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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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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...

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3 min read


DATAPHOBIA
A couple of months ago at a large social gathering we had the opportunity to spend some time with a person who has dedicated his life to...

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4 min read


TEN TIPS FOR BETTER PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
Many years ago, when we were first introduced to the world of performance management, we became zealots, believing that cities and states...

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3 min read


ADMIT IT!
Every government makes mistakes from time to time. Sometimes, leaders acknowledge that a decision made in the past has gone awry and...

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4 min read


BUREACRACY IS NOT A DIRTY WORD
When was the last time you heard anyone say, “Gee what an excellent bureaucracy we have in the Department of Motor Vehicles. It only took...

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4 min read


DO LEGISLATURES UNDERSTAND THE VALUE OF MANAGEMENT?
For some time, we’ve been fascinated by the relationship between executive branch managers and their legislatures or city councils. Not...

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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...

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3 min read


HOW TO CATCH BAD DATA BEFORE IT CATCHES YOU
We don’t have a degree in statistics. Nor are we data specialists. But after 30-plus years of using data as a basic tool in our quest to...

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3 min read


THE DEATH OF HISTORY?
Last week, in a B&G Report titled, “Information Can Be a Buried Treasure,” we wrote about our concerns about the use of artificial...

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3 min read


HOW DELAYS CAN DAMAGE TRUST IN GOVERNMENT
More than ten years ago, leaders in West Haven, Connecticut (where the Greene of Barrett and Greene grew up), began planning a fabulous...

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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...

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3 min read


SHORTCOMINGS OF EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE
As anyone who has been reading our work in the past knows, we’re strong believers in making sure that there’s ample use of evidence when...

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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...

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2 min read


THE PUBLIC SECTOR TOWER OF BABEL
We were involved in a meeting the other day, in which a couple of participants were talking about agile government. We hear that term...

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2 min read


PERFORMANCE READER’S GUIDE (PART 2)
We received a tremendous response a few weeks ago when we published “A Reader’s Guide to Government Performance” by John Kamensky, a...

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3 min read


A READER'S GUIDE TO GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
Several decades ago, when we first developed a passion for performance management, we leaned upon a cadre of people who were pioneering...

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3 min read


FORT WORTH: THE TRAIN IS ON THE TRACKS
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...

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4 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...

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3 min read


AN OPEN LETTER TO ELECTED OFFICIALS
Good day, Last week we were talking to an inquisitive person who is rising in the local public sector world. The conversation turned to...

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3 min read


WHY DO PEOPLE LAUGH WHEN WE TELL THEM WHAT WE DO?
When we attend social gatherings like weddings and are seated with people who don’t know us, one of the obligatory first questions...

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3 min read
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