Public Employee Press

Contracting out skyrockets

As DC 37 fights for a new contract, the union will be calling public attention to the city’s growing waste of taxpayers’ money on outside contracts and overpaid consultants.

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

The city’s budget for contracting out has mushroomed by nearly 40 percent over the past five fiscal years.

Alarmed about the out-of-control contracting, the union is initiating a campaign to demand greater accountability for spending on farmed out work and to rein in the wasteful use of consultants.

“We recognize that the city needs to hire private firms to do certain jobs,” DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said. “But with the contracting budget at nearly $10 billion a year, the city is threatening the civil service system and putting public services up for sale that can be done more efficiently in-house.”

Profiteers make a comeback
In 2002, Roberts initiated a campaign against contracting out that culminated with the release of a series of white papers that exposed wasteful contracting and a shadow workforce of consultants who were doing the work of civil servants. Responding to union pressure, the city hired some consultants into city jobs and cut back on wasteful spending on outside firms.

“Unfortunately, the profiteers appear to be making a comeback,” said Henry Garrido, assistant to the associate director at DC 37, who was the principal author of the white papers. “The public should be outraged about this. This growing waste is especially worrisome to us when we are in the midst of a fight for a new contract.”

The city’s adopted budget for contracting out jumped from $6.7 billion in fiscal year 2005 to $9.2 billion in the current fiscal year of 2009.

Categories in which the city has significantly boosted spending or allocated heavy funding include temporary services, cleaning and maintenance, as well as professional services.

Laws provide accountability
During the Dinkins administration, DC 37 successfully fought for local legislation that requires the city to notify the union if outside hiring could lead to the displacement of municipal workers and provide a cost-benefit analysis of the contracting, which allows the union to prepare counterproposals to have work done in-house.

As a matter of good public policy, the union is very supportive of legislation that provides for more public accountability about the use of consultants, union officials say.

At the state level, Garrido described as a good development, an executive order signed by Gov. David Paterson in June that was backed by the Public Employees Federation. The order requires agencies to justify using consultants when the personnel cost of a contract exceeds $1 million, and it establishes a task force to study and report on agencies’ contracting.

“I think the mayor should be listening to the wisdom of the governor,” Roberts said.