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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
TARGETING SPEEDIER FINANCIAL REPORTS
For some time, the complexity of dealing with scores of rules set forth by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) has become...
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4 min read
“ON NETWORKING AND BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS”
Over the course of years, we’ve come to rely on a number of organizations that specialize in various aspects of state and local...
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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
BAD DATA IS EVERYWHERE: BEWARE!
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...
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4 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
BEWARE OF THE DRAW TO SOCIAL MEDIA
Today is “World Social Media Day,” a celebration of that form of communications that was first proclaimed in 2010 by Mashable, a media...
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3 min read
UNTANGLING FRAUD, WASTE AND ABUSE
Many states, counties and city leaders are regularly raging against “fraud, waste and abuse.” This is hardly a new issue but inspired by...
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4 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
AN OPEN LETTER TO PUBLIC SERVANTS
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...
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2 min read
AI AND ENERGY USE: A GROWING CONCERN
Over the last few months, we’ve written extensively about Artificial Intelligence. Mostly we’ve been focusing on the usual issues; its...
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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
DATA GARBAGE IN – AI GARBAGE OUT
For years, we’ve been writing about the importance of good data, based upon which states, counties and cities can make good decisions....
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4 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
HOT SPOTS FOR GOVERNMENT ACTION
As regular readers of this website know, we generally avoid covering politics or the federal government. That said, we’re beginning this...
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3 min read
REALITY TV AND REALITY IN GOVERNMENT
In 2024, our professional life was very busy (as our colleagues, family and friends know), and so we hardly had the energy in our...
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3 min read
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