FEMA and Multiple Layers of Contractors

The Washington Post had an article, Multiple Layers Of Contractors Drive Up Cost of Katrina Cleanup on the 19th:

"Four large companies won Army Corps contracts to cover damaged roofs with blue plastic tarp, under a program known as 'Operation Blue Roof.' The rate paid to the prime contractors ranged from $1.50 to $1.75 per square foot of tarp installed, documents show.

The prime contractors' rate is nearly as much as local roofers charge to install a roof of asphalt shingles, according to two roofing executives who requested anonymity because they feared losing their contracts. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the contractor heap, four to five rungs lower, some crews are being paid less than 10 cents per square foot, the officials said."

A bunch of bloggers were attracted to comment on this obvious example of governmental inefficiency. I want to be contrarian.

First, government bureaucracy in the U.S is weak. In a typical bureaucracy (think Catholic Church, Army, GM, Starbucks) you have a pyramidal organization--the "operators" at the local level (churches, platoons, dealerships/factories, coffee shops), then a management hierarchy, often geographically organized. This is the way you combine local knowledge and ability to act with centralized management. FEMA and other governmental organizations don't have this complete hierarchy. What tends to happen is FEMA, or Department of Education, or whatever provides the centralized management, but the lower layers are State and local governments or nonexistent.

In the specific case described by the Post, there was no expertise on temporary covering of roofs (though it doesn't seem to require much expertise). So FEMA, through the layers of contractors as is right and proper in a nation so firmly convinced of the merits of private enterprise, created a temporary bureaucracy with the ability to cover roofs. Contrast this approach to disaster to that of USDA. USDA has a network of county offices throughout the country. When a disaster occurs or Congress authorizes a new disaster relief program for farmers, this existing bureaucracy springs into action and delivers the checks.

The USDA model works much more efficiently than the FEMA model but it also works much more often. It's like the old Maytag repairman ads--do you want to pay FEMA to have people sit around and do nothing for years? Or can you find enough other duties for a permanent FEMA bureaucracy to do (as USDA offices have ongoing farm programs to justify their existence)?