The Potential Threat of A-76 A BUSH ADMINISTRATION INITIATIVE COULD HAVE GRAVE CONSEQUENCES FOR PUBLIC ARCHAEOLOGY.
t’s been a long, hard year for the Southeast and Midwest Archeological Centers. That’s not because of their workload, which consists of the archaeological oversight of 122 national parks and 780 national landmarks. What made this year difficult for SEAC and MWAC, two of the nation’s three National Park Service (NPS) agencies devoted exclusively to archaeology, was getting “A-76ed.” This is not the same as being 86ed— although SEAC and MWAC wondered if the Bush administration’s plan to subject civil servants to competition against the private sector might not amount to that. Circular A-76, first
drafted during the Eisenhower Administration and revised by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) over the years, is the government’s vehicle for conducting public-private cost comparisons. President Bush says A-76 “competitive sourcing” promotes government efficiency and gets the most bang for the taxpayer’s buck even if the jobs ultimately stay in the public sector. Under A-76 regulations, the 100 employees of SEAC, located in Tallahassee, Florida, and MWAC in Lincoln, Nebraska, had to prove they could do their jobs better and cheaper than archaeologists in the private sector. If the costs of their operations came in higher than private sector comparisons, they stood
NPS
CLIFF BARBOUR
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By Elizabeth Wolf
On the bank of the Yellowstone River, an archaeological crew carries out salvage excavations at the Fishing Hole site in Yellowstone National Park. The site, which dates to approximately 7500 B.C., contains seven components.
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