[Olphander]

Zip, I say again, how do you think they get jobs in the private sector?

I think more things of this nature have to be done as they are in the private sector, such as monetary rewards for excelent contract performance and the like.

There are several things that are out of alignment when it comes to city jobs that need to be addressed.

Let me give you one example. If a job is estimated to cost $1B and the contractor manages to get all the work done for half of that, if he is LUCKY, he may get that full $1B pricetag paid to him.

But regardless of whether or not he is lucky, the price offered for the next similar job will be reduced to the $500M that this one was completed at, regardless of differences or obsticals that may be encountered.

All government contracts and contractors are encouraged to spend every last dime of a contract fee or risk not being able to cover costs the next time they work for them.

We have seen by the way the TWU jumped up and screamed "gimme" at the MTA's surplus that any $$ that is leftover never goes into more work, or to the people that gave it in the first place, so there is no encouragement to make the job go faster/cheaper. So how is this rectified?


This is only an example of where the government sector and private sector have differences when it comes to work done. It is not directly related to the bribery issue originally posted, but it does show that simply restricting one practice in order to try to fix the whole shebang is not the best way to handle things like this.



One final thing. Although I really do not think that this was the case, what if these guys really WERE friends? Who is there to say that one guy paying for a dinner or a golf outing should be viewed as a crime?

Where is the line drawn, and is it a reasonable limit that has been declared?