Not Feasible

Civil servants performed most Los Angeles County work for years. The County Board of Supervisors could contract privately for services only in rare cases until 1978, when voters approved a charter amendment expanding the authority. Since then, private contracts have saved millions of dollars.

To award contracts, supervisors must find that it is more feasible and more cost-effective to use contractors than to use public employees.

An amendment, proposed by Supervisor Pete Schabarum, would make it a case of either/or: more feasible or more cost-effective. That would allow the board to make awards without determining whether a contractor could provide a service for less than the county. If the Schabarum amendment were approved, the board could use contracts as political rewards instead of awards based on savings. No matter what its other merits, it should be rejected on that basis alone.

The cost-effectiveness standard is particularly important because the county has no way to measure feasibility, although Schabarum’s amendment offers criteria he says would guard against private services’ costing more than publicly provided services.

Under Schabarum’s proposal, the board could make a finding of feasibility--meaning that it would be advantageous to the county--if, for example, the contractor had a good track record on earlier jobs for the county. Better technology might give a contractor an edge on feasibility, as it would in a case in which the county would have to buy new equipment or retrain employees to do the job. Being able to perform more efficiently or more quickly would work to a contractor’s advantage.

A contract could be let if cost-effectiveness could not be calculated for lack of data but a reasonable projection indicated likely savings or if a contract called for a pilot project on which cost-effectiveness could be based. A final category that would base feasibility on “other facts which reasonably support a finding” is too vague to offer any protection.

Experience with the early years of the program show that adequate protections and close monitoring are needed to safeguard the county’s extensive investment. Twenty-two departments have active contracts that total $44.1 million. Private contractors provide, for example, landscaping and maintenance at county buildings, laundry services at county hospitals, custodial services and data processing.

The auditor general’s office contrasts the cost of the services if provided by county workers who may have higher salaries and benefits with the cost if provided by private employees to determine the cost-effectiveness of a contract and the savings. The county has claimed savings of $24.17 million this year as of Sept. 30.

Private contracting cuts government costs, a must for a county that provides services to 8 million people within an area of 4,083 square miles. But to protect public dollars, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors should continue to base outside contracts on both cost and feasibility.