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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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ARE BEST PRACTICES REALLY THE BEST?
We do an awful lot of reading of press releases in which various states or localities (or frequently an outside public relations firm)...
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...
greenebarrett
4 min read
HR PRACTICES: THE BEST LAID PLANS. . .
Last Tuesday in our Management Update Section, we announced the publication of a study titled “2025 State and Local Workforce Survey...
greenebarrett
3 min read
“ON NETWORKING AND BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS”
Over the course of years, we’ve come to rely on a number of organizations that specialize in various aspects of state and local...
greenebarrett
4 min read
THE GENERATIONAL FALLACY
We’ve never really understood the way horoscopes work. How can it be that if someone is born a minute after midnight on October 24th,...
greenebarrett
3 min read
CHANGING TIMES, CHANGING BELIEFS
A few months ago, at the American Society for Public Administration conference in Washington D.C., the Center for Accountability and...
greenebarrett
3 min read
UNTANGLING FRAUD, WASTE AND ABUSE
Many states, counties and city leaders are regularly raging against “fraud, waste and abuse.” This is hardly a new issue but inspired by...
greenebarrett
4 min read
DO YOU SPEAK DATA?
Nearly every city, county or state gathers huge quantities of data for a variety of purposes. Some of it is effectively used, some is...
greenebarrett
4 min read
GOVERNMENT IS MORE THAN RED VS BLUE
We’re looking forward to participating in a panel at the upcoming annual conference of the American Society for Public Administration...
greenebarrett
3 min read
WILDFIRES: HOW TO MANAGE A CRISIS
In the wake of the pandemic, we co-wrote a paper for the IBM Center for the Business of Government in collaboration with renowned...
greenebarrett
2 min read
REALITY TV AND REALITY IN GOVERNMENT
In 2024, our professional life was very busy (as our colleagues, family and friends know), and so we hardly had the energy in our...
greenebarrett
3 min read
ARE BEST PRACTICES REALLY THE BEST?
Just the other day, we were editing a Guest Column for this website (we won’t bother to mention the name of the author) and discovered...
greenebarrett
3 min read
GENERATION Z: ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL
In conversations that we’ve had lately with people in human resources and elsewhere in government, we’ve found ourselves repeatedly...
greenebarrett
3 min read
Who Pays When Work-Life Balance Gets Unbalanced?
We’d probably be the subject of justifiable ridicule if we were to come out against the notion of work life balance in the public sector...
greenebarrett
3 min read
Hide and Seek: A Researcher’s Quest for Contact Information
Leaders in state and local governments persistently claim that they want to be more transparent, and we believe that this is a sincere...
greenebarrett
2 min read
Building Human Services Relationships
Public sector human services professionals tend to go into their field to spend time with lower-income families who are in need of...
greenebarrett
5 min read
On the Road to a More Diverse Workforce
Cities, counties and states from coast to coast are cultivating efforts to create a more diverse workforce – one that mirrors the...
greenebarrett
2 min read
Keeping Focus on the Humans at the Heart of Human Services
After 23 years in government John Eller, the director of Social Services in Mecklenburg County, will leave his government job in...
greenebarrett
3 min read
Why hide from data?
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been doing research into the challenges municipalities face when they want to hire a diverse workforce....
greenebarrett
3 min read
Praise in a Remote World
We’ve repeatedly heard the phrase: “People don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses.” This comment has been supported by loads of...
greenebarrett
2 min read
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