The predictions made about LANL in articles recently published in The Economist and The Register are now being proven true. The $200M figure quoted by Anastasio is, of course, approximately $100M shy of the true budget shortfall that is looming for LANL in FY 07. ___________________________________
To/MS: LANL-EMP From/MS: Michael R. Anastasio, DIR Phone/Fax: 7-5101/7-2997 Symbol: DIR-06-056L Date: July 21, 2006
Subject: FY07 Indirect Budget Call
Each year, the Laboratory goes through a budget development exercise with CFO guidance setting forth indirect budget targets and establishing a review process. Today I issued this year's guidance to LANL senior managers which will culminate in an FY07 budget.
This is the next step on our institutional commitment to finding efficiencies in how we manage this Laboratory. It is clear that this will raise short-term challenges in order to ensure the long- term health and viability of a great national security science laboratory.
As I have discussed at several all hands meetings, FY07 presents a challenging financial picture. An expected flat funding profile combined with increases in costs for items such as compensation, employee benefits, gross receipts taxes, and management fee means the incremental costs facing the Laboratory in FY07 total roughly $200M. To address the increased incremental costs for FY07, indirect budget targets will be reduced by 10%.
The budget call identifies certain expectations. One is that we intend to manage the current level of LANS staffing through constrained hiring and by monitoring attrition. The second major expectation is that we minimize the impact to our customers by keeping our current overhead rates stable.
While line management is ultimately responsible for examining their operations and identifying funding efficiencies to meet FY07 targets, everyone owns the success of this Laboratory. All of us need to examine how we do work and apply LANL's trademark creativity to finding smarter ways to further science and accomplish our mission in a safe and secure manner.
Los Alamos bets on 'creativity' to handle $200m of extra costs
Efficiencies and imagination tested By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View Published Monday 24th July 2006 19:56 GMT Get The Register's new weekly newsletter for senior IT managers delivered to your in-box, click here.
Los Alamos National Laboratory has been hit with a vague and challenging directive to avoid layoffs despite a 10 per cent hit to the lab's budget.
The Register has obtained a memo sent out last week by lab director Michael Anastasio that provides the best details to date on the budget impact the lab faces following its recent change in management. In the memo, Anastasio reveals $200m of "incremental costs" that Los Alamos will likely have to deal with without an increase to its close to $2bn budget. While many workers fear that the budget shortfall will result in layoffs, Anastasio maintains that "efficiencies" and "creativity" should keep employment levels constant.
Subject: FY07 Indirect Budget Call
Each year, the Laboratory goes through a budget development exercise with CFO guidance setting forth indirect budget targets and establishing a review process. Today I issued this year's guidance to LANL senior managers which will culminate in an FY07 budget.
This is the next step on our institutional commitment to finding efficiencies in how we manage this Laboratory. It is clear that this will raise short-term challenges in order to ensure the long- term health and viability of a great national security science laboratory.
As I have discussed at several all hands meetings, FY07 presents a challenging financial picture. An expected flat funding profile combined with increases in costs for items such as compensation, employee benefits, gross receipts taxes, and management fee means the incremental costs facing the Laboratory in FY07 total roughly $200M. To address the increased incremental costs for FY07, indirect budget targets will be reduced by 10%.
The budget call identifies certain expectations. One is that we intend to manage the current level of LANS staffing through constrained hiring and by monitoring attrition. The second major expectation is that we minimize the impact to our customers by keeping our current overhead rates stable.
While line management is ultimately responsible for examining their operations and identifying funding efficiencies to meet FY07 targets, everyone owns the success of this Laboratory. All of us need to examine how we do work and apply LANL's trademark creativity to finding smarter ways to further science and accomplish our mission in a safe and secure manner.
The private Los Alamos National Security (LANS) consortium has been trickling out cost estimates since it took over sole management of Los Alamos from the University of California on June 1. The consortium - composed of Bechtel, UC and government contractors Washington Group International and BWX - must deal with extra taxes, benefits costs and incremental costs well beyond those that existed under the non-profit UC. In addition, LANS can now earn up to $80m in performance fees where UC could only earn $8m.
The memo from Anastasio confirms that LANS expects all of these charges to add up to $200m or close to 10 per cent of the lab's annual budget.
Efficiencies and creativity may well help the lab meet the budget constraints without firing workers. The vague terms, however, don't seem like the concrete plan of action the government was promised when handing over Los Alamos to LANS.
Numerous scientists left the lab before the management change, complaining that the Los Alamos work environment has made it impossible to do top quality work. LANS officials have countered such charges by saying that thousands of top researchers remain at the lab and by saying that they're working to remove the bureaucratic procedures that have haunted Los Alamos for years. ®
Gain $200 million through improvements in efficiency? From the same family of managers who endorsed pissing away $357 million via an unnecessary shutdown of the entire facility?
I think not; there is still too much of UC embedded in the system. Compounding the situation is Bechtel's hard-assed corporate philosophy of 'kick ass, take names, and fire at will', which will only further degrade any remaining efficiency at LANL.
The local Los Alamos newspaper's version of the story. It continues to surprise me that this news was unexpected by the good citizens of Los Alamos, that they could not see it coming.
I hope Livermore is still paying close attention to the slow train wreck that is occurring at Los Alamos. LLNL can also expect a 10 - 15% effective budget reduction as a result of changing contractors.
Our colleagues at LLNL will then be subjected to an 'efficiency' Chinese fire drill, such as has recently begun at LANL, and then expected RIF will happen at LLNL, too. You may anticipate LANL's RIFS to begin in September.
As expected, the goings-on at LANL have now dropped behind a corporate screen of secrecy. In his public statements, Anastasio would have the world believe that everything is just peachy at LANL, except for the minor little issue of an anticipated $200 million budget shortfall for '07, which will be easily handled by improving efficiency at the lab.
The private rumblings are more dark. Word has it that the predicted shortfall is going to be more in the neighborhood of $400 million, and that people are already being let go. One can only imagine what the situation will be like in a few months.
I took my 33 years and went to work (last year) for a small subcontractor supporting LANL. Because I have maintained strong ties to Washington, that small contractor was told that he had to let me go because LANS wants "chain of Command". No one else can be communicating to Washington about things at LANL. LANS wants to make sure all information presents them in the best light. No exceptions. If you want to double dip, do not let them know you have friends at Washington....
LANS is using its own companies to perform work instead of local businesses....
Friday, August 25, 2006 Last modified Wednesday, August 23, 2006 12:58 PM MDT
Lack of lab contract work hurting businesses
DARRYL NEWMAN, lareporter@lamonitor.com
Many local business owners have cited a significant decline in contractual work since operational changes at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Councilor Jim West brought those concerns and others to the forefront of a county council meeting Tuesday night as LANL Deputy Director John Mitchell briefed the community on several issues.
"Small business contractors in town with the lab reported that there has been a dramatic decline in business," West said and referred to the small business plan and regional purchasing plan addressed in the Los Alamos National Security contract.
A regional purchasing program, a provision of the new contract between the Department of Energy and LANS, provides an increase in spending for small businesses offering products and services to the laboratory.
Under another appendix of the strategy is the LANS small business subcontracting plan, which calls for an estimated $625 million to be set aside for small business concerns in fiscal year 2007 - an increase of $254 million above what is currently offered.
West followed up by asking Mitchell what actions the lab could take to ensure the survival of businesses that primarily depend on LANL contract work.
"I'm curious to know whether the lab feels that their statements listed under the contract are contractually binding," he said. "There are people who are getting laid off. I think that what local businesses are looking for is to hear what the rules of the game are going to be."
Mitchell said some of the phrasing under the contract have been defined as "targets."
"This will be a graduated plan throughout the years to come," Mitchell said. "We are working in completing the planning process as quickly as we can. We'll have a plan for the year and hopefully we can get to (local businesses) as soon as possible."
The millions of dollars for procurement to northern New Mexico small businesses is planned to cover a wide range of services and products, according to appendices of the contract, with targeted areas in consulting services, engineering services, construction services, construction equipment and supplies, lab supplies and information technology equipment.
Councilor Fran Berting warned Mitchell that small businesses are likely to relocate off the Hill if they continue to be neglected by the lab.
"I have been contacted by contractors and they want to know where they stand," Berting said. "Many businesses have 40 percent of their business outside of Los Alamos County. They may move to other communities where their next largest contracts are."
Berting urged lab officials to promptly bring local businesses into the fold and keep them abreast of changes.
Economic development also includes other business aspects, Councilor Mike Wismer said, and asked how LANS plans to measure its success.
"We're developing a set of metrics," Mitchell replied and agreed to share those benchmarks with the county council on a regular basis.
Rep. Jeanette Wallace attended the briefing and stressed community support for Los Alamos National Laboratory and the tasks that it faces.
"LANL is different from other labs because the community here is more involved," Wallace said. "Economic development issues brought up are prime issues for all of us. The lab is facing budget cuts as well and I believe that they are very aware of the issues at hand."
West shared his impressions of the presentation this morning.
"We really didn't get any answers to the questions we asked," West said. "We wanted to know when the local contractors could expect work. This is discouraging. LANS needs to be more diligent in this aspect of their commitment."
Wismer suggested that LANS consider a communications plan that notifies those who may not be familiar with the traffic plan in place under the Security Perimeter project.
"Such a plan would be appropriate for tourists and other people from out of the area," he said.
Councilor Nona Bowman brought concerns of lab recruitment efforts to the table.
"Scientists who have contacted me said that the lab as a world-class scientific center is being lost," Bowman said. "The young and the best scientists are not interested in coming to LANL. Citizens are concerned that the rich scientific heritage at the lab is being compromised with the change in plutonium pit production."
Mitchell said there would be enhancements made to the scientific practices at LANL.
"We're going to change the way we go out and recruit and there is more we could do in reaching out," he said. "We need to get rid of the lingering feelings here that have been in place for the past three to four years.
Councilor Ken Milder requested that the lab keep the county informed of future construction projects that is has in store.
"I can come back at a later date with a set of construction plans," Mitchell said. "We'd like to consolidate things and reduce the footprint of some of our nuclear areas."
Rumors about how LANS is planning to address the budget shortfall are ramping up. Here's the latest one:
We are getting word here that LANL aka LANS has just laid off anywhere from 700 to all of their contract employees and that they are going to shut down a Pu facility for the rest of the year to make up for that $300M short fall. Any truth to this? We also hear that salaries are going to be "re-aligned" meaning a possible 50% reduction in pay for the job they are currently doing and if all goes well and there are no accidents or oops awh shits people will get bonus checks equal to that 50% that they took from them during the realignment.
(1) The announced $200 million short-fall is definitely on the conservative side. Could go much higher. A figure as high as $400 million has been mentioned by some at the top.
(2) CFO's All-Hand's briefing back in early May shows the expected "incremental" cost for the LANS executive team running at $18 million per year. Looks like a few people at the top levels of LANS will be seeing very healthy raises! Of course, salaries are now proprietary, so you'll only get tantalizing hints of what is really going on in the LANS Executive Suite. Still, there aren't that many executives, so any way you slice it, an increase in top management costs by $18 million to cover the bigger numbers of new AD's, PAD's, etc, hints that salaries at the top end may have doubled, or even tripled.
(3) The same May '06 CFO briefing shows TCP2 401k costs expected to run $33 million per year. This will only get bigger as more people on TCP2 begin to adjust contributions upward.
(3) FTE costs are going up, up, up, regardless of any promises management may have given about keeping LANL costs in check. Also, programs are getting hit with a continuous stream of sudden new taxes, which are going to eat into next year's funding. Lots of staff are just now beginning to realize that they don't have enough funding to get through the coming year. Fear is spreading, and it's getting ugly.
(4) If you're a contractor to LANL, your job is on shaky ground. Contractors, as usual, will be the first to walk the plank, probably during FY07.
(5) Outsource, outsource, outsource. While current contractors will be laid off, the lab will also aggressively outsource some divisions at LANL. If your division does any type of work that typically gets outsource in the corporate world, you can expect to lose your LANS employee status sometime during the next two years.
Expect LANS to do just about everything they can to keep from having a RIF in FY07. After all, they don't want to spoil the chance of winning the upcoming LLNL bid. However, once early FY08 rolls around, the LLNL bid will be history and you should expect to see the ax fall mighty hard. Layoffs of at least 5% of the staff are a given, and a 10% reduction can easily be forecast if the budget hole continues to deepen. And don't look for St. Pete to come to the rescue. He's already told us that we are on our own this time. Also, the plutonium pit factory won't be gearing up until 2012, so don't look for any salvation in a Rocky Flats II scenario. The current funding fiasco at LANL is the bleakest I've seen in many decades. A few will prosper from this chaos, but most will suffer.
Subject: UC Regents' committee votes to compete for management of Laboratory Sender: owner-hdiv-other@lists.llnl.gov
The UC Regents' Committee on Oversight of the Department of Energy Laboratories voted Wednesday to recommend to the full board that the University compete for the management and operations of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The full board is expected to endorse the committee's recommendation at today's meeting. The final bid, due Oct. 12, will be submitted by a team led by UC and Bechtel National.
Acting on the recommendation of UC President Robert C. Dynes, the committee voted to authorize the University, acting through Regents Chairman Gerald L. Parsky, to take actions necessary to submit a proposal to the Department of Energy in response to the department's July 14 Request for Proposal (RFP). The Regents previously appointed national security and nuclear weapons expert George Miller as team leader for the competition at their July 19-20 meeting. Should the UC-Bechtel led proposal win the new contract, Miller will be named director of the Laboratory.
"For the past 54 years, the men and women at Livermore Laboratory have ably served our nation, providing scientific and technological excellence that has made this country safer and improved the quality of life," said Dynes. "I firmly believe that our team's proposal will build upon their successes, dedication and hard work. Our proposal will be strong and responsive to DOE and the needs of our nation."
As required by the RFP, UC and Bechtel will form a separate corporate entity to act as prime contractor to manage the Laboratory.
"For more than a half-century, the Livermore Laboratory has performed its public service in the most exemplary fashion through its innovations in energy research and advances in national security," said Parsky. "The University of California has played a vital role in those achievements, and we look forward to contributing our talents and resources to deliver science and technology in the best interests of our country."
As specified in the RFP, current Livermore employees who do not terminate employment or retire will be moved to the new corporate structure and will retain their current benefits and pensions to the extent legally permissible under DOE's new requirements.
The current LLNL management contract expires Sept. 30, 2007. Congressional action in 2003 mandated that DOE conduct a competition for management of any laboratory contract that had been in place for 50 years or more without competition. Five national laboratory contracts, including Lawrence Livermore, were affected by this action. On July 14, 2006, the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) released the final RFP. The deadline for submission of bids is Oct. 12. According to DOE, a source evaluation board comprised of DOE technical and business experts will review the proposals submitted and provide recommendations to the Source Selection Official. More information about the competition is available online at NNSA's LLNL Contract Competition Website. Background information on UC and Bechtel is available on the UC News Release (PDF).
As specified in the RFP, current Livermore employees who do not terminate employment or retire will be moved to the new corporate structure and will retain their current benefits and pensions to the extent legally permissible under DOE's new requirements.
My question would be, does this mean that lump sum and freezing ones retirement option has been eliminated for all LLNL employees? You either quit or retire. If not you will automatically become UC -Bechtel Employees. Have a good day.
It would make sense to to this since that is exactly why LANS is in such great debt, like $300 - $400 M dollars. TO MANY PEOPLE stayed.
Since it's obvious DOE and NNSA made a grave mistake by allowing LANL employees under TCP2 to freeze their retirement and continue working for LANS at full pay, causing a $400 M shortfall; wouldn't you think that they'd be smart enough to take this option away on the upcoming LLNL contract?
The two options that should be available are to retire if you are eligible, meaning that you would have to be fifty years old on the date of the take over, or quit and take your lump sum where you will go with a guarantee that you will not be rehired in either case.
If any employee under fifty years old chooses to stay they will have to roll over all of their UC assets into the new contractors pension plan until such time their is a salary re-alignment as that schedule for LANS very soon if not already in progress.
The final and most crucial option for LLNL in order to save money would be to order the closure of NIF. By taking this for action LLNL could in fact deplete at least 50% of its work force in a matter of weeks. This would not only be a savings to DOE but to the nation as well. As it stands now NIF is 500% over budget, and it still doesn't work. For the uninformed public, that’s a $5B plus waste of the American taxpayers money. If the closure of NIF does not occur and DOE and NNSA make the same mistake twice, it will surely point fingers right back at them as the root cause for the demise of the national laboratories. I am sure this is not what they want. Lets hope they get it right the second go around for all concerned.
CAROL A. CLARK lanews@lamonitor.com Monitor Senior Reporter
More than 20 uninvited business owners showed up at the chamber office after getting wind of a noon meeting being facilitated by the Los Alamos Commerce and Development Corporation on Thursday.
The meeting included 22 laboratory subcontractors and three congressional delegation representatives.
The business owners requested a seat at the table and were initially told there wasn't room. After insisting, they were assured the representatives would meet with them at 1 p.m.
The group stood on the sidewalk in front of the chamber talking among themselves.
"Our frustration is that they are not going to pay any attention to small business owners," said Cheryl Sowder of The Finishing Touch.
LACDC Assistant Director Jim Barrigan let the group into the chamber conference room at 1 p.m.
Barrigan explained that the meeting taking place at the Small Business Development Center had been planned exclusively for lab subcontractors whose positions were in jeopardy.
"They're vulnerable and had to have some anonymity," Barrigan said. He told the group that he saw a KSL memo reflecting that 72 layoffs are going to occur.
"One company in the meeting (with subcontractors) said they had $210,000 de-obligated this morning without explanation," Barrigan said. "There are dozens of layoffs represented in that room."
One of the business owners present added that the spouse of an employee was just laid off from KSL and indicated 200 more people are slated to lose their jobs.
The business owners expressed disappointment and worry about the worsening business climate in Los Alamos.
They spoke of the assurances of candid communication, contractor job security and vigorous community involvement that were the mantra of senior executives at Los Alamos National Security as they smoozed the town during their contract-seeking mode last year.
Since winning the Los Alamos National Laboratory management contract in December, perceptions are that those assurances have evaporated.
The business owners swapped first and second hand accounts of canceled laboratory contracts and employee layoffs, business demise and the silence and perceived apathy by LANS as they waited for the representatives who ultimately arrived about 2 p.m.
LACDC Executive Director Kevin Holsapple briefed the business owners on the contents of the earlier meeting. He said more than 20 subcontractors worked for months looking at items that might affect businesses prior to the contract award.
"Since the contract, they've come under duress and have had continued duress and that's what resulted in the meeting," Holsapple said.
Local business owners and subcontractors painted a disturbing picture for Veronica Rodriguez from Sen. Pete Domenici's office, Helen Maestas from Sen. Jeff Bingaman's office and Matt Williams from Rep. Tom Udall's office.
"I've lived here 31 years and all of us around this table have been in business a long time," businessman Bruce Norman said. "We're all talking about this - it's different this time. When these guys say there's a hiring freeze - there's a hiring freeze and the level and pace of the layoffs is unprecedented in my experience."
Norman recounted how a tenant at one of his apartments came in recently and said he had to move because he had been laid off.
"He was given less then 24 hours notice," Norman said adding that it was the second tenant this has happened to.
His Chapel Apartments on Rose Street have gone from 100 percent occupancy in May to 89 percent and that number will drop to 79 percent in 10 days if things don't change, he said.
Realtor Karen Hawkins, who also owns Cosa Bella floral shop, said people started moving from their homes after LANL's management transition because they thought they were going to move up and because of interest rates.
"They bought new homes and then everything came to a screeching halt," Hawkins said. "It happened so suddenly. Now a lot of people are in deep trouble. Over the last 20 years we've had peaks and valleys but this is different - we've got a panicky community."
Barrigan talked about the eight-step plan with a shared fate philosophy that the subcontractor committee developed and how Bechtel "loved it" early on. He said the plan was presented to the community at a chamber breakfast at UNM-LA in May and was very well received. Then everything changed, he said. "June, July, August, we said we need news even if it's bad news," Barrigan said.
"Kevin has met with senior management several times," Barrigan said. "We aren't where we want to be because we don't have good communication."
When Barrigan was asked what changed he said, "If we had effective communication with them I'd have an answer for you. We are in the same shape as you because we don't know."
Dave Fox of CB Fox said LANS has not immersed itself in this community as they had promised.
Anger simmers over the fact that LANS senior management and the rest of the team didn't lodge in Los Alamos during the transition. Further anger was expressed that nearly all of LANS' top management purchased homes outside of Los Alamos.
"They've done it with arrogance," said North Road Inn owner Cathy Mockler. "Not buying here, not staying here - they are almost doing it with contempt."
Norman agreed adding that the transition team should have stayed here to give the town a boost.
Speculation was discussed among the business owners that LANS officials didn't buy homes here because they anticipate a collapse of the community and know local housing values will drop.
"For a long time, we have been the butt of jokes in Washington, D.C., and they really want to slap us hard," Mockler said. "They lowered our per diem from $71 to $61 - that's a 14 percent cut. After a while they raised it a little but my insurance has doubled and all my expenses have gone up. It's like we've been set up."
Local architect Steve Shaw suggested the community pull together because as subcontractors leave, it will affect the entire community and the services that are provided here.
"Bechtel has a track record of doing this (contract canceling) and that's well and good when you're in a giant town," Shaw said.
The group spoke about how subcontractors and their employees will have to leave town because there are no other jobs in their field in a community like Los Alamos.
"We're the trickle down level," Fox said. "After they've canned the contractors and made life here miserable - we're the trickle down businesses that will have to close because there won't be anyone left to buy from us."
Aspen Copy owner Dawn Cline said she can't do work for the lab because she has no contract and can't have large amounts of inventory sitting on her shelves hoping the lab might call. She added that when they do call they just want a price comparison and then place their order with Office Depot.
Shaw said people are getting a bomb dropped on them. "You go to work one day and the next day they want your badge and your clearance," he said.
"I think there are a lot of inefficiencies over there and I'm willing to suck it up but they need to give us a sense of the light at the end of the tunnel," Norman said. "Are they talking six months, 12 months, 24 months? They know darn well what they are doing, but because they don't share, we are in a free fall - when do we hit bottom - we've got to make plans, too."
Hawkins said she would like to know if 200 houses are going on the market so she can advise her clients that this isn't a good time to sell.
Sowder said that there has got to be a viable community in order to attract people to work at the lab.
"We all are an integral part of the whole," Norman said. "We are aware of this every day but I don't know if the lab is."
Fox told the group that LANL Deputy Director John Mitchell told the county council a few weeks ago that he expected to define for the council the lab's intentions by September.
"He made a clear and fervent announcement that they would be able to clarify what they are doing some time in September," Fox said.
Shaw told the representatives that the business community feels like they are at the end of the food chain.
"This giant silence on the other side of the bridge and the facts we do know of the numbers of people being laid off and contracts canceled - we'd like to ask that you communicate as you know what's happening," Shaw said. "We're pretty scared."
Barrigan agreed to include the concerns of the business owners in a letter for the congressional delegation.
I expect the same thing to happen when LLNL bites the dusk in just one years and eight days away. Just think how many homes will go on the market after Oct 1, 2007 especially in NIF is closed. There will be more foreclosures in one town then was ever imaginable. Local business should suffer the brunt too and I am sure that lay-offs at many facilities will occur. I guess that's the price of progress. It had to happen sooner or later, so lets get it on and get it over with so that we can move on to the next phase.
Well, first LANL's private operator, LANS, has to come up with $200M from the Lab budget to pay for their management fee, and the NM Gross Receipts tax, before they hire people from NM or anywhere else.
Right now, there is an extreme budget squeeze for FY07, instant terminations of contract employees, drying up of work for local business, and absolute silence from LANS.
It's clear their first priority is their management fee so their partners can get their profit from the deal, and their managers can get whatever bonuses and incentives they've been promised behind closed doors.
All of this was as predictable as a hurricane flooding New Orleans when Congress and DOE put the contract out to bid with a ~20-times increase in management fee, new eligibility to pay NM Gross Receipts tax, and no budget increase or concrete plan to mitigate the financial damage.
Lab Directory Mike Anastasio, in his talks before LANS took over, promised they would save all this money by 'integrating' and demolishing buildings.
DOE also said they picked LANS for the contract because of their plan to 'integrate.'
There's been little definition of integration beyond matrix management, and no concrete, measurable actions that define what 'integrate' is, beyond a buzz-word. The buzz word does not say exactly how to extract the $200M from the Lab budget to pay the new managers and the State without damaging the Laboratory.
There's been no discernible diagnosis of Lab inefficiencies that could be fixed to yield the funds. Instead, the budget is being squeezed to produce the cash, and the programs that Congress expected LANL to execute are likely to wither in FY07. Overhead has exploded, and work specified in work packages next year is shrinking.
Yes indeed, Congress', DOE's and NNSA's brilliant plan to whip LANL, and soon, LLNL, into shape is working exactly as predicted.
These predictions were summarily ignored during the RFP and contract award process, because the new contractor was going to 'integrate' and $200M was going to fall from out from the fat.
It would be disingenuous, but not surprising, for our Congressional delegation to come out and say they had no idea this might happen. It was plain as day it would happen, and it is happening.
Some months ago, the news reported Domenici was shocked by this development.
But it's ok, we can dump $100M into a new supercomputer, but it's anyone's guess how LANS is going to leave LANL with much capacity to do anything with the fancy new box.
Now LANS partners are bidding on LLNL's contract. I wonder how that's going to work out.
In the mean time, we can watch the newspapers get to the bottom of this by publish glowing stories about miraculous new technology the Laboratory is developing.
Thursday, September 28, 2006 Last modified Wednesday, September 27, 2006 3:40 PM MDT
LANS projects subcontractor job cuts
CAROL A. CLARK lanews@lamonitor.com Monitor Senior Reporter
Faced with roughly $175 million in deficits, Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Michael Anastasio told the laboratory work force this morning that an estimated 350 contractor jobs will be eliminated.
LANL's Director of Communications Jeff Berger said this morning that Deputy Director John Mitchell established and led a budget review in August and September that included associate directors from across the laboratory. Mitchell briefed Anastasio on their findings Tuesday, Berger said.
Armed with that information, Berger said Anastasio told the work force this morning that the contractor positions would be eliminated in the coming year in an effort to preserve employment for LANL employees and to not compromise the laboratory's mission for its customers.
LANL's continuing budget resolution in Congress, the gross receipts tax, costs associated with pensions and the LLC fee are all elements that are part and parcel of operating the lab, Berger said, adding that no matter who won the contract they would be in the same financial spot.
To operate conservatively, Anastasio is increasing the overhead rate by one percent but will maintain spending at the current level, Berger said.
"This is not the lab micromanaging these contractors," Berger said. "We want to remain as competitive as possible and we need to make up this difference."
He added that all the details have not been worked out yet.
"Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) is well aware of the sobering budget situation facing Los Alamos National Laboratory and its contractors," spokesman Chris Gallegos said this morning. "He has been briefed on the recent meeting in Los Alamos (Thursday's business-owner meeting at the chamber) and is interested in having the lab, DOE and others work together to minimize the economic dislocation that may result from the lab trying to meet new costs associated with the LANS contract."
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., also addressed the situation this morning.
"We predicted this funding shortfall and asked the DOE to address the root causes," Bingaman said. "Unfortunately, the DOE dismissed the concerns and today we're learning what the potential impact on the lab will be. For the DOE and NNSA to have failed to plan and budget for the very management changes they were imposing on one of its most important laboratories is almost incomprehensible. The department's failure to properly plan for this management change should not have to be borne by workers in our state."
Los Alamos County Council Vice Chair Jim West said, "This news if very disturbing and disappointing. Now we know where the $200 million the lab has been looking for will come from; from the businesses, lives and livelihood of lab employees. So much for all the 'commitments' the new lab managers made to northern New Mexico to win the contract to manage the lab."
Kevin Holsapple heads up both the Los Alamos Commerce and Development Corporation and the Los Alamos Chamber of Commerce. He said the chamber has a subcontractor committee that has been working together since early this year.
"The group formed to develop and provide input to LANS about how the community and lab could work together to help LANL in being as successful as possible in achieving their commitments under appendices J and M of the contract to operate the lab," Holsapple said. "Appendix J is the lab's small business subcontracting plan and appendix M is their regional purchasing program. The group developed a number of recommendations that were provided to LANL and were presented at the chamber's May business breakfast, along with an invitation to the business community to get involved with the committee."
Those recommendations and other information related to the committee's work has been posted on the web at www.contractwithlanl.info.
More than 80 area businesses have registered to be involved with the initiative, Holsapple said, adding that other interested businesses are encouraged to register via the link on this web page. "It is clear that LANL is facing a difficult budget challenge," Holsapple said. "Since LANS has taken the reins at LANL, many of these subcontractors have experienced a loss of subcontract business with the lab. During this time, the group has consistently worked to seek to establish business-to-business communications with the lab to try to better understand the situation, contribute to the extent they can in assisting the lab with solutions to their budget problem and to plan for the future of their businesses."
Holsapple said they are hopeful that there will eventually be constructive and beneficial communications with the lab.
"Representatives of the committee met recently with representatives of the congressional delegation to provide information about the business environment and discuss their concerns," he said. "These businesses are an important part of our business community. They employ hundreds of people, have provided important services to the lab for many years, are important customers of retail and service businesses in the area, and provide support to a broad variety of community initiatives and organizations. They also bring business to our area in the form of work they do for customers out of the area."
They estimate that as much as 40 percent of the collective business that they do is for customers out of the area, Holsapple said. "This is important economic diversification for our community."
The chamber is interested in hearing from all of its members, whether they are subcontractors or not, who are concerned and want to work on developing beneficial communications with LANL, he said.
"We heard from several additional members last week about their interest in getting involved and we have already started following up with them," Holsapple said. "Other members who want to get involved should contact me or member services coordinator Debbie Gill."
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2006 UC Office of the President contact: Chris Harrington (202) 997-3150 chris.harrington@ucdc.edu Bechtel National contact: Michael Kidder (240) 379-3261 mgkidder@bechtel.com
UC REGENTS' COMMITTEE VOTES TO COMPETE FOR MANAGEMENT OF LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY
The University of California Board of Regents' Committee on Oversight of the Department of Energy Laboratories voted today (Sept. 20) to recommend to the full board that the university compete for the management and operations of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The full board is expected to endorse the committee's recommendation at Thursday's (Sept. 21) meeting. The final bid, due Oct. 12, will be submitted by a team led by UC and Bechtel National.
Acting on the recommendation of UC President Robert C. Dynes, the committee voted to authorize the university, acting through regents' chairman Gerald L. Parsky, to take actions necessary to submit a proposal to the Department of Energy in response to the its July 14 request for proposals.
At their July meeting, the regents appointed national security and nuclear weapons expert George H. Miller as team leader for the competition. Should the UC-Bechtel led proposal win the new contract, Miller would be named director of the laboratory.
"For the past 54 years, the men and women at Livermore laboratory have ably served our nation, providing scientific and technological excellence that has made this country safer and improved the quality of life," said Dynes. "I firmly believe that our team's proposal will build upon their successes, dedication and hard work. Our proposal will be strong and responsive to DOE and the needs of our nation."
As required by the request for proposals (RFP), UC and Bechtel will form a separate corporate entity to act as prime contractor to manage the laboratory.
"For more than a half-century, the Livermore laboratory has performed its public service in the most exemplary fashion through its innovations in energy research and advances in national security," said Parsky. "The University of California has played a vital role in those achievements, and we look forward to contributing our talents and resources to deliver science and technology in the best interests of our country."
As specified in the RFP, current Livermore employees who do not terminate employment or retire will be moved to the new corporate structure and will retain their current benefits and pensions to the extent legally permissible under the Department of Energy's new requirements.
Bechtel National provides world-class program and project management, facilities management, safety and environmental management, and robust government business systems.
# # #
BACKGROUND ON THE LLNL COMPETITION PROCESS
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory – The current management contract expires Sept. 30, 2007. Congressional action in 2003 mandated that DOE conduct a competition for management of any laboratory contract that had been in place for 50 years or more without competition. Five national laboratory contracts, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, were affected by this action. On July 14, 2006, the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration released the final request for proposals (RFP). The deadline for submission of bids is Oct. 12, 2006. According to DOE, a source evaluation board comprised of DOE technical and business experts will review the proposals submitted and provide recommendations to the Source Selection Official. More information about the competition is available at: www.doeal.gov/llnlCompetition/Default.htm
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
The University of California, chartered in 1868, is a system of 10 campuses with a mission of teaching, research and public service. With 208,000 undergraduate and graduate students, UC is the world's premier public university. UC has five medical schools, three law schools and the nation's largest continuing education program. Forty-nine researchers affiliated with UC have been awarded Nobel Prizes; 16 of theses prestigious awards have been won since 1995. UC also has 372 members in the National Academy of Sciences, and UC-affiliated researchers have received 48 Medals of Science since Congress created the award in 1959.
UC is involved in the management of three national laboratories on behalf of the Department of Energy – Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore in California and Los Alamos in New Mexico.
For more news and information about the University of California: www.universityofcalifornia.edu
BECHTEL
Bechtel is a global engineering, construction and project management company with more than a century of experience mastering complex projects in challenging locations. Privately owned, with headquarters in San Francisco, the company has 40,000 employees working in 50 countries. Bechtel National Inc. is supporting national security and U.S. intelligence and defense efforts, developing new technologies to fight terrorism, monitoring the consequences of terrorist acts, designing emergency response programs, and training military and civilian responders nationwide. Additionally, BNI has broad capabilities and extensive experience in the management of complex, multisite, environmental programs, including environmental cleanup projects at several Department of Energy sites in the United States.
BNI's national security work includes managing and operating facilities for the National Nuclear Security Administration. BNI is also a partner in management of NNSA's Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee and the Pantex Plant in Texas, as well as the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Among its Department of Defense contracts, BNI manages the Kwajalein missile range and supports non-proliferation efforts in the former Soviet Union for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. BNI's portfolio also includes over 15 years of government laboratory management and support experience.
For more news and information about Bechtel National Inc.: www.Bechtel.com
Job cuts loom at Los Alamos Lab Creative firings By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View → More by this author Published Monday 2nd October 2006 18:40 GMT
The arrival of a new master at Los Alamos National Laboratory will likely result in a rapid fire layoff, officials revealed last week.
The consortium operating the lab expects to cleave off hundreds of jobs in an effort to lower costs. The lab faces serious financial challenges under its new management, which has to account for close to $200m more in various costs than previous manager University of California (UC). The prospect of lost jobs in New Mexico has prompted local politicians to mount their soap boxes.
"This budget shortfall is about more than bad math - this is about the livelihoods of my constituents,'' U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said in a statement. "(The U.S. Department of Energy) should have better budgeted and planned for these costs."
Los Alamos will likely do away with between 350 and 600 contract workers. The lab has more than 8,000 full-time staff and more than a thousand other contract workers.
In June, a consortium dubbed Los Alamos National Security (LANS) took over sole management of the lab from UC, which had operated the site since the days of the Manhattan Project. The limited liability corporation (LLC) is composed of contractors such as Bechtel, Washington Group International and BWX, along with UC.
The new management has been expected to run the lab with a similar budget as in years past. That's problematic because, as an LLC, LANS must pay more in taxes and pension costs than the non-profit UC. In addition, LANS expects to hand out raises and hopes to earn tens of millions in performance incentives from the government that were not available to UC. All told, that means the additional costs could chew through close to 10 per cent of the lab's $2.2bn budget.
Up until now, lab representatives have played down the prospect of job cuts. Director Michael Anastasio in July called on workers to use "creativity" to solve the $200m budget shortfall.
Any job cuts will be characterized as crushing to the cities around the lab, which depend on Los Alamos as a key part of their economies.
"This is going to be devastating to the economy,'' Espanola mayor Joseph Maestas told a local paper. "That's why the state Legislature and the governor need to come up with ways to invest the state's share of this windfall to create a sustainable economy that gradually reduces its reliance on the laboratory money or federal money associated with the lab.''
The Department of Energy controls the lab's budget and is not expected to free up more cash anytime soon. ® Related stories
IBM and AMD feed on Los Alamos' ample supercomputing pork (5 September 2006) El Reg saves Los Alamos lab web site from hooligans (26 July 2006) Los Alamos bets on 'creativity' to handle $200m of extra costs (24 July 2006) Costs swell at America's most infamous weapons lab (12 July 2006) These supercomputers could be yours (22 November 2005)
ROGER SNODGRASS roger@lamonitor.com Monitor Assistant Editor
Deputy Laboratory Director John Mitchell led a meeting with subcontractors of Los Alamos National Laboratory who have heard indirectly that several hundred of their employees may be the first to feel a budget crunch under the new management contract.
Speaking to 150 or so people at Duane Smith auditorium Tuesday evening, Mitchell said that many of the key decisions were made only last week.
He said about 350 jobs will be lost through belt-tightening over the next two-to-three months, but he put the total number at 400-600 over the longer term.
Mitchell assured the group that he was aware of the impact.
"Do we want it to happen?" he asked. "No."
He said it was something that made good business sense.
"Who is getting laid off?" he asked again later in his presentation. "That choice is yours. They're your employees, not ours."
As LANL staff was told by laboratory Director Michael Anastasio in an all-employees meeting last week, anticipated additional expenses for employee compensation and benefits, gross receipts taxes and the management fee are expected to increase annual costs by $175 million.
The federal budget appears to be flat and the situation is aggravated by a continuing resolution providing stopgap funding in place of an approved appropriation bill.
Mitchell said that 3,000 subcontracts had been reviewed and that basic recommendations were being made at the associate director level, where line management responsibilities reside.
The two primary factors in the decision were lab management's determination to avoid laying off LANL employees or charging customers more.
The decision about contractor employees was related to fixing the overhead, or indirect costs. Future dismissals would be related to the outcome of the budget process in Washington.
Without thinning the subcontracting workforce, he said, the laboratory would have had to raise its overhead to about 50 percent, from the current 36 percent level.
Only last week was the decision made to raise the indirect cost to 37 percent and cut the subcontract employees.
Subcontractors with specific concerns or complaints were encouraged to contact the person who manages their subcontracts.
"They have everything we know," Mitchell said.
When Mitchell was asked if the representatives from the congressional delegation could address the question of whether there might be some budget relief forthcoming from Washington, he said it was his meeting, but offered the staff members a chance to respond.
The staff members did not answer during the meeting.
After the meeting Rep. Tom Udall's staff handed out a letter dated Sept. 29 and signed by the chair and ranking member of the House Small Business Committee, as well as Udall, seeking additional information.
"Specifically, we would like to know how many of these contracting jobs will be cut from small businesses. Additionally, what is the dollar amount of the contracts that will be cut," the congressmen asked.
The letter noted that the LANS proposal had committed $625 million to small business concerns in the current fiscal year, and asked how the recent decisions would affect that commitment.
Asked during the question-and-answer period if the current layoffs were foreseen in the LANS proposal, Mitchell said the proposal answered the questions that were asked by the Department of Energy not the ones that weren't asked.
"We intend to honor everything we said in our proposal, including the small business commitments," he said. "It just may take us longer to do that."
He said that the small business performance measures were among the details that had not yet been negotiated in the final contract, to be concluded in the next month.
Mitchell also acknowledged that three companies would be given preferences as "teaming subcontractors."
The teaming subcontractors, who were specifically designated in the contract proposal, are Pro2Serve, North Wind and Ngenuity.
Mitchell said the laboratory expected extra help from DOE to support the environmental projects that might be especially hard-pressed during the interim period covered by a continuing budget resolution.
This little bit of information fails to tell the entire truth, as to why the majority of the people went TCP1. What we need to know is, out of the 6469 people how many of these people were under 50 years old, how many were not vested; and then finally how many stayed because they did not trust UC or just wanted to continue to work more years in order to get their retirement higher. Most importantly is how many were under 50 years old and not vested. Only then can someone at LLNL make a logical decision based on facts, not mis-information that leads one to believe that they all should go TCP1 because it's such a good deal. When will you actually publish the true facts?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Just published by the LLNL Transition Team
Here are the LANL numbers:
LANS/LANL Offers Acceptances Percentage Job offers: Career 8566 8259 96.4% Limited Term and Post Docs 953 893 93.8% Total 9519 9512 96.2%
Being part of LLNL and soon to be under the command of a private contractor I am concerned about the ranking system and would like to participate in changing it, even if this means placing the "white collar workers" on the merit system and the "blue collar workers" on the STEP system. I have been with LLNL for almost 25 years and never before I have seen such a waste of time and money then having many of our well paid managers from the directorate on down spend six months of valuable time ranking people into peer groups so that they can distribute a 2% pay package in 1/10 of 1% to those who they feel are deserving. It is foolish and above all very expensive and costly to DOE in the millions of dollars a year. So how do we get this changed ASAP? This needs to be addresses NOW.
At least somebody in California is willing to challange Bechtel. The LANL community just whimpered "I want to preserve my benefits!" and then rolled over.
San Francisco Chronicle BAY AREA Group files longshot bid for control of lab Anti-nuclear activists, partners want Lawrence Livermore to focus on peaceful pursuits
Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer
Sunday, October 8, 2006
Tri-Valley CAREs' Tara Dorabji and New College President ...
It's a classic David versus Goliath standoff.
A band of nuclear disarmament advocates, college educators and wind-energy developers is positioning itself to go up against a consortium led by the University of California and the politically powerful San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp. for control of one of the nation's top nuclear design labs.
The band, which includes longtime advocacy group Tri-Valley CAREs, acknowledges it has little chance of outbidding the UC-Bechtel group for management rights to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which has been run by UC for more than half a century. But it plans to press ahead anyway.
The U.S. Department of Energy has given all comers until Oct. 27 to submit their contract bids.
"We do not believe the Department of Energy is going to choose our bid. But that isn't how I define 'winning,' " said Marylia Kelley, one of the Bay Area's best-known critics of the lab. She runs Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment), an activist group that in its 23 years of existence has won widespread respect for its serious and studied approach to its work.
But, Kelly said, if her group's bid encourages public support for phasing out the lab's nuclear weapons work and diverting its thousands of scientists into research on global warming, alternative energy sources and other subjects, that'll be a moral victory.
Short of that, it'll be a moral victory if the campaign stirs enough public interest to put pressure on Lawrence Livermore officials to run the lab in a more environmentally conscious way and to be less secretive about their work developing and refining the world's scariest weapons.
On Sept. 21, Kelley and her colleagues announced they were bidding for the contract, teaming up with New College of California, Nuclear Watch of New Mexico and WindMiller Energy, a small wind-energy firm in rural New York state.
"It's important for us to try to push for citizen oversight of this laboratory (so it can) use science for the benefit of the human experience," said New College President Martin Hamilton.
The Energy Department is expected to name the winning bid in March.
So far, the UC-Bechtel consortium has been the only other competitor to step forward. A UC spokesman could not be reached to comment on the rival bid. Susan Houghton, chief spokeswoman for Lawrence Livermore, declined to comment.
The bid marks the first time UC has had to compete to run the lab it has managed for more than half a century under exclusive contract with the Energy Department. In 2003, Congress and the department, fed up with security, safety, management and financial scandals, ordered that all future contracts with national labs be open to competition. Last December, UC-Bechtel beat out Lockheed Martin Corp. and the University of Texas for control of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a lab that UC has also managed for decades.
UC and Bechtel officials say they'll refuse to release a public copy of their bid for Lawrence Livermore on the grounds that the information might be exploited by other competitors. In an attempt to shame UC-Bechtel, the activists plan to post their entire bid for the contract online later this month.
"Lawrence Livermore is a publicly funded institution, funded off taxpayers' dollars," said Tara Dorabji, outreach director for Tri-Valley CAREs. "All bids should be public, and we'll make ours public."
Dorabji said that if her group manages to win the contract through an extraordinary set of circumstances, the lab would undergo a transformation. The group, she said, would:
-- Spend the majority of lab research funds -- largely provided by the Energy Department and the Pentagon -- to develop cleaner, renewable energy and to fight global warming. "Currently, the lion's share (of money) is going to weapons development," Dorabji said, but the lab is already doing "unclassified, fabulous research" on global warming that should be expanded.
-- Greatly speed up plans to move the lab's huge cache of plutonium to a safer, remote site. Lab officials currently plan to remove the plutonium -- perhaps initially to a site in New Mexico, then perhaps to final storage elsewhere -- by 2014. By contrast, Dorabji's group would get rid of the plutonium four years earlier, after holding public hearings to locate the safest, most secure new site.
-- Cancel the lab's current plans to expand its "biodefense" research facility to study far more dangerous microbes. Accidental release of killer bugs "could cause many, many, many deaths in the Bay Area as a whole," Dorabji said.
-- Ban secret experiments using the National Ignition Facility, the lab's multibillion-dollar superlaser, which is used primarily to simulate nuclear explosions to test the existing stockpile. Rather, the group would encourage scientists to use the laser for peacetime research, such as experimental simulations of natural phenomena deep inside the Earth and in outer space.
-- Mop up chemically and radioactively contaminated sites at the lab.
"None of us want to close the lab," said Barbara Dyskant, vice president of WindMiller Energy, a three-employee firm that she runs with her engineer husband, Barry K. Miller. "They have wonderful scientists there whose expertise could be very, very well rewarded by working on non-weapons research."
Hamilton said New College's participation in the bid for the Livermore contract is consistent with the 1,000-student school's innovative activities, among them its recent move to save the Roxie Cinema by blending it with the campus' media studies program.
The Livermore contract bid "is a challenge I could not pass up," Hamilton said. "A lot of us use Don Quixote as a metaphor (for our work)." But unlike the fictional Quixote, "we don't want to attack windmills -- we want to use them to generate energy."
E-mail Keay Davidson at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com.
I know that having LLNL taken over by Tri-valley CARES will never happen but it sure would be nice to have our primary objective to be an alternative fuel mandated by the feds to be implemented in five years. Yes, I too say do away with bio-weapons and nuclear weapons research at LLNL and have all of that done at LANL or NTS.
It's funny how slow the Los Alamos community is on the uptake. This budget shortfall and the resulting RIF situation was thoroughly discussed on the LANL blog for months. Why is it such a big surprise that it is actually happening now?
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/50442.html
Full-time LANL workers fear losing jobs print | email this story
By ANDY LENDERMAN | The New Mexican October 10, 2006 The specter of layoffs to contract workers has employees worried at Los Alamos National Laboratory, although the details of some 350 to 550 job cuts have yet to be finalized.
A lab spokesman said there are no plans for more layoffs beyond those. And the cuts won't affect the lab's regular employees, officials say. Still, the president of a lab employee association says regular, full-time employees of Los Alamos National Security LLC are worried the layoffs could hit them in the future.
"The mood is very unsettling," said Manny Trujillo of the Union of Professional and Technical Employees, an employee association. "People are basically afraid of what may happen with this budget shortfall."
Los Alamos National Security, which manages the lab for the federal government, said a $175 million budget shortfall brought on the layoffs. The lab is expected to pay $55 million more in gross-receipts taxes this year and needs $70 million to cover pay raises and pension costs. It also must fund a $50 million fee to Los Alamos National Security for running the lab, a spokesman has said.
Lab Director Michael Anastasio told lab employees last month that the lab is working on ways to deal with the shortfall.
"What we're doing is taking prudent steps under the assumptions that budgets will remain relatively flat," lab spokesman Jeff Berger said. "We're not planning on a bailout. We are planning judiciously for a flat budget."
The lab's current budget is about $2.2 billion. It employs 8,290 regular employees, 1,617 students and postdoctoral researchers, and more than 2,500 contractors.
"We have no plans for anything additional" beyond the announced 350 to 550 contractor layoffs, Berger said. Those cuts would affect temporary support jobs, lab officials said.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., is demanding more information about which workers will be targeted.
"More answers are needed about the contract employee cuts and the impact both at the lab and in the surrounding community," Udall said in a statement. "We know (the National Nuclear Security Administration) has opted to cut approximately 10 percent of the contract labor force, but we have not yet received enough information to determine who and what essential operations will be affected. There is a lot of uncertainty in the LANL community right now."
But the federal agency that oversees the lab supports the current plan to address the budget shortfall.
"One of our goals in the search for a new management and operating contractor for Los Alamos National Laboratory was to select a contractor who could best achieve the department's national security mission in a safe, secure and cost-effective manner, using sound business practices," NNSA Deputy Administrator Tom D'Agostino said in prepared remarks. "During the procurement process we acknowledged that some administrative costs would rise and we said that we expected the costs to be absorbed through more efficient management of the laboratory."
Los Alamos County Councilor Jim Hall said the council is sorry to see the announcement. "If you take away at least 350 high-paying jobs, that has a tremendous impact on the northern part of the state," Hall said.
The head of a nuclear watchdog group said lab managers knew that budget problems were coming.
"As usual, it's the folks on the lowest rung of the ladder that end up getting hurt," Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico said. "It seems like the privileged scientists in Los Alamos County are being well protected. But it's more like the blue-collar workers from, for example, Rio Arriba County that are going to be laid off."
Anastasio in a recent speech to employees said the shortfall will be addressed without cutting Los Alamos National Security employees or a program called Laboratory Directed Research and Development.
"I reiterate that there will not be a (reduction in force), nor is one being planned for the future," Anastasio said.
Contact Andy Lenderman at 995-3827 or alenderman@sfnewmexican.com .
"Udall also said it's unclear who will be laid off as a result of the budget shortfall. ``I think we're at the front end of the layoffs,'' he said."
________________________________ Albuquerque Journal Santa Fe Edition
Lab looks to rework more contracts
By ANDY LENDERMAN | The New Mexican October 13, 2006
Company wants to renegotiate provision that calls for labs to spend $625
million with small businesses
The private company that manages Los Alamos National Laboratory wants to
renegotiate part of its contract with the federal government that calls for it to spend $625 million with small businesses in the coming year, U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said Wednesday.
Los Alamos National Security, LLC, which manages the lab, announced recently that approximately 350 contract workers would be laid off because of a $175 million budget shortfall. Now the company wants to renegotiate a contract provision that calls for the lab to spend $625 million with small businesses in the 2007 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, Udall said.
``Now with the shortfall, the position that's being taken by (Los Alamos
National Security officials) is that they're going to have to put these provisions on hold,'' Udall said by telephone Wednesday. ``They are going to renegotiate these provisions with the Department of Energy. And so the small-business contracting community has gone from being very hopeful ... to being very discouraged and angry and critical of what is happening to them.''
New Mexican Virtual Tours A lab spokesman said he could not comment Thursday. A spokesman for U.S.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said Domenici was unaware of lab plans to renegotiate the small-business spending requirement.
Udall met privately with contractors in Los Alamos on Wednesday and also met separately with Lab Deputy Director John Mitchell.
Mitchell issued a memo to lab managers Thursday regarding the $175 million shortfall, which was recently discussed by lab Director Michael Anastasio.
``As Mike stated in his talk,'' Mitchell wrote, ``our review indicated that an estimated 350 contractor positions would be eliminated, saving an estimated $75 million to $85 million.''
The lab might save another $75 million by ``rethinking, cutting back, consolidating, and deferring such things as materials and equipment, travel and facilities work,'' Mitchell wrote.
And another 200 contract positions also could be eliminated, he wrote. ``Thus, our review process is not complete,'' Mitchell wrote. He has established a budget review team that should complete another analysis by mid-December.
``Once this is complete,'' Mitchell wrote, ``we will be able to provide you with a more accurate and complete (fiscal 2007) budget picture. We all realize this is an anxious time, and we appreciate your patience and tolerance.''
The company also wants to renegotiate other parts of its federal contract that relate to small businesses besides the provision calling for it to spend $625 with such businesses, Udall said.
Los Alamos National Security LLC is a partnership consisting of Bechtel National, the University of California, BWX Technologies Inc. and Washington Group International. Late last year, it won a seven-year contract which could earn it up to $79 million a year to manage the lab for the National Nuclear Security Administration.
``I was pushing for very specific small-business provisions in the contract,'' Udall said. `` ... This is one of the reasons that they got this contract, is the representations they made about small business. I don't
have any doubt about that.''
The lab has reported spending $538 million, or 55.5 percent of its procurement budget for goods and services that support the lab, in New Mexico during the 2004 fiscal year. Seventy-four percent of that was spent in Northern New Mexico.
The lab's budget is about $2.2 billion this year. It has 8,290 full-time
employees, 1,617 postdoctoral researchers and students, and more than 2,500 contract employees.
``This is sending a cold chill through the small-business community,'' Udall said. ``... They don't know what's going to come out. I urged the deputy
director to move this along quickly.''
Udall also said it's unclear who will be laid off as a result of the budget shortfall. ``I think we're at the front end of the layoffs,'' he said. ``... I'm not so sure that the individuals have specifically heard who is going to lose their job.''
Domenici has said nobody at the lab should expect a financial bailout from Congress now or in the coming years. He declined to be interviewed Thursday. His spokesman said the National Nuclear Security Administration has indicated its budget requests to Congress will be flat in coming years.
Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group said Congress is looking for ways to save money, and he thinks the lab's budget is ``bigger than it needs to be for the basic version of its mission.''
Contact Andy Lenderman at 995-3827 or lenderman@sfnewmexican.com. Comment posting on our site has been temporarily suspended. Thank you for your patience.
I can only assume that no one who actually works at LLNL knows about this blog or they are all scared shitless to post their real feelings in order to inform LLNL employees are in for becaue they are scared to lose their jobs, or maybe they are all just as happy as can be. It sure would be nice to know the truth. Anyone out there have any guts or all you all just sheep? I think I already know the answer. Please prove me wrong. I will be checking the blog daily.
Can anyone inside the current LANS,LLC answer the following questions. I would much rather hear it from one that has been subjected to the system than from a bureaucrat whose sole intention is to promote a plan for the good of the firm with little or no regard for the employees. As someone who is feeling like they too are soon to get the shaft, I'd like to know the following.
If an FTE with 25 years as a UC/LLNL employee were to go TCP2 and then within 120 retire could they start drawing their full pension and still work for the new corporation at full pay? At that point in time would your medical premiums be paid for by UCRP or are they paid for by the new corporation, or, does it really matter because no matter what one does the new corporation decides what you get and who pays what price. Then I have one more concern and that would be, if there is a RIF of FTE's would all of those who went TCP2 be the first to go, because obviously they have shown a lack of loyalty to the company by signs of mis-trust and unwillingness to give all of their UCRP retirement to the new firm?
Someone from inside those walls of silence please respond ASAP so I can make a logical decision based on facts not rumors.
Breaking at 8:20am -- LANL Could Host New Plutonium Center PDF Print E-mail Written by Bruce Daniels - ABQnewsSeeker Thursday, 19 October 2006
Lab on the short list for a major new nuclear weapons facility.
Here's a guest-blog from Albuquerque Journal science writer John Fleck:
Los Alamos National Laboratory is on the short list of sites for a major new plutonium center for nuclear weapons research and manufacturing, the Department of Energy said in a document (pdf) released this morning.
The document, published in the Federal Register, lays out the bare bones basics of the "Complex 2030" effort DOE is launching to yet again try to get its hands around the configuration of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex of the future.
Its biggest feature is a new "consolidated plutonium center," where plutonium research and manufacturing will be done for the nuke arsenal of the future. In addition to Los Alamos, Savannah River, the Nevada Test Site, Pantex near Amarillo and Y-12 at Oak Ridge are on the short list.
Notably for New Mexicans, the old DOE proposal to build a "Modern Pit Facility" to make plutonium bomb parts is now officially dead.
Carlsbad had been on the list of possible sites for htat project, and had enthusiastically embraced the work.
Also notably for New Mexicans, White Sands Missile Range is one of two sites to be considered for nuclear weapons flight test operations.
The feds responsible for this are doing a telephone news conference later this morning, so we'll have more as the day rolls along. Check my blog for more as the story develops, with a more detailed story to follow in tomorrow's print edition of the Albuquerque Journal. Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 October 2006 )
Did One of the articles say that the pit facility for LANL was scrubbed? Why stow the Pu there?
"Notably for New Mexicans, the old DOE proposal to build a "Modern Pit Facility" to make plutonium bomb parts is now officially dead."
Why isn't DAF being used? That entire area is a great place for storage and it's in the middle of nowhere, to where anyone approaching could be easily seen and apprehended.
By DEBORAH BAKER | Associated Press October 22, 2006
"Blah blah ... employees are nervous ... blah blah..."
In the months before the LANL contract award announcement I recall having heard staff member after staff member saying, "I want UC to win the contract so that my benefits are preserved."
I hope all those ignorant bastards are happy now that UC has "won the contract." They richly deserve their new life under LANS.
CBS: Los Alamos Security Breach Probed Feds Are Investigating Apparent Breach Of Classified Info At Nation's Top Nuclear Lab
(CBS) Another apparent breach of classified material is under federal investigation at the nation's premier nuclear weapons laboratory: Los Alamos National Laboratory, sources tell CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.
The breach apparently was discovered when Los Alamos police recently conducted a methamphetamine raid on an area home. Inside the house, along with drug paraphernalia, police allegedly found classified materials apparently from the grounds of the Los Alamos Laboratory. How somebody involved in illegal drugs would also have access to classified materials from the nation's nuclear weapons facility is unknown but under investigation.
The home is believed to belong to a Los Alamos Laboratory contractor who does maintenance at the laboratory.
The FBI has been called in to lead the investigation into the security breach and executed a search warrant on Friday. The U.S. attorney's office in Albuquerque, N.M., is reviewing the case.
The Los Alamos Laboratory has been hit by multiple security and management scandals in recent years. Problems were so widespread that Congress forced the contract for management of the lab to go up for bid for the first time ever. However, after bidding, the contract was re-awarded to the same contractor: the University of California.
Los Alamos public affairs officials will only confirm the matter is under investigation.
News reports are saying that Sec. Bodman is mad as hell about this screw-up. Expect some grim repercussions to soon head our way via the friendly folks in Washington DC. It may have been a sub-contractor who screwed up, but everyone will now join in the suffering.
This summer's peace and quiet was nice while it lasted, but storm clouds are here, once again. Anyone with a bit of foresight could probably have guessed that the quiet wouldn't last for long. It's now time for those with good jobs skills to begin packing their bags and heading off to better and much saner pastures. Over the last few years, we've all had plenty of indications that the direction of the slope was quickly heading downhill. Denial is no longer a functional option now, is it? Besides, why wait around when most of the staff already sense that a RIF is coming our way? LANS says it ain't so, but do you really believe them? I didn't think so. Just take a look around and notice the large number of workers who have no visible means of funding. It's only going to get worse. NNSA has no plans to help dig LANL out of the current budget hole and St. Pete has made it clear we are on our own.
72 Comments:
http://biz.yahoo.com/bizj/060703/1310634.html?.v=1
The predictions made about LANL in articles recently published in The Economist and The Register are now being proven true. The $200M figure quoted by Anastasio is, of course, approximately $100M shy of the true budget shortfall that is looming for LANL in FY 07.
___________________________________
To/MS: LANL-EMP
From/MS: Michael R. Anastasio, DIR
Phone/Fax: 7-5101/7-2997
Symbol: DIR-06-056L
Date: July 21, 2006
Subject: FY07 Indirect Budget Call
Each year, the Laboratory goes through a budget development
exercise with CFO guidance setting forth indirect budget targets
and establishing a review process. Today I issued this year's
guidance to LANL senior managers which will culminate in an FY07
budget.
This is the next step on our institutional commitment to finding
efficiencies in how we manage this Laboratory. It is clear that
this will raise short-term challenges in order to ensure the long-
term health and viability of a great national security science
laboratory.
As I have discussed at several all hands meetings, FY07 presents a
challenging financial picture. An expected flat funding profile
combined with increases in costs for items such as compensation,
employee benefits, gross receipts taxes, and management fee means
the incremental costs facing the Laboratory in FY07 total roughly
$200M. To address the increased incremental costs for FY07,
indirect budget targets will be reduced by 10%.
The budget call identifies certain expectations. One is that we
intend to manage the current level of LANS staffing through
constrained hiring and by monitoring attrition. The second major
expectation is that we minimize the impact to our customers by
keeping our current overhead rates stable.
While line management is ultimately responsible for examining
their operations and identifying funding efficiencies to meet FY07
targets, everyone owns the success of this Laboratory. All of us
need to examine how we do work and apply LANL's trademark
creativity to finding smarter ways to further science and
accomplish our mission in a safe and secure manner.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/24/los_alamos_budget/
Los Alamos bets on 'creativity' to handle $200m of extra costs
Efficiencies and imagination tested
By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View
Published Monday 24th July 2006 19:56 GMT
Get The Register's new weekly newsletter for senior IT managers delivered to your in-box, click here.
Los Alamos National Laboratory has been hit with a vague and challenging directive to avoid layoffs despite a 10 per cent hit to the lab's budget.
The Register has obtained a memo sent out last week by lab director Michael Anastasio that provides the best details to date on the budget impact the lab faces following its recent change in management. In the memo, Anastasio reveals $200m of "incremental costs" that Los Alamos will likely have to deal with without an increase to its close to $2bn budget. While many workers fear that the budget shortfall will result in layoffs, Anastasio maintains that "efficiencies" and "creativity" should keep employment levels constant.
Subject: FY07 Indirect Budget Call
Each year, the Laboratory goes through a budget development exercise with CFO guidance setting forth indirect budget targets and establishing a review process. Today I issued this year's guidance to LANL senior managers which will culminate in an FY07 budget.
This is the next step on our institutional commitment to finding efficiencies in how we manage this Laboratory. It is clear that this will raise short-term challenges in order to ensure the long- term health and viability of a great national security science laboratory.
As I have discussed at several all hands meetings, FY07 presents a challenging financial picture. An expected flat funding profile combined with increases in costs for items such as compensation, employee benefits, gross receipts taxes, and management fee means the incremental costs facing the Laboratory in FY07 total roughly $200M. To address the increased incremental costs for FY07, indirect budget targets will be reduced by 10%.
The budget call identifies certain expectations. One is that we intend to manage the current level of LANS staffing through constrained hiring and by monitoring attrition. The second major expectation is that we minimize the impact to our customers by keeping our current overhead rates stable.
While line management is ultimately responsible for examining their operations and identifying funding efficiencies to meet FY07 targets, everyone owns the success of this Laboratory. All of us need to examine how we do work and apply LANL's trademark creativity to finding smarter ways to further science and accomplish our mission in a safe and secure manner.
The private Los Alamos National Security (LANS) consortium has been trickling out cost estimates since it took over sole management of Los Alamos from the University of California on June 1. The consortium - composed of Bechtel, UC and government contractors Washington Group International and BWX - must deal with extra taxes, benefits costs and incremental costs well beyond those that existed under the non-profit UC. In addition, LANS can now earn up to $80m in performance fees where UC could only earn $8m.
The memo from Anastasio confirms that LANS expects all of these charges to add up to $200m or close to 10 per cent of the lab's annual budget.
Efficiencies and creativity may well help the lab meet the budget constraints without firing workers. The vague terms, however, don't seem like the concrete plan of action the government was promised when handing over Los Alamos to LANS.
Numerous scientists left the lab before the management change, complaining that the Los Alamos work environment has made it impossible to do top quality work. LANS officials have countered such charges by saying that thousands of top researchers remain at the lab and by saying that they're working to remove the bureaucratic procedures that have haunted Los Alamos for years. ®
Gain $200 million through improvements in efficiency? From the same family of managers who endorsed pissing away $357 million via an unnecessary shutdown of the entire facility?
I think not; there is still too much of UC embedded in the system. Compounding the situation is Bechtel's hard-assed corporate philosophy of 'kick ass, take names, and fire at will', which will only further degrade any remaining efficiency at LANL.
The local Los Alamos newspaper's version of the story. It continues to surprise me that this news was unexpected by the good citizens of Los Alamos, that they could not see it coming.
http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2006/07/25/headline_news/news01.txt
I hope Livermore is still paying close attention to the slow train wreck that is occurring at Los Alamos. LLNL can also expect a 10 - 15% effective budget reduction as a result of changing contractors.
Our colleagues at LLNL will then be subjected to an 'efficiency' Chinese fire drill, such as has recently begun at LANL, and then expected RIF will happen at LLNL, too. You may anticipate LANL's RIFS to begin in September.
Check this out: seems there is some resistance to turning LANL into a big pit factory:
Nuclear Spending Comes Under Fire
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nuke30jul30,1,4905196.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=1&cset=true
As expected, the goings-on at LANL have now dropped behind a corporate screen of secrecy. In his public statements, Anastasio would have the world believe that everything is just peachy at LANL, except for the minor little issue of an anticipated $200 million budget shortfall for '07, which will be easily handled by improving efficiency at the lab.
The private rumblings are more dark. Word has it that the predicted shortfall is going to be more in the neighborhood of $400 million, and that people are already being let go. One can only imagine what the situation will be like in a few months.
Here it comes. Try to ignore it for a little bit longer, if you wish. Won't do any good.
http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2006/08/10/headline_news/news01.txt
I took my 33 years and went to work (last year) for a small subcontractor supporting LANL. Because I have maintained strong ties to Washington, that small contractor was told that he had to let me go because LANS wants "chain of Command". No one else can be communicating to Washington about things at LANL. LANS wants to make sure all information presents them in the best light. No exceptions. If you want to double dip, do not let them know you have friends at Washington....
$650,000.
That's the new FTE rate at LANL now, with the additional costs imposed by the new contract factored in.
There won't be much WFO done at those rates.
The new managers of LANL don't want WFO. It would distract the scientists from the real mission: pit production.
Is anybody hearing RIF rumors yet? I'm hearing 5% reduction.
LANS is using its own companies to perform work instead of local businesses....
Friday, August 25, 2006
Last modified Wednesday, August 23, 2006 12:58 PM MDT
Lack of lab contract work hurting businesses
DARRYL NEWMAN, lareporter@lamonitor.com
Many local business owners have cited a significant decline in contractual work since operational changes at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Councilor Jim West brought those concerns and others to the forefront of a county council meeting Tuesday night as LANL Deputy Director John Mitchell briefed the community on several issues.
"Small business contractors in town with the lab reported that there has been a dramatic decline in business," West said and referred to the small business plan and regional purchasing plan addressed in the Los Alamos National Security contract.
A regional purchasing program, a provision of the new contract between the Department of Energy and LANS, provides an increase in spending for small businesses offering products and services to the laboratory.
Under another appendix of the strategy is the LANS small business subcontracting plan, which calls for an estimated $625 million to be set aside for small business concerns in fiscal year 2007 - an increase of $254 million above what is currently offered.
West followed up by asking Mitchell what actions the lab could take to ensure the survival of businesses that primarily depend on LANL contract work.
"I'm curious to know whether the lab feels that their statements listed under the contract are contractually binding," he said. "There are people who are getting laid off. I think that what local businesses are looking for is to hear what the rules of the game are going to be."
Mitchell said some of the phrasing under the contract have been defined as "targets."
"This will be a graduated plan throughout the years to come," Mitchell said. "We are working in completing the planning process as quickly as we can. We'll have a plan for the year and hopefully we can get to (local businesses) as soon as possible."
The millions of dollars for procurement to northern New Mexico small businesses is planned to cover a wide range of services and products, according to appendices of the contract, with targeted areas in consulting services, engineering services, construction services, construction equipment and supplies, lab supplies and information technology equipment.
Councilor Fran Berting warned Mitchell that small businesses are likely to relocate off the Hill if they continue to be neglected by the lab.
"I have been contacted by contractors and they want to know where they stand," Berting said. "Many businesses have 40 percent of their business outside of Los Alamos County. They may move to other communities where their next largest contracts are."
Berting urged lab officials to promptly bring local businesses into the fold and keep them abreast of changes.
Economic development also includes other business aspects, Councilor Mike Wismer said, and asked how LANS plans to measure its success.
"We're developing a set of metrics," Mitchell replied and agreed to share those benchmarks with the county council on a regular basis.
Rep. Jeanette Wallace attended the briefing and stressed community support for Los Alamos National Laboratory and the tasks that it faces.
"LANL is different from other labs because the community here is more involved," Wallace said. "Economic development issues brought up are prime issues for all of us. The lab is facing budget cuts as well and I believe that they are very aware of the issues at hand."
West shared his impressions of the presentation this morning.
"We really didn't get any answers to the questions we asked," West said. "We wanted to know when the local contractors could expect work. This is discouraging. LANS needs to be more diligent in this aspect of their commitment."
Wismer suggested that LANS consider a communications plan that notifies those who may not be familiar with the traffic plan in place under the Security Perimeter project.
"Such a plan would be appropriate for tourists and other people from out of the area," he said.
Councilor Nona Bowman brought concerns of lab recruitment efforts to the table.
"Scientists who have contacted me said that the lab as a world-class scientific center is being lost," Bowman said. "The young and the best scientists are not interested in coming to LANL. Citizens are concerned that the rich scientific heritage at the lab is being compromised with the change in plutonium pit production."
Mitchell said there would be enhancements made to the scientific practices at LANL.
"We're going to change the way we go out and recruit and there is more we could do in reaching out," he said. "We need to get rid of the lingering feelings here that have been in place for the past three to four years.
Councilor Ken Milder requested that the lab keep the county informed of future construction projects that is has in store.
"I can come back at a later date with a set of construction plans," Mitchell said. "We'd like to consolidate things and reduce the footprint of some of our nuclear areas."
Rumors about how LANS is planning to address the budget shortfall are ramping up. Here's the latest one:
We are getting word here that LANL aka LANS has just laid off anywhere from 700 to all of their contract employees and that they are going to shut down a Pu facility for the rest of the year to make up for that $300M short fall. Any truth to this? We also hear that salaries are going to be "re-aligned" meaning a possible 50% reduction in pay for the job they are currently doing and if all goes well and there are no accidents or oops awh shits people will get bonus checks equal to that 50% that they took from them during the realignment.
Thank goodness we did not accept the positions offered to us five years ago.
Stuff I'm currently hearing:
(1) The announced $200 million short-fall is definitely on the
conservative side. Could go much higher. A figure as
high as $400 million has been mentioned by some at the top.
(2) CFO's All-Hand's briefing back in early May shows the expected
"incremental" cost for the LANS executive team running at
$18 million per year. Looks like a few people at the top
levels of LANS will be seeing very healthy raises! Of course,
salaries are now proprietary, so you'll only get tantalizing
hints of what is really going on in the LANS Executive Suite.
Still, there aren't that many executives, so any way you slice
it, an increase in top management costs by $18 million to cover
the bigger numbers of new AD's, PAD's, etc, hints that salaries
at the top end may have doubled, or even tripled.
(3) The same May '06 CFO briefing shows TCP2 401k costs expected
to run $33 million per year. This will only get bigger as more
people on TCP2 begin to adjust contributions upward.
(3) FTE costs are going up, up, up, regardless of any promises
management may have given about keeping LANL costs in check.
Also, programs are getting hit with a continuous stream of
sudden new taxes, which are going to eat into next year's
funding. Lots of staff are just now beginning to realize
that they don't have enough funding to get through the
coming year. Fear is spreading, and it's getting ugly.
(4) If you're a contractor to LANL, your job is on shaky ground.
Contractors, as usual, will be the first to walk the plank,
probably during FY07.
(5) Outsource, outsource, outsource. While current contractors
will be laid off, the lab will also aggressively outsource
some divisions at LANL. If your division does any type
of work that typically gets outsource in the corporate world,
you can expect to lose your LANS employee status sometime
during the next two years.
Expect LANS to do just about everything they can to keep from
having a RIF in FY07. After all, they don't want to spoil the
chance of winning the upcoming LLNL bid. However, once early
FY08 rolls around, the LLNL bid will be history and you should
expect to see the ax fall mighty hard. Layoffs of at least
5% of the staff are a given, and a 10% reduction can easily be
forecast if the budget hole continues to deepen. And don't
look for St. Pete to come to the rescue. He's already told
us that we are on our own this time. Also, the plutonium pit
factory won't be gearing up until 2012, so don't look for any
salvation in a Rocky Flats II scenario. The current funding
fiasco at LANL is the bleakest I've seen in many decades.
A few will prosper from this chaos, but most will suffer.
Subject: UC Regents' committee votes to compete for management of
Laboratory
Sender: owner-hdiv-other@lists.llnl.gov
The UC Regents' Committee on Oversight of the Department of Energy Laboratories voted Wednesday to recommend to the full board that the University compete for the management and operations of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The full board is expected to endorse the committee's recommendation at today's meeting. The final bid, due Oct. 12, will be submitted by a team led by UC and Bechtel National.
Acting on the recommendation of UC President Robert C. Dynes, the committee voted to authorize the University, acting through Regents Chairman Gerald L. Parsky, to take actions necessary to submit a proposal to the Department of Energy in response to the department's July 14 Request for Proposal (RFP). The Regents previously appointed national security and nuclear weapons expert George Miller as team leader for the competition at their July 19-20 meeting. Should the UC-Bechtel led proposal win the new contract, Miller will be named director of the Laboratory.
"For the past 54 years, the men and women at Livermore Laboratory have ably served our nation, providing scientific and technological excellence that has made this country safer and improved the quality of life," said Dynes. "I firmly believe that our team's proposal will build upon their successes, dedication and hard work. Our proposal will be strong and responsive to DOE and the needs of our nation."
As required by the RFP, UC and Bechtel will form a separate corporate entity to act as prime contractor to manage the Laboratory.
"For more than a half-century, the Livermore Laboratory has performed its public service in the most exemplary fashion through its innovations in energy research and advances in national security," said Parsky. "The University of California has played a vital role in those achievements, and we look forward to contributing our talents and resources to deliver science and technology in the best interests of our country."
As specified in the RFP, current Livermore employees who do not terminate employment or retire will be moved to the new corporate structure and will retain their current benefits and pensions to the extent legally permissible under DOE's new requirements.
The current LLNL management contract expires Sept. 30, 2007. Congressional action in 2003 mandated that DOE conduct a competition for management of any laboratory contract that had been in place for 50 years or more without competition. Five national laboratory contracts, including Lawrence Livermore, were affected by this action.
On July 14, 2006, the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) released the final RFP. The deadline for submission of bids is Oct. 12. According to DOE, a source evaluation board comprised of DOE technical and business experts will review the proposals submitted and provide recommendations to the Source Selection Official. More information about the competition is available online at NNSA's LLNL Contract Competition Website. Background information on UC and Bechtel is available on the UC News Release (PDF).
As specified in the RFP, current Livermore employees who do not terminate employment or retire will be moved to the new corporate structure and will retain their current benefits and pensions to the extent legally permissible under DOE's new requirements.
My question would be, does this mean that lump sum and freezing ones retirement option has been eliminated for all LLNL employees? You either quit or retire. If not you will automatically become UC -Bechtel Employees. Have a good day.
It would make sense to to this since that is exactly why LANS is in such great debt, like $300 - $400 M dollars. TO MANY PEOPLE stayed.
Ak your questions, please:
linton.brooks@nnsa.doe.gov
the.secretary@hq.doe.gov
Since it's obvious DOE and NNSA made a grave mistake by allowing LANL employees under TCP2 to freeze their retirement and continue working for LANS at full pay, causing a $400 M shortfall; wouldn't you think that they'd be smart enough to take this option away on the upcoming LLNL contract?
The two options that should be available are to retire if you are eligible, meaning that you would have to be fifty years old on the date of the take over, or quit and take your lump sum where you will go with a guarantee that you will not be rehired in either case.
If any employee under fifty years old chooses to stay they will have to roll over all of their UC assets into the new contractors pension plan until such time their is a salary re-alignment as that schedule for LANS very soon if not already in progress.
The final and most crucial option for LLNL in order to save money would be to order the closure of NIF. By taking this for action LLNL could in fact deplete at least 50% of its work force in a matter of weeks. This would not only be a savings to DOE but to the nation as well. As it stands now NIF is 500% over budget, and it still doesn't work. For the uninformed public, that’s a $5B plus waste of the American taxpayers money. If the closure of NIF does not occur and DOE and NNSA make the same mistake twice, it will surely point fingers right back at them as the root cause for the demise of the national laboratories. I am sure this is not what they want. Lets hope they get it right the second go around for all concerned.
From the 9/22 Los Alamos Monitor:
Business owners express concern with LANS
CAROL A. CLARK lanews@lamonitor.com Monitor Senior Reporter
More than 20 uninvited business owners showed up at the chamber office after getting wind of a noon meeting being facilitated by the Los Alamos Commerce and Development Corporation on Thursday.
The meeting included 22 laboratory subcontractors and three congressional delegation representatives.
The business owners requested a seat at the table and were initially told there wasn't room. After insisting, they were assured the representatives would meet with them at 1 p.m.
The group stood on the sidewalk in front of the chamber talking among themselves.
"Our frustration is that they are not going to pay any attention to small business owners," said Cheryl Sowder of The Finishing Touch.
LACDC Assistant Director Jim Barrigan let the group into the chamber conference room at 1 p.m.
Barrigan explained that the meeting taking place at the Small Business Development Center had been planned exclusively for lab subcontractors whose positions were in jeopardy.
"They're vulnerable and had to have some anonymity," Barrigan said. He told the group that he saw a KSL memo reflecting that 72 layoffs are going to occur.
"One company in the meeting (with subcontractors) said they had $210,000 de-obligated this morning without explanation," Barrigan said. "There are dozens of layoffs represented in that room."
One of the business owners present added that the spouse of an employee was just laid off from KSL and indicated 200 more people are slated to lose their jobs.
The business owners expressed disappointment and worry about the worsening business climate in Los Alamos.
They spoke of the assurances of candid communication, contractor job security and vigorous community involvement that were the mantra of senior executives at Los Alamos National Security as they smoozed the town during their contract-seeking mode last year.
Since winning the Los Alamos National Laboratory management contract in December, perceptions are that those assurances have evaporated.
The business owners swapped first and second hand accounts of canceled laboratory contracts and employee layoffs, business demise and the silence and perceived apathy by LANS as they waited for the representatives who ultimately arrived about 2 p.m.
LACDC Executive Director Kevin Holsapple briefed the business owners on the contents of the earlier meeting. He said more than 20 subcontractors worked for months looking at items that might affect businesses prior to the contract award.
"Since the contract, they've come under duress and have had continued duress and that's what resulted in the meeting," Holsapple said.
Local business owners and subcontractors painted a disturbing picture for Veronica Rodriguez from Sen. Pete Domenici's office, Helen Maestas from Sen. Jeff Bingaman's office and Matt Williams from Rep. Tom Udall's office.
"I've lived here 31 years and all of us around this table have been in business a long time," businessman Bruce Norman said. "We're all talking about this - it's different this time. When these guys say there's a hiring freeze - there's a hiring freeze and the level and pace of the layoffs is unprecedented in my experience."
Norman recounted how a tenant at one of his apartments came in recently and said he had to move because he had been laid off.
"He was given less then 24 hours notice," Norman said adding that it was the second tenant this has happened to.
His Chapel Apartments on Rose Street have gone from 100 percent occupancy in May to 89 percent and that number will drop to 79 percent in 10 days if things don't change, he said.
Realtor Karen Hawkins, who also owns Cosa Bella floral shop, said people started moving from their homes after LANL's management transition because they thought they were going to move up and because of interest rates.
"They bought new homes and then everything came to a screeching halt," Hawkins said. "It happened so suddenly. Now a lot of people are in deep trouble. Over the last 20 years we've had peaks and valleys but this is different - we've got a panicky community."
Barrigan talked about the eight-step plan with a shared fate philosophy that the subcontractor committee developed and how Bechtel "loved it" early on. He said the plan was presented to the community at a chamber breakfast at UNM-LA in May and was very well received. Then everything changed, he said. "June, July, August, we said we need news even if it's bad news," Barrigan said.
"Kevin has met with senior management several times," Barrigan said. "We aren't where we want to be because we don't have good communication."
When Barrigan was asked what changed he said, "If we had effective communication with them I'd have an answer for you. We are in the same shape as you because we don't know."
Dave Fox of CB Fox said LANS has not immersed itself in this community as they had promised.
Anger simmers over the fact that LANS senior management and the rest of the team didn't lodge in Los Alamos during the transition. Further anger was expressed that nearly all of LANS' top management purchased homes outside of Los Alamos.
"They've done it with arrogance," said North Road Inn owner Cathy Mockler. "Not buying here, not staying here - they are almost doing it with contempt."
Norman agreed adding that the transition team should have stayed here to give the town a boost.
Speculation was discussed among the business owners that LANS officials didn't buy homes here because they anticipate a collapse of the community and know local housing values will drop.
"For a long time, we have been the butt of jokes in Washington, D.C., and they really want to slap us hard," Mockler said. "They lowered our per diem from $71 to $61 - that's a 14 percent cut. After a while they raised it a little but my insurance has doubled and all my expenses have gone up. It's like we've been set up."
Local architect Steve Shaw suggested the community pull together because as subcontractors leave, it will affect the entire community and the services that are provided here.
"Bechtel has a track record of doing this (contract canceling) and that's well and good when you're in a giant town," Shaw said.
The group spoke about how subcontractors and their employees will have to leave town because there are no other jobs in their field in a community like Los Alamos.
"We're the trickle down level," Fox said. "After they've canned the contractors and made life here miserable - we're the trickle down businesses that will have to close because there won't be anyone left to buy from us."
Aspen Copy owner Dawn Cline said she can't do work for the lab because she has no contract and can't have large amounts of inventory sitting on her shelves hoping the lab might call. She added that when they do call they just want a price comparison and then place their order with Office Depot.
Shaw said people are getting a bomb dropped on them. "You go to work one day and the next day they want your badge and your clearance," he said.
"I think there are a lot of inefficiencies over there and I'm willing to suck it up but they need to give us a sense of the light at the end of the tunnel," Norman said. "Are they talking six months, 12 months, 24 months? They know darn well what they are doing, but because they don't share, we are in a free fall - when do we hit bottom - we've got to make plans, too."
Hawkins said she would like to know if 200 houses are going on the market so she can advise her clients that this isn't a good time to sell.
Sowder said that there has got to be a viable community in order to attract people to work at the lab.
"We all are an integral part of the whole," Norman said. "We are aware of this every day but I don't know if the lab is."
Fox told the group that LANL Deputy Director John Mitchell told the county council a few weeks ago that he expected to define for the council the lab's intentions by September.
"He made a clear and fervent announcement that they would be able to clarify what they are doing some time in September," Fox said.
Shaw told the representatives that the business community feels like they are at the end of the food chain.
"This giant silence on the other side of the bridge and the facts we do know of the numbers of people being laid off and contracts canceled - we'd like to ask that you communicate as you know what's happening," Shaw said. "We're pretty scared."
Barrigan agreed to include the concerns of the business owners in a letter for the congressional delegation.
I expect the same thing to happen when LLNL bites the dusk in just one years and eight days away. Just think how many homes will go on the market after Oct 1, 2007 especially in NIF is closed. There will be more foreclosures in one town then was ever imaginable. Local business should suffer the brunt too and I am sure that lay-offs at many facilities will occur. I guess that's the price of progress. It had to happen sooner or later, so lets get it on and get it over with so that we can move on to the next phase.
'Super lab'' gets its start at LANL
New Mexican - September 23, 2006
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/49666.html
- Comments Section -
By Ted Hobbes (Submitted: 09/23/2006 3:11 pm)
Well, first LANL's private operator, LANS, has to come up with $200M from the Lab budget to pay for their management fee, and the NM Gross Receipts tax, before they hire people from NM or anywhere else.
Right now, there is an extreme budget squeeze for FY07, instant terminations of contract employees, drying up of work for local business, and absolute silence from LANS.
It's clear their first priority is their management fee so their partners can get their profit from the deal, and their managers can get whatever bonuses and incentives they've been promised behind closed doors.
All of this was as predictable as a hurricane flooding New Orleans when Congress and DOE put the contract out to bid with a ~20-times increase in management fee, new eligibility to pay NM Gross Receipts tax, and no budget increase or concrete plan to mitigate the financial damage.
Lab Directory Mike Anastasio, in his talks before LANS took over, promised they would save all this money by 'integrating' and demolishing buildings.
DOE also said they picked LANS for the contract because of their plan to 'integrate.'
There's been little definition of integration beyond matrix management,
and no concrete, measurable actions that define what 'integrate' is, beyond a buzz-word. The buzz word does not say exactly how to extract the $200M from the Lab budget to pay the new managers and the State without damaging the Laboratory.
There's been no discernible diagnosis of Lab inefficiencies that could be fixed to yield the funds. Instead, the budget is being squeezed to produce the cash, and the programs that Congress expected LANL to execute are likely to wither in FY07. Overhead has exploded, and work specified in work packages next year is shrinking.
Yes indeed, Congress', DOE's and NNSA's brilliant plan to whip LANL, and soon, LLNL, into shape is working exactly as predicted.
These predictions were summarily ignored during the RFP and contract award process, because the new contractor was going to 'integrate' and $200M was going to fall from out from the fat.
It would be disingenuous, but not surprising, for our Congressional delegation to come out and say they had no idea this might happen. It was plain as day it would happen, and it is happening.
Some months ago, the news reported Domenici was shocked by this development.
But it's ok, we can dump $100M into a new supercomputer, but it's anyone's guess how LANS is going to leave LANL with much capacity to do anything with the fancy new box.
Now LANS partners are bidding on LLNL's contract. I wonder how that's going to work out.
In the mean time, we can watch the newspapers get to the bottom of this by publish glowing stories about miraculous new technology the Laboratory is developing.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Last modified Wednesday, September 27, 2006 3:40 PM MDT
LANS projects subcontractor job cuts
CAROL A. CLARK lanews@lamonitor.com Monitor Senior Reporter
Faced with roughly $175 million in deficits, Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Michael Anastasio told the laboratory work force this morning that an estimated 350 contractor jobs will be eliminated.
LANL's Director of Communications Jeff Berger said this morning that Deputy Director John Mitchell established and led a budget review in August and September that included associate directors from across the laboratory. Mitchell briefed Anastasio on their findings Tuesday, Berger said.
Armed with that information, Berger said Anastasio told the work force this morning that the contractor positions would be eliminated in the coming year in an effort to preserve employment for LANL employees and to not compromise the laboratory's mission for its customers.
LANL's continuing budget resolution in Congress, the gross receipts tax, costs associated with pensions and the LLC fee are all elements that are part and parcel of operating the lab, Berger said, adding that no matter who won the contract they would be in the same financial spot.
To operate conservatively, Anastasio is increasing the overhead rate by one percent but will maintain spending at the current level, Berger said.
"This is not the lab micromanaging these contractors," Berger said. "We want to remain as competitive as possible and we need to make up this difference."
He added that all the details have not been worked out yet.
"Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) is well aware of the sobering budget situation facing Los Alamos National Laboratory and its contractors," spokesman Chris Gallegos said this morning. "He has been briefed on the recent meeting in Los Alamos (Thursday's business-owner meeting at the chamber) and is interested in having the lab, DOE and others work together to minimize the economic dislocation that may result from the lab trying to meet new costs associated with the LANS contract."
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., also addressed the situation this morning.
"We predicted this funding shortfall and asked the DOE to address the root causes," Bingaman said. "Unfortunately, the DOE dismissed the concerns and today we're learning what the potential impact on the lab will be. For the DOE and NNSA to have failed to plan and budget for the very management changes they were imposing on one of its most important laboratories is almost incomprehensible. The department's failure to properly plan for this management change should not have to be borne by workers in our state."
Los Alamos County Council Vice Chair Jim West said, "This news if very disturbing and disappointing. Now we know where the $200 million the lab has been looking for will come from; from the businesses, lives and livelihood of lab employees. So much for all the 'commitments' the new lab managers made to northern New Mexico to win the contract to manage the lab."
Kevin Holsapple heads up both the Los Alamos Commerce and Development Corporation and the Los Alamos Chamber of Commerce. He said the chamber has a subcontractor committee that has been working together since early this year.
"The group formed to develop and provide input to LANS about how the community and lab could work together to help LANL in being as successful as possible in achieving their commitments under appendices J and M of the contract to operate the lab," Holsapple said. "Appendix J is the lab's small business subcontracting plan and appendix M is their regional purchasing program. The group developed a number of recommendations that were provided to LANL and were presented at the chamber's May business breakfast, along with an invitation to the business community to get involved with the committee."
Those recommendations and other information related to the committee's work has been posted on the web at www.contractwithlanl.info.
More than 80 area businesses have registered to be involved with the initiative, Holsapple said, adding that other interested businesses are encouraged to register via the link on this web page. "It is clear that LANL is facing a difficult budget challenge," Holsapple said. "Since LANS has taken the reins at LANL, many of these subcontractors have experienced a loss of subcontract business with the lab. During this time, the group has consistently worked to seek to establish business-to-business communications with the lab to try to better understand the situation, contribute to the extent they can in assisting the lab with solutions to their budget problem and to plan for the future of their businesses."
Holsapple said they are hopeful that there will eventually be constructive and beneficial communications with the lab.
"Representatives of the committee met recently with representatives of the congressional delegation to provide information about the business environment and discuss their concerns," he said. "These businesses are an important part of our business community. They employ hundreds of people, have provided important services to the lab for many years, are important customers of retail and service businesses in the area, and provide support to a broad variety of community initiatives and organizations. They also bring business to our area in the form of work they do for customers out of the area."
They estimate that as much as 40 percent of the collective business that they do is for customers out of the area, Holsapple said. "This is important economic diversification for our community."
The chamber is interested in hearing from all of its members, whether they are subcontractors or not, who are concerned and want to work on developing beneficial communications with LANL, he said.
"We heard from several additional members last week about their interest in getting involved and we have already started following up with them," Holsapple said. "Other members who want to get involved should contact me or member services coordinator Debbie Gill."
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2006
UC Office of the President contact: Chris Harrington (202) 997-3150
chris.harrington@ucdc.edu
Bechtel National contact: Michael Kidder (240) 379-3261
mgkidder@bechtel.com
UC REGENTS' COMMITTEE VOTES TO COMPETE FOR MANAGEMENT OF LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY
The University of California Board of Regents' Committee on Oversight of the Department of Energy Laboratories voted today (Sept. 20) to recommend to the full board that the university compete for the management and operations of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The full board is expected to endorse the committee's recommendation at Thursday's (Sept. 21) meeting. The final bid, due Oct. 12, will be submitted by a team led by UC and Bechtel National.
Acting on the recommendation of UC President Robert C. Dynes, the committee voted to authorize the university, acting through regents' chairman Gerald L. Parsky, to take actions necessary to submit a proposal to the Department of Energy in response to the its July 14 request for proposals.
At their July meeting, the regents appointed national security and nuclear weapons expert George H. Miller as team leader for the competition. Should the UC-Bechtel led proposal win the new contract, Miller would be named director of the laboratory.
"For the past 54 years, the men and women at Livermore laboratory have ably served our nation, providing scientific and technological excellence that has made this country safer and improved the quality of life," said Dynes. "I firmly believe that our team's proposal will build upon their successes, dedication and hard work. Our proposal will be strong and responsive to DOE and the needs of our nation."
As required by the request for proposals (RFP), UC and Bechtel will form a separate corporate entity to act as prime contractor to manage the laboratory.
"For more than a half-century, the Livermore laboratory has performed its public service in the most exemplary fashion through its innovations in energy research and advances in national security," said Parsky. "The University of California has played a vital role in those achievements, and we look forward to contributing our talents and resources to deliver science and technology in the best interests of our country."
As specified in the RFP, current Livermore employees who do not terminate employment or retire will be moved to the new corporate structure and will retain their current benefits and pensions to the extent legally permissible under the Department of Energy's new requirements.
Bechtel National provides world-class program and project management, facilities management, safety and environmental management, and robust government business systems.
# # #
BACKGROUND ON THE LLNL COMPETITION PROCESS
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory – The current management contract expires Sept. 30, 2007. Congressional action in 2003 mandated that DOE conduct a competition for management of any laboratory contract that had been in place for 50 years or more without competition. Five national laboratory contracts, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, were affected by this action. On July 14, 2006, the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration released the final request for proposals (RFP). The deadline for submission of bids is Oct. 12, 2006. According to DOE, a source evaluation board comprised of DOE technical and business experts will review the proposals submitted and provide recommendations to the Source Selection Official. More information about the competition is available at: www.doeal.gov/llnlCompetition/Default.htm
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
The University of California, chartered in 1868, is a system of 10 campuses with a mission of teaching, research and public service. With 208,000 undergraduate and graduate students, UC is the world's premier public university. UC has five medical schools, three law schools and the nation's largest continuing education program. Forty-nine researchers affiliated with UC have been awarded Nobel Prizes; 16 of theses prestigious awards have been won since 1995. UC also has 372 members in the National Academy of Sciences, and UC-affiliated researchers have received 48 Medals of Science since Congress created the award in 1959.
UC is involved in the management of three national laboratories on behalf of the Department of Energy – Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore in California and Los Alamos in New Mexico.
For more news and information about the University of California:
www.universityofcalifornia.edu
BECHTEL
Bechtel is a global engineering, construction and project management company with more than a century of experience mastering complex projects in challenging locations. Privately owned, with headquarters in San Francisco, the company has 40,000 employees working in 50 countries. Bechtel National Inc. is supporting national security and U.S. intelligence and defense efforts, developing new technologies to fight terrorism, monitoring the consequences of terrorist acts, designing emergency response programs, and training military and civilian responders nationwide. Additionally, BNI has broad capabilities and extensive experience in the management of complex, multisite, environmental programs, including environmental cleanup projects at several Department of Energy sites in the United States.
BNI's national security work includes managing and operating facilities for the National Nuclear Security Administration. BNI is also a partner in management of NNSA's Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee and the Pantex Plant in Texas, as well as the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Among its Department of Defense contracts, BNI manages the Kwajalein missile range and supports non-proliferation efforts in the former Soviet Union for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. BNI's portfolio also includes over 15 years of government laboratory management and support experience.
For more news and information about Bechtel National Inc.: www.Bechtel.com
# # #
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/02/lanl_job_cuts/
Job cuts loom at Los Alamos Lab
Creative firings
By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View → More by this author
Published Monday 2nd October 2006 18:40 GMT
The arrival of a new master at Los Alamos National Laboratory will likely result in a rapid fire layoff, officials revealed last week.
The consortium operating the lab expects to cleave off hundreds of jobs in an effort to lower costs. The lab faces serious financial challenges under its new management, which has to account for close to $200m more in various costs than previous manager University of California (UC). The prospect of lost jobs in New Mexico has prompted local politicians to mount their soap boxes.
"This budget shortfall is about more than bad math - this is about the livelihoods of my constituents,'' U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said in a statement. "(The U.S. Department of Energy) should have better budgeted and planned for these costs."
Los Alamos will likely do away with between 350 and 600 contract workers. The lab has more than 8,000 full-time staff and more than a thousand other contract workers.
In June, a consortium dubbed Los Alamos National Security (LANS) took over sole management of the lab from UC, which had operated the site since the days of the Manhattan Project. The limited liability corporation (LLC) is composed of contractors such as Bechtel, Washington Group International and BWX, along with UC.
The new management has been expected to run the lab with a similar budget as in years past. That's problematic because, as an LLC, LANS must pay more in taxes and pension costs than the non-profit UC. In addition, LANS expects to hand out raises and hopes to earn tens of millions in performance incentives from the government that were not available to UC. All told, that means the additional costs could chew through close to 10 per cent of the lab's $2.2bn budget.
Up until now, lab representatives have played down the prospect of job cuts. Director Michael Anastasio in July called on workers to use "creativity" to solve the $200m budget shortfall.
Any job cuts will be characterized as crushing to the cities around the lab, which depend on Los Alamos as a key part of their economies.
"This is going to be devastating to the economy,'' Espanola mayor Joseph Maestas told a local paper. "That's why the state Legislature and the governor need to come up with ways to invest the state's share of this windfall to create a sustainable economy that gradually reduces its reliance on the laboratory money or federal money associated with the lab.''
The Department of Energy controls the lab's budget and is not expected to free up more cash anytime soon. ®
Related stories
IBM and AMD feed on Los Alamos' ample supercomputing pork (5 September 2006)
El Reg saves Los Alamos lab web site from hooligans (26 July 2006)
Los Alamos bets on 'creativity' to handle $200m of extra costs (24 July 2006)
Costs swell at America's most infamous weapons lab (12 July 2006)
These supercomputers could be yours (22 November 2005)
The start of what will ultimately be 1,500 - 2,000 RIFS before FY07 is over, and they won't all be contracters.
http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2006/10/04/headline_news/news01.txt
LANL meets with subcontractors
ROGER SNODGRASS roger@lamonitor.com Monitor Assistant Editor
Deputy Laboratory Director John Mitchell led a meeting with subcontractors of Los Alamos National Laboratory who have heard indirectly that several hundred of their employees may be the first to feel a budget crunch under the new management contract.
Speaking to 150 or so people at Duane Smith auditorium Tuesday evening, Mitchell said that many of the key decisions were made only last week.
He said about 350 jobs will be lost through belt-tightening over the next two-to-three months, but he put the total number at 400-600 over the longer term.
Mitchell assured the group that he was aware of the impact.
"Do we want it to happen?" he asked. "No."
He said it was something that made good business sense.
"Who is getting laid off?" he asked again later in his presentation. "That choice is yours. They're your employees, not ours."
As LANL staff was told by laboratory Director Michael Anastasio in an all-employees meeting last week, anticipated additional expenses for employee compensation and benefits, gross receipts taxes and the management fee are expected to increase annual costs by $175 million.
The federal budget appears to be flat and the situation is aggravated by a continuing resolution providing stopgap funding in place of an approved appropriation bill.
Mitchell said that 3,000 subcontracts had been reviewed and that basic recommendations were being made at the associate director level, where line management responsibilities reside.
The two primary factors in the decision were lab management's determination to avoid laying off LANL employees or charging customers more.
The decision about contractor employees was related to fixing the overhead, or indirect costs. Future dismissals would be related to the outcome of the budget process in Washington.
Without thinning the subcontracting workforce, he said, the laboratory would have had to raise its overhead to about 50 percent, from the current 36 percent level.
Only last week was the decision made to raise the indirect cost to 37 percent and cut the subcontract employees.
Subcontractors with specific concerns or complaints were encouraged to contact the person who manages their subcontracts.
"They have everything we know," Mitchell said.
When Mitchell was asked if the representatives from the congressional delegation could address the question of whether there might be some budget relief forthcoming from Washington, he said it was his meeting, but offered the staff members a chance to respond.
The staff members did not answer during the meeting.
After the meeting Rep. Tom Udall's staff handed out a letter dated Sept. 29 and signed by the chair and ranking member of the House Small Business Committee, as well as Udall, seeking additional information.
"Specifically, we would like to know how many of these contracting jobs will be cut from small businesses. Additionally, what is the dollar amount of the contracts that will be cut," the congressmen asked.
The letter noted that the LANS proposal had committed $625 million to small business concerns in the current fiscal year, and asked how the recent decisions would affect that commitment.
Asked during the question-and-answer period if the current layoffs were foreseen in the LANS proposal, Mitchell said the proposal answered the questions that were asked by the Department of Energy not the ones that weren't asked.
"We intend to honor everything we said in our proposal, including the small business commitments," he said. "It just may take us longer to do that."
He said that the small business performance measures were among the details that had not yet been negotiated in the final contract, to be concluded in the next month.
Mitchell also acknowledged that three companies would be given preferences as "teaming subcontractors."
The teaming subcontractors, who were specifically designated in the contract proposal, are Pro2Serve, North Wind and Ngenuity.
Mitchell said the laboratory expected extra help from DOE to support the environmental projects that might be especially hard-pressed during the interim period covered by a continuing budget resolution.
To HR/ Public Affairs LLNL:
This little bit of information fails to tell the entire truth, as to why the majority of the people went TCP1. What we need to know is, out of the 6469 people how many of these people were under 50 years old, how many were not vested; and then finally how many stayed because they did not trust UC or just wanted to continue to work more years in order to get their retirement higher. Most importantly is how many were under 50 years old and not vested. Only then can someone at LLNL make a logical decision based on facts, not mis-information that leads one to believe that they all should go TCP1 because it's such a good deal. When will you actually publish the true facts?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Just published by the LLNL Transition Team
Here are the LANL numbers:
LANS/LANL Offers Acceptances Percentage
Job offers:
Career 8566 8259 96.4%
Limited Term
and Post Docs 953 893 93.8%
Total 9519 9512 96.2%
Pension Plans:
TCP1 6469
TCP2 2683
Being part of LLNL and soon to be under the command of a private contractor I am concerned about the ranking system and would like to participate in changing it, even if this means placing the "white collar workers" on the merit system and the "blue collar workers" on the STEP system. I have been with LLNL for almost 25 years and never before I have seen such a waste of time and money then having many of our well paid managers from the directorate on down spend six months of valuable time ranking people into peer groups so that they can distribute a 2% pay package in 1/10 of 1% to those who they feel are deserving. It is foolish and above all very expensive and costly to DOE in the millions of dollars a year. So how do we get this changed ASAP? This needs to be addresses NOW.
At least somebody in California is willing to challange Bechtel. The LANL community just whimpered "I want to preserve my benefits!" and then rolled over.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/08/BAGS3LL5A21.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle
BAY AREA
Group files longshot bid for control of lab
Anti-nuclear activists, partners want Lawrence Livermore to focus on peaceful pursuits
Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer
Sunday, October 8, 2006
Tri-Valley CAREs' Tara Dorabji and New College President ...
It's a classic David versus Goliath standoff.
A band of nuclear disarmament advocates, college educators and wind-energy developers is positioning itself to go up against a consortium led by the University of California and the politically powerful San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp. for control of one of the nation's top nuclear design labs.
The band, which includes longtime advocacy group Tri-Valley CAREs, acknowledges it has little chance of outbidding the UC-Bechtel group for management rights to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which has been run by UC for more than half a century. But it plans to press ahead anyway.
The U.S. Department of Energy has given all comers until Oct. 27 to submit their contract bids.
"We do not believe the Department of Energy is going to choose our bid. But that isn't how I define 'winning,' " said Marylia Kelley, one of the Bay Area's best-known critics of the lab. She runs Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment), an activist group that in its 23 years of existence has won widespread respect for its serious and studied approach to its work.
But, Kelly said, if her group's bid encourages public support for phasing out the lab's nuclear weapons work and diverting its thousands of scientists into research on global warming, alternative energy sources and other subjects, that'll be a moral victory.
Short of that, it'll be a moral victory if the campaign stirs enough public interest to put pressure on Lawrence Livermore officials to run the lab in a more environmentally conscious way and to be less secretive about their work developing and refining the world's scariest weapons.
On Sept. 21, Kelley and her colleagues announced they were bidding for the contract, teaming up with New College of California, Nuclear Watch of New Mexico and WindMiller Energy, a small wind-energy firm in rural New York state.
"It's important for us to try to push for citizen oversight of this laboratory (so it can) use science for the benefit of the human experience," said New College President Martin Hamilton.
The Energy Department is expected to name the winning bid in March.
So far, the UC-Bechtel consortium has been the only other competitor to step forward. A UC spokesman could not be reached to comment on the rival bid. Susan Houghton, chief spokeswoman for Lawrence Livermore, declined to comment.
The bid marks the first time UC has had to compete to run the lab it has managed for more than half a century under exclusive contract with the Energy Department. In 2003, Congress and the department, fed up with security, safety, management and financial scandals, ordered that all future contracts with national labs be open to competition. Last December, UC-Bechtel beat out Lockheed Martin Corp. and the University of Texas for control of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a lab that UC has also managed for decades.
UC and Bechtel officials say they'll refuse to release a public copy of their bid for Lawrence Livermore on the grounds that the information might be exploited by other competitors. In an attempt to shame UC-Bechtel, the activists plan to post their entire bid for the contract online later this month.
"Lawrence Livermore is a publicly funded institution, funded off taxpayers' dollars," said Tara Dorabji, outreach director for Tri-Valley CAREs. "All bids should be public, and we'll make ours public."
Dorabji said that if her group manages to win the contract through an extraordinary set of circumstances, the lab would undergo a transformation. The group, she said, would:
-- Spend the majority of lab research funds -- largely provided by the Energy Department and the Pentagon -- to develop cleaner, renewable energy and to fight global warming. "Currently, the lion's share (of money) is going to weapons development," Dorabji said, but the lab is already doing "unclassified, fabulous research" on global warming that should be expanded.
-- Greatly speed up plans to move the lab's huge cache of plutonium to a safer, remote site. Lab officials currently plan to remove the plutonium -- perhaps initially to a site in New Mexico, then perhaps to final storage elsewhere -- by 2014. By contrast, Dorabji's group would get rid of the plutonium four years earlier, after holding public hearings to locate the safest, most secure new site.
-- Cancel the lab's current plans to expand its "biodefense" research facility to study far more dangerous microbes. Accidental release of killer bugs "could cause many, many, many deaths in the Bay Area as a whole," Dorabji said.
-- Ban secret experiments using the National Ignition Facility, the lab's multibillion-dollar superlaser, which is used primarily to simulate nuclear explosions to test the existing stockpile. Rather, the group would encourage scientists to use the laser for peacetime research, such as experimental simulations of natural phenomena deep inside the Earth and in outer space.
-- Mop up chemically and radioactively contaminated sites at the lab.
"None of us want to close the lab," said Barbara Dyskant, vice president of WindMiller Energy, a three-employee firm that she runs with her engineer husband, Barry K. Miller. "They have wonderful scientists there whose expertise could be very, very well rewarded by working on non-weapons research."
Hamilton said New College's participation in the bid for the Livermore contract is consistent with the 1,000-student school's innovative activities, among them its recent move to save the Roxie Cinema by blending it with the campus' media studies program.
The Livermore contract bid "is a challenge I could not pass up," Hamilton said. "A lot of us use Don Quixote as a metaphor (for our work)." But unlike the fictional Quixote, "we don't want to attack windmills -- we want to use them to generate energy."
E-mail Keay Davidson at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com.
I know that having LLNL taken over by Tri-valley CARES will never happen but it sure would be nice to have our primary objective to be an alternative fuel mandated by the feds to be implemented in five years. Yes, I too say do away with bio-weapons and nuclear weapons research at LLNL and have all of that done at LANL or NTS.
It's funny how slow the Los Alamos community is on the uptake. This budget shortfall and the resulting RIF situation was thoroughly discussed on the LANL blog for months. Why is it such a big surprise that it is actually happening now?
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/50442.html
Full-time LANL workers fear losing jobs
print | email this story
By ANDY LENDERMAN | The New Mexican
October 10, 2006
The specter of layoffs to contract workers has employees worried at Los Alamos National Laboratory, although the details of some 350 to 550 job cuts have yet to be finalized.
A lab spokesman said there are no plans for more layoffs beyond those. And the cuts won't affect the lab's regular employees, officials say. Still, the president of a lab employee association says regular, full-time employees of Los Alamos National Security LLC are worried the layoffs could hit them in the future.
"The mood is very unsettling," said Manny Trujillo of the Union of Professional and Technical Employees, an employee association. "People are basically afraid of what may happen with this budget shortfall."
Los Alamos National Security, which manages the lab for the federal government, said a $175 million budget shortfall brought on the layoffs. The lab is expected to pay $55 million more in gross-receipts taxes this year and needs $70 million to cover pay raises and pension costs. It also must fund a $50 million fee to Los Alamos National Security for running the lab, a spokesman has said.
Lab Director Michael Anastasio told lab employees last month that the lab is working on ways to deal with the shortfall.
"What we're doing is taking prudent steps under the assumptions that budgets will remain relatively flat," lab spokesman Jeff Berger said. "We're not planning on a bailout. We are planning judiciously for a flat budget."
The lab's current budget is about $2.2 billion. It employs 8,290 regular employees, 1,617 students and postdoctoral researchers, and more than 2,500 contractors.
"We have no plans for anything additional" beyond the announced 350 to 550 contractor layoffs, Berger said. Those cuts would affect temporary support jobs, lab officials said.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., is demanding more information about which workers will be targeted.
"More answers are needed about the contract employee cuts and the impact both at the lab and in the surrounding community," Udall said in a statement. "We know (the National Nuclear Security Administration) has opted to cut approximately 10 percent of the contract labor force, but we have not yet received enough information to determine who and what essential operations will be affected. There is a lot of uncertainty in the LANL community right now."
But the federal agency that oversees the lab supports the current plan to address the budget shortfall.
"One of our goals in the search for a new management and operating contractor for Los Alamos National Laboratory was to select a contractor who could best achieve the department's national security mission in a safe, secure and cost-effective manner, using sound business practices," NNSA Deputy Administrator Tom D'Agostino said in prepared remarks. "During the procurement process we acknowledged that some administrative costs would rise and we said that we expected the costs to be absorbed through more efficient management of the laboratory."
Los Alamos County Councilor Jim Hall said the council is sorry to see the announcement. "If you take away at least 350 high-paying jobs, that has a tremendous impact on the northern part of the state," Hall said.
The head of a nuclear watchdog group said lab managers knew that budget problems were coming.
"As usual, it's the folks on the lowest rung of the ladder that end up getting hurt," Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico said. "It seems like the privileged scientists in Los Alamos County are being well protected. But it's more like the blue-collar workers from, for example, Rio Arriba County that are going to be laid off."
Anastasio in a recent speech to employees said the shortfall will be addressed without cutting Los Alamos National Security employees or a program called Laboratory Directed Research and Development.
"I reiterate that there will not be a (reduction in force), nor is one being planned for the future," Anastasio said.
Contact Andy Lenderman at 995-3827 or alenderman@sfnewmexican.com .
"Udall also said it's unclear who will be laid off as a result of the budget shortfall. ``I think we're at the front end of the layoffs,'' he said."
________________________________
Albuquerque Journal
Santa Fe Edition
Lab looks to rework more contracts
By ANDY LENDERMAN | The New Mexican
October 13, 2006
Company wants to renegotiate provision that calls for labs to spend $625
million with small businesses
The private company that manages Los Alamos National Laboratory wants to
renegotiate part of its contract with the federal government that calls
for
it to spend $625 million with small businesses in the coming year, U.S.
Rep.
Tom Udall, D-N.M., said Wednesday.
Los Alamos National Security, LLC, which manages the lab, announced
recently
that approximately 350 contract workers would be laid off because of a
$175
million budget shortfall. Now the company wants to renegotiate a
contract
provision that calls for the lab to spend $625 million with small
businesses
in the 2007 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, Udall said.
``Now with the shortfall, the position that's being taken by (Los Alamos
National Security officials) is that they're going to have to put these
provisions on hold,'' Udall said by telephone Wednesday. ``They are
going to
renegotiate these provisions with the Department of Energy. And so the
small-business contracting community has gone from being very hopeful
... to
being very discouraged and angry and critical of what is happening to
them.''
New Mexican Virtual Tours
A lab spokesman said he could not comment Thursday. A spokesman for U.S.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said Domenici was unaware of lab plans to
renegotiate the small-business spending requirement.
Udall met privately with contractors in Los Alamos on Wednesday and also
met
separately with Lab Deputy Director John Mitchell.
Mitchell issued a memo to lab managers Thursday regarding the $175
million
shortfall, which was recently discussed by lab Director Michael
Anastasio.
``As Mike stated in his talk,'' Mitchell wrote, ``our review indicated
that
an estimated 350 contractor positions would be eliminated, saving an
estimated $75 million to $85 million.''
The lab might save another $75 million by ``rethinking, cutting back,
consolidating, and deferring such things as materials and equipment,
travel
and facilities work,'' Mitchell wrote.
And another 200 contract positions also could be eliminated, he wrote.
``Thus, our review process is not complete,'' Mitchell wrote. He has
established a budget review team that should complete another analysis
by
mid-December.
``Once this is complete,'' Mitchell wrote, ``we will be able to provide
you
with a more accurate and complete (fiscal 2007) budget picture. We all
realize this is an anxious time, and we appreciate your patience and
tolerance.''
The company also wants to renegotiate other parts of its federal
contract
that relate to small businesses besides the provision calling for it to
spend $625 with such businesses, Udall said.
Los Alamos National Security LLC is a partnership consisting of Bechtel
National, the University of California, BWX Technologies Inc. and
Washington
Group International. Late last year, it won a seven-year contract which
could earn it up to $79 million a year to manage the lab for the
National
Nuclear Security Administration.
``I was pushing for very specific small-business provisions in the
contract,'' Udall said. `` ... This is one of the reasons that they got
this
contract, is the representations they made about small business. I don't
have any doubt about that.''
The lab has reported spending $538 million, or 55.5 percent of its
procurement budget for goods and services that support the lab, in New
Mexico during the 2004 fiscal year. Seventy-four percent of that was
spent
in Northern New Mexico.
The lab's budget is about $2.2 billion this year. It has 8,290 full-time
employees, 1,617 postdoctoral researchers and students, and more than
2,500
contract employees.
``This is sending a cold chill through the small-business community,''
Udall
said. ``... They don't know what's going to come out. I urged the deputy
director to move this along quickly.''
Udall also said it's unclear who will be laid off as a result of the
budget
shortfall. ``I think we're at the front end of the layoffs,'' he said.
``...
I'm not so sure that the individuals have specifically heard who is
going to
lose their job.''
Domenici has said nobody at the lab should expect a financial bailout
from
Congress now or in the coming years. He declined to be interviewed
Thursday.
His spokesman said the National Nuclear Security Administration has
indicated its budget requests to Congress will be flat in coming years.
Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group said Congress is looking for
ways
to save money, and he thinks the lab's budget is ``bigger than it needs
to
be for the basic version of its mission.''
Contact Andy Lenderman at 995-3827 or lenderman@sfnewmexican.com.
Comment posting on our site has been temporarily suspended. Thank you
for
your patience.
I can only assume that no one who actually works at LLNL knows about this blog or they are all scared shitless to post their real feelings in order to inform LLNL employees are in for becaue they are scared to lose their jobs, or maybe they are all just as happy as can be. It sure would be nice to know the truth. Anyone out there have any guts or all you all just sheep? I think I already know the answer. Please prove me wrong. I will be checking the blog daily.
Attn: LANL/LANS,LLC Employees.
Can anyone inside the current LANS,LLC answer the following questions. I would much rather hear it from one that has been subjected to the system than from a bureaucrat whose sole intention is to promote a plan for the good of the firm with little or no regard for the employees. As someone who is feeling like they too are soon to get the shaft, I'd like to know the following.
If an FTE with 25 years as a UC/LLNL employee were to go TCP2 and then within 120 retire could they start drawing their full pension and still work for the new corporation at full pay? At that point in time would your medical premiums be paid for by UCRP or are they paid for by the new corporation, or, does it really matter because no matter what one does the new corporation decides what you get and who pays what price. Then I have one more concern and that would be, if there is a RIF of FTE's would all of those who went TCP2 be the first to go, because obviously they have shown a lack of loyalty to the company by signs of mis-trust and unwillingness to give all of their UCRP retirement to the new firm?
Someone from inside those walls of silence please respond ASAP so I can make a logical decision based on facts not rumors.
Rocky Flats South
http://www.abqjournal.com/abqnews/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1636&Itemid=2
Breaking at 8:20am -- LANL Could Host New Plutonium Center PDF Print E-mail
Written by Bruce Daniels - ABQnewsSeeker
Thursday, 19 October 2006
Lab on the short list for a major new nuclear weapons facility.
Here's a guest-blog from Albuquerque Journal science writer John Fleck:
Los Alamos National Laboratory is on the short list of sites for a major new plutonium center for nuclear weapons research and manufacturing, the Department of Energy said in a document (pdf) released this morning.
The document, published in the Federal Register, lays out the bare bones basics of the "Complex 2030" effort DOE is launching to yet again try to get its hands around the configuration of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex of the future.
Its biggest feature is a new "consolidated plutonium center," where plutonium research and manufacturing will be done for the nuke arsenal of the future. In addition to Los Alamos, Savannah River, the Nevada Test Site, Pantex near Amarillo and Y-12 at Oak Ridge are on the short list.
Notably for New Mexicans, the old DOE proposal to build a "Modern Pit Facility" to make plutonium bomb parts is now officially dead.
Carlsbad had been on the list of possible sites for htat project, and had enthusiastically embraced the work.
Also notably for New Mexicans, White Sands Missile Range is one of two sites to be considered for nuclear weapons flight test operations.
The feds responsible for this are doing a telephone news conference later this morning, so we'll have more as the day rolls along. Check my blog for
more as the story develops, with a more detailed story to follow in tomorrow's print edition of the Albuquerque Journal.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 October 2006 )
Rocky Flats South, again
http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2006/10/19/headline_news/news03.txt
Los Alamos National Laboratory is one of five locations that will be considered for the role of a "consolidated plutonium center"
Did One of the articles say that the pit facility for LANL was scrubbed? Why stow the Pu there?
"Notably for New Mexicans, the old DOE proposal to build a "Modern Pit Facility" to make plutonium bomb parts is now officially dead."
Why isn't DAF being used? That entire area is a great place for storage and it's in the middle of nowhere, to where anyone approaching could be easily seen and apprehended.
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/51021.html
Contractor layoffs have town on its toes
By DEBORAH BAKER | Associated Press
October 22, 2006
"Blah blah ... employees are nervous ... blah blah..."
In the months before the LANL contract award announcement I recall having heard staff member after staff member saying, "I want UC to win the contract so that my benefits are preserved."
I hope all those ignorant bastards are happy now that UC has "won the contract." They richly deserve their new life under LANS.
Oh, yeah. LANS is a huge improvement over UC. DOE should have gone with LM.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/24/national/main2122004.shtml
CBS: Los Alamos Security Breach Probed
Feds Are Investigating Apparent Breach Of Classified Info At Nation's Top Nuclear Lab
(CBS) Another apparent breach of classified material is under federal investigation at the nation's premier nuclear weapons laboratory: Los Alamos National Laboratory, sources tell CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.
The breach apparently was discovered when Los Alamos police recently conducted a methamphetamine raid on an area home. Inside the house, along with drug paraphernalia, police allegedly found classified materials apparently from the grounds of the Los Alamos Laboratory. How somebody involved in illegal drugs would also have access to classified materials from the nation's nuclear weapons facility is unknown but under investigation.
The home is believed to belong to a Los Alamos Laboratory contractor who does maintenance at the laboratory.
The FBI has been called in to lead the investigation into the security breach and executed a search warrant on Friday. The U.S. attorney's office in Albuquerque, N.M., is reviewing the case.
The Los Alamos Laboratory has been hit by multiple security and management scandals in recent years. Problems were so widespread that Congress forced the contract for management of the lab to go up for bid for the first time ever. However, after bidding, the contract was re-awarded to the same contractor: the University of California.
Los Alamos public affairs officials will only confirm the matter is under investigation.
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
What do you expect when you let a construction company try to run a national laboratory?
I seems that our former LANL blog moderator has a few words to say about LANL's latest screw-up:
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2006/
10/los_alamos_meth.html
Sounds like it's about time for another 7-month shutdown. Or perhaps longer.
News reports are saying that Sec. Bodman is mad as hell about this screw-up. Expect some grim repercussions to soon head our way via the friendly folks in Washington DC. It may have been a sub-contractor who screwed up, but everyone will now join in the suffering.
This summer's peace and quiet was nice while it lasted, but storm clouds are here, once again. Anyone with a bit of foresight could probably have guessed that the quiet wouldn't last for long. It's now time for those with good jobs skills to begin packing their bags and heading off to better and much saner pastures. Over the last few years, we've all had plenty of indications that the direction of the slope was quickly heading downhill. Denial is no longer a functional option now, is it? Besides, why wait around when most of the staff already sense that a RIF is coming our way? LANS says it ain't so, but do you really believe them? I didn't think so. Just take a look around and notice the large number of workers who have no visible means of funding. It's only going to get worse. NNSA has no plans to help dig LANL out of the current budget hole and St. Pete has made it clear we are on our own.
And then there is the