Private firms do government work with little scrutiny / Is the state benefiting by farming out more jobs to outside firms? No one knows.

Source:By Eric Dexheimer, Corrie MacLaggan, AMERICAN-STATESMAN (TX),Sunday, January 25, 2009

First in an occasional series on the privatization trend  in state government.

Over the years, Texas legislators have ordered state agencies to hire private firms to build and maintain the state's roads, operate its parks, oversee its prisons, sign up its welfare recipients and develop its information technology systems, among other things.  Each time the government signs another deal with these companies to take over jobs it has traditionally performed itself, politicians promise it will save tax dollars by bringing the efficiencies of the private sector to the cumbersome bureaucracies of government.  So how much money has outsourcing actually saved Texans?  No one knows.

......At the same time, the U.S. Department of Justice's recent report [titled: U.S. Department of Justice Statewide CRIPA Investigation of the Texas State Schools and Centers] of ongoing abuse and neglect at the state's institutions for people with mental retardation was seen by some as proof of government's systemic incompetence -- a key argument for privatization.

Related editorial:EDITORIAL: Contracts should serve public, not private sector

American Statesman (TX),Tuesday, January 27, 2009

A new series of occasional but in-depth stories about how the state of Texas contracts with private firms or individuals to perform services for the public began in the Austin American-Statesman on Sunday, and it immediately laid out an important problem: No one can document that such contracts have benefited the public, even as the state appears to rely more than ever on them.