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We recall being extremely excited decades ago at the prospect of state and local governments being able to conduct all sorts of transactions with the public. At the time, we were hearing about drivers’ license renewals, hunting & fishing licenses, and the like. Since then, the number of transactions that don’t need in-person visits to offices has grown steadily, and this has proven to be a blessing during the pandemic. But even though the capacity to interact with a government with a mouse, a monitor and a computer, has been a beneficial trend in most ways, we’re concerned that it’s predicated on an invalid notion: The belief, which is simply not universally true is that practically everybody can easily, avail themselves of contacts with city hall and state houses that are increasingly designed to be conducted online. Consider the days when vaccinations first became available to the general public. At least in our corner of America, we were all being encouraged to sign up for vaccines on our computers. The two of us could certainly accomplish this, and we did. But what about some of our friends and relatives, who are somewhat older than we are, and continue to find using a mouse as difficult an accomplishment as we might find if we were required to program our own computers? They were reliant on younger friends and relatives to lend a hand. But not everyone has a support group in this world, and so vaccines had to wait while COVID spread through the land. Even for people who are computer savvy, other challenges presented themselves. Many Americans still live in areas where there is no easy access to broadband. We’ve written an article that will soon be published in the GFOA’s Government Finance Review about just that topic. In other times, one solution for people who didn’t have their own access to broadband, would have been to use wi-fi connections available in libraries and in schools. But in the depths of the pandemic, libraries and schools were closed. And for people who didn’t have solid internet connections in their house. . . well, again, they labored under a potentially deadly disadvantage. Now that there are plenty of vaccines available for Americans, most of these specific issues have receded into the past. But the reliance on computers to properly obtain the services paid for by tax dollars is still problematic for many. Consider, for a moment, the multitude of websites put online by states and localities that aren’t compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Common interpretations of the Act maintain that public sector websites must be accessible to the blind, the deaf and the disabled. But as Ken Nakata, principle of Converge Accessibility, recently told us, for yet another piece in Government Finance Review, “Web accessibility is really broken in many places. Cities and states don’t think about it when they put up the site. And then, if a problem is identified, they often fix it, but then they add new content and they still don’t pay sufficient attention to accessibility.” It used to be that the phrase “digital divide,” was used commonly and concerns about a society split into the information-haves and the information-have-nots was a specter on the horizon. Now that the number of have nots has shrunken, society seems somewhat less concerned. But just because a problem is somewhat less widespread than it once was, it doesn’t mean it’s gone away.

In the days before the pandemic shut down most social gatherings that we might have attended, one of the first obligatory questions in polite chit-chat would be: “And what do you do for a living?” Our first answer, typically, has always been “we’re journalists,” even though our work extends in all sorts of directions other than traditional journalism. But when someone probed a bit, we’d say, “We do research, analysis and writing about governments, in an effort to help them to run better.” The reaction, frequently, has ranged from a polite quizzical smile to outright laughter. The very idea that state and local governments can and do improve the way they deliver services seemed to be a humorously implausible notion to these new acquaintances. It’s our guess that the readers of this website have had similar experiences. We think that this phenomenon has just gotten worse. We read all kinds of local newspapers, in order to do the work we do, and there seems to be a sad consensus forming that governments are just growing steadily less capable of solving the hard problems. One of the reasons, we suspect, is the long delay in getting out from under the pandemic itself. Governors and mayors have, over the course of the last 22 months or so, intermittently said that things are finally getting better and we will soon return to the kind of lives we led in the days before March of 2020. That hasn’t come to pass yet, of course, and the surprise visit of the Omicron variant has led many to suspect that we are in a permanent state of abnormal times. As our friend Don Moynihan, a professor at Georgetown University recently wrote, “As the pandemic continues, a series of forces will combine to reduce faith in political institutions. The third year of the pandemic will be extraordinarily damaging.” Certainly, governments could have done some things differently, in ways that might have helped the nation fight the pandemic more effectively. A couple of months ago, a paper we co-authored with the brilliant Don Kettl for the IBM Center for the Business of Government was released, outlining twelve lessons learned from the pandemic which can be applied to create governments that are better able to fight future crises of this nature. But, while the pandemic may have led people to doubt the capacity of government to solve problems, that doesn’t mean that government is incapable of doing a lot of good. An unprecedented attack on our serenity like COVID tests the capacity of governments to fix that which ails society in an extreme way. Flaws in approach shouldn’t provide the signal that government is incompetent or incapable any more than the lack of a cure for cancer means that medical science has generally failed. Longer term, the increasingly partisan nature of government has provided another cause for doubt in governments’ capacity to solve problems. Let’s say that General Motors ran a series of ads claiming that Ford cars were likely to explode; and Ford ran its own series of ads claiming that General Motors vehicles had brakes that were defective. Nobody would be inclined to buy either brand. We think that’s very much the way things are working as people running for elective office run attack ads come election season. As long as there’s an insistent drumbeat about the perceived failures of previous administrations, how can anyone expect people to think that new administrations will be any better? Another factor contributing to the suspicion about the capacity of government to improve lives is that there’s been a trend to wanting quick solutions to long-standing problems. But overnight solutions to problems like homelessness, flaws in policing, or unsafe bridges just don’t exist. Patience is key. On reflection, we realize we’ve devoted our careers observing state and local government to exploring the incremental changes that can lead to major advances. For example, we’ve written extensively about the need for better data upon which to make decisions. As time has passed, reliance on data has become increasingly prevalent. Right now, we’re working on an article about the use of data to help develop a more equitable nation. But while we think that work is critical, we know clearly that understanding the underlying roots behind the lack of equity, diversity and inclusion isn’t going to lead to a panacea. It’s a step in a process. We think that armed with appropriate information, progress can be made, not just in trying to create a more equitable nation, but in dealing with a whole host of problems that beset us. And that’s why we do what we do. Any questions?

Often performance audits geared to one agency in one state carry provide lessons for many other governments around the U.S. That’s true of an unusual audit of workplace culture at the Department of Fish and Wildlife in the State of Washington. We’re calling it unusual because, unlike other performance audits that just touch on issues of workplace culture, in this instance that important topic was the sole reason for the report. The audit by the Office of the Washington State Auditor, was sparked by two sexual harassment and sexual assault scandals that rocked the department and attracted widespread media attention in 2017. As a result, it was a surprise to us to find that the biggest problem the audit found was not sexual harassment. The audit did find a good many other problems to worry about, concluding that sexual harassment was not a pervasive issue but was, in fact, the “least reported type of unprofessional behavior.” Of course, that may not hold true in other cities or states, but at least in Washington's Department of Fish and Wildlife, there were far more worrisome issues uncovered by the report. The most commonly reported instances of unprofessional behavior related to employee bullying by supervisors. The extensive employee survey, plus group and individual interviews, also revealed retaliation against complainers, a lack of accountability, poor communication, discrimination, and ethical violations. The damage to the agency's mission caused by poor workplace culture was nicely summed up by one employee. “I just can’t get anyone to listen. My morale is low. I don’t feel like doing more than the minimum. Why would I come here and work extra hard for this jerk who micromanages me, who shuts the door to my office and yells at me, why would I give that guy extra?” An affiliated problem that surfaced in the audit was that complaints about unprofessional behavior often went unanswered, resulting in widespread frustration because of minimal follow-through. The audit acknowledged that many improvements to the workplace environment had already taken place, including the hiring of new leadership, particularly in the human resources department. Among improvements listed by the audit were increased training, the introduction of a new onboarding toolkit, a new hotline for anonymous complaints and improvements to workplace communication. Of course, change in perceptions can be very slow, with strong gains in workplace culture often taking three to five years, the audit said. We started this blog post by noting how the audit could help other agencies in other states that worry about workplace culture, particularly in these tension-filled years. The problems encountered may be less extreme, but the recommendations provided by the audit are widely applicable. Among the recommendations: Develop a professional conduct policy, which clearly identifies the consequences for all types of unprofessional behavior Ensure all supervisors receive required training on how to effectively manage personnel. Implement a process, such as 360 evaluations, for employees to provide feedback on supervisor performance. Establish mechanisms to facilitate regular communication up the chain of command Establish clear policies and procedures for investigations so they are handled consistently and employees know what to expect.

The other day, we came across some news from Washington state about a brewing tug of war between the executive and legislative branches over gubernatorial power. This isn’t unusual. But it provided a great example of the idea that all conflicts between branches of government are not colored in shades of red versus blue. Partisanship is not, in short, at the root of all intragovernmental debate. This isn’t a new idea. Over the years, we’ve taken note of the simple fact that legislatures and governors have plenty of reason to argue even when they’re dominated by the same party. In brief, here’s the Washington story: At the end of January, democratic leaders from the state senate introduced a bill to limit the authority democratic Governor Jay Inslee has over emergency proclamations and executive orders that limit business or personal activity. The bill, introduced by State Senate Majority Whip Emily Randall and co-sponsored by seven other Democrats, would give Senate and House leadership the ability to terminate a gubernatorial state of emergency or other “prohibitive orders” issued by the governor when the legislature isn’t in session. Details about the bill were spelled out in an article in The Olympian on January 28. According to that piece, Randall said the bill was designed to address the uneven balance of power. Not surprisingly, Governor Inslee spoke against the bill at a January 27 press conference. Red-Red battles have also blossomed in states like Indiana, Georgia and New Hampshire, where republicans hold the power in both legislature and executive branches, as a January 25 article in The Hill pointed out. Disagreements over emergency powers have also appeared in New Mexico and New Jersey, where democratic leaders rule the roost. Plenty of legislative-executive battles have blossomed over American Rescue Plan Act spending decisions, as well. We wrote about these disagreements in a July 21, 2021 column in Route Fifty. As we said back then, “Even states in which both the legislative and executive branches are of the same party, questions over who has the power over the purse strings continue to pop up.”

Are you playing the seemingly addictive game of Wordle? Practically everyone we know seems to be. Doubtless, the day of Wordle will pass, but while it's still hot, we've posting our own -- state-and-local-government related Wordle today. Just click on the link here and then press the button for Custom Wordle. Please let us know how you do. And if you'd like more, we're happy to supply them. https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=pflve

It was clear that many of you enjoyed the Wordle that appeared in this space a little under a week ago, so we decided to put up new Wordles every Tuesday, until you all get sick of it. As was the case the last time around, the B&G Wordles are a little different than others in that they are all connected to state and local government. Let us know, please if you enjoy them. Click here for the next one: https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=wiule

When a new piece of state or local legislation passes, elected officials are only too happy to send out press releases announcing the grand new advances for which they’ve just voted. But what happens after the press releases have been put in the shredder, and metaphorical ribbon-cuttings have been forgotten? The truth is that no matter how enthusiastic the opening day fanfare, there’s no guarantee that a new policy will actually be funded. We’ve been writing about this for years. But we’re bringing it up today thanks to a potent example that just came to our attention in a CT Mirror opinion piece by Stuart Mahler, a board member of the Connecticut State Contracting Standards Board (SCSB). This somewhat depressing column follows up on the creation of the Board in 2007, which followed the contracting scandals that resulted in the resignation, conviction and imprisonment of former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland. At the time the governor had accepted over $100,000 in free vacations, construction work on his cottage and other favors. He neglected to pay $35,000 in taxes on the gifts. What better time to institute controls over contracting? The goals of the legislation were impressive, as outlined in 50 sections of statutory instructions. The legislation required the appointment of a chief procurement officer as well as an executive director. Responsibilities of the board included “but were not limited to, oversight, investigation, auditing, agency procurement certification and procurement and project management training and enforcement of said policies as well as the application of such policies to the screening and evaluation of current and prospective contractors.” So, what’s the problem? According to Mahler, the SCSB has never had a fully functioning staff. In fact, he writes “For most of its existence, the board had and still has one full-time employee. The one other employee of the board, the State’s Chief Procurement Officer, left years ago and the board has not been given permission to fill it.” While Mahler acknowledges that hard work by board members has led to many impressive accomplishments, the board can only go so far depending on its own community spirit and the work of graduate student interns. If Connecticut wants to fulfil the sizeable ambitions of its contracting oversight legislation, those good ideas of 2007 need to be supported with money. At least the Connecticut Board is accomplishing something. Elsewhere, they exist in title only, and this can have unfortunate side effects. As we wrote for the IBM Center for the Business of Government a couple of years ago: “This doesn’t cost a city anything in terms of cash, but if a citizen discovers the existence of a board on line, and then finds out it doesn’t have active board members or even a telephone, this can only serve to heighten the alarming lack of trust in government.”

There’s no question that it’s been a remarkably tough time for state and local governments for over eighteen months now. Confronting the pandemic has been an extraordinary challenge – one of the few in memory that has taxed the capacity of governments in all fifty states and Washington D.C. And times are certainly still difficult right now. Partisan politics is playing hob with our ability to govern effectively and civilly. Forecasts call for upticks in the rate of Covid. Crime rates have been rising. But with Thanksgiving coming up this Thursday, we thought it would be only appropriate to sit back, take deep breaths and consider some of the reasons why mayors, governors, selectmen and all the people who work for them, might be grateful. Here are the five that came to mind: 1) The Infrastructure Act. For years now, we’ve been writing about the fact that decaying infrastructure in this nation is one of the most troublesome long-term liabilities around. When roads, bridges, buildings, and water pipes aren’t properly maintained, it inevitably will cost more in years to come. Eventually, the work needs to be done –or run the risk of bridges collapsing or potholes growing to be the size of minivans. While there are going to be all sorts of obstacles on the way to spending this money effectively and efficiently, these are the kinds of challenges that states, and localities can just wish for. 2) Surprisingly robust revenues have allowed states to set aside healthy rainy day funds. As the Pew Charitable Trusts recently reported, “Unprecedented federal aid and smaller-than-anticipated tax revenue shortfalls have allowed the majority of states to avoid tapping their rainy day funds since the outset of the pandemic-driven recession in early 2020. After a one-year dip, states’ combined fiscal cushion—counting rainy day funds and leftover budget dollars—was expected to spring back and exceed pre-pandemic highs by the start of this budget year.” 3) A growing awareness of the need for equity, diversity and inclusion. This is a tricky one, indeed. Although there have been a series of incidents around the country that make it appear that implicit and explicit racism is epidemic, a number of them have functioned as wake-up calls to states, counties and cities. And although there's a long road ahead, real changes are being made, just beginning with the growing use of so-called equity budgeting. As we wrote in Route Fifty, "A growing number of cities are turning to their budget offices to help treat historically underserved communities more fairly." This trend has accompanied another -- the appointment of chief equity officers in Washington D.C., Denver and many other places. 4) The discovery of the advantages of remote working. While a handful of places, notably Tennessee, have acknowledged the benefits of remote working for some time, it became a necessity for many places during the pandemic. While this took a great deal of adjustment for governments and for workers, and it has certainly had its downsides, remote work appears to be here to stay – at least in a hybrid fashion in which people work from home a few days a week. A few of the benefits include: 1) Savings on the cost of leasing or maintaining government office space 2) Reduced carbon emissions as fewer people are taking their cars to work and 3) A kind of workplace flexibility that is being used as an incentive to draw applicants to hard-to-fill public sector jobs. 5) Thanks to a combination of reforms and a booming stock market, state and local pension plans – one of the great long-term threats to their fiscal stability – are in better shape than they’ve been for at least a decade. Again, we’ll turn to Pew for the data to back up this this comment. As it wrote back in September, “The nation’s state retirement systems finished the 2021 fiscal year in their best condition since the Great Recession of 2007-09 . . .Pew estimates that state retirement systems are now over 80% funded for the first time since 2008.”

By Charles Sallee, Deputy Director, Legislative Finance Committee, New Mexico. New Mexico stands “at the forefront of states engaging in evidence-based policymaking,” according to a Pew Charitable Trusts brief published this year, This is something about which good government advocates in the state can be proud, but it’s not as though someone in the capital suddenly turned on a performance management switch. In fact, New Mexico’s Legislative Finance Committee (LFC), and the legislature in general, have been doing performance-based budgeting since the early 2000s. More recently, we’ve added new ways to use evidence, including through our participation in the Pew-MacArthur Results First Initiative. This overall legislating for results framework has resulted in millions of dollars being steered towards evidence-based interventions designed to achieve better outcomes for New Mexicans. Using credible research to influence policy One important part of that effort has been building credible evidence to guide decision making about priority policy issues facing the state. A good example emanating from the early days of New Mexico’s work in this area comes from the field of early-childhood education. In the late 2000s, the state launched a pre-K initiative, backed by national research, showing the effectiveness of high-quality preschool. Coming out of the great recession, policymakers were debating whether to expand the program, with a focus on early literacy. That raised an important question: Were early education dollars already being spent in New Mexico producing the impact that advocates for the program had hoped? The LFC tasked our staff—led by our director, David Abbey—to conduct a rigorous program evaluation to answer that question. Our LFC program evaluators conducted a quasi-experimental study to examine whether students who had participated in pre-k programs in the state—particularly those from low-income families—were more ready to learn by kindergarten. It also examined whether those students had higher literacy and math scores by third grade. The answer on both counts, published in a study in 2012 (Developing Early Literacy in New Mexico), was a definitive yes. The fact that the study came from a trusted non-partisan source with a reputation for sound analysis and no “dog in the fight” on the issue, helped bolster the impact of the findings. The study helped spur major new investments to expand pre-k programs, from about $14 million in 2012 compared to over $106 million in 2021. Today, about 80 percent of four-year-olds in New Mexico have access to some form of publicly funded preschool. Developing inventories of agency programs A more recent core strategy was codified in the New Mexico Evidence and Research-Based Funding Act of 2019, which was an amendment to our existing performance-based budgeting and accountability approach. It stemmed from legislators’ desire for more information about the programs that agencies were running, especially in high-priority policy areas. The Act empowers the LFC, in conjunction with the governor’s budget office, to require certain agencies to create program inventories in specific policy areas and share that information as part of their budget submissions. That includes information about what the programs cost, whether they’re backed by credible evidence, how many people they serve, and other information. To date, five agencies have developed ten inventories. One of these, for example, focuses on juvenile justice programs in New Mexico, a policy area chosen in part because there exists robust national research about efforts that work well. That has enabled our Children, Youth and Families Department to examine that research (using national evidence clearinghouses) to determine the extent to which their programs are using evidence-based approaches. In that way, the inventory effort is not just about providing better information for legislators. It’s also about getting agencies into the habit of looking at the evidence and requesting funding for evidence-based interventions, since agencies will be more likely to be successful through the funding process if they’re prioritizing those types of requests for the LFC and the governor's budget office. An emerging strategy: LegisStat A third strategy is unique and very new. In August of this year, the LFC did something that I believe no other legislative committee in the U.S. has done to date: It launched a “PerformanceStat” initiative. The idea is to have ongoing, data-driven performance reviews between leadership and departments or divisions. Unlike check-in meetings that most organizational leaders run, where the focus is on the hot topics of the week or month, PerformanceStat meetings keep coming back to the same set of organizational challenges until they’re fixed. The LFC adapted that approach to a legislative context, dubbing it “LegisStat.” Instead of a mayor or governor running the meeting, the leadership team is the LFC, led by committee chair Patricia Lundstrom. An important goal of the initiative is to change the dynamic of the typical committee hearing, which is often dominated by lengthy agency presentations and may not tackle the most important agency performance challenges. LegisStat reverses that, with short agency presentations and most of the time spent on those challenges, with handouts that ground the discussion in data trends. The pilot LegisStat meeting in August 2021 focused on New Mexico’s economic recovery from the effects of the pandemic. Two more LegisStat meetings were held in October, focused on K-12 and higher education. Based on the committee’s direction, we hope to have quarterly LegisStat meetings for all large agencies in the coming year. What it takes Forward progress on building evidence, program inventories, and LegisStat have all required legislators, as well as partners in the governor’s office, who care deeply about results and about maximizing the positive impact of state spending on people’s lives. It has also helped to have a robust LFC staff with a long-standing reputation for unbiased, rigorous analysis to help support that progress. Important too has been external partners, such as the Results First initiative. Today, our state motto, “Crescit Eundo” meaning “it grows as it goes,” is a good summary of the growing emphasis on evidence within our budget process. We hope to continue that progress in the years ahead.

“What party is running the legislature?” “What party is the governor?” Those were two questions that we were frequently asked by reporters back in the early days of the Government Performance Project, when we were evaluating management capacity in the states (and occasionally cities and counties). You may not believe this, given the way the world appears today, but frequently, we couldn’t answer one or both of those queries. One of the major areas of focus then – as it is in our careers now – on management; the critical skills that often lead to the success of failure of policies, no matter how sensible they may appear. We were able to do dozens of interviews in each of the states, come to conclusions about how well they managed human resources, infrastructure, budgeting, and so on, and not have party politics play a role in most of our conversations. These days, when articles are written about the states, they’re not just divided into big states and little states or rural states and urban states. They’re called red states and blue states. It begins to feel like this has always been the case, but “some credit Tim Russert as the first TV news person to refer to red states and blue states on a Today show segment in 2000,” according to a 2016 article in the Los Angeles Times. To be sure, we were pretty clear about the parties of the candidates in the states in which we voted (mostly New York). But it didn’t seem to matter a whole lot to us whether a democratic or a republican legislator was supporting management techniques like workforce planning or multi-year revenue forecasting. In those years, Virginia tended to do pretty well in our evaluations, under three democrats and two republicans. Even when the party affiliation of the governor changed, high ranking officials in positions like finance director didn’t necessarily change. It will be interesting to see whether that will be the case when the new republican governor of the commonwealth, Glenn Youngkin takes office, in January. We’re not making any predictions, but we’ll bet a nickel that appointees from the previous democratic administration are likely going to be asked to clean out their desks. Whether we’re right or wrong about Virginia, the trend we’re describing in the states is inescapable. And that make us more than a little sad. It’s hard enough running a government efficiently and effectively without the need to hew to the line of either of the political parties. We saw this phenomenon at its worst over the course of the pandemic. The ways in which states chose to manage the attack of COVID frequently fell into line with the party in control. Should we manage this deadly outbreak by masking? That’s an important question. But why, oh why, should the answer be so clearly correlated to the party running the show? Shouldn’t decisions like this be developed through data, performance measures, evaluations and all the factors that went into our evaluation of something we called “managing for results,” in the first days of the GPP (and its predecessor, a project we created for the long-defunct publication Financial World). We believe that most things in the world are cyclical. And maybe things will go back to a time that we look back at as the “good old days.” We hope so. But we’re not holding our breaths.

by Chris Fabian, Co-founder and CEO, ResourceX I recently read a quote from Mike Mucha, Director of Research at the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), in Governing in which he stated, "The budget is, basically, the center of the government universe. It's where decisions about what's important get funded." This message completely rings true for me and why we have focused on the budget itself as if we wish to transform the lives of the people in our communities. ​A community gives its resources to a local government, and in turn entrusts that local government organization to invest those resources equitably towards a more prosperous future for all. ​The budget process that so many of our communities depend upon to deliver on such a promise is based on a line-item approach. The line-item budget turned 100-years old this year, and it’s feeling its age. The line-item budget is something to marvel at for its sustained use by so many, and it truly serves a great purpose for spending control and appropriation management. But, as a resource alignment mechanism to deliver equitable prosperity for all, it’s often ill-equipped for the task. ​ Of course, it’s easy to critique the line-item budget process. I’m not the first and likely won’t be the last. From zero-based budgeting, to budgeting for outcomes, to performance-based budgeting, budget reform is not a new topic. It’s just that we still long for a clear and attainable breakthrough, one that would be easy on our staff to implement, powerful in the way it equips decision makers, and meaningful to our residents whose lives depend on it. The simplest breakthrough we’ve seen has been the transition from a line-item driven budget to a program budget. And budgeting programmatically within the context of priorities, from equity to climate, safety to infrastructure, health to arts and culture creates a clear path from resources to results. ​That brings us to equity budgeting -- an effort to ensure that tax dollars are distributed across demographic groups in a community. One of the leaders in the budgeting for equity movement has been the City and County of Denver, Colorado. Among the earliest initiatives of Mayor Michael Hancock when he first took office was to establish an Office of Social Equity and Innovation and to create a clear definition of equity. However, they struggled to find a connection to their stated objectives within their line-item budget. Through the creation of a program budget and the identification of program-centric change recommendations in the budget process, they were astounded to see that the opportunity to increase equity existed within every service they provided. ​Most recently, ResourceX partnered with Results for America and GFOA to work with a cohort of cities on the What Works Cities’ City Budgeting for Equity and Recovery (CBER) program. Through this program, select cities endeavored to define equity for their community and align resources accordingly through Priority Based Budgeting. Some inspiring stories from the CBER cohort include the City of Austin's work to define what equity means to their community and the City of Pueblo's application of equity to their American Rescue Plan Act fund process and a citywide rollout through program budgeting and Insights. The City of Austin worked with ResourceX to identify a custom set of attributes against which each of their 55 programs within the Arts & Culture Division could be evaluated to determine equity alignment. Their program evaluation process focused on enhancing equity and expanding revenue-generating opportunities. Through a ResourceX facilitated insight workshop, Austin identified 65 opportunities, with 17 directly tied to achieving equity goals. Meanwhile, Pueblo applied the PBB scoring methodology to the assessment of their ARPA proposals by creating a unique scoring matrix to evaluate all proposals against. Per Treasury guidance, and as a strong focus from the city in general, they made equity a primary focus in their evaluation process. ​In addition to its strategy for spending Rescue Plan money, Pueblo built out an entire program inventory, allocated its line items, associated Basic Program Attributes (mandate, reliance, cost recovery, population served, demand and equity), and participated in a facilitated ResourceX insight workshop utilizing a new equity definition for their community, two new equity scoring categories and unique equity scoring metrics. Although the equity goals of various organizations are different, they all share a vision for change; a direction that will lead to more significant systemic changes. Think of local government as a collection of programs offered to meet the entity's stated policies. In that case, programmatic changes can be the vehicle for systemic change, which sums up my vision for how ResourceX can play a part in making our world a better place to live. Local government success can only be defined as the ability to provide services and programs fairly and equitably to all citizens. I believe that local governments can enter a new era in citizen-focused governance by focusing on equity. This includes setting clear equity goals and objectives, understanding individual program impact on equity outcomes, adapting existing programs, starting new programs, and securing funding within the budget for equity-focused programs. As stated in the ResourceX Mission and Vision Statement, "Things are far from perfect. So why try? We believe our work at ResourceX begins with the premise that maybe we have enough resources within our organizations, throughout our communities, or across our regions to provide a good quality of life for everybody; the task of our work is to help our clients systematically go out and try to prove it."

Harold “Hal” Steinberg, one of the most influential people in the world of government financial management and performance died on October 25th at 86. We met Hal many years ago, just as we were beginning to find our way around the world of performance measurement. He was a gracious guide to us, and as the years passed, we were honored when he called on us to review some of the reports he was working on. We were first introduced to Hal by a long-time friend and colleague, Jay Fountain, now director of OPM in Stamford Connecticut, who had been friends with Hal for 48 years. Here’s what Jay told us about his loss: “Hal was always on the forefront of trying to improve the quality of financial reporting for state local and federal government. He was a gracious friend, as well as a dedicated public servant and continued his work while others retired. His insights and leadership will be sorely missed.” A little history (the full history of Hal’s accomplishments would be far, far more lengthy): In 1961, he joined Peat Marwick and Mitchell (now KPMG) and he later became head of both KPMG's state and local government price and then its federal government practice. In 1981, Hal joined President Ronald Reagan’s administration as Associate Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget. While there, his accomplishments were more than impressive: He established the Inspector General Program and implemented the single audit and the CFO Act of 1990. He also served for a decade on the Federal Accounting Standards Board and was instrumental in forming the Certified Government Financial Manager and Certificate of Excellence for Accountability Reporting programs at the Association of Government Accountants. Though we haven’t spoken with Hal for a couple of years or so, our memories of his intellect and acute wisdom are strong and vital. Donations in Hal's memory can be made to Hal Steinberg Memorial Fund c/o Association of Government Accountants 2208 Mt. Vernon Ave. Alexandria, VA 22301-1314