Plan B
Over the summer the City of Portland went out for bid on "printing and mailing services" in connection with the more than 40,000 billing statements that it sends to its "customers" each year for various types of assessments against real property. Upon further review, the city announced yesterday that it won't be hiring an outside contractor to do that work after all, because "the City has determined that the requested services can be done in-house."
The cost savings is a plus -- there was an estimate of $99,000 on the contract. But given the city's track record with billing systems, is this latest decision a good thing?
| Posted at 9:24 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (7)
This is an easy one.
With the economy down and city business declined the city has idle bureaucrats with nothing to do. Rather than lay them off they'll put them to work on this billing system. There won't be any effort to surmise the true cost.
It simply won't matter and no other bureacrat or offfical will have any motivation or feel any obligation to prevent the cost from quadrupling the 99K or saying a word.
Posted by Ben | October 17, 2008 10:44 AM
With the economy down and city business declined the city has idle bureaucrats with nothing to do.
Actually, the exact opposite is the case. In an economic downturn, more people will become delinquent with payments they owe the City, which is more work, not less.
Posted by Frank Dufay | October 17, 2008 7:32 PM
"Actually, the exact opposite is the case"
C'mon, you are telling me BDS (a big profit generator for CoP) is not hurting? Permits are down 25% and they will never let any one go in the dept.
Posted by Steve | October 17, 2008 7:41 PM
What I'm saying Steve, is that when doing collectons in an economic downturn, the work load goes up, not down.
You want to increase the effectiveness and effciency so that you not only maximize collections, but people understand the City is serious about holding its citizens to their obligations.
Posted by Frank Dufay | October 17, 2008 8:13 PM
the City is serious about holding its citizens to their obligations.
That reminds me, I wonder how Emilie Boyles is doing...
Posted by Jack Bog | October 17, 2008 8:28 PM
"the City is serious about holding its citizens to their obligations."
Especially when it comes to collecting taxes and fees. They're not so serious when it comes to things like fixing potholes and investing in infrastruture. What a great town.
Posted by Steve | October 18, 2008 8:46 AM
"You want to increase the effectiveness and effciency"
Out of curiousty, in 20+ years has CoP been able to reduce the number of employees/citizen?
My guess is no, since CoP population has grown about 1-2% annually and I am sure CoP labor has grown faster. I don't really think CoP getting more efficient either.
Posted by Steve | October 18, 2008 8:49 AM