I’m an Engineer/Estimator and I’ve worked in construction and I work for a manufacturing plant that does some design for the federal government and some design for private companies.
The federal agencies I design for are not worried about price at all, occasionally they’ll drill down on lead time but price doesn’t seem to matter and that always sat wrong with me so I did some digging and I found that across the gov that is pretty common, why?
Because all these departments know if they don’t expend their entire budget they won’t get the same amount next time and they definitely can’t get an increase, plus most monies appropriated are available for X years until spent roughly on an area and they are pushed to spend it-period. In private construction we’re incentivized to come in under budget, on schedule without quality issues… any money saved from the original estimate is considered a win for the team and a percentage would go towards a bonus. With government projects it literally doesn’t matter if they meet a schedule, come in over budget or make huge mistakes because they aren’t incentivized, recognized or even accountable for the success of the project or objective. It’s created an apathetic culture among government employees and is a huge driver of waste fraud and abuse. Fed and State employees that I’ve met talk about it like it’s a prison sentence, aka “I’ve only got 12 more years before my pension is vested, let the next guy fix it.” That attitude is exponentially compounded every decade and the budgets continue to grow while output decreases and we add more and more people to the department.
I know giving cash bonuses with tax money would be tricky to navigate and oversee but at the very least can someone give these people a reason not to spend our money thoughtlessly and a reason to care about deadlines and completion rates that could help create a culture of motivation for team success…
Looking at budgets and appropriations, policy should motivate management to complete objectives under budget and they should not see it as having a negative impact on future budgetary requests. Incentivizing management to give accurate estimates and propose accurate schedules for projects will double the output and require half the personnel nearly immediately. We can’t afford to fund inefficient projects and waste resources on the scale we are currently.
A great economist once said, “You can’t expect anybody to spend other people’s money as carefully as he spends his own” which is true but if it impacts the amount of his own money he is awarded for success he just might care a little more when spending yours.