- NO. State Employees get a 401K. There is no pension or healthcare. It has been proven over and over, that contracting in this state costs more.

If I had mod points, I would give +1 insightful. From a slightly different perspective, I work in IT for a State Government. The Feds and the States are very similar, except that they are reducing compensation at the State level. So recent graduates are not even looking for employment with the State. It is so bad now that we have permanent job postings for IT positions. But the benefits and pay are no where near private sector. They have to have contractors now that so many have retired. The contractors cost far more than State Employees. But you still read articles in the local papers about how over paid State Government workers are. Plus the same mantra over and over that government workers just sit around and do nothing all day. I guess if they keep this crud in the press, then the populace will accept it as fact. I know of many contractors who have failed in the day to day duties, yet they are still employed. Many of the government contracts are poorly written. Add to that management not holding the contractors to the signed contract and properly monitoring progress of the projects. Over all it is very sad to be in government IT unless you are a contractor. And if you are a contractor, your only benefit is in knowing that you are better compensated than the government employees around you. Either way you are still told: "Do more with less" which has never made sense to me. Following those instructions means that you have to loose quality or quantity. There really is no other choice. Throw in the furlough days, bank leave time, and all of the other compensation reducing schemes, and our compensation has been reduced by thousands of dollars per year. All of those savings are going to pay for contracts. In my state the contracts total over 15 billion. That is more than what it costs to pay for the state employees. They privatize different functions more and more. Costing the tax payers more and more. Sorry for the long rant. I will get off the soap box now and let someone else have it.