IMMED RELEASE: "Busting the Privatization Myth;" Watchdog Board Demands Review of Outsourced Road and Rail Bridge Inspections

[MattOConnor]

For Immediate Release: October 15, 2010
Contact: Matt O'Connor, CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 - (860) 221-5696 (cell)

"BUSTING THE PRIVATIZATION MYTH;" WATCHDOG BOARD DEMANDS REVIEW OF
OUTSOURCED ROAD AND RAIL BRIDGE INSPECTIONS
Members of union representing Department of Transportation engineers
and inspectors applaud vote to require the agency perform a cost
benefit analysis of core governmental services contracted-out to
private consultants

HARTFORD-The State Contracting Standards Board (SCSB) voted
unanimously yesterday to require the Connecticut Department of
Transportation (DOT) perform a cost-benefit analysis of its highway,
road, and rail bridge safety inspection services. The move follows
efforts by the Union representing the DOT's professional workforce to
drive the agency to reveal that privatized bridge inspections in
Connecticut have cost an additional $25 million since 2007.

"A full accounting will make sure the privatization myth is busted
once and for all," said Travis Woodward, a transportation engineer in
the DOT who has performed a variety of construction phase inspections
from New Haven to Greenwich. "That's important because Tom Foley has
made it a campaign issue," said Woodward in reference to comments the
candidate for governor has made over the past year. "The DOT's chief
engineer told the state's contracting watchdog board last month that
private consultants are being paid more than ever. And yet Foley's
still making wild claims that outsourcing is a silver bullet for
savings," said Woodward, a Union Steward in CSEA/SEIU Local 2001.

Woodward's comments refer to increases in the rates private sector
companies can bill the state since federal regulations were relaxed in
2006 under the Administration of George W. Bush. As a result, a single
consulting firm retained for railroad bridge inspections under a
contract that recently expired is now demanding a nearly 50% increase
in their overhead rate, in addition to a guaranteed 10% profit. If
approved, taxpayers would be billed more than half a million dollars
over the company's 2009 costs for the same contract.

"I don’t want to sit on this Board and have another Maguire. Never
again," said the first chair of Governor M. Jodi Rell's original
contracting reform task force Albert Ilg in reference to the
consultant inspection firm hired for the I-84 "Little Dig" fiasco.
"These contracts have to end. That was the intention of the law," Ilg
said in reference to the 2007 "clean contracting" reforms that
empowered the SCSB to compel state agencies to justify privatization
and be held accountable to their true costs.

Yesterday's vote should compel state lawmakers and the next governor
to fully support the SCSB's efforts. The board's operating budget for
the current fiscal year evaporated during the 2010 legislative
session, impairing its ability to require other state agencies to own
up to the continued use of costly private consultant firms to perform
public service functions.

CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 represents nearly 25,000 active and retired
public sector workers across Connecticut. The union's membership
includes approximately 1,000 engineers, inspectors, planners, and
other professionals working in the state's transportation department.
Visit www.seiu2001.org online for more information about its members'
efforts to protect the public interest by holding state agencies and
private consultants accountable under Connecticut's "clean
contracting" law.

# # #

Privatized Bridge Inspections "Myth Busted" Fact Sheet:
http://bit.ly/9ovG5m

Web version of release:
http://bit.ly/cqQxZm


--
Matt O'Connor
860.221.5696
Union...@gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/unionmatt

"The labor movement is people. Our unions have brought millions of men
and women together, made them members one of another, and given them
common tools for common goals. Their goals are goals for all America -
and their enemies are the enemies for progress. The two cannot be
separated."

-- President John F. Kennedy