Army units are being ordered to cut 5% from their spending on service contracts. Kim Denver, the Army’s deputy assistant secretary for procurement, said oversight of service contract spending has been lax.

In an interview on Federal News Radio in Washington, he said the new guidance to local commands will emphasize fixed-price contracts as one way to achieve the savings. He also suggested other ways to save: “For example, if you have janitorial service for someone to come in and vacuum your office, do they need to do that every day, or can you have them do it every two or three days?”

The Office of Management and Budget has directed agencies to develop plans to share IT services across agencies. Shared services are a top priority in OMB’s effort to reduce costs.

Chief information officers must submit by Aug. 31 a plan to consolidate “commodity IT.” The shift to shared services is a particular threat to small contractors who may not be able to serve multiple agencies.

Sixty-nine members of Congress wrote to President Obama warning that a trade treaty now being negotiated could weaken Buy American Act protections. They said the Trans-Pacific Partnership could extend BAA exemptions to nine countries in the Pacific Rim region.

The members expressed concern that this would harm U.S. manufacturers. Just a few nations, such as Mexico and Canada, are now exempt from Buy American restrictions.

Federal, state and local governments employ more than one-fifth of the workers in nine states and the District of Columbia, according to an analysis by the Business Journals.

DC has the largest proportion, with one-third of its employment base working for government agencies. Alaska and Wyoming each count more than one-fourth of their workforce in government jobs.

Rounding out the top ten: New Mexico, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Hawaii, West Virginia, Montana and Alabama.

The analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics figures found that government entities employ about one-sixth of all American nonfarm workers.