By SHERRY HALBROOK
The state’s penchant for contracting out cost taxpayers $2.78 billion last year, much of it unnecessary.

“If the governor and state leaders sincerely want to close the budget gap in the most practical and responsible way, they can’t continue to turn a blind eye to this massive abuse and waste of tax dollars,” said PEF President Ken Brynien.

The union is doing everything it can to keep reminding the Albany powerbrokers to put real actions behind their words.

PEF is waging a war of words and facts through letters, press conferences, district lobbying and a brochure all pointing out the hundreds of millions of tax dollars wasted every year to support the state’s ­addiction to private consultants.

In February, Brynien wrote to state Budget Director Laura Anglin, reminding her of Executive Order 6 issued last year by Gov. David Paterson and requiring state agencies to determine if it would cost less to have their own employees do a job before handing it off to private consultants or contractors. Paterson also established a taskforce on personal services contracting to study the problem and make recommendations for solving it.

Specifically, Brynien drew Anglin’s attention to several state contracts for information technology that are expiring and coming up for renewal or extension.

“PEF is concerned about certain contracts, that appear to be one or two-year contracts, being extended or in some cases continuously extended,” Brynien wrote to Anglin. These contracts are between a variety of consultants and the state: Office for Technology; Office of Children and Family Services; Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, and Department of Transportation (DOT).”

Brynien also wrote to the state comptroller, the director of state operations and to the heads of agencies, asking them all to consider the likely savings to be gained by doing work in-house, instead of automatically extending contracts.

“In addition, we would like the same analysis to be done for new information technology and transportation engineering consultant contracts,” Brynien wrote. “A great deal of savings may be realized if the cycle of automatic extensions and rote approval of new consultant contracts is stopped.”

The union wants the state to save money, Brynien said, but not to disregard the need for quality, continuity and accountability.
“State employees have dedicated their careers to public service,” Brynien said. “For our members, it’s not just another job to do, then walk away from. They will be around to answer for their work in the future. Our members are accountable. They don’t just take the money and run.”

Brynien also asked Anglin to compel state agencies to comply fully with all of the requirements of Executive Order 6, including transparency.

“It does not appear state agencies are complying with section 4 of that order,” Brynien told Anglin. That section requires all agencies that enter into personal service contracts to publicly display on their Web sites lists of those contracts and any amendments to them, along with the estimated cost and reason for entering the contracts. The agencies are also required to make the actual contracts available to the public “either by: (a) posting the contract in an accessible location on the agency Web site; or (b) indicating on the Web page containing the list of contracts that it will send a copy of the contract to anyone who requests it.”

In March, PEF activists from DOT prepared a six-page brochure on the wastefulness of contracting at that agency for consultant engineering, bridge inspections, information technology, real estate appraisals and auditing services.

The activists then delivered the brochures to their state legislators in their district offices.

PEF Executive Board Member Charles Kelefant, a civil engineer at the DOT main office in Albany, said he is concerned the cost of contracting out for civil engineers will go even higher because of the emphasis the federal economic stimulus places on funding transportation and infrastructure projects.

All PEF members and retirees were asked to write their legislators in March and urge them to pass a state budget that cuts wasteful spending on needless contracts and requires the wealthiest New Yorkers to start paying their fair share of taxes. (For more budget-related information, see pages 7, 8, 9 and 18.)