Countywide

San Diego County supervisors on Tuesday approved a three-step plan that could lead to a dramatic increase in the number of county services performed by the private sector.

The effort will begin with a study of the public services for which the county now contracts with private enterprise. The Board of Supervisors approved $24,000 for that purpose on a 4-1 vote Tuesday, with Supervisor Paul Eckert dissenting.

The second phase will include a study of those services the county believes could be performed more efficiently by private firms. The final phase will be the Board of Supervisors’ selection of the services to be contracted out.

Supervisor Susan Golding, who has proposed that the private sector be allowed to bid on all services that the county is not legally obligated to provide with public employees, will sit on a special subcommittee with Supervisor Brian Bilbray to review the study.

Eckert said he objected to the prolonged evaluation because he believes the county could open its doors today to receive bids from private businesses. The businesses themselves will then decide which county services they could afford to offer, he said.

Eckert said he feared the plan approved Tuesday would lead only to a “blizzard of paper work” that would soon be forgotten.

But Golding assured him that the study was needed to help the county develop a long-term policy for contracting services, rather than deciding only a case-by-case basis whether to offer a service with public employees or through the private sector.