[Superman]

I get pretty tired of folks announcing that society's woes all stem from Gubmit workers who don't care or perhaps they are actively trying to destroy democracy. Folks who talk like that are both angry and clueless.

Sure Glen, your story is likely true. That agency may have wanted to avoid wasting money and time on a proprietary system that ended up costing way too much and, if I don't miss my guess, was eventually abandoned. The "bureaucrats" typically want to do things right and have a clear vision for how to get it done. But then the "legislature" has a better idea....like contracting with a private entity for a computer system.

As far as avoiding unemployment fraud goes, it all depends on the state or other jurisdiction. In my state, we have a pretty good system for identifying and punishing fraud. The computer system with which I am familiar, in my agency and in our Employment Security department, are not outsourced. We spent the money to build our own system. This way, we can make improvements and the cost of the entire system is virtually limited to the cost of those incremental improvements. We do make substantial use of contract workers. IT people who know their stuff are in high demand and they are expensive, so we engage them by contract. We pay them substantial money to build our systems, but at the end of the day they are OUR systems.

At my agency we have an entire program that ferrets out fraud and they are pretty good at finding it. Is there still fraud out there? Yes, of course. If there were not fraud, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. Is the system perfect? No. But my state is actually run fairly well. Two weeks ago one of our fraud investigators was shot at. These guys are underpaid and they do dangerous work. Because they care. Because it is important.

Private sector workers are sometimes assumed to be superior to public sector workers. From my perspective, that is bovine excrement. I have spent my career going back and forth between public and private sector work, and the public sector people are the superior of the two. Car salesmen are in it for the money. There is no moral theme in their work. They sell cars. Working at a public agency which protects working men and women, and protects taxpayer money, is a bit more important and motivating than selling cars.

Now go back to ignorant gubmit-bashing. I understand it is a lot of fun for some of you.