City to take bids for private vendors to service vehicles

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

A proposal that allows private vendors to bid on work that has traditionally been performed by a city department has some concerned about privatization of government services.

The city of Springfield has issued a request for proposals for a job to service police and fire vehicles. Currently, the city employs about 23 people who are responsible for servicing those vehicles. Local labor unions are concerned for the jobs of those individuals and are worried that this represents a move toward privatizing the practice of servicing those vehicles.

"We're disappointed that the city didn't see that private business, which is concerned about making a profit, will not see the advantage to dedicating themselves to this work the way the city employees have," said Clark W. Brown, business agent for Local 50 Service Employees Union.

City Manager Tom Finnie said that this bid is designed to encourage competition, and the city department currently providing the service should be among the bidders on the project.

"There's nothing that says the city will not be the low bidder on this project. We'll bid on it like any other company. And we're not getting out of this business. This will continue to be a division of Public Works just as it has been," Finnie said.

Finnie said he is in favor of competition, which is not the same as privatization.

"Over the past several years, it has become clear that competition is good for everyone," Finnie said.

Most cities have come to the point of encouraging competition among their departments, he added. Some of that has led to private companies taking over the work, and elsewhere it has made government departments more efficient.

Brown said he is concerned with the welfare of workers, and the overall attitude of the city toward outsourcing, or hiring temporary or contract workers or companies to perform jobs he thinks should go to payroll employees.

"I'm concerned about taking this work away from an employee who has the skills to perform this task and with the lack of quality of work that could lead to. Servicing these police and fire vehicles is very technical work that these employees have worked hard to learn to do properly and effectively," Brown said.

Finnie said that the city is not "getting out of this business," nor is it intending to employ a private company to perform only the most desirable portion of the work.

"In doing this, we are really encouraging the employees to take charge of their own destiny," Finnie said.

If a private company does place the lowest bid for the police and fire vehicle maintenance, Finnie said, the city remains dedicated to keeping the best employees.

"We don't plan massive layoffs as a result of this. We prefer to use attrition and to move those employees to places where they are needed so that we don't lose good employees," Finnie said.

That may involve employees working out of their department, but Finnie said he considers that a plus.

Brown said he is concerned that the workers will be employed in a less desired area where they may not be as efficient.

"It is reasonable to me that a worker would be completely dissatisfied pushing a broom when he's got bona fide skills as a heavy-truck mechanic," Brown said.

The city is at least 30 days away from awarding a bid on the project, which includes servicing and maintaining 145 units everything from patrol cars to fire trucks. In addition to his concern for the workers, Brown said he is concerned for Springfieldians' safety, because a private company may not have experience handling emergency vehicles.

Opening the doors to competition, will happen on a department-by-department basis, Finnie said, as the departments see fit. Steve Strader, Springfield's fire chief, said his department was interested in aligning fleet maintenance with the budgetary process, since the two "have not kept pace with one another."

"We're trying to structure it so that we can determine if the charges structure is something the budget will support," Strader said.

The fire department has used outside vendors for some functions of vehicle maintenance for some time, he added.

Other departments will look at competitively bidding services as the need arises, Finnie said.

"Those decisions will be up to the individual departments," Finnie said.

Mayor Lee Gannaway said it is his personal position that there is almost no function of government that cannot be operated less expensively by private enterprise.

"Some things, because of their nature, are more comfortably handled in the hands of government, but by and large, most of the services could be competently handled by outside, private companies," Gannaway said.

Gannaway said public employees will compete, and department can bid just as any private company can.

"At this point, we can't know whether this will be a success, and I certainly hope no one is put out of a job. I think it is the intention of management not to lose jobs, but to do some reassigning and so forth, if the contract is awarded to a private company," Gannaway said.

Both Finnie and Gannaway said the city has an obligation to keep its costs down for taxpayers, and if a service can be performed competently and at a lesser cost, then the city has to explore that.