Search Results

We were fascinated by some of the most significant changes signaled in the recently released annual CIO survey from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers. Our series about the future of state and local government jobs, is being published this week by Route Fifty. And based on our many interviews for those columns, we were heartened to see the reskilling of employees jump dramatically in its importance in the NASCIO CIO survey as the “single action” that would most affect recruitment and retention of the future IT workforce. In 2019, 25% of CIOs selected “reskilling” compared with 35% in 2022. In comparison, increasing remote work options was chosen by 18% of state CIOs, expanding flexible work by 8% and streamlining the hiring process and reducing time to hire by 6%. Building a “talent pipeline” also jumped dramatically as a top strategy and tactic that state CIOs use to attract and retain a highly qualified IT workforce. In 2022, that was listed by 71% of CIOS, compared with 44% in 2019. Another big change showed up regarding privacy, which was on more CIO's minds in the last year than in the past. As the survey says, “Citizens are becoming more aware of their privacy rights, feeling distrustful of how information is being collected . . . and demanding more from government.” When asked if their states had passed legislation addressing citizen data privacy, 37 percent said yes in 2022 compared with 29 percent in 2020. In 2022, 67 percent said their states had implemented enterprise-wide data privacy policies, up from 59 percent in 2020. As NASCIO has previously reported, 21 states now have chief privacy officers. In addition, the pressures to move speedily and to depend on digital delivery of services in the last two and a half years, clearly made CIOs realize that the need to tackle obsolete technology was paramount. Increasing the priority of legacy modernization jumped from the 5th place it held in 2020 and 2021 to the 2nd place in a ranking of business processes that would loom large in coming years. “This is likely because the fragility of these systems were exposed during the pandemic,” the survey report surmises. There’s lots more in the 2022 State CIO Survey and it is most decidedly a B&G Recommendation. #StateCIO #NASCIO #NationalAssociationoffStateChiefInformationOfficers #StateGovernmentPrivacyOfficer #StateChiefInformationOfficer #FutureofStateandLocalGovernmentJobs #RouteFifty #StateGovernmentReskilling #StateGovernmentTalentPipeline #StateGovernmentHumanResources #StateAndLocalGovernmentManagement #BandGReportRecommendations #GovernmentData #HumanResourceManagement #PublicSectorHumanResourcesPandemicImpact #StateGovernmentHumanResources #PublicSectorInformationTechnology

We’ve recently been reading an advance copy of a book by Bill Leighty, former chief of staff under Governors Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia. It’s terrific, full of anecdotes from his many years in government service and we look forward to being able to give copies to our friends when it’s published. This has provoked a conversation between the two of us about some of the best books we’ve read that we think would be fun, instructive or thought-provoking for people in state and local government. Top on our list was The Power Broker by Robert Caro. We’re also very fond of The Lost City, by our friend and colleague Alan Ehrenhalt. And then there’s Machiavelli’s The Prince, which may have been written in the sixteenth century, but certainly resonates with the world in which we live today. About a dozen years ago, while we were writing columns for Governing magazine, we asked our readers to “submit suggestions for reading materials that are useful for government managers.” We featured a number of them in a column we dubbed “Managers Reading List.” We’ve just taken another look at that list and found that it included many that were about the federal government (like Confessions of a Civil Servant by Bob Stone, which was recommended by the Urban Institute’s Harry Hatry). So now we’d like to refine our request for readers of the B&G Report, and ask you to please send recommendations for any readers at all (not just government managers) who are interested in state and local government specifically. You can make submissions, which we’ll feature, with full credit if desired, in a future B&G Report by writing to us at greenebarrett@gmail.com, subject lined "B&G Reading List". Thank you. #StateandLocalGovernment #CityandCountyManagement #BarrettandGreeneRecommendations #FormerVirginiaGovernorTimKaine #FormerVirginiaGovernorMarkWarner #SenatorTimKaine #BarrettandGreeneRecommendations #BandGReportRecommendations #GoverningMagazine #AlanEhrenhalt #WilliamLeighty #BillLeighty #GovernorChiefofStaff #TheLostCity #HarryHatry

We are, as readers of the B&G Report know, regular users of performance audits. In so doing, we're sometimes reminded about the Greek myth of Sisyphus, the founder and king of Ephyra who was punished for escaping death by spending eternity rolling a boulder up a hill and then watching it roll down again. How does this connect to the problems we see in performance audits? The answer is that many of the issues we observe cropping up in one place -- and potentially resolved there -- appear again and again in other reports. Case in point: the difficulty in keeping up with building inspections and the sometimes tragic consequences that ensue, This is on our minds today because of an in-depth investigation conducted by the Sacramento Bee about a lethal fire that occurred in early September. The September 2nd Mill Fire in sparsely populated Siskiyou County, California, appeared to begin in wooden warehouse Shed 17, although that hasn’t yet been confirmed. It spread across a six-mile area, killing two women and destroying “nearly 100 houses,” according to the Bee. The lengthy article about the newspaper’s investigation cited a lack of oversight of warehouse fire safety and noted that government officials couldn’t provide records to indicate the warehouse in question had a functioning sprinkler system. In this rural area of northern California no local governments had the responsibility for inspecting the warehouse. State fire inspection requirements did not appear to cover warehouse inspection or oversight either. Every situation is different, but we have seen a lot of similarities in the post-disaster discussions of a lethal fire. We’ve covered this topic in the past and wrote about it a year ago, in a blog post we titled, “The Problem of Lagging Inspections.” . Too often, the lack of inspections – even when they are required – come down to shortages in funding and staff. When they draw public attention an investigation is done, and -- with remarkable frequency -- blame is placed on the absence of sufficient inspections. In a perfect world, one community would learn from the lessons of another and that boulder would stay at the top of the hill. But, sadly, that's not the case. And so, despite the tragedy in California, we expect to read the same story again and again in other places. Are we growing pessimistic? No. But maybe just a tad realistic. #CityandCountyManagement #GovernmentAccountability #PerformanceAudit #StateandLocalGovernment #Inspections #FireSafety #SacramentoBee #WarehouseFire #InspectionBacklog #PerformanceManagement #GovernmentOversight #Inspections #CityInspections #SafetyInspections #MillFire #InspectionShortcomings #LaggingInspections #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #StateofCalifornia #CityofSacramento

With the advent of mobile apps and easily accessible web portals, there’s growing potential for improved communication between governments and residents. They can also help to foster improved customer satisfaction, if residents find it easy to voice complaints, seek service improvements and get some idea how long their neighborhood is going to have to wait for that (expletive deleted) axle-twisting pothole to be fixed. That potential is diminished, however, if the app, itself, provides yet another reason to be frustrated with the government. Obviously, technological glitches can be a problem. But sometimes it's the non-tech details that are the issue, as an October performance audit about San Diego’s Get It Done mobile app and web portal showed. Get It Done was intended to provide people with an easy way to report City of San Diego problems and ask for fixes. Their 2021 requests for assistance most commonly connected to parking, encampments, graffiti, missed collection, illegal dumping, potholes and “shared mobility devices,” which include motorized scooters and bicycles. The biggest problem with the app, was summed up nicely in the audit’s finding No. 1: “While Get It Done has greatly expanded customers’ access to request services, many customers receive limited, confusing, or inaccurate information about their service requests.” In fact, according to the auditor, in 19% of service requests, residents received “inaccurate or misleading closure details.” The office criticized the practice of marking a request “closed” even when the problem was unresolved but had been referred elsewhere to find a solution. Other issues included Get It Done’s lack of communication about target and estimated completion times, and a lack of progress reports. These features were characterized as part of an “Ideal Process” as opposed to the “Current Process.” In addition to these recommendations, the auditor suggested updated training for staff and also developing a central 3-1-1 phone call-in system, a common communication device that San Diego does not have, in contrast to most large cities. The Performance and Analytics Department, which manages the app, has already been working on fixing the problems addressed by the audit. City management agreed with all but one of audit recommendations, disagreeing only with its suggestion of developing a 3-1-1 call-in option. Among the organizations that the city auditor mentions for guidance on centralized customer service portals are: The International City/County Management Association (ICMA), The Leadership for a Networked World Program (LMW) and Harvard Business Review. #StateandLocalGovernment #CityandCountyManagement #PerformanceAudit #SanDiegoCityAuditor #CityMobileApp #GetItDoneMobileApp #CityofSanDiego #CityGovernmentCustomerService #ResidentOutreach #CitizenOutreach #PublicSectorMobileApp #SanDiegoPerformanceandAnalyticsDepartment #CityGovernmentPerformanceManagement #ResidentCustomerSatisfaction #CitizenApp #CitizenInput #ICMA #HarvardBusinessReview #LeadershipforaNetworkedWorldProgram #311PhoneSystem #AuditRecommendationImplementation

In 2018, a regional ballot measure in nine counties in the San Francisco area dedicated $500 million of $4.5 billion in increased bridge toll revenue for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to purchase new rail cars. Wisely, State Senator Steve Glazer said he wouldn’t support the expenditure if there wasn’t oversight over BART, so he put language in the bill that stated “this bill would create the Independent Office of the BART Inspector General . . .” It seems pretty clear to us what the word “independent” means, and we’ve been writing about the importance of independence of oversight bodies for years. But the sad tale of BART’s IG’s office is yet another example of the fight that many oversight bodies have had to wage for insularity from outside interference in their work. California has an unusual civil grand jury system which empowers citizens to investigate all manner of issues, and the Alameda (County) Grand Jury wrote a few months ago that, “From the beginning . . .BART’s board, management and unions demonstrated an unwillingness to support an independent OIG and erected roadblocks to its function.” A number of well-respected individuals agree with the Grand Jury finding, including Ann-Marie Hogan, senior advisor for the Association of Local Government Auditors and Elaine Howle the well-respected, recently retired, California State Auditor. The gist of the problem that Inspector General Harriet Richardson currently faces is the insistence on the part of BART’s management and its board that she must notify the unions to which BART employees belong anytime she does an investigation and notify anyone to whom she wants to speak for any purpose at all that they are entitled to union representation when the conversation is held. This is true in all cases, most of which have nothing whatsoever to do with the possibility of punitive action against the employee being interviewed. In an effort to clarify the situation, in February, Glazer put forth a second piece of legislation which set about clarifying the IG’s roles and responsibilities. It stated that the IG “shall have the independence necessary to conduct all of its audits . . . independence includes being free from impairments from the district that may restrict the office’s ability to conduct independent and objective audits or investigations and issue reports based on the results.” But the senator still encountered resistance to unshackling the IG. He “was not able to overcome the opposition of the district's labor unions,” according to a letter to the governor written by Howle. The president of the Bay Area Rapid Transit district sent a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom requesting that he veto the bill. He did so on September 28. Why all the pushback? We can’t put ourselves into the minds of the members of the board and the management of BART to say for certain, but Hogan points out that “BART’s board members are elected, and they get contributions from the unions, and the same is true of the Governor.” Though Richardson has refused to comply with management’s insistence that the union be brought into all her investigations, this whole issue seriously impairs her ability to fulfill her responsibilities. For one thing, according to Hogan, “if every single meeting potentially required waiting for a union rep to schedule a meeting, that would completely slow down the work of the IG.” Complains Richardson, “We can’t complete investigations when employees aren’t free to just come and talk to us. There’s a lot of fear from employees because there’s fear of retaliation from their co-workers or management. They fear for their jobs.” What’s more, as Howle wrote “Requiring the BART IG to notify the union essentially deprives the employee the opportunity to determine whether he or she seeks representation. Furthermore, this could call into question the BART IG's independence and threaten the BART IG's credibility.” That’s how things stand now. As for the future, “we continue to hope that we can get some legislation through in the future,” said Richardson. “Meanwhile, we just try to educate people about the appropriate role of the IG.” #StateandLocalGovernment #CityandCountyManagement #GovernmentAccountability #GovernmentOversight #PerformanceAudit #PerformanceManagement #BART #BayAreaRapidTransit #CityandCountyofSanFrancisco #InspectorGeneral #InspectorGeneralIndependence #AuditorIndependence #IndependentOversight #CaliforniaCivilGrandJury #AnnMarieHogan #ElaineHowle #InpsectorGeneralHarrietRichardson #CaiiforniaStateSenatorSteveGlazer #AlamedaCountyCivilGrandJury #AssociationofLocalGovernmentAuditors #GovernmentOversightResistance #BartInspectorGeneral #ALGA

Increasingly, the old days of town hall meetings is giving way to electronic means for getting input from residents. Though this means of bridging the gap between decision makers and the people they represent first became common during the pandemic it’s here to stay. With that in mind, we found a new report from PublicInput, a leader in community engagement software for government, to be of particular interest. It showed the findings of a survey conducted in May and June 2022 that reflected responses from about 1,000 U.S. residents. As PublicInput’s founder and CEO Jay Dawkins said, “Surprisingly, only a third of residents reported being comfortable providing input at virtual meetings, so it’s important to consider meetings as one option among many for hearing from more voices.” The other options he had in mind included e-mail, phone, texts and social media. Here are a few of the key results from the survey taken from a press release announcing its publication: ● A large majority (71%) of respondents reported they are not being “asked” by government for their input or feedback. While governments have relied on both traditional and digital forms of notification to solicit public input, e.g., (news media, public notices, newsletters, website pages, and social media), residents are not aware of or monitoring those channels. Instead, residents prefer a direct, or personalized approach ● Residents want to be more informed before and after contributing their input or feedback to their local government. Nearly 18% of respondents said they do not offer input to their local government when asked. Of this group, nearly half (48%) said they do not provide input to government requests because they lack the information to contribute an informed response. ● Digital government outreach methods are meeting resident engagement preferences and may increase public input and feedback. Most respondents (70%) stated they were comfortable joining virtual public meetings. Furthermore, the survey findings suggest that residents are more likely to contribute feedback in online deliberations than they would in an in-person gathering. #StateandLocalGovernment #CitizenInput #CityandCountyManagement #PublicSectorData #PublicSectorDataAnalysis #PublicSectorDataUse #CitizenSurveys #ResidentInput #PublicInput #JayDawkins #DigitalGovernmentOutreach #VirtualPublicMeeting #TownHallMeetings #StateandLocalGovernmentDataManagement #Data

Several years ago, we worked with the Volcker Alliance to created a guide to resources about state budgeting intended for use by public officials, policy advocates, journalists, academics, and concerned citizens. ​ In late September 2022, the Alliance updated the guide, which will once again provide up-to-date sources of information to provide a clear-eyed state-by-state financial outlook. You can find it by clicking here: ​The guide provides a clickable map, which will lead you to a treasure trove of information about each of the fifty states. “Understanding a state’s budget is never a one-step process, but our State Budget Sources guide gives you a central starting point,” said William Glasgall, Senior Director, Public Finance at the Volcker Alliance. This resource links to budget sources for all fifty states as well as legislative analyses of budget bills and treasurers’ or comptrollers’ monthly state cash flow statements; capital spending plans; reports on public worker pension funding and returns; and reports by local and national fiscal research organizations, bond rating firms, and associations of state fiscal and finance officials. #StateandLocalGovernment #CityandCountyManagement #BudgetManagement #BudgetResources #StateandLocalGovernmentBudgeting #StateandLocalGovernmentResources #StateBudgeting #StateBudgetResources #VolckerAlliance #StateGovernmentBudgetSources #WilliamGlasgall #PublicSectorBudgeting #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been doing research into the challenges municipalities face when they want to hire a diverse workforce. One important step, it's clear, is to gather the data necessary to see how closely the demographics of the personnel in a city’s agencies – and the entity as a whole – mirror those for the city itself, and to use that information as a performance measure to guide the improvements the city is making in creating workforce diversity. Some places do an excellent job at this, and you’ll be able to read more about that in the column we’re writing for Route Fifty. But others don’t. The same thing is true for a host of other areas in which good data can be of help, but it's simply not gathered. All of which leads us to consider the following question: “Why Not?” Two reasons emerge. The first one is regrettable, though understandable: For localities, particularly smaller ones, there’s often an absence of the resources necessary to gather data or to establish and work with performance measures. Though this may be short sighted, we can certainly understand that there's pressure to use limited resources on direct services, like sanitation, pot-hole filling or public safety. It's a simple equation: Clean up the potholes and it’ll help you get re-elected. Measure the number of potholes and nobody will notice. The simple political reality of this was conveyed to us many year ago by the long-time mayor of Indianapolis William Hudnut, who said (and we’re paraphrasing here, as it’s hard to find notes from the early 1990s): “The real measure of my success is clear when people vote.” But the second reason is somewhat more troublesome and it's come up, in off-the-record portions of a number of conversations we've had over the years: Sometimes elected officials don’t want to gather data because they fear it will make them look bad. Here’s where the political realities of life run headlong into our quest to help states and localities provide better management and policy. We know that our philosophy may seem to be a little naïve, but we believe – or at least want to believe -- that people go into public service to make the world a better place. And standing in the way of the kind of data-gathering that can help inform that mission simply doesn’t help. As we wrote in our book, The Promises and Pitfalls of Performance-Informed Management, “Multiple examples show the success of performance management efforts,” to creating improvements in “the way services and programs are delivered.” What’s more, even from a purely political standpoint, undermining efforts to gather and analyze data can be counterproductive. Acknowledging and quantifying, the problems a city, county or state faces gives them the opportunity to boast about progress even if it’s not immediately apparent to the public. Consider, for example, the recent good news that childhood poverty rates had dropped from 9.7 percent in 2020 to 5.2 percent in 2021. While one out of 20 children living in poverty is still too many, the press publicized that change as unquestionably positive. But if nobody had been keeping the data in the first place, we think that most people would have been unaware of this dramatic improvement based only on personal experience. Going back into the time tunnel again, we recall how impressed we were in the early 1990s when Alabama’s leaders took a very poor grade in our evaluations of state government management capacity for the long-defunct Financial World magazine and compared them to our prior --- and even worse—evaluation. The state got some very positive reports in the local press by pointing to the improvement, with promises of more to come. Hiding from the truth doesn’t make it go away. But confronting the truth can help to change it for the better. #Data #PerformanceManagement #PerformanceMeasurement #StateandLocalGovernment #ChildhoodPovertyData #Diversity #Equity #MissingData #EmployeeDiversityData #PublicSectorHumanResourceData #HumanResources #StateandLocalGovernmentDataManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceManagement #PublicSectorEquity #StateandLocalGovernmentHumanResources #RouteFifty #PublicSectorDataAnalysis #PublicSectorDataUse #PublicSectorDataAccessibility #CityandCountyManagement #PublicSectorData #StateandLocalEmployeeDiversity #HumanResourceData #HumanResourceHiringData

Yesterday afternoon, at the #ICMA’s annual conference in Columbus Ohio, an announcement was made about an exciting collaboration to advance the use of data in local governments through a new partnership and data network called Government Performance Action and Learning. (GPAL). Its principal founders are #Polco, an on-line community and employee survey company and the University of Wisconsin – Madison’s think-tank, COWS. Additional partners joining GPAL will include: the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), performance management software company Envisio, the Arizona State U, and the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. GPAL’s goal is to bring together comprehensive community information, providing simple to use indices and insights that will lead to improved performance. It is intended to allow leaders to see connections between disparate community data that, before now, only lived in siloed sources. For example, using the new GPAL tools, decision-makers could explore resident perceptions about traffic and how they relate to mobility and law enforcement metrics or the ways in which parks and recreation opportunities affect community health outcomes. “The data collected by our partners amplifies our historic data sets by giving context to quality-of-life ratings,” said Polco Senior Vice President of Innovation Michelle Kobayashi. “This new information gives leaders a more granular look at livability issues so they can make better, more informed decisions.” #StateandLocalGovernment #PublicSectorData #PublicSectorDataAnalysis #PublicSectorDataAccessibility #PublicSectorDataManagement #PublicSectorDataUse #PerformanceManagement #PerformanceMeasurement #CityandCountyManagement #ICMA #GovernmentPartnership #PublicPrivatePartnerships #GovernmentPerformanceActionandLearning #POLCO #Data #ResidentPerceptions #Envisio #HooverInstitute #ArizonaStateUniversity #CitizenInput #CitizenSurveys #POLCO #LocalQualityofLifeRatings #MichelleKobayashi #CommunityData #StateandLocalGovernmentDataManagement

In a day when one of the only sure things about the future of state and local finances is that they are unpredictable, a proposal issued by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) earlier this summer is of particular interest. Earlier this summer, the GASB issued an Exposure Draft, titled Certain Risk Disclosures. The project focuses on two categories of risk that could affect the level of services a government is providing or its ability to meet obligations when they come due. The Board’s objective in this effort is to create disclosures which are intended to provide financial statement users with information about potential events and circumstances before a government experiences possible severe financial stress. This kind of transparent information can help provide the kind of information that’s vital to public sector leaders about the “what-ifs” of the future, to help inform their decision making and assessments of accountability. For a video that highlights key aspects of this proposal click here. At the conclusion, you’ll find a link that will allow you to actually read the full proposal as well as an electronic input form on the proposal that makes it easy to share your thoughts with GASB by its September 30th deadline. #StateandLocalGovernment #GovernmentalAccountingStandardsBoard #GovernmentTransparency #GovernmentTransparency #GASB #RiskDisclosure #StateandLocalGovernmentRiskDisclosure #PublicSectorTransparency #StateandLocalGovernmentTransparency #PublicSectorAccounting #PublicSectorFinancialReporting #Transparency #GovernmentRiskDisclosure #PublicSectorTransparency #GASBExposureDraft

​ ​ by Chris Fabian, CEO, ResourceX ​ ​​ To prevent a “climate catastrophe,” the focus of local, regional, national, and international government leaders has been to keep temperature rise in check – no more than 2.0°C increase above pre-industrial levels. Last fall, the 26th annual “Conference of the Parties” (COP26) summit in Glasgow ushered in global commitments to emission reductions, like the Local Governments for Sustainability launch of Race To Zero - a global campaign established to rally ambitious leadership from all sectors of society (including businesses, cities, regions, investors) to achieve carbon neutrality. At the local level in the United States and Canada, the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) has published best practices for disclosure as to how Environmental, Social and Governance criteria are now woven into bond ratings. Still, for all of local government’s well-intentioned urgency in goal-setting and planning for climate action, leaders must fortify their commitment with resources. Without considering the environment in the budgeting process, all the commitments to change will be little more than words. As the International City/County Management Association’s executive director Marc Ott makes clear, "while local governments – together with community groups, local nonprofits, and universities – have set aggressive goals in moving their communities to clean energy, they struggle to find ways to cover the capital and operating costs of implementing the changes." Luckily, there are cities that are transforming the budget process to align resources with climate action. Consider Pittsburgh, which established laudable goals to help with climate change. But with goals in hand, city leaders had to find a way to fund them. Grant Ervin, Pittsburgh’s Chief Resilience Officer, recalls a conversation with colleagues on the budget and finance side of Pittsburgh in 2017 “We were so excited about what we wanted to do, and they kept calling our projects ‘unicorn projects,’” recalls Ervin. “They spoke a whole different language: budget cycles and bond ratings. I realized we needed common terms, and synchronized timing. We needed a climate budget to meet our climate targets.” The City took this discovery to heart and applied it to the development of its 2022 budget. In the past, departmental budget requests would simply identify line items to increase or decrease. With the climate-focused budget, however, each request was tied to defined programmatic outcomes and detailed information on achieving the city’s climate goals. This allowed its Office of Management and Budget, in collaboration with the Sustainability and Resilience division of City Planning, to provide then Mayor William Peduto unprecedented insight into the city’s budget and its climate impacts. This “priority-based budget” identified 249 discrete programs, services, and activities across 23 departments and scored each against the city’s climate and equity goals. Through this process, Pittsburgh freed up $23 million from its existing operating budget and identified another $18 million in revenue opportunities. “Changing budgeting procedures can feel like an enormous task,” explains the city’s Climate Advisor Will Bernstein. “But in the end, the created tools actually streamlined work while simultaneously making budget decisions clearer for the mayor’s office.” Similarly, the City of Flagstaff, Arizona has applied a Priority-Based Budgeting framework to ensure budget proposals are evaluated relative to their alignment with the City’s Carbon Neutrality Plan (CNP), which is intended to establish neutrality by 2030. The big question: Will the city be able to continue to build the resources necessary to the fulfillment of the plan into annual budgets as did this year’s which approved 27 requests and over $2 million in funding directly to prioritizing execution of the CNP. (Truth in Advertising: Ervin and Peduto will both be speaking at our annual Priority Based Budgeting Summit in Denver, Colorado on August 10, 11 and 12.) Local governments – many with the best of intentions -- face a perennial disconnect between elected officials; sustainability, resilience, and equity offices; and budget and finance leaders in aligning resources with climate initiatives. Integrating climate considerations into operating and capital budgeting decisions across the organization, strengthens resource alignment with climate action plans. The application of program-level data through priority informed budgeting provides direct alignment between fiscal decision-making and climate action goals. It also provides the additional advantage of increased transparency and agility within the budgeting process by creating a shared language that connects departments to the finance and budgeting process. The combination of the strategic pursuit of climate preservation and innovative budgeting practices positions municipalities for opportunities at all levels within the organization. Whether cities are looking for climate mitigation solutions or economic development opportunities that benefit their climate action plans, program-level evaluation is key to the process. By programmatically defining every dollar of the budget, local governments can strategically fund cutting-edge climate work for the benefit of residents, community, and region. The contents of this guest column reflect those of the authors, and not necessarily those of Barrett and Greene, Inc. #PerformanceManagement #CityandCountyManagement #Equity #PerformanceMeasurement #PublicSectorData #StateandLocalGovernment #StateandLocalGovernmentBudgeting #PerformanceInformedBudgeting #ClimateAction #LocalGovernmentsforSustainability #RacetoZero #BestPracticesforDisclosure #EnvironmentalCriteriaandBondRatings #PublicSectorBudgetTransformation #PittsburghChiefResilienceOfficer #PittsburghClimateChangeGoals #ClimateFocusedLocalBudgets #SustainabilityandResilience #PriorityBasedBudgeting #LocalClimateGoals #LocalEquityGoals #FlagstaffPriorityBasedBudgeting #InnovativeBudgeting #ResourceX #CityofPittsburgh #ChrisFabian #MunicipalActionsforClimateChange

We’ve repeatedly heard the phrase: “People don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses.” This comment has been supported by loads of surveys over the course of time (although most of them tend to focus on the private sector, we’re confident that it’s true in governments at all levels.) The value of good supervisors has probably never been more important than it is in 2022, with states and local governments yearning for qualified candidates for a host of positions. It’s a seller’s market, and the days in which there were dozens of applicants for every government job are gone – at least for now. What’s more, at a time when remote work has become ever more common, the ways in which supervisors can build loyalty are changing. One way that good managers have always motivated employees is with praise. For some workers, praise is a narcotic, and that may not be healthy. But we’ve yet to run across anyone in any walk of life who didn’t enjoy being appreciated and hearing about it. Yet, in a remote world, the quick “thanks for a good job,” in the hallway of City Hall may now require the time and thoughtfulness to send a quick e-mail or a text. Certainly, even when people were working on the same floor of the same building, some managers withheld their words of encouragement. Those who were more generous with their sentiments now have to take an extra step to communicate their kind words. Back in 1936, Dale Carnegie, wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People, and his sentiments may seem dated and his language a big florid, but we believe he was right on target when he wrote “Praise is like sunlight to the warm human spirit; we cannot flower and grow without it. And yet, while most of us are only ready to apply to others the cold wind of criticism, we are somehow reluctant to give our fellow the warm sunshine of praise.” So, here’s our unsolicited piece of advice to government managers: There’s no need to give false praise. Self-esteem should be earned. But, where there’s an opportunity to compliment someone who works for you – particularly someone who may be having difficulties with their work – take it. It will, we’re sure, pay off in loyalty, productivity and maybe – though we can’t prove it – fewer employees to replace when they walk out the door. #PerformanceManagement #CityandCountyManagement #PublicSectorHumanResources #PublicSectorWorkforce #StateandLocalGovernment #BadBosses #PublicSectorHiringCrisis #RemoteWork #EmployeeRecognition #PublicSectorEmployeeRecognition #PublicSectorEmployeeEngagement #StateandLocalEmloyeeEngagement #DaleCarnegie #HumanResources #PublicSectorTurnover #GreatResignation #PerformanceMeasurement #StateandLocalGovernmentHumanResources #StateandLocalGovernmentWorkforce #StateandLocalGovernmentEmployeeRecognition #RemoteWorkinthePublicSector