I think I'm missing something? Aren't they contracting the work out to service providers who are then free to hire people to do the work? Seems to me that the contractors would be responsible for managing the snow removal after they've won the bid to do the work. The only sense in which the government is managing is that they're overseeing the bidding process and, presumably, taking steps to ensure the work was done promptly and correctly, which all seems consistent with "privatizing". Compare this system, for example, to one in which the city owns a number of snow plows and has a number of drivers on payroll.