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> Doubt it. The expenses are going to be mostly capital and operating ones that can't be avoided. This suggests to suspicion you've never worked in or with loc

> Doubt it. The expenses are going to be mostly capital and operating ones that can't be avoided. This suggests to suspicion you've never worked in or with local or state government agencies and have spent zero time in a water treatment facility. I've done both so here's a couple of things that might help form a more robust picture of the situation: 1. These organizations are typically operating with budgets below the minimum requirements necessary to maintain the systems they're responsible for. This is why municipal bond initiatives are so common for water system maintenance and expansion projects. 2. Private contractors created this situation. Local and State government agencies contract out all of their IT projects and do not have personnel on staff capable of performing the work under discussion.

roenxi 2y ago
Point 1 isn't anything to do with economies of scale though - the municipal authorities could operate with an appropriate budget. Point 2 is underdone, the question is basically should knowledge be in the private or public sector. Given that the private sector is generally more efficient than the public it seems a bit of an assertion to say that contracting out projects will decrease efficiencies. It could easily make the situation better. The US Federal government is absolutely known for being captured by contractors and consulting firms because it is a big, obvious & lucrative target and its bandwidth is completely overwhelmed to the point where very few people vote based on EPA policy. Odds are it'd be much more efficient to handle that at a lower level of government. > This suggests to suspicion you've never worked in or with local or state government agencies and have spent zero time in a water treatment facility. This is a silly point. I might as well ask "Are you one of the people who are managing water operators in the US incompetently?". If the debate is that the managers are clearly not up to the challenge, a lack of expertise is not a downside because the process the managers are using is being challenged. I have had a lot of experience on the subject of organisational design. If you want better results, centralising into a single unaccountable bureaucracy isn't usually the way to get there. It is a bad strategy.
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  Private industry is even less accountable to the public than government agencies so that dog doesn't hunt.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    How so? What accountability measures exist for the EPA that don't exist for the private sector? I anticipate you saying voting, so I'll preemptively observe that voters can vote for the government to switch to a different private provider too. Voting doesn't lose any of its potency if the government uses contractors, although it runs into the same problem as always that the EPA is realistically never going to be high enough on the priority list to change an election's outcome.

roenxi 2y ago

Point 1 isn't anything to do with economies of scale though - the municipal authorities could operate with an appropriate budget. Point 2 is underdone, the question is basically should knowledge be in the private or public sector. Given that the private sector is generally more efficient than the public it seems a bit of an assertion to say that contracting out projects will decrease efficiencies. It could easily make the situation better. The US Federal government is absolutely known for being captured by contractors and consulting firms because it is a big, obvious & lucrative target and its bandwidth is completely overwhelmed to the point where very few people vote based on EPA policy. Odds are it'd be much more efficient to handle that at a lower level of government. > This suggests to suspicion you've never worked in or with local or state government agencies and have spent zero time in a water treatment facility. This is a silly point. I might as well ask "Are you one of the people who are managing water operators in the US incompetently?". If the debate is that the managers are clearly not up to the challenge, a lack of expertise is not a downside because the process the managers are using is being challenged. I have had a lot of experience on the subject of organisational design. If you want better results, centralising into a single unaccountable bureaucracy isn't usually the way to get there. It is a bad strategy.

forgetfreeman 2y ago
Private industry is even less accountable to the public than government agencies so that dog doesn't hunt.
- roenxi 2y ago
  How so? What accountability measures exist for the EPA that don't exist for the private sector? I anticipate you saying voting, so I'll preemptively observe that voters can vote for the government to switch to a different private provider too. Voting doesn't lose any of its potency if the government uses contractors, although it runs into the same problem as always that the EPA is realistically never going to be high enough on the priority list to change an election's outcome.