A report delivered Wednesday night to theFrederick County Commissioners states that the county could save up to $109 million during a five-year contract period by outsourcing core services that it indicates are now provided by more than 500 government employees.
The core areas include management services, public works, interagency information technology, community development services, human resources, financial administration, parks and recreation, court and internal audit, according to a 27-page report by a Georgia-based company that has helped other local governments develop public-private partnerships.
More than $67 million went to those core services inFrederick County's fiscal 2011 budget, according to the report by PPP Associates LLC.
"Based upon the magnitude of the savings projected above, and the concurrent improvement in responsiveness to the citizens' needs that has been evidenced in other PPP governments, PPP Associates recommends that Frederick County begin the process of converting the array of 'core' services outlined herein at as early a date as possible," the report stated.
The county commissioners received the report at about 9 p.m. Wednesday, but it won't be available to the public until later today, when a consultant presents it to the commissioners. Commissioner David Gray gave a copy of the document to The Frederick News-Post on Wednesday night.
5 comments:
This is really great administrative news. Frederick County has a conservative base - similar to Wicomico County.
Their County Council also wanted to secede from Maryland. I spoke with one of the County Council members about how the newly formed territories could be carved out and around mainland Maryland.
Maybe a newly formed State isn't that far out of the realm of reality afterall.
They need to be vigilant with this as it is often the case in Government outsourcing. Generally, recent retirees are behind these outsourcing initiatives which create a new job for them paying more than they were making before but not necessarily saving anyone money in the long term. A good hint of a bad deal is when the contractor has loaded up on ex Government personnel to deliver against the contract.
Frederick County also needs to be careful about what happens after the contract expires. The scenario is this.
The contractor brings in their employees to provide services. The government lays theirs off. After five years of the contract, the government no longer has anyone with the knowledge to perform the outsourced services.
When the contract is to be renewed, the price skyrockets and the government is stuck paying the new, much higer fees because they no longer have the ability to perform the functions themselves. This has happened many times with these so called cost saving deals.
Be very cautious. Generally, all this arrangement does is add 'another' layer of management. You also get lower paid, lower caring employees.
Remember, you get what you pay for.
I'd be careful about outsourcing so much of County operations. Just remember, these private companies that would be expected to bid will only bid if they can make a 15%+ profit. And they'll make that profit by either bidding high or bidding low and provide less than quality service; and Tiderider is right, once the 5-year contract expires prices will skyrocket because the County will not be able to rehire and reclaim those services. And the tax payer will still have to pay the cost of preforming these services.
Although, Fredrick County may be an interesting experiment.
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