B&G REPORT.

In a “VOICES FROM ASPA" video that ran on this website   a couple of weeks ago, Valerie Lemmie, senior advisor of state and local government at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, told us that  “I am at times surprised how little our graduate students know about civics and then I am reminded that we don’t teach it in school anymore, you don’t learn it in high school. You don’t learn it in college. And so, it’s incumbent upon you, who are preparing for the profession (in pub

Not long ago we were at a presentation by an academic about a topic that was of genuine interest to us. As is often the case, she had many interesting slides, showing all of the data she had gathered over months of research.   But when one of the members of the audience inquired about the meaning behind the data, her answer was simple. “I don’t know. I only know the numbers.”   This was frustrating to us, and we suspect other folks in the audience. But it’s been our experienc

There are many important routes to heighten the likelihood of developing successful programs and policies in the public sector. But over the years, in dozens of conversations, we’ve had one factor that comes up repeatedly: It’s critical to be willing to take risks. Naturally we’re not talking about gambling with the public dollars without ample consideration, study and the search for evidence. Instead, we’re thinking about a truly calculated approach to entering new territory

Back on March 6, 2020, the IBM Center for the Business of Government hosted a glorious party in honor of our then-new book “The Promises and Pitfalls of Performance-Informed Management.” (Rowman & Littlefield) There was a lot of talk in the room about some mysterious new disease that seemed to be spreading. People were bumping elbows. On March 11 th , the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic. That night the NBA suspended its season, and a national

We’ve been watching the Ken Burns documentary series about the history of the Vietnam War. It’s a difficult series to watch, but fascinating, nonetheless.   One point that the documentary makes is that, unlike other wars in which success was measured by the land overtaken, in Vietnam that didn’t apply as neither side ever really made any physical progress until after the end of the war, when North Vietnam prevailed and one nation emerged.   As a result, during the war, the me

We don’t get it. Over the years, many cities and states have handed out tax incentives with the notion that they are supposed to have a good return on investment. They’re supposed to bring in jobs and have a ripple effect in neighborhoods in which the incentivized project is located. But that often seems to be an illusion. Elected officials nearly always play up the potential benefits and downplay costs. Fortunately, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board has a standard

It’s long been known that exposure to bad news can be genuinely unsettling. As long ago as 1997, a study originally published in the British Journal of Psychology found that just 14 minutes of exposure to negative news can significantly increase anxiety and sad moods. Nearly three decades after that study, its conclusion leads to greater concern than ever. The future is wildly uncertain. The media is full of alarming stories, from the growing number of natural disasters to a

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

“This is the last B&G Report we’ll be publishing in 2025 (the next new column will appear in this space on January 12, 2026 )  And so, we thought it only appropriate for us to look back at the columns we’ve done over the last year to pick out ten of our favorites – and provide them to our readers who may have missed them the first time around. Take a look, and as NBC used to say  in a campaign to get people to watch its reruns, “If you haven’t seen it, it's new to you.”   Unc

We really want to have our voices heard when it comes to matters of concern to us, and we suspect that most people feel much the same way. But over the last few years, as the flow of surveys that come our way has turned into a deluge, our inclination to reply to many of them has decreased.   And we’re far from alone. So-called “survey fatigue”, like the kind we’re experiencing, isn’t a new phenomenon, and there were articles being written about it several years ago. But we’d

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

When we think about timeliness in police, fire and EMS, we often think of response times. And even though it’s recently been pointed out to us that there are other important measures, like timely evidence processing and timely release of information on high-profile events, ultimately response times are the metric you’re most likely to hear about – and the ones that are primarily the difference between safety and tragedy. For emergency services, particularly, every moment can

In January 2022, a little more than a year before his death at the age of 92, we had the honor of working with Harry Hatry on an Urban Institute report titled “ Dos and Don’ts Tips for Strengthening Your Performance Management Systems. ” While we’d been writing about this broad topic for years, what made this special was that we were working once again with one of the giants in the realm of performance management. Contributions to this report were also made by well-known figu

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

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...

Many years ago, when we were first introduced to the world of performance management, we became zealots, believing that cities and states...

Every government makes mistakes from time to time. Sometimes, leaders acknowledge that a decision made in the past has gone awry and other times this news comes out through a performance audit or a press report. But as Robert Half, the late founder of the eponymous giant recruiting firm once said, “Not admitting a mistake is a bigger mistake.” We agree and yet we frequently see state and local governments and their leaders take that unfortunate path. Consider citizen surveys.

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...

For some time, we’ve been fascinated by the relationship between executive branch managers and their legislatures or city councils. Not...