This story, headlined "From blue tarps to debris removal, layers of contractors drive up the cost of recovery, critics say," was originally published Dec. 29, 2005. It is being republished for the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina as part of The Times-Picayune's Pulitzer-winning coverage.
"When you have this nesting, or tiering, you're losing a lot of money to friction as it goes from sub to sub down to the worker bee who's actually turning a wrench or putting on a blue tarp," said Steve Ellis, vice president of programs at the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Keith Ashdown, a colleague of Ellis', decried the "blank-check mentality" that he said often results in overspending in the wake of disasters. "I guarantee we're going to come back to this after everything has been reviewed and find we paid (upscale retailer) Nordstrom prices when we should have been paying Wal-Mart costs," he said.
