B&G REPORT.

When people talk about the high cost of state and local government, they often miss an important distinction: between costs and investments. People understand in their own lives that when they put money into bonds or the stock market, these aren’t really costs but money put aside in hopes that they will get a return on this cash in years to come. Yet they miss that same phenomenon when it’s in place for their tax dollars. There are lots of examples of this phenomenon, Trainin

When the federal government announced that it intended to create a new Department of Government Efficiency, we had our doubts – which were fulfilled when the news emerged that the vast majority of DOGE’s efforts were to cut back on government employees to the extent that some agencies have been hobbled by the lack of trained workers. Soon enough we began to hear that a number of states, which were led by Republicans, were also starting programs with the phrase DOGE, or a vari

Several years ago, when the nation was in the depths of the pandemic, there was hardly an article we could write that didn’t bring the impact of Covid-19 into play. Even though the public sector was still delivering tons of services, collecting taxes and trying to create affordable housing, everybody we talked to about these topics would bring in questions of how they were being impacted by the pandemic. We were disheartened by the terrible toll the pandemic was taking, but,

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

Much of the coverage about the concerns that beset states and localities tends to focus on specific areas like budgetary shortfalls, the need for better technology and a shortage of people to fill many vital positions (where have all the accountants gone?) But, increasingly, in conversations we’re having about all these topics and more, the problem that seem to keep our sources awake at night can be expressed in a single word: “Uncertainty.” “ Uncertainty is not generally wel

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...

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...

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

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...

Way back in 2015, we wrote a cover story for Governing  about bad data. (And by the way, we’re delighted to report that after a few...

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...

Today is “World Social Media Day,” a celebration of that form of communications that was first proclaimed in 2010 by Mashable, a media...

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

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...

Today is the first day of Public Service Recognition Week and since much of our readership is made up by people who have devoted their...