Workers say the “Price Is Wrong” when it comes to spending more than $2.3 billion in private contracts. Strong oversight is needed over these costly contracts before services are cut.
On Thursday, March 25, LA City workers engaged the public with a game-style event entitled the “Price Is Wrong” to take a tough look at expensive contracting.
SEIU 721 members released a fact sheet showing the full cost of outsourcing and asking the City Council to take action before cutting services.
Click here to read our fact sheet on outsourcing (pdf)
Workers will tell the Mayor and City Council to implement strong oversight of runaway contracts that are costing millions in revenue for parks, streets and other core government services.
As the Mayor and City Council support massive service cuts and layoffs to close a $485 million deficit next year, City workers see contracting costs as a factor contributing to the budget deficit. City workers have identified dozens of private contracts for engineering, security and information technology services that could potentially be performed by city workers at lower cost.
Event Photo Gallery
By the Numbers:
Research by SEIU shows that the city spends millions on engineering services already performed by city staff. There is no central database of contracts available to the public, and the research by SEIU is the first systematic look at how LA City does business.
$2,257,472,124
Total LA City spends on private vendors in non-proprietary departments
$59,676,845
Current cost of LA City’s contract with Northrop Grumman, originally bid at $5,889,000 million
$10 million
Cost of LA City’s tree-trimming contracts
$3.8 million
Cost of LA City’s contract to maintain the Japanese garden at the Tillman water treatment plant
$114,283,209
Total spent by the Department of Transportation on contracts
37
Number of contracts in the Harbor Department that city workers could perform
I am so very proud of our SEIU 721 Team of LA city works and professionals and our staff. This Campaign Action Event was very well prepared and conducted.
Would we see any news of it on Mainstream Media as well?
Thank you for the research done to find where our taxpayer money is going. For many years the public sector work places have been asked to cut 5-10% out of their budget annually. Now we are so lean that it makes it difficult to provide the needed services. Yet the politicians find it more expediant to give the work away to private public contractors, costing the taxpayer even more and without a method to assure accountability.