Always the hot topic, there have been several news items in the past few weeks involving outsourcing. Here are a few that caught our eye:
- Outsourcing of Crime Lab – This isn’t one that commonly makes the news, but Houston is outsourcing some of their toxicology cases to help resolve a backlog. In reading through the situation there, it’s a perfect solution. They already have more work than they can handle and outsourcing their excess workload will help their customers (the people!) and probably reduce costs frankly.
- Colleges Outsourcing to Save Money – Because of college funding cuts in Texas, universities are looking at outsourcing as a means to make ends meet. Facilities and custodial services, parking facilities operations, food handling, groundskeepers, cleaning crews, bookstores and computer services have all been impacted in one way or another. This makes sense. After all, it’s taxpayers that foot a good part of the bill for state colleges and for non-core duties such as these. With outsourcing comes lower costs and more flexibility.
- Las Vegas Bus Drivers Block outsourcing – Here’s a case where the employees are now breathing a sigh of relief because the city was unable to follow through with their outsourcing plans. The district has a gaping $56 Million budget gap and one of the proposals was to outsourcing bus driving duties. They do operate under collective bargaining and with some concessions from the latest contract, it looks as though it won’t come to that.
- State Prison Nurses Protest outsourcing of jobs – PA had plans on outsourcing prison employees to cut costs. The prison has plans to outsource its nursing staff to a private company instead of relying on the existing union workforce.
Not all of these stories have a happy ending for employees. There are real people impacted. Unfortunately, with the financial situations many schools, states and municipalities find themselves in, the most impactful way for them to meaningfully improve their budget is outsourcing.
