California agencies find private staffing effective

If you took a straw poll among public agencies, chances are you would find that a large percentage of them are now using private staffing to provide them with department staff employees.

Privatization offers numerous benefits:

• Contracting for privatized staff usually costs public agencies less than half what it would cost to hire a full-service consulting firm.
• Public agencies gain increased efficiency from the private staff, who have a greater incentive to perform and produce.
• There is more flexibility in selecting and replacing employees.
• Public agencies are often held harmless in U.S. Department of Labor wage and hour disputes, and compliance with labor laws such as COBRA and the Immigration Act when a private company is the employer of record.

Chris Paxton, personnel director for the City of Murrieta, CA, said using private staffing has been a big plus. The city contracted out with a private firm to fill 16 positions. Some of these include building inspector, water safety instructor, information services coordinator and human resources assistant.

Private firms save time by screening prospective employees
"It saves us literally dozens of hours in labor as the private firm screens the prospective employees," Paxton said. "For certain positions, such as police cadets or police service technicians we take a more active role during the interview process as these involve detailed psychological evaluations and physicals."

Many city fire departments use private firms to establish profitable ambulance programs. The City of Huntington Beach's program both trains future firefighters and generates more than $180,000 each year in revenue. A private firm employs and pays 18 full-time and six part-time ambulance operators. The fire department manages the employees.

Contracted positions sometimes lead to full-time employment
The positions aren't career track, but have led to full-time firefighting jobs with the city or other departments. In addition to their initial training, the ambulance personnel are also included in the department's ongoing training drills.

"Working with a private firm is a less expensive alternative to hiring our own personnel and thus maximizes revenues from the ambulance program," said Chief Michael Dolder. "It also gives us the flexibility to easily expand or even shut down the program if needed. By integrating ambulances with the fire department, we're providing a better level of service to the community. The program has exceeded our expectations."

City contracts for ambulance operators
The City of La Habra's fire department has also established an in-house ambulance service. Six full-time and six part-time ambulance operators were hired—a private firm handled the recruitment and other administrative chores—which frees up the fire department to concentrate on serving the community.

Having an in-house ambulance program also allows La Habra to get reimbursed from area hospitals. Previously, La Habra paramedics could use medical supplies and get compensated, but due to recent legislation, cities no longer are reimbursed unless they operate their own ambulances.

Other Southern California fire departments have studied the Huntington Beach and La Habra programs—nearby Westminster launched a similar program with two city—owned and operated ambulances.

Contracting alleviates administrative tasks
Public agencies will continue to rely on privatized services. Administrative tasks such as payroll, taxes, benefits, health insurance, workers compensation and unemployment claims are alleviated. The public agency still retains final approval of who is hired and can manage expansion or contraction with increased flexibility. The agency, of course, must still gauge performance by stipulating a position's expectations up front, and continually monitoring contract employees to make sure they are getting the job done. But more and more public agencies now realize that outsourcing their staffing helps them better serve their respective communities.

About the author: Michelle Friery is president of Employment Systems, Inc., headquartered in San Diego, CA. A subsidiary of Berryman & Henigar Enterprises, ESI offers private staffing to public agencies. Friery can be reached at 858-651-0040 or e-mail: friery@bhiinc.com.

Edited by Joyce Jungclaus, Editor, Public Works Online