Pursuit's Take
Contractors hired under personal services contracts operate like government employees. The federal government reported spending about $1.5 billion on personal services contracts for FYs 2011-2015. The Air Force, Army, Navy, and USAID together were responsible for most of this reported spending.
GAO found that USAID spent over $123 million on these contracts in FY 2015. However, GAO could not confirm how much DOD spent on them because the Air Force and Army did not record these contracts accurately in federal databases.