B&G REPORT.

It’s fulfilling for governmental leaders to come up with good notions for new programs or infrastructure designed to make life better for the citizenry. And from our perspective, it’s a lot of fun to write about them – often when they’re just out of the pilot stage. Unfortunately, in all too many cases, even the best ideas go begging for enough operating cash to fulfill their promise. We first became aware of this phenomenon many years ago, when we wrote about counties and st

The future of state and local budgets is never entirely clear, but as things stand right now, it appears as though we’re heading for a time when there may need to be a lot of belt-tightening. There are a handful of ways that many entities approach shortfalls of cash, including cutting back on services and raising taxes. But neither is particularly popular for residents who aren’t entirely clear about the pain that budget offices face in trying to construct a balanced budget.

“For years, opinion surveys have identified property taxes as the ones Americans hate the most,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). There are lots of reasons this has been the case. For one thing, property taxes are clearly the most visible of the major tax streams that go to municipalities. As Jon Cannon, executive director of the Nebraska Association of County Officials, told us in a recent conversation, “It’s a tax you can’t avoid. You can m

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

A little over a year ago, we wrote a column for Route Fifty about the remarkably ambitious host of efforts that Fort Worth, Texas was...