The State Worker: Billwatch: Senate committee OKs private contracting transparency bill

The State Worker

Chronicling civil-service life for California state workers

July 9, 2009

Billwatch: Senate committee OKs private contracting transparency bill

Assemblyman Mike Eng's office notes that his bill to require the state to report details of all personal services contracts was approved by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs on Wednesday. Here are a few sentences from the Eng press release:

AB 756 would increase government transparency by requiring state agencies to disclose all private contracts for personal services, such as computer programming services.

At a March 2008 joint-Assembly committee hearing co-chaired by Assemblymember Eng, the Department of General Services (DGS) admitted that there is no centralized data collection, monitoring or documentation of the use or effectiveness of private contractors using state dollars. In addition, DGS was unable to explain why the number of private information technology contracts had tripled from 1,800 in 2003-03 to more than 6,000 in 2007-08.

It has been estimated that California could save $347 million annually by utilizing state workers to cut unnecessary and wasteful outsourcing in three areas: $100 million or more annually in IT contracts, $144-205 million or more in medical registry contracts, and $50 million in architecture and engineering contracts. In a typical year, California spends nearly $35 billion on services and consultant contracts, which works out to $28.7 million daily.

Click here to read the entire press announcement.

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