Must be nice for some people - from the Los Angeles Times:
While you sit in traffic, these tollway consultants charge the public $185 an hour for reading news
The warnings have been ominous for motorists winding their way to and from San Diego along a busy stretch of Interstate 5 in South Orange County — a future of crushing gridlock unless something drastic is done.
Transportation planners have been trying to sell skeptical residents for more than a decade on an extension of the Highway 241 toll road to help ease traffic.
To win public support for the extension or an alternative solution, the toll road agency has turned to consulting firms to wage a multimillion-dollar public outreach campaign.
But that spending is sparking questions about how the public agency is using the money.
And how much is being spent?
Billing records reviewed by The Times show a consultant at one firm was paid for working 28 hours in a single day.
Another consulting firm received nearly $230,000 for more than 1,300 hours spent reading “emails of news from transportation stories; evaluate reporter perspectives” at up to $185 an hour, the records show. Meanwhile, the authority paid yet another consultant more than $3,000 a month to compile news stories at $90 an hour, according to the bills.
Some digital media experts questioned a $380,000 budget in one year to produce content for two small websites and social media accounts for the tollway authority, as well as marketing to specific audiences, saying such work should cost far less.
Hell. I would do that work for only $170/hr. This is what happens when you get appointed public-sector bureaucrats with no accountability. There is no price for failure.
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