The prevailing paradigm of outsourcing in local government assumes high-level professional administrators make systematic assessments of program areas to determine whether a selected number could be delivered for a reduced cost and at a higher quality by an external provider. This article examines two fundamental deviations from this model occurring in local governments. First, a handful of newly incorporated cities have adopted a wholesale approach to contracting out, relying almost exclusively on private firms and other governmental jurisdictions for the production of core programs while employing only a handful of in-house staff. Conversely, several small towns and cities across North Carolina deliver most services and programs in house by permanent staff but contract out the highest-level administrative position, that of town or city manager. These strategies represent outsourcing at its most extreme and present important practical and paradigmatic challenges to public human resource management in contemporary subnational governance.
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