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B&G REPORT.
The B&G Report features newsy items relating to a wide variety of state and local government management topics, including state and local performance audit, state and local performance management, government budgeting, state and local human resource issues, and a variety of other public sector issues.
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greenebarrett
2 min read
The attributable governor: Wisconsin!
There’s a lot that the governors’ state of the state addresses have in common. They generally start with thanks to parents, spouses,...
greenebarrett
2 min read
Procurement: Life after the contract is signed
We’ve talked with quite a few procurement officials over the last few years and we know how much time is spent negotiating prices in...
greenebarrett
2 min read
Budget exhibits: “An unknown story in public administration”
When Thomas Greitens shows his students photos of “Budget Exhibits” from the early part of the 20th Century, they are shocked. “It’s a...
greenebarrett
2 min read
Schools: How To Make a Village
You can barely find a list of “ten tips for better government,” in which a word like “partnership” isn’t used and we’ve detected a surge...
greenebarrett
1 min read
The pot tax conundrum
While recreational marijuana has provided a windfall in new taxes for some states, it also introduces some knotty administrative issues....
greenebarrett
2 min read
Twenty years later: Lessons from welfare reform
Twenty years have passed since Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) disappeared, replaced by Temporary Assistance for Needy...
greenebarrett
2 min read
How to get universities and governments to work together
Over the years, we’ve had many discussions about the disconnect between research that goes on at public universities and governments’...
greenebarrett
2 min read
Audit Hurdles
A few years ago we gave a speech to the annual conference of the Association of Local Government Auditors about what keeps auditors awake...
greenebarrett
1 min read
What do Florida, Maine, Montana, Pennsylvania, Vermont and West Virginia have in common?
They are the states that have the highest population of residents, aged 65 or older, as this “map of the month” from the Pennsylvania...
greenebarrett
2 min read
Do you feverishly dislike meetings?
Over more than 25 years of covering state and local government, we can’t recall ever talking to a public sector manager who loved going...
greenebarrett
2 min read
Construction bidding: Fairness and accountability
Construction contracts are often selected based on the lowest bid from a responsible bidder. That certainly seems like a sensible...
greenebarrett
3 min read
Executive orders: from droughts to blizzards with some opiates in between
Last month, we gave ourselves a new tool to keep an ongoing watch on what executive orders governors are signing. It’s an interactive map...
greenebarrett
2 min read
Looking for scintillating studies?
In the early years of our marriage, a favorite activity was clipping magazines to find interesting story ideas. We carried our own clip...
greenebarrett
1 min read
Quote of the Day
“When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor.” — Lyndon B. Johnson
greenebarrett
2 min read
Daylight Savings Time: WATCH OUT!
Rock Regan is director of the public service practice group at Kronos, a leader in workforce management. A former chief information...
greenebarrett
2 min read
The state employee engagement problem: Follow-up comments
Last week, our blog featured the startling results of a survey conducted last year by the Institute for Public Sector Employee...
greenebarrett
2 min read
The civic education crisis
Today at 2 p.m., e.s.t., we moderated a Council of State Governments webinar called “Civics in the States: What it is and Why it is...
greenebarrett
3 min read
Overdoing Overtime: a story of cops and gravediggers
Years ago, a coach for one of our daughter’s softball teams confided to us that, as a police detective who was about to retire, he was...
greenebarrett
1 min read
Why to think twice about a hiring freeze
Governments considering a hiring freeze would do well to take a look at a report that was discussed at a Pennsylvania law enforcement and...
greenebarrett
2 min read
State Chief Operating Officers: In defense of the governors’ legacies.
There’s a new trend among the states to create a position called the Chief Operating Officer (COO). As we recently wrote in Governing...
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