I imagine a lot of the cost & time for public projects is precisely because they have to be contracted out to private developers. If the government had construction workers & equipment on it's own payroll (like we do for police, postal workers, sanitation, etc), these projects probably get done a lot quicker.
It would have the bonus effect of making infrastructure construction/maintenance projects happen more often. Both by lower the barrier to get started (no need to have contractors bid your project, etc) and b/c it's wasteful to have public employees just sitting around with no work to do.
The government has lots of employees who came from the private sector and know exactly how that side of the house works. They aren't really this disjointed set of workers.
IMO, a lot of the differences come from the different set of rules that govt work has to run by. For example, Aldi can just decide to hire a contractor that they know does good work at a reasonable price. In contrast, the govt has to use a lengthy fair and open bid process and if they want to select a bid that isn't the lowest, it's a painstaking process to justify that selection. Govt work must adhere to certain laws that tend to push up labor wages (see: Davis Bacon Act). Plus, the govt has lots of other competing goals, like supporting minority or veteran-owned business etc. A simple comparison misses all of those nuances.
> For example, Aldi can just decide to hire a contractor that they know does good work at a reasonable price. In contrast, the govt has to use a lengthy fair and open bid process and if they want to select a bid that isn't the lowest, it's a painstaking process to justify that selection.
It's unfortunate, but probably better than the corruption that anything else will enable in the long run. Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. For government spending, lowest bidder is the worst form of contracts, except for all the others.
I think the point that gets lost when you see comments like the GP is that they are operating under different sets of constraints because they are trying to optimize for different things.
FWIW, the govt can do "best value" contracts instead of lowest bid. But there is an asymmetry in risk to those making the selection. If something goes wrong in the design/construction, or if corruption is found, there's a lot more explaining to do. Like the old quote, "Nobody got fired for hiring IBM," except in this case "Nobody got fired for selecting the lowest bid."
> In contrast, the govt has to use a lengthy fair and open bid process and if they want to select a bid that isn't the lowest, it's a painstaking process to justify that selection.
Isn't that a recipe for cost over-runs?
I mean, it sounds like if building a tunnel costs $100M and one company bids $100M (planning to deliver on budget), a second company bids $50M (planning 100% cost overruns) and a third company bids $25M (planning on 300% cost overruns) it's mandatory to select the third company?
Within reason, yes. Engineers will still evaluate the proposals and if there’s a huge discrepancy like you described, they can be thrown out. But often part of the game seems to be first underbid (within reason) to get the contract and then make up the difference on change orders to be profitable.
It's absurd really. Massive pressure to pick the cheapest bid, then very slowly discover that the cheapest option can't actually do a reasonable job in a reasonable timeframe, then some years later try again with the same cheapest must win premise. It's kind of optimising for cost but poorly and with no feedback loop.
There is a feedback loop. Under a firm fixed price contract, the vendor has to eat any cost overruns. Contacts can include bonuses for finishing ahead of schedule, or penalties for being late. And there are administrative procedures for barring vendors who fail to deliver as promised from bidding on future contracts.
There are second order effects on those, though. Fixed price contracts incentivize contractors to cut corners to make up for cost overruns or to pad their profits (doubly so if it’s a contractor who underbid to win the contract). Unless you’re willing to pay for a lot of govt oversight, many of those won’t be noticed until the contract is long complete. Even if noticed, you need an organization willing to engage in that legal fight.
The administrative controls are lagging indicators at best, and administrative controls are usually one of the least preferable control mechanisms.
Not exactly true. They typically have a goal to award a certain percentage for those programs. It’s not as if every contract is graded by that criteria.
But yes, it can open the door to corruption and inflated costs. For example, a tiny veteran owned corporation may be hired who subcontracts to a massive firm instead of the other way around. The govt would probably be better off just contacting to the large firm directly.
> nobody has an incentive to finish in a timely manner.
I think the real problem is more that there is accountability for job performance in the private sector (you get fired if you suck and waste your boss's money) and very little to none in the public sector. No one votes for politicians based on objective performance data.
It'd wild to me how it's considered American to have this sort of bid process because "free markets" and "small government" but the results are everything Americans accuse socialist countries of being.
Its also that you have thousands of miles of road in disrepair, and you have budget to deal with 1% of that so to be pragmatic you triage but people miss that and equate such pragmatism with incompetence.
I used to be a public sector dev with an agency that stores plaintext passwords and direct deposit information. People simply didn’t know any better and because government doesn’t have merit raises, the rest of us simply didn’t do anything about it.
That may be true in software (where the pay gap in the private sector is particularly blatant) but it's not true in most industries. The stereotype of lazy government workers is essentially conservative propaganda - I've known and worked with plenty, and with a few obvious exceptions (political appointees, software, etc.) across the board they're passionate and great at what they do. Civil engineers, road builders, park rangers, EPA researchers, administrative assistants, even IT.
> have you ever been to a government office to pull a permit?
Yes, several times, and it is always completely straightforward. Fill out the appropriate forms, provide the correct documentation, pay fee. If it can be approved by the administrator, it’s issued promptly. If it needs a hearing, it’s scheduled for the next one, you show up and answer questions, they make a decision promptly and it’s either issued or not. I’ve rarely had such efficient interaction with private companies.
Have you ever been to the IT department of a private company, to get a small change made that makes your job more efficient or helps a customer solve a problem?
My girlfriend works public service. The only lazy coworkers she has are Ron Swanson types taking it upon themselves to make public work shittier because they believe the government shouldn't do anything.
And have you ever been to a government office to pull a permit? Or dealt with government procurement? Or attempted to get paperwork through the FAA?
Yes. It was relatively straightforward, as long as you followed the rules.
The hard part is following all the relevant rules, almost all of which exist because people have tried to rip off the government or lawmakers decided to impose unrelated requirements on procurement. That's not the fault of the government workers whose job it is to carry out the requirements that have been imposed on them.
And what does an opinion piece about teachers have to do with procurement? Those are completely separate things.
>Yes. It was relatively straightforward, as long as you followed the rules.
The hard part is not going postal as you find out piece by piece that person A didn't tell you about rule X and that department T actually has a revised form W that... and on and on until you find out that you didn't actually have to do any of that because there's some other less shitty process none of these people told you about.
It's like the bureaucratic runaround is the default behavior in some of these organizations.
It's not person A's job to tell you about rule X or that department T revised form W, or that you don't even have to do any of that at all because there's an alternative process for doing it.
It's your job to do the research and do things out correctly so that person A doesn't have to waste time telling you what you should be doing.
Or do you think that government agencies have the budget to hire customer support representative and receptionists with intimate knowledge of their department's rules and regulations?
something that's helpful to keep in mind is that the government orgs you deal with frequently have what have what they must do set by law, with little latitude to change things other than bugging congress
Yes, I've never heard of a private company that has absolutely useless security protocols, let alone one that was broken into as a result of complete incompetence of their security architects and admins. /s
"The problem with corruption, inefficieny and ignorance in government is corruption, inefficiency and ignorance, not government".
Let's not put the cart before the horse, shall we? Yes, all human organizations can suffer from these things (and maybe some more than others). But that's not a reason in and of itself to dismiss an entire class of human organizations as irretrievably doomed.
Look at what the UK government's digital service has done: absolutely outstanding online presence for so many important government services.
also in many cases if regulation is written to prohibit such practices, the government exempts itself from that.
For example, you can't use SSN to identify someone. Unless of course you were doing it before the prohibition was established. Apparently it's fine if you keep using it, forever.
I’m not sure it’s so much the have to be contracted out part, Aldi may not have in-house pavers either, as the contracting protocols and methods they are required to use. I think an honest, empowered government worker could find and supervise a modest construction project as well as an honest and empowered Aldi worker. But the government workers are not empowered.
It would have the bonus effect of making infrastructure construction/maintenance projects happen more often. Both by lower the barrier to get started (no need to have contractors bid your project, etc) and b/c it's wasteful to have public employees just sitting around with no work to do.