B&G REPORT.

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

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

We do an awful lot of reading of press releases in which various states or localities (or frequently an outside public relations firm) refers to some initiative as a “best practice.” Typically, if we write about the topic, we substitute in other phrasing, like a “practice that works,” or an “evidence-based approach,” (if it is). Of course, when we’re quoting from a study or a report we’re stuck with the phrase “best practice,” as we don’t change direct quotes to suit ourselve

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

Last Tuesday in our Management Update Section, we announced the publication of a study titled “2025 State and Local Workforce Survey...

Over the course of years, we’ve come to rely on a number of organizations that specialize in various aspects of state and local...

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,...

A few months ago, at the American Society for Public Administration conference in Washington D.C., the Center for Accountability and...

Many states, counties and city leaders are regularly raging against “fraud, waste and abuse.” This is hardly a new issue but inspired by...

Nearly every city, county or state gathers huge quantities of data for a variety of purposes. Some of it is effectively used, some is...

We’re looking forward to participating in a panel at the upcoming annual conference of the American Society for Public Administration...

In the wake of the pandemic, we co-wrote a paper for the IBM Center for the Business of Government in collaboration with renowned...

In 2024, our professional life was very busy (as our colleagues, family and friends know), and so we hardly had the energy in our...

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...

In conversations that we’ve had lately with people in human resources and elsewhere in government, we’ve found ourselves repeatedly...

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...

Leaders in state and local governments persistently claim that they want to be more transparent, and we believe that this is a sincere...

Public sector human services professionals tend to go into their field to spend time with lower-income families who are in need of...

Cities, counties and states from coast to coast are cultivating efforts to create a more diverse workforce – one that mirrors the...