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THE CHIEF-LEADER welcomes letters from its readers for publication. Cut City's Contracting-Out To the Editor: I am writing on behalf of the Civil Service Merit Council to demonstrate our concurrence with DC 37's white paper—''Massive Waste at a Time of Need." District Council 37, the largest municipal union, represents more than 125,000 New York City civil servants. The white paper describes the epidemic of contracting-out that is draining funds, hurting morale, and reducing the reliable civil service workforce in city agencies. The report examines spending for personnel and professional services contracts by the city over a five-year period, with case-by-case review of contracts for functions that parallel the jobs performed by city employees. It also analyzes conditions that led to instances of public fraud in the past and demonstrates that these conditions still exist in several city agencies. Finally, the white paper presents recommendations on how New York City can save almost $130 million in the next three years by ending the contracting-out of work that can be performed at lower cost and more efficiently by trained civil servants.
The city is using the Wall Street crisis and the nation's economic downturn as an excuse for the massive outsourcing and falsely claiming it saves money. This of course is untrue, and the report provides the facts and figures of how much more it costs when compared to the costs of the work when performed in-house. The Bloomberg administration and our elected officials should implement the white paper recommendations as an effective remedy towards cost-saving measures. It is imperative to the delivery of highstandard services New Yorkers demand from the city government. |
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