COUNTYWIDE : Supervisors OK 1st Step to Privatization

Orange County supervisors, who enthusiastically support contracting out government operations to private businesses, on Tuesday ordered their staff to push ahead with plans for doing just that.

That action was recommended by a blue-ribbon task force on private sector contracting, known as privatization. The task force formally completed its work last week and forwarded its report to the supervisors, who praised the group’s work warmly during their board meeting.

But while the task force identified 56 operations that it believes might be better handled by private companies, members of the panel warned that significant obstacles still stand in the way of the county turning over many of its operations.

“There are a lot of sacred cows that the state Legislature has imposed on local government,” said Paul Hegness, a local attorney and member of the task force. “They have to be changed.”

Supervisor Don R. Roth--who along with Board of Supervisors Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez has led the effort to encourage more county contracting--agreed.

“You certainly hit the nail on the head about needing some help out of Sacramento to get a free hand on privatization,” Roth said.

Of the 56 operations singled out in the report for more study, roughly half could go ahead without new state legislation, according to Vicki Stewart, an analyst in the county administrative office who worked with the task force.

The rest would require action by the Legislature, and even though the supervisors authorized their staff to begin pursuing such legislation, organized labor organizations and their lobbyists are expected to fight any such efforts.

Local groups representing county employees have also expressed grave reservations about the move toward privatization. They are expected to oppose any efforts that would result in county layoffs.

County staffers said they will immediately begin work preparing detailed cost analyses of the privatization proposals. The findings will be brought back to the supervisors in four months, and some contracts could be offered to private businesses within the year, officials said.

A wide range of government operations are being considered as candidates for private operation. They include relatively small services, such as tree trimming and school-crossing guards, but also touch some of the county’s most visible operations.

For instance, the task force recommended that the county consider letting private companies take over the harbor patrol, landfill operations and a variety of services at John Wayne Airport.

In addition, the task force said the sheriff’s helicopter patrol might be a candidate for privatization.

Taken together, the operations identified by the task force now cost the county $81.1 million a year. There are no estimates of how much the county might expect to save by contracting out those services.