Leonard Gilroy and Harris Kenny wrote a provocative article titled "Look Who's Embracing Privatization - Big City Democrats." (Look to your right for the link.) They document how Mayors -- ranging from Chicago's Rahm Emanuel to Los Angeles' Antonio Villaraigosa to Newark's Cory Booker -- have partnered with the private sector to provide high quality services at lower cost.
They write, "Mr. Emanuel is doing what sensible leaders do: focusing resources on the core
functions of government and using competition to lower costs on the rest. When
government agencies are forced to compete with the private sector, it saves
taxpayers money and makes government more responsive to its customers.
Performance-based contracts that set clear standards ensure that high-quality
services are delivered by private firms that are held accountable."
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sure competition for the public sector is healthy and perhaps yields better service delivery for the customer citizen but who rates the performance of the top city executives? certainly not the voter by ballot's popularity contest. And private sector citizen volunteers wanting to pitch in are restricted by adminstration heads citing union grievances as a reason preventing the tasks from taking place. So what happens - after prolonged discouraging delays, the volunteers do the jobs without notifying department heads (the underground), if no union grievance is filed and the job is completed department head takes the credit, citizens are happy with results, underground moves on to take on more jobs without being bogged down by bureacratic paperwork. That's the game of Newton government, let those in the spotlight take the credit, for that's what they need in order to justify their necessity to the people.
ReplyDeleteso OK here we are on the verge of the Mayor's state of the city address - will he speak of Lemieux's optimistic best case scenario budgeterium? Will he acknowledge the skepticism and shortcomings of his override and instead pep rally taxpayers? Will he speak of Patrick's gloomy cherrysheet pickins to Newton? Will the attractive school system to non-Newtonites continue to bust out beyond what we can afford?
ReplyDeleteGov. Patrick has made his choice with Weld's privatization, solemnly retiring to the private sector where predictability of fiscal outcome is controlled.