Recently in Publicization Category

Source: By Stan Soloway, Washington Post, Monday, July 19, 2010

 

The debate over the degree to which federal agencies have hired contractors for work more appropriately performed within the government has become increasingly prominent. It has been further fueled by statutory requirements that agencies consider in-sourcing almost anything they have ever outsourced.

.... The Office of Management and Budget has also directed agencies to conduct meaningful cost analyses before insourcing positions that do not have to be performed by government employees. However, internal documents suggest that the Defense Department is often significantly underestimating the costs of performing work with federal employees because their analyses are limited primarily to immediate wages and benefits, plus a small amount of overhead expense, rather than the entire set of identifiable costs being assumed by the taxpayer.

Source: By GLEN JOHNSON, The Associated Press (MA)  June 21, 2010, 12:15PM

Transportation officials are examining how much money Massachusetts might save if they have state employees do more highway snow removal instead of the current patchwork of private contractors.

Transportation Secretary Jeffrey Mullan said Monday the $57.5 million the state is preparing to spend this coming winter is ripe for scrutiny because it's one of his bigger budget line items. And that figure is below historical averages: Massachusetts spent $66 million for plowing last winter and has spent an average of $76 million annually during the past five years.

 Source: wtvq.com (KY)  01/21/2010

One Kentucky State Representative has introduced a bill to improve the quality and quantity of the food at all of the state's prison, but critics say it's costly and unnecessary. This was the scene last August when inmates rioted at Northpoint Prison near Danville. State Rep. Brent Yonts believes one of the main causes for this uprising was food.

Right now, a private company, Aramark, provides the inmates meals, so he is proposing a bill that would put the state back in control.

Source: John Culbertson, Waste Age, May 1, 2008 12:00 PM,


Conventional Wisdom holds that we are in the midst of a slow but steady march towards privatization of municipal solid waste and recycling collection services. Several sources -- most of them industry-sponsored, but also independent organizations like the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation -- have long touted the benefits of privatization, such as higher productivity, flexible compensation programs to motivate labor, dedicated focus on maintaining solid waste fleets and higher utilization of capital assets. But what are the benefits of going in the other direction? Could a city or county justify converting from a contracted collection service to public collection?

Source: Mona Sonnenshein and Carol Sherman, Modern Healthcare, April 20, 2009 - 5:59 am EDT

 

In October 2006, the chief operating officer for the University of California at San Diego Medical Center wanted to evaluate the medical center's outsourced food and nutrition services for both quality and financial improvements. A consultant, who had worked successfully with this senior administrator before, was hired to evaluate the facility's current operation, including the ability of the department to meet current and future needs of the medical center and assess the possibilities for cost containment and service modification through changes in the department.

..... Through the transition to in-house management, approximately $1.6 million was saved from the annual operating budget, and services were improved after a seamless transition.

Source: Inside Higher Ed, December 15, 2008

...... Now under threat of closing, the college is in negotiations with a public institution -- New Mexico Highlands University -- that is considering taking over the college, and a debt that could be as much as $35.3 million. While the potential deal is seen by many as a welcome lifeline, students and faculty say they're unsure how the uniqueness of Santa Fe might be preserved if the college is placed in state hands.

Source: Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau, October 2008

....... In fiscal year (FY) 2007-08, DOA spent $20.4 million on print and mail services, including
$1.7 million paid to Spherion for staffing services. The current contract with Spherion will expire on June 30, 2009, and DOA has begun preparations to solicit bids in October or November 2008. Using a cost-benefit model developed by DOA, we estimate that as much as $616,500 could be saved in the five-year period from FY 2009-10 through FY 2013-14 if state staff filled all print and mail positions currently filled by contract staff. However, contract costs will be difficult to estimate until DOA has received vendors' bids, and the actual cost of adding state staff is difficult to estimate because of the uncertainty of future salary, fringe benefit, and recruiting costs.

Source: By ELISE CASTELLI, Federal Times, September 21, 2008

A rare thing happened in January. Sixty-five Navy civilian employees at Puget Sound's Fleet and Industrial Supply Center in Washington state took over torpedo maintenance work that had previously been done by 85 contractor employees.

The Navy "insourced" the work -- as it is called when work is transferred from a contractor to in-house employees -- after it calculated it would save 10 percent of the cost, or $3 million over five years, of what it was costing to have BAE Systems do the work.

..........The Army has also insourced work. So has IRS and the Homeland Security Department. Such cases are rare, but if Congress gets its way, there will be plenty more insourcing going on in coming years at the Defense Department and across government.

...... The IRS announced this month it would take back 700 documents management jobs it outsourced last year to a contractor.

........ In a document obtained by Federal Times, the IRS declared it was canceling the contract and bringing the 700 jobs back in house "in the interest of putting a long-term solution in place and doing so in the most cost effective manner." The document didn't say how much the agency would save by reversing its outsourcing decision.

Source: BY SCOTT ANDRON, Miami Herald (FL), Wed, Aug. 13, 2008

The state is taking over direct management of nurse's aides and food workers at three veterans' nursing homes, including one in Pembroke Pines. The 208 employees now work for a contractor, North Carolina-based PhyAmerica Government Services. But as of Aug. 29, PhyAmerica is laying them off, according to a notice filed Tuesday with the state labor department.

...... The PhyAmerica employees can apply for the new state jobs, said Courtney Heidelberg, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Veterans Affairs.

....... ''It's more cost effective, it's better quality of care for our residents, and our employees get better benefits,'' she said.

Source: Water Justice Project

The Water Justice project has compiled examples of how communities in different parts of the world are moving from failed privatised water management to successful publicly managed water and wastewater services. These examples are presented on this Water Remunicipalisation Tracker (read more about the tracker). Approaches differ depending on local circumstances but undoubtedly lessons can be learned from the different but inspiring experiences of remunicipalisation.