In a time when everyone is concerned about the expenditure of every penny of state money, federal stimulus money and federal economic bailout money, it is inexplicable why the proposed state budget would eliminate the requirement for analyzing the costs of contracted state services. It's especially odd since the governor who signed the law requiring this is the same person whose budget would eliminate it.

What is the motivation? We can't know whether it is a simple mistake or a step to steering money toward favored individuals or groups. Regardless of the motivation, the result is not only bad public policy but just a plain dumb idea.

Gov. Jim Doyle's proposed budget would delete the requirement to make rules about contracted services, to conduct cost-benefit analyses of contracted services and to periodically review the need to continue a contract. This would apply to services worth at least $25,000. In addition, the budget would delete the legal definition of a cost-benefit analysis as one which looks not only at cost but also at the quality, technical expertise, and timeliness of contracted services compared to what state workers can do. As anyone familiar with government and the law will tell you, leaving fine-print definitions vague or absent is an invitation to unacceptable and unwanted results.

There are two ways the public could pay a penalty for this proposal: first by funding a contractor whose work is poor quality or who has a clear conflict of interest with some private concern, and second by funding state workers who are not as efficient or experienced as a specialized private contractor. That's why one does cost-benefit analyses, to find out which option provides the best service at the best cost.

Doyle signed this provision into effect about three years ago after a newspaper investigation found, among other problems, that contracting for sign inventory management tripled the costs for the Department of Transportation, that projected computer equipment savings never materialized, and that in one year the state used contractors in 74 cases when using state staff would have been cheaper. Removing this provision is likely to produce similar problems multiplied by a billion -dollars, that is, of federal stimulus act money which will flow into the state - and it would mean that no one has learned from even the most recent history.

At a meeting of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee on Tuesday, Secretary of Administration Michael Morgan told lawmakers that this bit in the budget will be changed. How it will be changed was unclear from reports of the meeting. The best solution would be not to change the current law at all.

Good stewardship of public money is what government is all about, and removing one of the key tools which enables good stewardship is - well, we already said it: dumb.