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> Sure but rather than directly hiring N people to run the water works and plumbing crews, the city could contract out the maintenance of those things to a priv

> Sure but rather than directly hiring N people to run the water works and plumbing crews, the city could contract out the maintenance of those things to a private company. I know this can work, but in addition to the usual misalignment of goals between public and private sector, I still see more inefficiency with this than just letting the government do it. For example, the government has to pay all the workers (indirectly, at least). On top of that, it has to pay to negotiate contracts, and an entire layer of oversight of the contractors (which also have their own HR and bureaucracy that you are paying for). On top of that, they will likely have built-in some extra profit to give them some flexibility in case they don't get the next contract. Plus money for lobbying in many instances. If you find the contractors aren't doing their job, now you will probably have to get lawyers and whatnot, and have expensive, time-consuming litigation. Then, if the government wants to change companies at some point, you have a large expense in finding a new one, with bidding, etc. And that is if there is another contractor available in your area. And then you have lobbying, cronyism, and other political issues. The entire reason for hiring another company to do this is to get around public pay and pension issues. If this is all just a workaround for that, fix the source of that problem, rather than trying to abstract away responsibility.

koolba 10y ago
> If you find the contractors aren't doing their job, now you will probably have to get lawyers and whatnot, and have expensive, time-consuming litigation. Then, if the government wants to change companies at some point, you have a large expense in finding a new one, with bidding, etc. And that is if there is another contractor available in your area. And then you have lobbying, cronyism, and other political issues. Business contract law is much simpler to deal with than employment law. Plus it wouldn't be the governments job to deal with individuals at all. Only the end result of the service provided. It'd be the private companies job to deal with their own employees and contractors. > The entire reason for hiring another company to do this is to get around public pay and pension issues. If this is all just a workaround for that, fix the source of that problem, rather than trying to abstract away responsibility. That's exactly the point! Because no private company would be stupid enough to enter those types of agreements with their workers because they can't maintain their end of them. The government can't do it either (without bankrupting and/or eroding it's tax base) so the solution is to prevent government from ever having a chance to enter those agreements. Otherwise some weak willed politician will hand out defined benefit plans like it's candy to get votes for one election, only to doom their children's children for years to come.
- sseagull 10y ago
  That's an interesting way of looking at it. Not sure I completely agree or that there isn't a better way, but it's certainly a point of view I didn't see. Thanks

koolba 10y ago

> If you find the contractors aren't doing their job, now you will probably have to get lawyers and whatnot, and have expensive, time-consuming litigation. Then, if the government wants to change companies at some point, you have a large expense in finding a new one, with bidding, etc. And that is if there is another contractor available in your area. And then you have lobbying, cronyism, and other political issues. Business contract law is much simpler to deal with than employment law. Plus it wouldn't be the governments job to deal with individuals at all. Only the end result of the service provided. It'd be the private companies job to deal with their own employees and contractors. > The entire reason for hiring another company to do this is to get around public pay and pension issues. If this is all just a workaround for that, fix the source of that problem, rather than trying to abstract away responsibility. That's exactly the point! Because no private company would be stupid enough to enter those types of agreements with their workers because they can't maintain their end of them. The government can't do it either (without bankrupting and/or eroding it's tax base) so the solution is to prevent government from ever having a chance to enter those agreements. Otherwise some weak willed politician will hand out defined benefit plans like it's candy to get votes for one election, only to doom their children's children for years to come.

sseagull 10y ago
That's an interesting way of looking at it. Not sure I completely agree or that there isn't a better way, but it's certainly a point of view I didn't see. Thanks