These contracts all have numerous line items that narrowly constrain the contractors' budgetary flexibility. As a result, the department has been scandal-free for more than two decades. There are, however, some obvious costs. The provisions of the department's regulatory contracts are completely disconnected from the results it wants its contractors to produce. Regulatory contracts reward contractors for following the multiple, narrow, complex rules for deploying their financial inputs.
Regulatory contracts say nothing about producing substantive outputs or outcomes.
And West Dakota's contractors have played the game according to these rules. They've avoided scandal. But they have also avoided experimentation and innovation. As a result, their performance has suffered. You aren't the only one to recognize this.