Posted March 13, 2000 Blame for a Fiasco By Christopher Swope While New Jersey residents these days are basking in the warmth of an early spring, memories are still raw of the privatization fiasco that made this the winter of many a motorist’s discontent. Three months ago, New Jersey turned over 32 auto inspection stations to Parsons Infrastructure and Technology, under a six-year, $488 million contract. Parsons installed new emissions testing equipment, required by federal regulators, that uses a treadmill to gauge a car’s emissions while in motion. Immediately, equipment failures and understaffing created four-hour lines at inspection stations. Then, during a January cold snap, Parsons was forced to close a number of stations because the emissions equipment froze up in near-zero temperatures. Drivers were justifiably angry about the long waits. But what made some even angrier was that a consultant had actually told state officials, months before the new system opened, that it would bomb. Why this warning was either missed or ignored is the topic of one of three ongoing inquiries into the emissions affair. It would be easy to look at this debacle, as some critics have, and hold it up as an example of why privatization of government services is doomed to failure. But that would be oversimplifying the matter. The problem in New Jersey was not that government mistakenly bought a vendor’s claim that it could do the job cheaper, faster and better. It was that state officials, from Governor Christine Todd Whitman on down, never took steps to make sure that Parsons would follow through on its promises. To be sure, Parsons failed to deliver the quality of service it agreed to (there are fears that the emissions equipment won’t work in very hot weather, either). Whitman made it clear where she thinks culpability lies when she exacted a punishment on the vendor of $10 million in withheld payments. It is not enough, however, to say that only Parsons dropped the ball. As with so many privatization disasters, the ball wouldn’t have rolled so far away had state officials diligently monitored the contract. In the end, Whitman can take little solace in the fact that it wasn’t the state’s equipment that broke: Nobody forgets the misery of a four-hour wait, and her administration is ultimately responsible. There are plenty of good arguments to be made about privatization, both pro and con. Either way, outsourcing should never be viewed as the soap with which government officials wash their hands of complex issues. Whitman seems to have gotten that message — high-level managers are being assigned to oversee Parsons’ plan to get the emissions tests running smoothly by June. She got it a little bit too late. Government officials can privatize services. But they can’t privatize accountability. Christopher Swope is a staff writer for Governing Magazine. Agree? Disagree? Want to expand on a point? E-mail us at mailbox@governing.com, and we'll post your comments here. Please include your name, location, government or business title or job description, and a daytime phone number (for verification purposes). Recently in View: Attack of the Barnes-o-Meter: tracking enemies with technology (posted March 9, 2000) Lessons of an Older Suburb: paying the piper for keeping taxes low (posted March 6, 2000) The Power of a Non-Apology: getting ahead by owning up (posted March 1, 2000) Sprawl Forever: growth control and political backbone (posted February 25, 2000) Tainted Money: paying the price for the LAPD scandal (posted February 22, 2000) Complete index Copyright © 2000, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Governing, City & State and Governing.com are trademarks of Congressional Quarterly, Inc.