Agencies should be required to publish cost allocation plans as part of their annual budget requests. The Auditor s back-end review should be limited to pointing out clear mistakes on the part of the contracting agency. The Auditor should not be allowed to raise generic doubts about an agency s accounting system or cost allocation methodology. The Auditor must come to a firm conclusion. If he finds mistakes, he must quantify them, factor them into the analysis, and state what he believes the in-house cost is and what he thinks the contract cost is.
Bus transportation is a vital public service.
The MBTA has recently announced a cost-neutral plan to maximize bus ridership by reducing service on certain bus routes in order to increase service on other, more heavily used routes. Many other transit agencies have discovered that privately contracting for bus service allows them to actually run more buses and still cut costs. Unfortunately, the Pacheco Law will prevent this from happening in Massachusetts.