Outsourcing

In Poor Richard's Almanack, Benjamin Franklin popularized the idiom we love to quote but have a difficult time applying to our daily lives: Haste makes waste. As children, we frequently heard this admonition from parents and teachers. Take your time, do it right the first time. With math teachers, in particular, it was often followed by another directive: Show your work. But we are busy people, and it's rare to focus on one task at a time. One of my friends lamented recently that, with a full schedule of work, tending to three children and trying to keep her home livable (let alone clean)

Costa Mesa spent nearly $700,000 in legal fees through the end of January to defend itself from a lawsuit filed by its employees, invoices show. Total fees have reached $692,379, according to invoices obtained this week by a Daily Pilot public records request. That figure is $186,000 higher than the $505,399 reported on the city's website earlier this week. Such a disparity online was a mistake, however, as the total did not account for the months of July, August or January, according to city Assistant Finance Director Colleen O'Donoghue.

In March, when the City Council majority decided to send layoff notices to nearly half the workforce, they told the public that they had no choice and that the city was on the brink of insolvency. The councilmen's budget projections changed depending on the point they wanted to make each day. So the Costa Mesa City Employees Assn. agreed to hire Harvey M. Rose and Associates, one of the state's most reputable public accountancy firms, to give the public a clear and reliable picture of the city's financial position.

In my long career as a journalist — much of it spent as a business reporter — I covered many stories involving job losses. These stories inevitably contained lots of figures: the number of employees cut, percentage of workforce terminated, expected savings from payroll reductions. The requisite press releases were always filled with euphemisms. Workers weren't fired; they were laid off. Companies didn't shrink; they downsized. Cutbacks were never the result of mistakes made; they were a response to competitive pressures.

Costa Mesa residents will vote June 5 on whether to adopt a city charter, a proposal that has yielded mixed responses. "We've got to get the tools here to get ourselves back on track, and that's all this charter does," Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer said after the vote Tuesday night. "I'm doing what I truly believe is best for the citizens of Costa Mesa. " Supporters say a charter would provide more local control over governance, while detractors view it as an effort to stop a lawsuit filed by city workers who want to prevent outsourcing of their jobs.

Because of the monopoly they have on providing services to residents, most municipal governments provide those services at too great a cost. If municipal governments had competition, free market forces would determine the cost of those services. That usually means they can be provided at a lower cost. At Tuesday's Costa Mesa City Council meeting, it looks like the process of bringing competition into the picture will begin as the council is expected to give the required six-month notice to employees whose jobs may be outsourced.

The Newport Beach City Council may have one foot out the door of its Newport Boulevard chambers as the group prepares to move to its new digs in Corona del Mar in early December, but it'll be business as usual Tuesday night at the council's regular meeting. On the meeting's agenda are two items related to outsourcing city services to private companies and several looks at harbor-related issues. * Outsourcing printing The council is expected to vote to contract out the city's printing services to Office Depot, a move that is expected to save about $70,000 per year.

American colleges have responded to harsh criticism that tuition rose four times as fast as the cost of living over the last 25 years — resulting in their graduates leaving school as debt slaves with an average of $25,250 in student loans — by trumpeting that the average starting salaries for college students with bachelor's degrees are still a healthy $48,288. The only problem with this clever statistic is that the average student graduates from college with a liberal arts degree that pays only $35,508.

My Aug. 12, 2007, column recommended that all governments pass sunset laws requiring each of their agencies to receive a positive vote every six or seven years from their legislatures in order to be funded again. The government would abolish the agency if it did not receive a favorable vote. Sunset laws would allow everyone to see more clearly what each governmental agency had accomplished since its last review period, and what its plans would be for the future. We could see if we were getting sufficient "bang" for our tax buck.

The Costa Mesa City Council will consider Tuesday whether to outsource five city services, more than a year since the wheels were first set in motion amid furious protests from city workers and local activists. City staff are recommending Costa Mesa outsource its jail services and street sweeping but keep its animal control, building inspections and video production in-house. Staff recommend that the city contract with G4S Secure Solutions, a worldwide company owned by Danish security firm Group 4 Falck.