The inspector in the engineering division who was doing inspection work on the city’s construction projects was spending a lot of time with the contracted catch basin crew, James said. That kept him from getting around to other projects that needed inspection.
To address the problem, city crews were trained to make the repairs. Once they were trained, the inspector didn’t have to handle those inspections, James said.
Centerville’s street program budget is $1.6 million, James said. The budget covers all road work including asphalt resurfacing, concrete repair and major street projects.
The city has not yet conducted a cost analysis to determine if keeping the work in-house is saving taxpayers money, James said.
Kent Scarrett, director of communications for the Ohio Municipal League, said he hasn’t seen an uptick in local governments insourcing more work. He said cities constantly are weighing how to best use resources.
“I think it’s an ongoing thing,” Scarrett said.
Centerville workers made repairs to 25 basins from May 20 into October. The work included taking out the 4 feet by 3 feet across and 3 to 5 feet deep concrete structures and rebuilding them completely, including replacing pipes, James said.
Catch basins are used to collect and direct storm water runoff into storm sewers.
James said some lessons were learned along the way. The repairs this summer will be limited to three months and will cover fewer basins, James said.
“This was kind of the learning curve year. Next year we’ll get into it. We’ll be ready to go much better than we were ready to go this past year for the second year of this,” James said.
The quality of the staff’s work is another reason to continue the program, James said.
“I think we’re getting a better job than what our contractors do,” James said. “When we do it with our own guys we know that they’re taking their own time to do it well and do a good job and I think in the long run, we’re getting a better product.”
Greg Lawson, a policy analyst with the Buckeye Institute commended the city for not using contractors who delivered inferior work, but he was concerned about the lack of a cost analysis.
“Without doing a true cost analysis, it seems premature to jump into such a policy decision,” Lawson said.
Returning work in-house or insourcing remains rare, according to the 2012 Global Outsourcing and Insourcing Survey Executive report conducted by Deloitte, an international financial, tax and consulting firm. The firm surveyed all industry segments, including government.
When a contract is terminated, the quality of work is the primary reason. In the report, nearly half of those who responded said they had discontinued a contract. Of those respondents, 71 percent said they it was because of the “perceived quality of the service,” according to the report, published in February 2012.
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