B&G REPORT.

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

“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

A few weeks after we left our then-18-year-old son off at the University of North Carolina in 2005, we got a note from him, thoroughly...

Over more than 30 years of covering state and local government, we can’t recall ever talking to a public sector manager who loved going...

We are puzzled and frustrated with the ignorance of many people about the importance of state and local government management. They tend...

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[Photo: Oregon Governor Tina Kotek] Generally, gubernatorial executive orders get scanty press attention. But we’ve found they’re one of...

Episode One: Data Quality - Over the course of years, as we’ve closely followed the work of state and local performance auditors, a...

Out of the 36 gubernatorial elections last November, 26 resulted in the return of an incumbent while only one, Nevada’s Steve Sisolak,...