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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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WE LOVE THE NITTY GRITTY STUFF
Late last year, Bill Eggers, executive director of Deloitte's Center for Government Insights, wrote on LinkedIn that "Over my decades working on government reform, my one major complaint has always been that think tanks have focused so much time and resources on policy and too little on policy execution and the nitty-gritty of government operations He was playing our song, and we’d like to add that we find the same unfortunate phenomenon doesn’t just exist in think tanks but

greenebarrett
4 min read


ADAPT OR LOSE
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

greenebarrett
3 min read


THE SEATTLE SYNDROME LIVES ON
Many years ago, when we were involved in evaluating the management capacity of the nation’s largest cities, one of the areas of inquiry was performance management (which we then were calling “management for results”). This early exercise – one of the first in a line of work that ultimately led to the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Government Performance Project– was largely reliant on journalistic-style interviews, supplemented with a survey instrument. When we interviewed the people

greenebarrett
4 min read


THE REMOTE WORK BACKLASH
It feels like just yesterday when, during the pandemic, we were writing about the potential of remote work to make employees happier without diminishing the services they provide. What’s more, it appeared that there was the potential for large amounts of savings when cities, counties and states could cut back at least part of the office space they used. Yet a growing number of state and local governments have eliminated or drastically reduced the capacity of employees to work

greenebarrett
4 min read
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