“IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT, IT’S NEW TO YOU”

 “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.”

Uncertainty Is The Only Certainty: “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.”

Dataphobia: (We) “worry about what we see as a growing inclination to distrust or dismiss data when it potentially disrupts policy or political plans.  If data doesn’t conform with expectations, further analysis is always welcome to determine why. But to ignore the message, bury it out of public view or reject it out of hand only undermines the effort to see what’s really working in government and what’s not.”

Ten Tips for Better Performance Management: “During the last three (plus) decades, we’ve seen a number of flaws crop up in the performance management functions of cities, counties and states. Some of these are obvious -- like the problems caused by low quality data -- others are not. Following, are ten tips that we believe can be useful for entities that covet success in this discipline.”

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 the efforts in Washington D.C. – whatever you think of the administration’s approach – there’s been refreshed action at other levels of government to tackle this triad of governmental ills.

“Here’s the problem. These three words are generally comingled as if they were one thing. But they’re not. And mixing them together as a single phenomenon can easily cause governments to lose a clear vision as to exactly what they’re trying to fix.”

AI and Energy Use: A Growing Concern: “AI has the potential to use incredible amounts of electricity, and at a time when global warming is no longer a matter of debate in the serious scientific community, this feels to us like the kind of emerging problem which soon enough will be in the headlines everywhere.”

Survey Exhaustion: 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 argue that it has now entered a new phase: Let’s call it survey exhaustion.

Are Best Practices Really the Best: “We do an awful lot of reading of press releases in which various states or localities (or frequently an outside public relations firm) refers to some initiative as a ‘best practice.’

“Typically, if we write about the topic, we substitute in other phrasing, like a ‘practice that works,’ or an ‘evidence-based approach,’ (if it is). Of course, when we’re quoting from a study or a report we’re stuck with the phrase ‘best practice,’ as we don’t change direct quotes to suit ourselves.”

Bureaucracy 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 me five minutes to get a new driver’s license’?

“In fact, the word bureaucracy is most frequently used as a pejorative. . . But this kind of context for bureaucracy is a sad and frustrating fallacy. Without the bureaucrats, we’d be left with a bunch of policies and programs that would have no one left to implement them.”

Eight Gripes about Government Websites: “Nearly every town, city, county and all the states have websites. We turn to them with regular frequency for a variety of purposes, which we’ll delve into right now. But there are any number of downsides to many websites and that’s what we really want to write about today. . .

“Since barely a day passes when we’re not visiting a government website, we’ve accumulated a bunch of grievances. Here are eight that are on the top of our list.”

Information Can Be A Buried Treasure: “What AI can find for you is information that has been digitized. But there’s tons of valuable material that’s never been put in digital form. That includes information about groups and cultures, with histories that have been written about less and never picked up by the digitizers of the world.”  

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