Strategies for Avoiding the Pitfalls of Performance Contracting

C ontracting is in. All sorts of governments are contracting for all sorts of goods and services. The public sector contracts with the private and nonprofit sectors for the design, construction, and maintenance of roads and bridges (Chi, 1993, pp. 14-15); for the production of nuclear weapons (Kettl, 1993, chap. 6); for the management of prisons and the delivery of services within prisons (Allen, 1989); for information technology (Globerman for the management of public schools (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1996b); for educating, training, and placing in jobs welfare recipients and displaced workers (Chi for child support enforcement (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1995, 1996a); and for a host of other social services (Smith Savas, 1982), when it should contract (Donahue, 1989; Prager & Desai, 1996), and how it