has done under the guidance of doctor carter and mister kendall has with the recognition of the outfall of a lot of the better buying power initiatives was this sudden recognition that the workforce wasnt up to the par to be able to perform the duties that this policy which was accurately written was intended to outcome wise so one of the things they did was with the university to step up that and another thing is the services themselves are taking a very very conscious and disciplined approach to take a look at their workforce and where their needs are what can you do to improve it well fixed price for example you need to explain to people where they get the resources to help them understand which is related to why you would go into a fixed price arena cost and price certainty you have to have a good understanding of the configuration of the item before you try to engage in a fixed price situation and unfortunately people just as mister jordan said engaged in the act of that both had been won by the lowest federal bidder so contracting was even on his mind way back then i want to thank our panel for being here let me just ask this first question if i may ms mcfarland i am listening to your statistics which are very impressive one hundred courses eleven million learning hours how many people trained this last year ms mcfarland this year fifty seven thousand seats went through  personally i think it is an excellent opportunity for improvement working with donna and particularly i am sorely disappointed dan is going because he has been a bright light and the support that you all have been providing for this area has certainly moved us forward and it needs to continue to move  you gave a wonderful example of an online training program with five thousand six hundred people in one session very impressive how many were totally trained this year would you venture to guess  seven thousand actual seat classes and then the civilian workforce has continued to benefit from the fai dau partnership completing eighty seven thousand online course modules at defense mister connolly is it your impression do organic teaching we dont teach the classes ourselves we hire our vendor support so in collaboration with a number of the other federal agencies we assist them by setting the standards that they must all meet which is a little bit different together we can meet our need mister connolly would it be fair to say that for example an online class like the one you cited and i have taken those myself when i was in the private sector a lot of that either entry level or continuing learning kinds of classes but sometimes there is no substitute for in the classroom technical training to make sure i am mastering what i need to master would that be a fair observation from your point of view  jenkins yes i would agree with that and i see the role of fai there as being a collaborative because there is still even a baseline portion of the training program that would be consistent across all the federal agencies so i am very excited to actually say that the chief acquisition officers counsel just approved us to do what we call a training collaboration board or to establish a training collaboration board what that would do would be allow us to discuss any developmental items any courses we are going to develop and we would be able to say come up with an eighty percent solution once and then leave the room for agencies to add if there are specific mission requirements in the remaining portion  jordan absolutely we hear a lot of the same it comes back to my opening comments about the need or the desire for a well educated customer is really our best customer we do find that we are having to do a lot of explaining  a lot of educating ourselves on some acquisition related issues it would certainly be beneficial to both sides if that training or understanding is brought to the table in advance so that we can get to the process of contracting versus concept that everyone has to have open for conversation but as we deal with the best value how do we move from best value as cheapest this year versus cheapest in ten years or maybe most efficient in ten years or has a greater life expectancy because things are different energy usages some may be more efficient in their energy usages it may be made of better equipment and so it is going to last longer those are pure judgment calls how is the criteria set and for the evaluation of that contracting officer to say this was actually i guess what i am asking is is there a second guesser in this to go back and teach them and say you made this decision this one was cheaper than this one but by the way as i go back and look at everything i think this would have been a better deal because of this do they give that is there someone thats stepping over their shoulder and helping train them in that is there some way to be able to evaluate that i think you understand where i am ms mcfarland yes i do sir one of the things the department has to build into its acquisition process like dod five thousand is milestones and decision point to facilitate life cycle costs which is what you are talking about best value and we have not the contracting officer inclined to make that determination it is a team because the engineer needs to understand what the trades are the logistician the pricer the coster so when theres a source selection to be made that is when you are deciding upon what you are going to buy those people come together in consensus then the department has to take a look at it from the administrations view so when they come forward to make a decision it is not just the local decision it is the organizations and department decision mister lankford so do you feel like we are on top of this at this point or do you feel like it is improving or where do you think we are in this process ms mcfarland it will and has improved is it civilian agencies is that we dont have a baseline process like the dod five thousand that as a civilian federal government we all follow so fai is working very hard to establish some baseline processes that are just good business they are encouraged based on speed and number that they got done if they are encouraged based on the final price obviously that makes a huge difference or if there is some way to affirm them and you made a good judgment here this was a tough one to be able to get it done i hear lots of stories on that that person is risk to do whatever is safest they are going to work with a contractor they know it is very difficult to be able to break in as a new person or a new company getting in the mix people that are not the prime they are trying to work to get to the prime they have a sub out there at some point and have had it for five six years everyone knows they are doing a good job but cant ever break in these same stories seem to be replicated one person after another that i talk with in the process so some of that is again i cant imagine the first person bringing this up but it is how do we get down into that level to train them to help new companies jump into the process and move into that because it obviously saves us money to not have the middle man just in the transition but it adds more work to that contracting officer because now he is not grouping a whole bunch of things together and getting that off his desk months ago that just looked at the acquisition planning process i think you are kind of talking about some of the things that we observed is that the planning doesnt start soon enough because when you start sooner you can be more thoughtful about the process what is it we are going to buy what is the best approach to buy it you also allow more time for competition you also allow more time if you have someone with a critical eye taking a look at that statement of work that you think you are going to have and looking at and seeing is this going to open it up us for competition we have done work looking at competition at dod you have competition advocates that are starting to get more involved and trying to promote more in competition i think just as an example doing it early better understand your  is the chairmans privilege on this one i need to ask on where we are on trafficking in persons we had a hearing that was extensive talking about the issue and especially dealing with state department contracts in the middle east and on our bases in afghanistan and iraq and third country nationals no one disputed us on either panel that day to say this is not occurring there was a common nodding of our heads as we are fighting through this no one came back to us and said we need one more rule the rules are in place the processes seem to be in place it is just not stopping how do we stop indentured servitude on our bases and in our embassies workforce of the signs of human trafficking as well as the far clause which is associated with that we also worked with the department of state in developing the requirements as a subject matter expertise so that is available  issue is follow through i mean as you stated all of this is in place there is only a certain part that you can get to with the teaching and the training the second piece is follow through mister lankford right but if some contractor that is doing this feels no threat of being suspended or debarred if the prime up the food chain from them feels no heat on it they are not going to stop they are making a ton of money and using people as slaves in the process and they end up on our bases or in our embassies and the people that are working around them service members dont know that at some point we have to be able to put some heat down and say this has got to stop but that is the accountability on the other side and what i am asking is how do we get that how do we get that accountability that somebodys head starts rolling in this process to say for the first time we know this is happening we know it is happening consistently we have a low threshold of proof we have the suspension and the debarment on the facts that we are finding on the ground you are suspended as we work through this process until we can get this resolved and so suddenly the word begins to spread cut it out how do we get there mister jordan mister chairman i think that first identifying it is of critical importance and it is really an oversight function obviously we support subcontractors third country nationals for example fully understand the threat of suspension and debarment or for that matter care but i certainly think that there needs to be a greater focus on it but i also think that in doing so you need to understand the dynamics of a contracts in afghanistan and iraq tens of thousands thousands of contractors and the practice is widespread we heard testimony tens of thousands maybe many more of human beings who are being trafficked as sort of payoff the contracts or  just necessary costs of doing business irrespective of the terrible harm to these human beings not one that i know of debarment or suspension three referred for sort of a warning has to be stopped and we have to go beyond training as you said it is about enforcement how serious are we about this and we arent serious enough but at any rate i certainly echo the chairmans sentiments on that and we are going to stay on top of that contracting personnel sort of shrink in ratio to the growth in contracting in the previous decade we have done some catchup especially made some progress in the pentagon but now we are seeing contracts sort of stagnant and maybe they will fall given the budgetary pressures we are all under and we dont want to sort of be in this kind of cycle i guess i want to focus less on the numerical balance and more on the aspects of why this makes sense as an investment because when we have smart contracting officers acquisition officers in the federal government we can save money we can make sure things are being run efficiently we can avoid cost overruns and  absolutely right and when you are playing catchup which i think is what we are doing you are going to get a large influx of newer people and they can get that initial training and they can get the certification but just like in gao we are building our workforce we have a lot of junior people and we are spending a lot of time on the day to day on the job training trying to bring them and their expertise up to the level where we want them to be to be actually journeymen and go out on their own it is certainly a big  challenge i think you have to have the mentors if you are losing too many of your senior people then who is going to train those folks plus the fact that you have a workforce and it might depend on  they got a lot to do and when you have a lot to do you wonder sometimes are we just being too quick and not doing the job as thoroughly as we should so i think it is a tradeoff of like the workload it is a tradeoff of the demographics of the people we have do we have the senior people to mentor and just the overall number of people when you are bringing in a lot of new people i think this is a little bit of a transition for everyone right now mister connolly presumably it is also about technical knowledge  are now getting it is one thing to say i need you to manage a contract whereby we produce and we order three hundred thousand pencils every year that is one kind of contract but we are moving out of that kind of contract we are now talking about sort of broad systems integration contracts that require fairly intimate knowledge of how technology works so that when somebody in the department says here is what i need i have the skill set to translate that into the technical language and the r the boundaries of technology or what that really means in terms of cost linking up the field offices and data big data bases and data entry and the coordination and being able to recognize i mean those are all different kinds of capabilities we wouldnt have even talked about thirty years ago but they are commonplace today so i assume it is also about technical expertise and that ha to be that is a concern of mine mister chairman because the higher level of technical expertise now you are competing with the private sector trying to get those people and the private sector generally pays a lot more than we do in the public sector and that is of concern to me moving forward will we be able to have that skill base not just how you manage the contract but do you have the technical knowledge to make sure that current capacity is things change all the time like you said ten years ago we werent buying half the things we are now but we are buying very technically complex things so you have to constantly be revisiting your acquisition workforce  plan and have a good understanding of who have again and what the current capacity is we have done some work looking at acquisition planning as i mentioned earlier just some anecdotes people were starting the process they had the requirements yes it was very technical they started bringing in those anybody within the organization that had insights on some of these technical issues some of the agencies are bringing in like business specialists or industrial type people to help support the front end of the process  those are certain ways you can do it but of course for certain types of things you might have to get the expertise outside but the important thing is you do that up front you do it early enough so you really nail down what the heck it is we are buying mister connolly can i just ask one but they also do their own training your point of view about how well we are looking at best practices we are creating some base uniform standard for all contracting officers and how this coordination works or does this afternoon that there are several agencies that have their own institutes and academies i cant tell you today how many there are out there and who they are serving and what type of training maybe the folks on the panel can but we havent done work in that area but we have been asked to look at that particular issue as well as the physical location of the training facilities and the cost to develop and deliver that training i think that review is going to be touching on some issues we havent looked at more recently and i think that is going to help inform a lot of the discussion here sir i dont know the exact number but i can let you know that it is pat of the legislation that requires each senior procurement exec to establish a line item in their budget to train their acquisition workforce so my guess is that every agency is complying with the regulation and therefore is providing some form of training whether it is sending them to individual vendor locations or they are establishing central locations like the v that could occur that could be coordinated to be able to combine some of these or suggest combination for smaller agencies and say three or four of you lets come together and find a way to do this more efficiently obviously we will talk about it all day and we will talk about for a long time about budget mentioned it before and it is a robust workforce management tool but what it actually also allows is every agency to load its course offerings into the system and any other agency can see when that agency doesnt fill a seat that are open seats so no seat would go left unfilled at the expense of the taxpayers resources additionally as we move toward the training consortium board we will move into trying to collaborate on  between the two major groups here obviously there are a lot of resources between the two of you i am hearing website development and there are certification issues and trying to share some of that other projects that are ongoing that we need to be made aware of as far  mcfarland one of the main efforts that we are trying to do together is have the same learning management system if we take our systems close together as we upgrade our courses and our curriculum they can take advantage of it and the same thing the other way around so really the just want to thank you this is a very important hearing this topic while maybe not universally sexy the taxpayers interest is lost or won frankly at this level of management and it is so critical and it may seem arcane but it is very important i just thank you and congratulate you for having this hearing because this is one are i am confident we can proceed in a very bipartisan basis thank you mister lankford i thank you and thank you for your time as well getting into this and going through all the research and information and the work you are doing on it i look forward to continuing to hear the progress as we will meet again in the days to come and be able to get an update on where we are with that we