Public Employee Press


To ease budget squeeze
Cut contracting out

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

As the city considers deep agency cuts to address its sharply declining revenue, the union is pushing for the elimination of wasteful contracting out.

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

To demand greater fiscal accountability, the union is initiating a campaign to press the city to pull back on farming out work normally done by civil servants and to cut down on hiring consultants atexcessively high wages.

The union waged a similar battle in the early 2000s. Back then, DC 37 released a series of white papers that exposed contracting waste and raised the alarm about the growth of a shadow workforce of consultants. As a result, the city cut back on its practice of hiring outsiders and actually moved hundreds of consultants into civil service positions.

“For a while we believed that the city had decided to do the right thing by getting its contracting practices under control,” DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said. “But I’m sorry to say that the city has now moved backwards and resumed contracting out in a big way. Taxpayers should be outraged by thereappearance of this irresponsible spending.”

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. With capital projects, contracting out totals $16 billion.

Categories in which the city has significantly boosted spending or allocated heavy funding include temporary services ($43.2 million in ’09), cleaning services ($22.5 million), maintenance of infra­structure ($114.4 million), professional services, accounting and auditing ($23.4 million), professional computer services ($134.8 million) and other professional services ($164.2 million).

A new study
As the city responds to the financial crisis on Wall Street and the general economic downturn, the union will propose that eliminating wasteful contracting practices be part of the solution.

“The mayor is already using falling revenue to justify budget cuts,” said Henry Garrido, assistant to the associate director, who was the principal author of the white papers and is working on a new study of contracting out.

“We will be arguing that the city should take a significant chunk out of its budget shortfall by reducing contracting out. The cuts would significantly help preserve and protect our civil service system,” Garrido said.