Local officials representing the community interests of towns and counties around the Los Alamos National Laboratory had reason for relief this week as they visited Washington, D.C.
Members of the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities are reassured that they would have an additional one-year extension to help guide the impending contract transition at the lab. They spent several days in the nation’s capital gathering with their peers from other areas in an Energy Community Alliance conference focused on environmental management issues in the Department of Energy nuclear weapons complex.
LANL Director Charles McMillan announced last week that the National Nuclear Security Administration had added one last year to the current LANL contract with the current management and operations contractor, Los Alamos National Security, extending the termination date to Sept. 30, 2018.
“That’s what we were expecting,” said RCLC Executive Director Andrea Romero while making the rounds on Capitol Hill. The good thing is, “It opens new opportunities for us to help smooth out the transition process.” Among the advantages, she said, would be the chance to learn from the procurement process currently underway at the nearby Sandia National Laboratories. When it comes to the LANL contract, the group’s members will be lobbying, commenting, and focusing efforts to shape a competition favorable to the community interests.
Among the coalition’s concerns is the direction of contracting at NNSA. The current “for profit” contract created government funding windfalls in the surrounding communities, particularly for Los Alamos County and the state government. The new revenues are derived from gross receipts taxes from which the nonprofit University of California was exempt when it was the sole M&O provider under the previous contract. LANS – a partnership of the university, Bechtel, BWXT, and AECOM – has held the contract since 2006.
“The fact that LANS as a for-profit partnership pays in something close to $70 million annually to the state and $30 million a year to Los Alamos County is of great significance,” said Santa Fe City Councilor Peter Ives. “So much of the general fund comes from gross receipt taxes, we need to find some way to make sure those incomes are preserved.”
Among other priorities, the group will be seeking both sufficient funding and mission diversity for the lab.
In the next four years, DOE anticipates a turnover of 30 to 40 percent of LANL workers through attrition and retirement, which will open opportunities for a younger overall workforce. The coalition proposes to strengthen the supporting communities as a part of the workforce recruitment campaign through local job fairs and information campaigns.
The coalition members are recommending current community programs continue under the new managers and will push to sustain the existing 5 percent preference for local contractors, which allows a small premium in their bids to give an advantage to contracts that keep the money in the community. The emphasis is on local businesses and small business contracts.
Along with Romero and Ives, members of the delegation to Washington were Los Alamos County Councilor Steven Girrens and Los Alamos Deputy County Manager Brian Bosshardt.
