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Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Turn services over to private sector
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Despite a 12-year job-performance record that included “fights with co-workers, chronic tardiness, insubordination, repeated sleeping on the job and numerous mistakes routing emergency calls,” it wasn’t until a major 911-call blunder ended with a woman’s death that Gina Conteh got fired.
The quotes are from an account by AJC reporters D.L. Bennett and Marcus K. Garner of how the Fulton County civil service system works —- or doesn’t —- to serve the public interest. A mishandled call for medical assistance from Darlene Dukes of Johns Creek delayed help for almost an hour; she later died from a blood clot in her lung.
Getting rid of bad employees in Fulton is “impossible,” said Rob Simms, chief of staff to former Commission Chairman Mike Kenn. “Essentially, you can’t be fired.”
The state legislator who represents Johns Creek, House Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter, told the reporters that it’s “well-known that Fulton County is quick to hire, rarely disciplines and perpetuates an inefficient government.” He described Fulton as “a bloated jobs program.”
The inability to rid the public payroll of bad employees is a prime reason for moving virtually all nonjustice functions of state and local government into the private sector.
After a hundred years or more, we should have learned some lessons about the services government provides and the management systems they’ve created.
The primary one is that elected officials are notorious for thinking no further than the next election cycle. As such, they are incapable of acting in taxpayers’ best interests. The city of Atlanta, for example, sweetened pensions as a quick fix to placate disgruntled employees, putting the city in a financial bind for years to come.
The Atlanta school board has a pension system that covers 2,400 retirees and 1,000 current employees, mostly janitors, secretaries and other support staff, that is underfunded by $510 million. Teachers are, for the most part, in the state system. The board will spend $850 per student yearly to keep the system afloat —- meaning that the first $850 raised from property taxes for education goes to pay for yesterday’s short-sightedness.
Most of Georgia avoids troubles so dire not because they have smarter, more fiscally responsible, elected officials. It’s because Atlanta is older, has had more of a union presence and a greater cash flow, enabling its officials to be irresponsible more consequentially. It’s built up systems, like Fulton County’s, that make it virtually impossible to properly manage its personnel.
Before personnel problems get any worse, elected officials should be working overtime to come up with ways to turn functions over to the private sector. Then if a company doesn’t deliver, or is staffed with bad employees, elected officials can get rid of the company and give the contract to a new one. When workers are in the private sector, they’re not voting to elect their bosses, and they’re not lobbying for special favors. And, furthermore, politicians aren’t tempted to give in to them because they see the workers as a voting bloc. If they do, the costs will be pushed into the open, raising the possibility that another company will bid for the contract.
The other concern is unionization. Elected officials should never put themselves in the position of dealing with blocs of workers. More unionization is coming. A bill now before Congress called the Employee Fair Choice Act is a short cut to unionization. It would authorize a union in a private-sector company if a majority of workers merely sign an authorization card. No election would be necessary.
That’s on Big Labor’s wish list because the percentage of unionized workers in the private sector has dropped by more than half, to 7.5 percent, in 25 years.
Meanwhile, though, in the public sector, unionization is exploding and is now at 35.9 percent. That’s ominous. Georgia’s one of the five states with less than 5 percent of the work force unionized (4.4 percent). The time to deal with the problem is before it arises.
We see in Fulton and Atlanta, two mature governments, the consequence of short-term thinking and of adopting work rules that make it impossible to manage the work force properly.
Now’s the time to act. Privatize everything that’s not a function of justice. Everything.
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