Niki Kelly has a story on the State’s lawsuit against IBM in the FSSA welfare eligibility privatization contract. The story is entitled IBM, state make closing arguments.
It was a story of Niki Kelly’s long ago, back in September 2005, about Mitch Roob that was entitled “Math geek grabs FSSA challenge with gusto” that prompted me to make this prediction:
My prediction is that a shift toward privatized social services will result in a somewhat reduced cost to the State, decent to big profits for politically connected businesses, reduced services for the needy, and increased costs to local government which ultimately has to deal with these folks in one way or another.
How did I do?
You left out a loss of accountability caused by privatization of services with long term contracts.
I believe there are government services that can be properly outsourced. But you are right that long-term contracts are usually not proper. And if the scope of the contract is too massive, the state sells out its ability to take the contract back in house.
I did some state IT contract consulting and it is a careful balance, at least in the work I did, what may be outsourced and what may be left in house. Government IT people have the legacy skills and the institutional knowledge that contractors cannot replicate. But government IT departments are usually specialists in older, legacy systems and IT demands the injection of technology and training is an expensive proposition for older IT people.
A turn-key solution is almost never possible, and FSSA and Indiana Government should have recognized that.
I don’t know how you did on those predictions, but I’m pleased to report that the successor to IBM is markedly less infuriating to deal with. The system even sorta kinda works, though FAXing stuff off to a document center and then following up with a phone call from some faceless person remains unnerving and a bit dehumanizing, even when the faceless person sounds reasonably competent.
The hero in this story, in Elder Law attorney eyes, is the almost entirely unsung Rich Adams, who postponed retirement to take on the thankless job of trying to make the damn thing work – which he has, gradually and with good grace, candor, and tact, begun to do.
Doug,
With your prescience, you could work up a night-club act.
A needed blow against the “privatize profits, socialize losses” faux capitalists.