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NY To Replace IT Vendors With State Workers
dcblogs writes "New York state plans to replace as many as 500 IT contract workers with a new type of temporary state worker. The state estimates it can save $25,000 annually for each contracting position that is in-sourced. This is the result of a new law creating 'term appointments,' which strip away some hiring and firing rules that apply to permanent state workers. These term appointment workers are employed 'at will.' Term appointments can be up to five years and workers get state benefits. Proponents of this change said a state IT worker might earn an average of $55 an hour, including benefits, while the state pays its contractors an average of $128 an hour for workers in similar jobs."
Of course, some of that $128/hour the contractor gets goes toward employee benefits... and the cost to the state will be more than $55/hour including benefits...
More like $50/hour goes to the peon doing the actual job, and $78/hour goes to the contract holder.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
It may not be true, but the wording they've chosen is saying that the $55/hr includes the cost of benefits -- not that the cost is $55/hr plus benefits. So you're comparing hourly cost including benefits to hourly cost including benefits.
Actually, I've worked for a state government and never seen an IT postion paid better than in the private sector, including benefits. In fact they usually were getting 10-20% (low estimate) less than the private sector would offer. A dba in state government will rarely ever (don't know any) get the average salary of the market.
"Contractor" in this sense does not necessarily mean "independent contractor". Most "government contractors" are employees of firms and get paid on W-2s like anybody else. The "contract" is government with firm, not government with individual.
That's only one of the three assertions in your post that are factually incorrect. Except for those three false items, you're right about everything else.
It's actually the pensions that are causing so much trouble for the states. And the reason that the pensions are so high is because starting about 30 years ago, management thought they could safely screw workers by offering them high pension benefits instead of higher pay. Then, when people starting living longer than the actuarials were predicting at the time, management realized its error and started demonizing the very contracts that they pushed.
In every single case that I've looked at, the unions were actually looking for higher pay and went with the pension benefits when management stonewalled. If management hadn't tried to screw workers to begin with, this wouldn't have been such a problem.
This goes for public employee unions as well as automobile companies and other large employers.
You are welcome on my lawn.