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.