HOME AGAIN

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 back on its editorial staff and more general contributors and focused almost exclusively on technology.

For those years, it was a frustration to us because we didn’t feel like we could quote from the hundreds of columns and articles we had written for Governing over 22 years. After all, they were the competition.

Of course, as history turned out, Governing didn’t go anyplace and continued its thriving website. Last year, it even started again to publish a magazine you can hold in your hands, with an issue in Spring 2024 the first hard copy version since September 2019.  

So, we’re back again and are now contributors to Governing, which has reprinted a number of articles we’ve published on our website. In the future, we plan to write articles directly for the publication itself.

So, now that we feel like the cork is out of the bottle, we thought we’d share ten Governing columns that we were particularly proud of. They follow, including the links. Some may be a little out of date, but we’ve tried to select out evergreens.

Testing Period: “Pilots—for programs ranging from a new model of fire engine to teen pregnancy prevention efforts—are an accepted management technique almost everywhere. Unfortunately, there are lots of ways to get tripped up by them.”

How Breaking Down Silos in Government Can Make Things Worse “Collaboration is the road governments need to be on to find solutions to problems that bedevil multiple agencies and departments. Unfortunately, that information road can be full of potholes. Sometimes attempts to fill the ruts create new holes.”

What Happens When Evidence Based Policy Making Meets the Real World? “Even with money and staff, evidence-based policymaking can be fraught with peril. For one thing, once evidence seems to indicate that a program is successful, public officials often declare victory and move on. “But there are few easy wins with health care, poverty, education and so on,” says Gary VanLandingham, a professor at Florida State University and a national expert on evidence-based policymaking. “No single program or process is a silver bullet that will solve all problems.  But everyone loves silver bullets.”

Accounting for Oysters – The Importance of Fiscal Notes in Policy Making “Clipping fiscal notes to bills is easier said than done. Management of that process is dicey. Some states are laggards. They do not have their legislative analysts calculate estimates for all bills. . . Nor do many states manage their fiscal note process to gain the most pertinent information available. “

Data-Based Decision=Making Works Great – Til Someone Cheats “Even though we’re still strong supporters of the move to make decisions based on measures, we’ve begun to get a little skeptical about the validity of some measures and concerned about the way government officials sometimes misuse the data -- inadvertently or, on occasion, intentionally.”

Are Public Employees Safe at Work? “Violent attacks in the workplace are not common, but they may leave public employees fearful about going to work, especially in understaffed institutions.

“Across the country, chronic understaffing in correctional facilities, youth detention centers, psychiatric hospitals and in social services contributes to high turnover among qualified staff and increases the likelihood that violent incidents will occur,” says Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.”

Did We Say That? Public Sector Predictions that Never Came True. “We’re not perfect. Despite the depth of our reporting, the decades of historical memory and the thousands of experts upon whom we rely, we miss the mark from time to time. Maybe you’ve noticed. Several years ago, for example, we wrote excitedly about the coming age of performance-based budgeting. Although performance measures have certainly helped management, you’d need to look far and wide to find good examples of budgets that have been clearly formed by performance measures.”

Bad Bosses – “All the managerial systems in the world, it appears, aren't strong enough or thoughtful enough to overcome the problems that can be created by supervisors or managers who lack communication skills, fail to listen to employees, treat them poorly or don't provide honest feedback about job performance.”

What Improv Comedians Can Teach Government Employees “Government managers often find themselves in so-called ‘brainstorming sessions,’ where they’re supposed to work together to come up with a new approach, fix an old problem or develop a new program. Participants too often emerge from these meetings with the sense that little of value has been accomplished -- except for giving a handful of folks the opportunity to talk.”

How Government Can Benefit by Becoming Better Storytellers. Simple statements of fact supplemented by statistics aren’t enough when communicating with the public. Storytelling is also needed for getting a message across not only to the public, but also to managers, legislators and public-sector employees.

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