EDITORIAL: Housing authority must stand firm on outsourcing

Outsourcing happens all the time in the private sector. It should happen far more often in the public sector.

But anytime a government agency even contemplates reducing its costs by hiring private firms to do the jobs of public employees -- by itself an admission that taxpayers are grossly overpaying for labor -- unions and their political allies respond with howls of outrage and indignation. How dare you seek savings and efficiencies that might actually preserve services!

That familiar script played out again Wednesday when the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority Board of Commissioners met to approve a fiscal year 2016 budget that would have outsourced three programs and laid off 40 to 45 employees. The agency, which manages housing for low-income residents, has an estimated deficit of between $1.6 million and $1.8 million in its $150 million budget, caused in part by unsustainable personnel costs.

In addition to dragging out contract negotiations with Clark County, the Service Employees International Union Local 1107 has bargained in bad faith with the housing authority. Authority Executive Director John Hill told the Review-Journal’€™s Yesenia Amaro that although the SEIU has failed to agree to a new contract for more than two years, his agency had to provide some workers with pay raises last year of between 2.5 and 5 percent -- raises he can’€™t suspend.

The authority‘s "€œsustainability plan"€ would outsource management of four of 26 public housing properties, housing inspections and the agency‘€™s family self-sufficiency program. About half of the proposed job eliminations resulting from the outsourcing would affect SEIU members.

So the union packed Wednesday‘€™s board meeting in protest. The outsourcing and layoffs and the budget itself were tabled because the authority inexplicably failed to provide the SEIU with a contractually required 60-day notice of its intent to subcontract. The consolidated agency, which was created because of rampant incompetence and mismanagement within the valley‘s separate municipal housing authorities, clearly has its own shortcomings. A few board members said they wouldn’€™t support outsourcing regardless because, well, it‘s just mean to public employees. Which is to say they favor delivering less housing and fewer services to low-income residents at taxpayer expense. How benevolent of them.

The city of North Las Vegas has shored up its finances with the help of outsourcing. In May, the city laid off its human resources staff and hired a private company to handle those functions at an estimated savings of between $1 million and $2 million per year. Over the years, this newspaper has called on local governments to outsource park and building maintenance, as well as other services. The savings would add up quickly, but politics gets in the way. Public employee unions help re-elect the council members and commissioners who protect their jobs, salaries and dues.

Aside from saving taxpayer money and decreasing pressure for future tax increases, outsourcing provides more accountability. If a contractor doesn‘t do the job, the contractor gets fired. It’€™s nearly impossible to fire unionized government workers -- who happen to cost a lot more.

We‘€™d like to see government get out of housing management altogether. Across the country, public housing has been a social and economic failure of the highest order. But as long as the housing authority is running properties, it shouldn’€™t back down from this outsourcing plan. If anything, it should outsource even more jobs. Its mission is the delivery of services, not the preservation of union jobs.