The law s strategy of nipping competition in the bud by making the process prohibitively expensive and burdensome for agencies and private companies alike has worked like a charm. Any attempt to outsource now requires volumes of supporting documents and the approval of State Auditor Joe DeNucci. DeNucci has rejected any proposals of real fiscal impact, allowing his fellow critics to claim that attempts at competitive contracting have cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in studies and legal fees, but yielded nothing. It should be noted that there has been no real privatization in Massachusetts to begin with. The debate here has been over competitive contracting, a far milder approach that allows government to bid out service delivery to the entity public or private which can provide taxpayers with the best service at the lowest cost.
Government maintains total control over policy.
Well, if critics want to talk about how much competitive contracting has supposedly cost taxpayers, let s take a look at the cost of abandoning competition. The recent Carmen s Union contract is a perfect example. Although inflation is hovering around 2 percent, the union was well aware that the Pacheco law virtually eliminates the possibility of private competition, therefore diminishing management s leverage at the bargaining table. This, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg. The new contract will certainly serve as the gold standard for the nearly two dozen other MBTA unions.