Lake County, FL watchdog blog FiscalRangers.com launches initiative to outsource city functions to control costs

OUTsourcing of local government functions - New Topic for FiscalRangers research!

 

Cities keep raising costs and millages, and they will do so again at two required Sept. meetings. However, I don't think any city in our Lake County, FL outsources any major functions other than auditing and legal, landscaping or maybe building permit inspectors.

 

But other cities in the US outsource various functions to keep costs down for taxpayers. A major reason is the tendency for cities to keep giving wage hikes higher than local businesses, and automatically approve much higher pension, health insurance and other costs. Why should taxpayers fund annual 10% increases in benefit expenditures when local businesses make employees share those types of expenditures or do not receive benefits that would price the employer out of business? Why should benefit costs be approved that increase 3-5 times the increases for social security recipients or those received by local employees at private businesses.

 

There needs to be transparency and competition for service providers, and outsourcing some functions will help control costs.

 

So, I am starting to research "City outsourcing" to provide taxpayers with better knowledge of what a service should cost.

 

One famous example I can remember for years is that the entire City management for Scottsdale, AZ was outsourced with major savings. Maybe now is the time to demand each City hold competitive outsourcing bids for major services.

 

Here is an example of outsourcing from an older Florida Trend article:

https://www.floridatrend.com/print/article/16600

Dubai has a dedicated tax free zone "Dubai Outsourcing City" dedicated to outsourcing providers.

https://www.rizmona.com/blog/doc-free-zone-dedicated-outsourcing-companies/

And, here is an example of a firm that provides outsourcing of city planning functions:

https://www.flatworldsolutions.com/engineering/town-planning-services.php

 

Vance Jochim   

[email protected]

YouTube group:   FiscalRangersLakeCounty

 

===