Yesterday, Mayor Daley told reporters
that he was interested in another privatization scheme -- outsourcing
city hiring. Daley said he hoped the proposal would cut costs and
restore the public's "confidence in our procedures." Of course, if the public no longer has confidence in the city's hiring process, it's because of the repeated patronage scandals
stemming from Daley's own administration. But the mayor framed the problem another way: "We don't have the expertise," he said.
Ald. Joe Moore (49th Ward) thinks that's a terrible excuse. "What it represents is basically an admission on the part of the mayor
that he has utterly failed to manage the hiring process," Moore told the Tribune.
"How hard is it to tell people to not let politics enter the equation?
It is not rocket science."
We made a similar point back in early 2009 following Daley's claim that it made sense to privatize the parking meter system because city workers "can't compete with the private sector." Our response:
In short: [Daley would] rather hand off these services and
assets for the next 75 years -- at a cost to the city -- than actually do the hard work of
improving them.
