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<\/p>\nIf you are benefitting from a professional or technical contract with the state, your funding could be cut. Dayton says we can cut half of the $850 million we spend every two years on state contracts.<\/p>\n
He may or may not have a point. \u00a0But you’ll never know it from his budget plan.<\/p>\n
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State contracts are used for a variety of things including road and bridge design, computer consulting and even arts instruction at the Perpich Center for the Arts – basically, any skill that the state doesn’t usually keep on its inventory of elite uniononized employees.<\/p>\n
Of course, Dayton doesn\u2019t specify which half<\/em> of state contractors we can live without. \u00a0Because most of the contracting is for work that actually needs to get done<\/em>, by a person who is qualified to do the job<\/em>.<\/p>\n Need a big, high-traffic bridge built? \u00a0The MNDOT doesn’t keep a big bridge design department on staff – because it’s not like the Dept. of Transportation is constantly building new bridges. \u00a0You need a bridge designed and built? \u00a0Hire a temp – or a “contractor”, as they’re called.<\/p>\n If the state needs to build a new website for vehicle tab info and renewals (hint hint), and they need to make it usable by a multiethnic, polylingual population? \u00a0The State of Minnesota doesn’t employ User Experience Architects (that’s what I do), because they don’t need ’em every day; they contract ’em out.<\/p>\n Building a road? \u00a0Remodeling a state building? \u00a0Transferring data from an old database to a new one? Analyzing the market for a government service? Anything the state doesn’t normally do, day in, day out? They hire “temps”, contractors – construction workers, dry-wall contractors, database analysts, researchers – to do the job.<\/p>\n Democrats endorsed by government employee unions typically go after state contracts because they take jobs away from union members, not because we\u2019re spending too much. Is Dayton planning to actually cut these contracts or does he want government employees to do the work instead?<\/p>\n The simple fact is, shifting contract work to state employees may very well cost more, not less. \u00a0At the very least, it’s not a cut, merely a shift (unless Dayton, AFSCME, MAPE and the SEIU really think there are that many underutilized state employees out there…) blowing a $425 million hole in Dayton\u2019s budget plan.<\/p>\n