410
Opinion of the Court
rectional Institute to inspect public correctional facilities on an annual basis and to report findings of such inspections). It must buy insurance sufficient to compensate victims of civil rights torts. § 41-24-107. And, since the firm's first contract expires after three years, § 41-24-105(a), its performance is disciplined, not only by state review, see §§ 41- 24-105(c)-(f), 41-24-109, but also by pressure from potentially competing firms who can try to take its place. Cf. § 41-24-104(a)(4) (permitting State, upon notice, to cancel contract at any time after first year of operation); see also §§ 41-24-105(c) and (d) (describing standards for renewal of contract).
In other words, marketplace pressures provide the private firm with strong incentives to avoid overly timid, insufficiently vigorous, unduly fearful, or "nonarduous" employee job performance. And the contract's provisions—including those that might permit employee indemnification and avoid many civil-service restrictions—grant this private firm freedom to respond to those market pressures through rewards and penalties that operate directly upon its employees. See § 41-24-111. To this extent, the employees before us resemble those of other private firms and differ from government employees.
This is not to say that government employees, in their efforts to act within constitutional limits, will always, or often, sacrifice the otherwise effective performance of their duties. Rather, it is to say that government employees typically act within a different system. They work within a system that is responsible through elected officials to voters who, when they vote, rarely consider the performance of individual subdepartments or civil servants specifically and in detail. And that system is often characterized by multidepartment civil service rules that, while providing employee security, may limit the incentives or the ability of individual departments or supervisors flexibly to reward, or to punish, individ-
Page: Index Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007