During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama promised to "restore the government's ability to manage contracts, by rebuilding our contract officer corps."

This promise is most likely associated with an influential 2007 commission report that said "acquisition failures in expeditionary operations urgently require a systemic fix of Army contracting." Expeditionary operations include the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the key recommendations the commission made was to vastly increase the number of contracting officers.

In the 2010 Defense budget proposal, Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposed hiring 9,000 additional full-time employees specializing in procurement by 2015.

However, the reality on the ground makes this proposal difficult to fulfill. There are many procurement vacancies already not being filled in the DoD and the armed services.

The biggest problem is that people experienced in government procurement get paid much more in the private sector than they do in the military or the Pentagon. The Air Force recently announced $20,000 bonuses each year for four years to experienced contracting officers in an effort to get them to stay in the military.

Compounding the problem, as more people leave for the private sector, more of the burden falls on those who stay. Many of those same officers have to go on overseas rotations, which entices them to go for the higher-paying job at home.

In recent congressional testimony, Steven Schooner, co-director of procurement law at George Washington University Law School, said the Gates plan was unrealistic and would not solve the current problems. He said the only way to keep up is to hire more private contractors. Larry Farrell, a retired Air Force general on the same panel, pointed out that "over the next five years nearly 50 percent of the acquisition work force will be eligible for retirement."

While the Obama administration has taken steps to create and retain contracting professionals, it remains to be seen whether these efforts are enough. We're rating this In the Works.