They’re at it again. The government contractors who rappelled down the side of the Washington Monument and the National Cathedral to assess the damage from the August earthquake are now scaling the Air Force Memorial to check for cracks and corrosion.
Engineers from the “difficult access team” at engineering firm WJE (not a PSC member) are a shining example of what contracting looks like when it’s done right (which is 99 percent of the time).
These important inspections highlight why government and industry must work in partnership to do great things and why contracting can be smarter than hiring in house staff. In this case, the high cost of keeping a band of rappelling engineers on staff would be prohibitive, especially when one considers the rare and temporary need at hand. Although some who say contractor billing rates are too high would disagree, the duration of the work is an important factor in determining when to hire a contractor and when to hire an employee. It’s far more taxpayer friendly to hire a short-term contractor to do specialized work, like rappelling down the side of a national landmark, than it is to hire that person on permanently and thus making the taxpayers foot the bill for pension and lifelong health care costs, even if the short-term contractor costs are “higher.”
But such smart partnerships are in jeopardy. If Congress chooses to arbitrarily further limit the costs contractors can reimburse for salaries of their best, brightest and bravest employees, it may be impossible for companies to do work with the government, especially when it comes to high-skill or high-risk work.
Photo via nps.gov.
