I know of a Dutch waste processor that got privatized but the municipalities that the plant serviced stayed the majority shareholders. As far as I know (my source, its former boss, surely is biased) this worked very well. It was a for-profit company, could pay competitive salaries, people got bonuses etc if they out-innovated expectations, but the majority of the profit landed at the municipalities, which also meant that if it did profitable but shitty stuff, they’d get forced to course correct.

I wonder why this isn’t a more common model. If a utility is effectively a regional monopoly, having said region’s governments be majority shareholders aligns pretty much all the incentives, no? And still helps keep stereotypical “civil servant” working culture out the door