B&G REPORT.

“This is the last B&G Report we’ll be publishing in 2025 (the next new column will appear in this space on January 12, 2026 )  And so, we thought it only appropriate for us to look back at the columns we’ve done over the last year to pick out ten of our favorites – and provide them to our readers who may have missed them the first time around. Take a look, and as NBC used to say  in a campaign to get people to watch its reruns, “If you haven’t seen it, it's new to you.”   Unc

When the federal government announced that it intended to create a new Department of Government Efficiency, we had our doubts – which were fulfilled when the news emerged that the vast majority of DOGE’s efforts were to cut back on government employees to the extent that some agencies have been hobbled by the lack of trained workers. Soon enough we began to hear that a number of states, which were led by Republicans, were also starting programs with the phrase DOGE, or a vari

Several years ago, when the nation was in the depths of the pandemic, there was hardly an article we could write that didn’t bring the impact of Covid-19 into play. Even though the public sector was still delivering tons of services, collecting taxes and trying to create affordable housing, everybody we talked to about these topics would bring in questions of how they were being impacted by the pandemic. We were disheartened by the terrible toll the pandemic was taking, but,

In a surprising number of conversations in recent months, we find that political tensions are depressing our friends and giving them a sense that government has ceased to function in a way that gives them hope for the future. And that’s when we try to cheer them up ( at least a little bit). We point out that cities, counties and states are doing a good number of positive things – in both red and blue portions of the country. Sometimes, this takes a little convincing. The page

We really want to have our voices heard when it comes to matters of concern to us, and we suspect that most people feel much the same way. But over the last few years, as the flow of surveys that come our way has turned into a deluge, our inclination to reply to many of them has decreased.   And we’re far from alone. So-called “survey fatigue”, like the kind we’re experiencing, isn’t a new phenomenon, and there were articles being written about it several years ago. But we’d

Some time ago, in a conversation with a high-ranking county official, he told us about the three attributes that he sought when hiring a new employee: “attitude, aptitude and adaptability.” Subsequently in looking up those words online, we’ve realized that he didn’t make the “three A’s” up himself, but the idea remained with us as a sensible one. Clearly, the fundamental hurdles before someone should be hired for a job in state or local government are attitude and aptitude. I

For well over 30 years, we’ve been researching, analyzing and writing about state and local government for a whole variety of publications and organizations. Our most significant foray into this field began when we were covering management issues for Governing Magazine from 1997 to 2019. We left Governing at a time when it briefly appeared that it was going to cease publication, to do similar coverage for Route Fifty. We held onto that gig until 2024, at which point it cut ba

When we think about timeliness in police, fire and EMS, we often think of response times. And even though it’s recently been pointed out to us that there are other important measures, like timely evidence processing and timely release of information on high-profile events, ultimately response times are the metric you’re most likely to hear about – and the ones that are primarily the difference between safety and tragedy. For emergency services, particularly, every moment can

In January 2022, a little more than a year before his death at the age of 92, we had the honor of working with Harry Hatry on an Urban Institute report titled “ Dos and Don’ts Tips for Strengthening Your Performance Management Systems. ” While we’d been writing about this broad topic for years, what made this special was that we were working once again with one of the giants in the realm of performance management. Contributions to this report were also made by well-known figu

Nearly every town, city, county and all the states have websites. We turn to them with regular frequency for a variety of purposes, which we’ll delve into right now. But there are any number of downsides to many websites and that’s what we really want to write about today. Among the benefits that websites can bring to a governmental entity are: The ability to allow residents to electronically interact with their government for tasks like renewing licenses, paying taxes or req

Much of the coverage about the concerns that beset states and localities tends to focus on specific areas like budgetary shortfalls, the need for better technology and a shortage of people to fill many vital positions (where have all the accountants gone?) But, increasingly, in conversations we’re having about all these topics and more, the problem that seem to keep our sources awake at night can be expressed in a single word: “Uncertainty.” “ Uncertainty is not generally wel