Privatization Is No Panacea

The idea of private companies taking over tasks from government agencies has many adherents. Privatization makes sense when a job turns out to be performed cheaper and at least as well. But Orange County has learned that privatization can be a problem. Sometimes a plan to transfer a responsibility that would seem to be easily handled by outsiders at a substantial savings fails to live up to its promise.

The most recent example came last week when the Orange Unified School District tried to implement a decision reached last December to privatize school bus service. Despite the long lead time, including several months of negotiations with a Goleta-based bus company, the firm pulled out the day before school doors opened.

The firm, Santa Barbara Transportation Co., said the school district’s insurance policy was not expansive enough. A district official contended that the problem was the failure of the company to hire as many drivers as necessary.

District officials suddenly were forced to scramble to provide bus service to 4,500 students. Most of the children apparently made it to class on time, though about two dozen special-education students were forced to stay home for lack of transportation. In some cases, parents pitched in and drove their youngsters to school.

Orange Unified trustees now plan to meet on whether to hire a different company or return bus service to district operation, as was the case last school year.

After Orange County declared bankruptcy nearly two years ago, there were numerous calls to sell off its property, fire workers and let outside companies do the job. But the property usually proved to be worth far less than privatization proponents hoped. Services provided by well-trained government workers were shown to be difficult for outsiders to perform. Even the scandal-rocked Santa Margarita Water District resisted privatization last year, with residents persuading the Local Agency Formation Commission to reject a private firm’s bid to buy the district’s operations.

Services like providing water to businesses and homes and getting children to school on time are too important for mistakes to be made. When substituting a private company for a government agency, benefits should be clearly recognizable and implementation clearly achievable.