Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

https://www.npr.org/2018/12/11/675923576/customs-border-and-protection-paid-a-firm-13-6-million-to-hire-recruits-it-hired

by wallace_f • 8 years ago

174 193 8 years ago

npr.org

wallace_f2• 8 years ago

The contract is 297 million for $7,500 recruits, or $39,000 per potential recruit.

beager• 8 years ago

That’s an insane percentage of the mean annual salary of all these recruits, astronomically higher than just about any contingency firm.

sakarisson• 8 years ago

Accenture. Why am I not surprised?

robertsd247• 8 years ago

I'm not.

If you want to spend millions and get no deliverables..Accenture is your answer.

If you want projects late and over budget...Accenture is your answer.

If you want to quickly build your resume with performing little work...Accenture is your answer.

jermaustin14• 8 years ago

I've worked with Accenture at various companies over the years, they have always had pretty decent teams, now the amount of overhead provided with a contract (delivery lead, delivery manager, client manager) is kind of overkill, but the developers we've brought on from them have been pretty good, but sticklers for scope and SOWs, even though we were paying hourly and not fixed.

kanox• 8 years ago

Should have gone with Blackwater instead

hopefulengineer3• 8 years ago

pretty depressing that you're better off buying politicians rather than actually building a good business if you want to get rich

wallace_f2• 8 years ago

Yea. Even in aerospace and defense. Pretty important industries to long-term safety and success of our country. This led us to the F35 debacle and state of orbital launch services.

danny_taco• 8 years ago

This is par for the course for Accenture. I joined Accenture to work on a very interesting development project for a fortune 10 a few years ago. A project that could have been done in 6-8 months by a competent team in a reasonable budget. But being Accenture, it turned into a mess of epic proportions with the client threatening to sue.

In the end we ended up delivering this piece of software that I wouldn't touch again with a 10-foot pole, which didn't even satisfy most of the original business requirements. The exec from the client that hired us changed the narrative to his stakeholders to make this appear as a big success, and the project even got a lot of coverage on the internal newsletter when in reality it was just a smash and grab of a dozen or so million dollars from a client that got swindled so bad that they wouldn't even admit it.

I ended up being mostly on the bench for the rest of my stay at Accenture while watching every single one of the individuals that worked on that project leave for better pastures. A year in after the project started no one that worked on it was in Accenture anymore, except me. I was conflicted if I wanted to leave because I would hit the gym for two hours every day at around 2-3pm, then go home. My mornings were full of reading blogs, working on personal projects and just gossiping by the water cooler. In the end I decided to leave since I missed doing real work and working with a competent team. That year was one hell of a ride for me.

walrus01• 8 years ago

One of the reasons why CBP loves the current administration, their new policies effectively lifted any limits on overtime. For a person with ten years seniority, if they're bored and want some OT, border patrol guys can sit around in a pickup truck listening to the radio clocking those 150% wage hours.

It is not uncommon for a CBP or ICE officer, with OT, to be in the $130k+ salary range now.

And these are in places with relatively low cost of living, compared to a big city, like Ferry County, WA.

astura7• 8 years ago

I don't think it's fair to judge the "average" cost of living of a CBP officer, all ports of entry are staffed by CBP and the US has ports of entry all over the county. In fact, some of the busiest ports of entry are at airports located in major metropolitan areas with high costs of living.

j_m_b• 8 years ago

“There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government.”

-Milton Friedman

0xcde4c3db• 8 years ago

That's why many mature governments have an office whose job it is to care about those things, e.g. [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Accountability_Offi...

LarryDarrell• 8 years ago

It's much easier to quote Milton Friedman and wave your hands, though.

Mary-Jane2• 8 years ago

True, but you're not taking into account the government budgeting model. Organizations in government budgets' are based on last year's budget. If the OU spends last year's budget or more, their budget is increased (because they account for inflation). If they spend less, their budget is decreased. In other words, there is a built in incentive to spend money, and anyone can find ways to justify spending money "to improve their OU". GAOs merely verify the paperwork is in order.

Don't misunderstand me. This isn't an argument against government; it's an argument against this budgeting model. There has to be a way they to structure private sector budgeting efficiency into public organizations.

AbrahamParangi2• 8 years ago

This is a good quote and I like it, but it's funny- I feel like what this quote best demonstrates is a basic difference in conscientiousness between the Chicago school folks and the Keynes folks.

If I buy a birthday present for someone, I care very much about the content of the present.

ptero2• 8 years ago

I felt the same way on first reading, but then decided that I misinterpreted "someone" to mean "someone really close to me": spouse, kids, parents, etc. This is similar to buying things for myself.

I believe in MF quote "someone" is better described as "someone you do not personally know or maybe see once". A model for that is buying a gift for a Yankee Swap party. Or for a child I do not know: something to cheer them up, but as I do not know if (s)he likes dolls or trucks I can go with a safe, generic choice, e.g., a book.

That is, I am still trying to do a good thing, but am not too worried that I will guess incorrectly.

iambateman• 8 years ago

One could hypothesize that the character traits which lead someone to become a respected economist do not lend themselves to adept gift-giving.

;)

geofft• 8 years ago

I wonder the extent to which the problem is merely "Government should have moral people." (With the obvious caveat that those who proclaim their morality loudly are probably not the most moral.)

In the private sector there are plenty of cases where you're spending someone else's money on someone else and you care about doing a good job of it—and often without the requirement of personal mores as motivation. Banks and investment managers, for instance, basically do this. Some of course are awful, but some (loosely correlated with the ones who have been around for a while and built a reputation) actually do care about getting good results without excessive risk and without deception. Do the people who agree with Friedman's statement about government also conclude that private banks are bad too and people need to look out for their own money?

zeroname• 8 years ago

...implying that the Keynesians are really empathetic and that the Chicago school folks are cold-hearted technocrats.

That kind of emotionality is what keeps people from making reasonable decisions on economic policy. It would be nice if the kind of naive Keynesianism that politicians love to apply actually worked. It would be nice if you could spend yourself out of a recession. Unfortunately, politicians only like the spending part of the equation, not the savings part.

It's important to note that the Chicago school does build on Keynesian insights. It's an attempt at improving upon its failures.

conanbatt2• 8 years ago

The majority of gifts, and thus their aggregate, are worth less than their cost to the receiver.

This is because if the receiver can afford it and thought it was good, he would already have it. Because he doesn't, getting it as a gift is worse than getting money.

Alternative economic interpretation: if you gave someone the choice between item X and money worth X, the gift is good only if the recipient would choose item. If they were to choose the money, then they are always short-changed.

Gifting is economically inefficient.

beatgammit2• 8 years ago

I do too, but I'm probably going to do less research into it. I may spend a little more on a single item instead of buying two less expensive "diamonds in the rough" like I would for myself.

When buying for someone else, my biggest concern is to not look cheap. When buying for myself, my biggest concern is getting the best value. When using someone else's money, I'd be less cost conscious because I'm not feeling the hit.

I definitely care about what I give someone, but I care about different things than when buying for myself. You can see this in politics. Politicians have the best benefits in government, and when they pass a bill, they want to significantly affect the most people, even if the impact isn't as good as a better thought out system. Case in point: the ACA impacts most Americans, but prices for medical care overall have gone up. For those 87%, it sure seems like a good deal because they don't see the true cost (lots of deficit spending and worse care than a single payer system).

Uberphallus• 8 years ago

It's not about conscientiousness, it's about quality of information.

When you buy something for you, you know your exact needs and how to evaluate compromises. For gifts you care, but not as much since you lack significant information. You get something that is "good enough". For close friends you'll land a great gift in value and cost, but when you don't know the person very much, the gift usually tends to become an Amazon gift card or the like, since any guess may be a poor choice.

For example, many years ago I bought a projector with all the money I had saved (still student, at my parents), and I projected films on the wall, which was suboptimal but I was fine with that. On my birthday my friends got a sliding screen to hang from the ceiling! And I thank them very much for it! But even if they took the measures and all while visiting me, they missed the fact that the ceiling was ultra light drywall, rendering the gift useless.

enraged_camel• 8 years ago

It is a funny quote, but obviously not true. Anyone who has worked in, and for, government will tell you that:

"And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government."

Is 100% incorrect. In fact, much of the bureaucracy we have in government is used for ensuring these types of things don't happen. It's why there are committees, reviews, approval chains out the wazoo, etc.

cascom• 8 years ago

My experience is that because we can’t trust people in government to act responsibly, we create these committees/reviews/approvals ensuring that government moves slowly and ineffectively

arcbyte• 8 years ago

It's a great generality, but it's not only 100% correct, your example of bureaucracy PROVES it is correct.

Those committees, reviews, and approval chains are just distributed responsibility mechanisms to remove the responsibility to think critically about the entire expenditure, which is Friedman's point.

10 people thinking about narrow, nonoverlapping aspects of a large thing will never be as effective as less people considering all aspects of that large thing.

gaius• 8 years ago

the bureaucracy we have in government is used for ensuring these types of things don't happen. It's why there are committees, reviews, approval chains out the wazoo

Those committees are very expensive, tho'. Every one of them is an example of a bureaucrat spending money on his or her colleagues, and in return they will be appointed to committees and boards and fact-finding junkets and all the rest.

Mary-Jane2• 8 years ago

You have to much faith in those processes. Organizations in government budgets' are based on last year's budget. If the OU spends last year's budget or more, their budget is increased (because they account for inflation). If they spend less, their budget is decreased. So there is a built in incentive to spend money, and anyone can find ways to justify spending money to improve their OU. GAOs merely verify the paperwork is in order.

KineticLensman• 8 years ago

Yes. In some cases it feels as government procurement agencies exist specifically NOT to procure things, there are so many checks and balances.

pjc504• 8 years ago

Indeed. The government process will often spend $10 to save $1 - because doing otherwise would be condemned as "waste" by the Friedmanites from the sidelines.

Edit: in fact downthread we have someone literally arguing that it would be good to cut the IRS budget despite every $1 cut costing $7 in tax evasion.

adwhit• 8 years ago

I’m sold, let’s get rid of the part of the government that costs the most and delivers the least. I’m talking about the military, of course.

jki2755• 8 years ago

Military in the US is 18% of the budget. SS and medicare are something like 70%.

If you want to live in a country without a military there are a bunch of them. I wouldn't personally want to live in any of them, but of course everyone is free to do as they see fit.

golergka2• 8 years ago

There hasn't been a world war for two thirds of a century now, and US and their trade partners enjoy safe trade routes.

I wouldn't call it "not delivering".

ckastner• 8 years ago

I’m sold, let’s get rid of the part of the government that costs the most and delivers the least. I’m talking about the military, of course.

This is the same tortured logic that leads to cost-cutting with regards to IT security expenditures.

hopefulengineer3• 8 years ago

1. US military is only 16-18% of federal spending. Entitlements like social security, medicaid, and welfare make up 65-70% of federal spending. The majority of military spending is on salaries and benefits anyway, it's essentially a welfare program itself

delivers the least

2. most major advancements in tech and healthcare are due to the military. Silicon Valley was built on military spending. Self driving cars were initially funded by DARPA. AI was funded by military. If you have a job in the tech industry you can thank the US military

There's also the minor detail of the US navy making global trade possible and the strength of the US military making traditional war pointless which has resulted in the last few decades being the most peaceful in human history in terms of probability of dying in combat

dalbasal2• 8 years ago

Friedman had a talent for conveying these ideas simply.

The problem with these economicist "stories," as they call them, is that people (including economists themselves) believe them too much.

Once stories like this are embedded in the way we think, we constantly see ways of interpreting the world in a reinforcing way. Every case of inefficiency is found to be an example of principal-agent problems.

Not specifically a Friedman problem or a laissez-faire problem.

collinf• 8 years ago

It's so true. People take these stories as hard truth, when in fact many studies on economics (and social sciences in general) are hard to replicate. [1]

1. https://www.nber.org/papers/w13026

HillaryBriss2• 8 years ago

believe them too much

I definitely agree. The public reaction to how "someone else's money is spent on someone else" is sometimes very passionate.

e.g. feelings about government funding for the proposed border wall, support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, Planned Parenthood, prisons, police military-grade weaponry, etc

At the very least, in cases where value systems and ethical considerations come into play, people are extremely concerned about how government spends other people's money on other people.

Furthermore, people have efficiency concerns: plenty of people in big cities like Los Angeles are very concerned about the way the city spends its money in general, given the state of the roads and streets, levels of crime and traffic, mediocre education, etc

AsyncAwait2• 8 years ago

Friedman's quote is particularly ironic considering his Chicago Boys were particularly notorious for "spending somebody else’s money on themselves" by shifting public money to their own pockets, often by awarding ridiculous contracts.

arandr0x3• 8 years ago

I'm not sure what it says about me or Friedman, but if I'm choosing to buy someone a gift I don't care about the cost but I will attempt to make it something they like, and refrain from gift-giving if I don't think I can do that. (Or give money, I suppose.)

On the other hand, when spending other people's money on myself, for example lunches for business travel, I am incredibly cost conscious. I've skipped dinner a couple times because I felt the airport meals were too expensive. (The same was true when I was a child and spending my parents' money.)

Clearly they should put me in charge of governement budgets.

jermaustin14• 8 years ago

Do you work for the Boy Scouts?

I am not going to spend in excess, but if a company is paying for me to fly somewhere, I doubt a $30 airport meal is going to break them.

Now there have been times on site with a client, and I had a $120 per diem, where I might eat breakfast and lunch from a vending machine so that I can have a nice dinner, but I would never skip a meal at an airport if I had enough money left for it, and even if I didn't, I'd still charge the company and hope it flies under the radar.

Again $30 isn't going to bankrupt any company that can afford to fly you around.

m_mueller• 8 years ago

I think that, depending on culture, people like you are actually in the majority. How vast that majority is, is still very relevant to government efficiency however. Regulations on spending can also be quite successful in nudging people in the right direction.

All in all, it's IMO a very undifferentiated, ultra-libertarian point of view that Friedman's quote is displaying. I'd rather have somewhat inefficient government services than private monopolies, wherever market forces are not strong enough to create good competition. That applies to things like health care, the electrical grid, drinking water and a reasonable social safety net.

beatgammit2• 8 years ago

I'm the same way, most of the time. But I think many (most?) people are not. Also, even if they are, it's really hard to visualize large sums of money, so spending $1B on something is really hard to reason about.

But I think it makes sense in general. If I were to buy something with someone else's money for someone else, I honestly wouldn't care too much about either the cost or the gift, I'd get the thing that seemed reasonable to both parties. For example, if I bought gift for someone who performed a service for my company, using my company's money, I would not be very cost conscious, and I'd only put minimal effort in (after all, it's just a task I need to complete). I don't want to be stingy (we want the person to like us), but I also don't want to get flak from accounting.

irq11• 8 years ago

Yes, one of the problems with Friedman and his adherents is that they take the most cynical view of any situation, and assume everyone thinks like they do. So real, complex problems get reduced to a joke about how everyone else is an asshole and shouldn’t be trusted.

It’s a cute quip, but if you presented the opposite political viewpoint with an equally cute quip from a liberal, these Friedman acolytes would be the first to yell at you about “anecdotes vs evidence.”

I personally think that all forms of this style of comment are lowbrow-highbrow, contribute nothing but a sense of self-satisfaction to the poster, and should be voted down.

logfromblammo• 8 years ago

MF's classifications appear to not be universal. People do exist that are more careful with other people's money than with their own, because they feel empathy and/or wish to cultivate a professional reputation. I imagine such people would be very sought after and highly paid as fiduciaries and managers.

I too have been frugal with an expense account, but that may have been more out of a general mistrust of the employer, who might not reimburse in a timely and convenient fashion, rather than out of concern for their financial well-being. If my brother-in-law were to offer my entire family dinner, on him, at a restaurant of our choice, we would be eating at a strip-mall taqueria, for less than at McDonald's; whereas if my parents are buying, it's gonna be sushi, with a bunch of the fancy rolls. I know what they can each afford. Also, when I am shopping, I take it personal when I feel like I am getting ripped off, even if I am buying on behalf of someone else. If buying is a game, I want to win it.

For instance, I am super pissed about the F-35. I don't fly it, build it, maintain it, develop for it, see it, or even hear it. But it seems like maybe the government spent at least 5 times as much on it as it should have. Same with Boston's Big Dig. I don't live there or drive through it, but we all got ripped off on that one. That deal where Chicago sold its public parking meters and the Skyway Bridge? Pissed. People who don't care about other people's money when they spend it should not be allowed to spend other people's money. But there is way too much money that needs to be spent, and not enough conscientious spenders to do all of it. Thus, we end up with the yahoos that allow other people to be ripped off.

texmex20• 8 years ago

I like this quote ... and agree with the spirit of it.

That said, some central governing body does need to make sure certain needs of the community are taken care of. That way, we ensure that the whole community is taken care of and we're not in an every man for himself scenario where the "strong" prevail and the "weak" die off. When the government provides military to protect it's citizens, it does so for all citizens, not just the rich, not just the city dwellers. I guess the question is -to what else does this apply and to what extent?

patricius4• 8 years ago

Can we really say that government changes this? The powerful in this case is government itself and lobbyists. They are taken care of. We do not ensure in general that the weak are taken care of.

Furthermore, government uses the military for anything else than the protection of its citizens. How many of US military campaigns are for protection and how many is to support the military industrial complex?

kaitai• 8 years ago

This is very elegant, and encapsulates the problem with America. Well, many other countries as well, but certainly us, America. Not government -- but our conception of "ourselves".

HN occasionally has articles about education and the comparison of, say, Finnish education and American education comes up. I am firmly of the opinions that Finnish education works, when it works, because it is a service that the population is providing for themselves via government. It is seen as spending their own money on themselves. These other social services are seen similarly: people are getting what they paid for. And they (Finns, in this example) are conscious of it: in large part, I lay this lingering national consciousness of the value of government at the Karelian refugee resettlement of the 1940s. My inner armchair historian/anthropologist sees this massive national effort from family level through the top of government as providing a bit of national glue that also led to feelings of agency and efficacy among the population.

The sense that government takes our money and gives it to someone else, or steals it, pervades the US discourse. Our efforts are focused on avoiding taxes, lessening taxes, eliminating services for those undeserving others. We don't want to pay for other peoples' kids; they shouldn't have had them and haven't they heard of birth control, which they should also be able to obtain on their own. Personal responsibility is king. It subtly pervades even how we teach reading -- if you read [1], you see that teachers were taught that kids learn from their parents reading to them, and it's also just a matter of parenting choices and personal responsibility. From the family to top levels of government in the US, there's now an anti-glue, the story that government is an adversary, that it's a wasteful theft of honest peoples' money.

They are both just stories that make themselves true through our behavior, the behavior of government officials, citizens, and contractors.

[1] https://www.apmreports.org/story/2018/09/10/hard-words-why-a...

nonbel13• 8 years ago

"The sense that government takes our money and gives it to someone else"

If something else was going on, then taxes would be voluntary...

pjc504• 8 years ago

The problem with American opposition to government, especially Federal government, is that it's inextricable from the outcomes of the civil war.

swebs2• 8 years ago

I think the main reason is that Finland is also a very homogeneous country. There's much less of a concern for "paying for other people's kids".

leejoramo• 8 years ago

This goes along with another current top story on HN.

I wonder whose money Verizon spent to purchase Yahoo.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18662822

DSingularity• 8 years ago

Eloquently put but I do not appreciate the conclusion the rhetoric is driving. It is not impossible to structure these efforts in way which maintains effeciency and performance:$. How? Accountability and a payout which rewards good performance and punishes bad performance.

crispyambulance2• 8 years ago

I don't know how much Milton Friedman applies here. It's not like the government is being wantonly careless. They are investigating, after all. This is partly a consequence of the bidding process and the push to keep costs as low as possible-- there could also be a bit of crony-ism here.

These kinds of stories usually start out with some bidders putting together a killer power point deck and making a pitch, just like that LLC of TWO people that won that disastrous contract to rebuild Puerto Rico's power grid, or those guys that the movie "War Dogs" is about.

Sometimes they're upstanding folks who do a good job, sometimes they're fraudsters, sometimes they mean well but just can't deliver, sometimes they deliver but with comical cost overruns (name your favorite defense contractor).

saas_sam2• 8 years ago

It's not like the government is being wantonly careless. They are investigating, after all.

So, if someone does something seemingly egregiously careless, but they investigate after being found out, that nullifies the carelessness, in your mind?

I think we may agree to disagree on that point.

everdev• 8 years ago

And if the government were a business with actual competition, no one would do business with them. It's a great example of how monopolies reduce quality and increase waste.

delecti• 8 years ago

Maybe I'm just too much of an idealist, but I don't understand a perception of the government that isn't in the first category. It's my money and I'm reaping the benefit, both through direct benefits and through the overall improvement of society.

And I realize that it's partly that not everyone in government shares that sentiment, which is probably where a big part of the problem comes in, but that's another thing I don't understand. How can people not care so much?

danzig132• 8 years ago

Having worked as an actual Fed, I think there is a bit more complication to this.

I know that I and the people around me worked hard to do a good job on our project. I would hire any of those people. I also saw a great deal of the government is run by MVPs built by Feds on their own initiative.

On the other hand, the projects (including ours) I saw to replace those MVPs were largely staffed by incompetent or unfocused contractors, and I believe that is where a huge amount of waste comes in.

These contractors are once removed from even government and the waste results from this Milton Friedman push for privatization of government functions to organizations just trying to log billable hours.

simonsarris• 8 years ago

Someone wondered publicly how the economics of Starbuck's recently-announced coffee delivery service are going to work. They don't think it will.

But it's probably going to be very easy easy. Police or Fire or other public departments order the coffee every day which gets buried as an office expense and taxpayers foot the bill. The bureaucracies are happy. Starbucks is happy. No one else, uh, notices.

jondubois• 8 years ago

It's not true because when you spend somebody else's money on a third party, that third party can pay you back with future favors so there is a huge long term career incentive for you to give out a lot.

OzzyB• 8 years ago

“Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can't figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I'll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents. The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest... The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms: greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.”

-Gordon Gekko

porpoisely• 8 years ago

I personally enjoyed this quote from Ken Burns' Civil War.

"You can sell anything to the government at almost any price you've got the guts to ask".

                             -- Jim Fisk ( War Profiteer )

HillaryBriss2• 8 years ago

... if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get.

what about when you're spending your parents' money on a cell phone for them?

perfunctory• 8 years ago

We should see this for what it really is - hidden unemployment benefit for people "working" at Accenture. Or hidden basic income, call it whatever you want. Our level of economic development and accumulated wealth is so great that without these sorts of "stimulus" the majority of the population would be unemployed or work just a couple of days per week [0]. And the conspiracy theorist inside me suspects that the government cannot allow it. With so much free time at their hands people might get creative and get some strange ideas and so on.

[0] http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf

astura7• 8 years ago

The most appropriate word I think is "corporate welfare"

spectrum1234• 8 years ago

Except that this raises prices. For those on the outside who still need the product or service, the best "stimulus" is efficiency.

How can inefficiency help poor people in the long run? Your logic doesn't pass the common sense test.

moviuro• 8 years ago

Did NPR finally stop tracking its users? It didn't display its usual GDPR banner!

However, those still doubting should probably use: https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=675923576

dalbasal2• 8 years ago

"CBP had paid Accenture Federal Services approximately $13.6 million of a $297 million contract to recruit and hire 7,500 applicants"

- $40k per hire

consp• 8 years ago

30-40k hiring bonuses to recruiters are not uncommon. Especially if it is the only income and competitive in nature.

Doing this under a fixed contract is however.

sizzzzlerz• 8 years ago

What you have to ask yourself is who, in the Trump crime family, is making bank off of this.

exabrial2• 8 years ago

Government is nearly always the least effective use of a citizen's money. Huge discussion on HN a few days ago about the IRS barely making $7 for every $1 spent. Before than we discussed the astronomically comical cost of healthcare.gov.

It's good that people are demanding social change and action; the answer should bbe private charity and community leadership, as the current system just funnels money into contractors pockets.

askaboutit• 8 years ago

I would say government run and government funded is actually best. Government applied, government funded, contractor executed is garbage and a rort.

_dark_matter_• 8 years ago

Government is nearly always the least effective use of a citizen's money

These kinds of broad, factless statements do not deserve to be on HN.

Huge discussion on HN a few days ago about the IRS barely making $7 for every $1 spent

Are you suggesting that the totality of taxes we pay to the IRS are only 1/7 of the IRS cost? What are we... paying for roads with? The military? Is the entire government going down in flames solely because of the IRS?

exabrial2• 8 years ago

Why, because the facts don't conveniently align with your world view? Because you completely misunderstood my comment?

Here, take a moment to read: https://www.bizjournals.com/prnewswire/press_releases/2017/0...

tboyd472• 8 years ago

Why would private charities be any less corrupt than public ones?

gtCameron• 8 years ago

Because private charities rely on someone making an affirmative choice to give them money. In theory, if they are corrupt or incompetent enough the flow of money dries up.

If the government is corrupt or incompetent, people get angry at them and then ... nothing changes. The flow of money isn't stopping, in fact the most likely outcome is their budgets keep going up year after year.

lustysocietyorg• 8 years ago

It's good that people are demanding social change and action; the answer should bbe private charity and community leadership, as the current system just funnels money into contractors pockets.

I agree. But a democratic government is not necessarily bad; it is only as bad as the democratic majority that voted for it and not against it.

Government is nearly always the least effective use of a citizen's money.

I do not agree. All depends on the government.

A government is typically the worst as "minimalist" government that seeks:

- to promote austerity and thus poverty for the masses and the government. Typically enforced by harmful taxes as only money source for the government in a currency union.

- to promote certain evil ideologies (e.g. austerity and poverty and military) and elite interests by law and policies. The government is currently (and maybe only theoretically) the only force of the masses against the few at the top.

- to act as evil global night-watchman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-watchman_state

Clear proof from the USA and Europe:

https://www.newsweek.com/us-spent-six-trillion-wars-killed-h...

https://juliareda.eu/2018/08/censorship-machines-gonna-censo...

https://juliareda.eu/2018/12/article-13-mess/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1jZNepTx80&t=35

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/12/medicare-for-all-study-peri-s...

Regarding public and private morality and charity:

No government and no economy respects the human rights. Obviously no charity of millionaires and billionaires tries enough to help. http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights/

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2008/1000853/index.html

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/11/homelessness-chris...

pjc504• 8 years ago

making $7 for every $1 spent

This is tremendously effective and a good argument for spending more on the IRS.

Demanding that border patrol be moved to private charity is an .. entertaining idea. Would be interesting to see people take up a collection for the "wall".

jaclaz2• 8 years ago

As a side-side note:

Border Patrol jobs with the CBP have been notoriously difficult to fill, in large part because of the polygraph exam applicants are required to undergo. The AP reported that 2 out of 3 applicants fail the exam

Does that mean that the polygraph is extremely restrictive or that 66% of applicants are liars?

I mean, even if it is not applicable/valid in court, I believe most federal and government agencies use them internally, there was something on HN some time ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18431683

So, set aside how accurate it is, a number of people can pass it to get (or keep) a federal job, so it might be that the "quality" of people attemptng to enroll to CBP is "lower"?

ryanmercer2• 8 years ago

Does that mean that the polygraph is extremely restrictive or that 66% of applicants are liars?

Polygraphs aren't remotely scientific or even accurate. False positives are EXTREMELY common, simply being nervous that you're hooked up to a strange contraption can cause false positives.

Police departments often use them for hiring too, the Indiana State Police does for example.

astura7• 8 years ago

While true, that doesn't explain why the CBP polygraph fail rate is twice that of other police departments. (The CBP itself is a police department)

https://apnews.com/7e5bc0d98dd849a88043d8c40a74e56f

astura7• 8 years ago

I read in another article couple years ago thag a lot of people taking the CBP polygraph actually admit to very serious illegal/disqualifying behaviours during the polygraph.

Here's the article: https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/23/16511732/border-patrol-p...

Polygraph results are of questionable scientific value, but the interviews have an unexpected benefit apart from their dubious powers of detection: under pressure from interviewers, applicants frequently admit to wrongdoing. The Verge obtained a document under the Freedom of Information Act that lists cases where CBP polygraph interviews were “referred” for further investigation. When a polygraph interviewer determines an applicant has done something potentially disqualifying, the information is referred to an “adjudicator.” The adjudicator is vested with the power to stop the applicant from being offered a job. The list of referrals for further investigation, produced by CBP’s Credibility Assessment Division, includes 205 cases over the course of last year, and highlight stunning admissions of crimes flagged by the division.

dragonwriter3• 8 years ago

Does that mean that the polygraph is extremely restrictive or that 66% of applicants are liars?

Polygraphs are about as good for what they pretend to do as phrenology is.

I believe most federal and government agencies use them internally

They are used for positions with certain security clearance levels, despite having been repeatedly shown to be junk science, because they national security establishment is attached to security theater and/or full of people in decision-making positions that disrespect science when it disagrees with what they want to believe.

Or maybe because they are really good at detecting the degree to which people are susceptible to cracking under theatrical pressure, which isn't what they are advertised as being used for but is something that rationally matters to the national security establishment, and which they might actually be good at.

So, set aside how accurate it is, a number of people can pass it to get (or keep) a federal job, so it might be that the "quality" of people attemptng to enroll to CBP is "lower

You can't set that aside: how accurate it is at assessing “quality”, however you define that, is the key thing you need to establish to justify that conclusion.

oftenwrong2• 8 years ago

Reminds me of this FEMA contracting failure:

FEMA Contract Called for 30 Million Meals for Puerto Ricans. 50,000 Were Delivered.
For this huge task, FEMA tapped Tiffany Brown, an Atlanta entrepreneur with no experience in large-scale disaster relief and at least five canceled government contracts in her past. FEMA awarded her $156 million for the job, and Ms. Brown, who is the sole owner and employee of her company, Tribute Contracting LLC, set out to find some help.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/us/fema-contract-puerto-r...

forgot-my-pw• 8 years ago

How do people like these not get prosecuted?

FlyMoreRockets• 8 years ago

Probably protected by the powerful friends that gave them the contract in the first place.

oftenwrong2• 8 years ago

FEMA pays on delivery. If you fail to fulfil a contract, the FEMA keeps its money. In this case, that leaves the contractor holding the bag, as they subcontracted out for all of the work.

Unfortunately, the contractor can dispute the contract termination in a lawsuit. Lawsuits are expensive, so this may force FEMA into a settlement. This happens all the time with government contracts. People that know the system can exploit it.

The FEMA contracting officer bears much of the blame for this outcome. The company had no prior experience in disaster relief, had a track record of failing to fulfil contracts, and did not have sufficient funds to fulfil the contract. These are all things that should have been considered before awarding the contract.

charlesdm• 8 years ago

How does a government agency assign a $150m+ contract to a one man band?

If anything, the fault is more on the government than it is on the person bidding for the contract.

bobjordan2• 8 years ago

According to this article, the contract amount to be paid to Accenture is USD $297,000,000 to help the Government hire 7,500 employees. Nearly USD $40,000 USD per hire. Definitely makes me think about going all in on turning pure Libertarian.

rchaud2• 8 years ago

I'm interested to know what part of this story sparked your comment about Libertarianism?

Was it the use of taxpayer dollars to expand a border force that didn't seem understaffed to anyone but the Pres?

I ask because the other part, namely government contracting work to the "more efficient" private sector sounds perfectly in keeping with Libertarian principles.

bobjordan2• 8 years ago

Spending $40,000 USD per hire for a border patrol job, strikes me as inefficient, regardless of whether or not the private sector or Government is doing the hiring. But most likely, what sparked my comment about libertarianism, was simply the fact I'd visited the Libertarian party website earlier today at https://www.lp.org/ and happened to be thinking about their tagline "Libertarian Party | Minimum Government. Maximum Freedom." when I read this article.

QML• 8 years ago

Libertarian as in you don’t believe it’s possible to scale government while keeping it efficient?

pesmhey2• 8 years ago

The initial payment of ~$2000/recruit sounded reasonable, and then you realize that the total expenditure was for $40,000/recruit. Even if Accenture Federal Services delivered, is that price tag an accurate reflection of the true value of recruiting agents? What part of the recruitment process could warrant such a high price?

schnevets• 8 years ago

I'd say this summarizes post-recession America pretty well. A demand for jobs that no one seems qualified and willing to do, and a bloated paycheck to the keepers of some "analysts" who scramble to keep doing what doesn't work.

etxm• 8 years ago

Ok, but we’re they the right hires?

pjc504• 8 years ago

Worth comparing with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18679767 , where we actually had something resembling a discussion rather than just descending into government-is-bad tropes.

There are really three separate questions:

1) Whether the thing is worth doing at all

2) Having decided to do it, is there enough commitment and leadership to actually doing it properly?

3) Given the desire to do it properly, is that best served by doing it in-house through a line management system of control, or outsourcing it and running it through a contract management system of control?

Government Hired a Firm for $13.6M to Hire Recruits. It Hired 2

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