I just sort of mentioned/glossed over this in a straight news blog post, but the word of the day was definitely privatization.
“I don’t think we automatically say we’re deadset on outsourcing, that’s it, no discussion,” Memphis mayor A C Wharton told the council’s operating budget committee. “We’re saying, let’s open this up. Here’s the savings the ABC company says they can do. Will y’all [city workers/unions] take a look at it?”
“It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. It can be a win-win proposition.”
This is an idea proposed [this morning even] by former Indianapolis mayor/Harvard professor/New York deputy mayor Stephen Goldsmith at a Rebuild Government forum. During his tenure as mayor, Goldsmith cut costs in the city by $400 million, some by making public service work competitive.
When bidding out projects, they would allow the public sector if they could find a way to do it as cheaply or efficiently, and more often than not, the public sector won.
“Public employees are not inferior to private employees; the public system was inferior to the private one,” he said. “The incentives were different.”
