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With the unprecedented horrific hurricanes hitting Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico in just the last weeks, we’re reminded of a conversation we had some time ago with one-time Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack. It seemed to be particularly timely in the wake of these devastating hurricanes, and so we thought we’d share it. When Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack was about to take office in 1999, he went to the National Governors Association’s “New Governor’s School,” and sat next to then-Governor Zell Miller of Georgia. Vilsack had one big question to ask his seatmate: “What are the one or two things I should focus on? Should it be health care? Should it be jobs? Should it be education?” As Vilsack recalled in his conversation with us, “Governor Miller said, ‘Son, emergency management. I guarantee you that within six months something is going to happen in your state and if you don’t handle it well it won’t make any damn difference what you do in health care or jobs or education.” Vilsack took Miller’s advice, and when the state was hit with a huge tornado three months later, its leaders handled the situation in a coordinated, capable way that saved lives and property damage. This isn’t the kind of story that people need to hear today. But when this onslaught of horrific hurricanes, and other natural disasters, has passed, and there’s the potential for months to pass without another, it’s entirely too easy to forget. That’s a bad idea.

We often misplace our keys, and last year we left a Kindle in the seat pocket of an airplane. So, we understand that it can be tricky to keep track of possessions. Even so, we are repeatedly struck by the huge difficulty state and local governments have with maintaining an accurate inventory and solid knowledge of the whereabouts of their various assets. The latest example comes from Philadelphia. This month, Controller Alan Butkovitz took a look at the city’s inventory of personal property, delving specifically into how effective city departments were in tracking computer and high-tech equipment. As it turned out, less than half of the 350 items sampled by the controller’s office could be located in the city department that was specified in the citywide inventory. Missing items included a $16,600 GPS system from the Office of Innovation and Technology, two thermal imaging cameras from the fire department (with a combined value of about $15,000) and a $12,300 generator from fleet management. The list of missing items also included 48 desktop computers, and 11 portable computers. According to the audit, “The Water Department was missing a pneumatic jackhammer, a hand-held meter, two water pumps, and a paving breaker. The Police Department could only locate one of thirteen portable radios, the Health Department was missing an x-ray film processor, the Streets Department could not locate a paving breaker . . . the Parks and Recreation Department could not find a pool vacuum or a commercial lawn mower.” While there are detailed processes in Philadelphia for tracking equipment, many departments have been lax about following them. The result? “Departments’ ability to determine the need to acquire computer and other high-tech equipment may be impaired, departments cannot provide assurance that equipment is protected from loss or being used only as authorized, and valuable equipment could be easily misappropriated.” As noted above, Philadelphia is far from alone in having problems with maintaining accurate inventories or locating missing assets. We wrote a column about this topic in a Governing column three years ago, called “How Does a City Lose a Backhoe?” [Note: We also did a Q&A column with City Controller Butkovitz in Governing in January, 2016.]

What computer weaknesses open the door to a local government data breach? Missouri’s state auditor, Nicole Galloway, has summed up the results of multiple local audits to pinpoint the most common data security shortcomings. The list is designed to provide insight to Missouri locals, but any local government could benefit by taking a look. Here are the five data breach trouble areas for local governments in Missouri: 1. Too wide access. We see this over and over again in government audits. Employees are able to get into multiple systems that are not actually needed and too often they retain access after leaving a job. 2. Employees are sloppy about passwords with many local entities failing to put in place rules about changing passwords or making them more secure. 3. Security software is not in place and inactive computers stay on rather than closing down after a period in which no one is working on them. 4. Data isn’t backed up. 5. Edits are too widely permitted, enabling employees to potentially alter or even destroy data. For each security issue, the report lists the entities that were cited for the issue during an audit between July 2016 and June 2017. The most common problem involved passwords that were left in place too long without alteration.

In Fiscal Year 2018, the City of Atlanta employee health premiums are going down by 1.87 percent. That’s a big change from the days when 12 percent increases were routine. “My percentage increases have kept going down because our employee behavior has changed,” says Atlanta Commissioner of Human Resources Yvonne Yancy, citing the city’s full throttle effort to emphasize employee wellness, whether it’s physical, mental or financial. In our most recent Governing column, which came out on Friday, Atlanta was one of several cities we highlighted to show the kinds of new benefits that governments are using to engage employees while also lowering absenteeism, controlling health costs, boosting recruitment and reducing turnover. The opening of Atlanta’s new wellness center, with its gym, free health clinic, juice bar, sparkling showers and sleep pods, is shown in the one-minute video below. It’s one more addition to the city’s already robust benefits, including health education programs, flexible work schedules, paid family leave and robust employee assistance program.

We try to keep an eye out for university research that could potentially have an impact on public policy. A great source of information is “Academic Minute”, which highlights studies that help solve “the world’s toughest problems” and serve “the public good.” It is hosted by Dr. Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. As its name suggests, the “Academic Minute” podcast provides a short pithy oral description of a research project, generally by the lead researcher. Listeners also can also find a handy written transcript for each entry as well as descriptive information about the researcher. Each weekday, the podcast covers a wide variety of fascinating research – like the future of shopping malls or common misconceptions about hand-washing.  We’ve sifted through the summer’s entries to provide a selection of episodes that we consider particularly relevant to managers, policy-makers and researchers in state and local government. “Bad Bosses and the Defensive Environment” – Christian Kiewitz, a professor of management at the University of Dayton, discusses the harm to any organization of bosses who manipulate, ridicule and intimidate. He looks at why employees sometimes stay silent out of fear and notes that workers who react with “fear-based silence” are “more likely to say they experienced abusive supervision a year later.” Not surprisingly, bad bosses may lead employees to quit, sabotage their bosses and lose emotional attachment to the organization. “Play and Public Spaces” – Teresa Gonzales, assistant professor of sociology at Knox College, talks about the importance of play for adults, looking at ways Chicagoans in high-crime neighborhoods are “reimagining public streets, sidewalks, parks and abandoned lots as spaces for music, dancing, eating, skateboarding, basketball and just having fun.” “States and Gun Laws” – Aaron Kivisto, assistant professor in the College of Applied Behavioral Sciences at the University of Indianapolis, shares research findings that show strengthening state-level gun laws offer promise “for reducing rates of fatal police shootings in the United States.” “The Importance of the Census” – Jay Zagorsky, economist and research scientist at The Ohio State University, explains the differences in outcome of a “quick and cheap” census and one that picks up harder to find individuals, such as the homeless or non-English speakers. “Fighting Rust Belt Blight” – Richard Sadler, assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Michigan State University, describes a recent study that showed a decline in crime rates when citizens were engaged with the “beautification of their neighborhoods.”

We’re taking the second half of August off from posting. We’ll be back after Labor Day. We hope everyone has a wonderful end of the summer.

We’ve been toting up a list of problems in state and local purchasing and contracting. Whether the entity is large or small, in the middle of the country, the south, east or west, the same issues pop up repeatedly. Here are some procurement problems we’ve been tracking lately. Fuzzy contract language A Cincinnati audit in May looked at a contract with the nonprofit, Closing the Health Gap, and found that the language in the contract was broad in scope and lacked precise definitions of allowable costs. Weak oversight The internal audit office in Cincinnati also cited a lack of training to help contract administrators exercise adequate oversight. The lack of training leaves staff unsure of how to verify adherence to contract terms. A similar complaint about weak oversight appeared in a King County audit that focused on the contract with a non-profit that works on restoring licenses for people who can’t drive because of license suspensions. Contract database flaws In June, the City of Phoenix auditor reviewed the vendor validation process there and noted the problem of duplication of vendors in the procurement database. As we wrote in a blog post about California several weeks ago, the contract database there “contained numerous errors, essentially rendering it ineffective for its intended purpose.” Decentralization headaches Last year, the Kansas City Auditor found difficulties in the ability to access contracts, largely because agencies sometimes fail to use the centralized database to record information and provide contract documents. In an abstract that summed up the audit, the auditor’s office wrote “City contracts are not centralized, although the city’s regulations require centralization.” On occasion, when Kansas City contracts have been involved in legal disputes, the city simply could not locate the document and had to rely on copies of the contract obtained from the other party. Questionable performance measures In an audit of paratransit providers, the Office of the City Council Auditor in Jacksonville found that contract staff had altered pick up times, in an apparent effort to avoid rides being counted as late. Since late pickups are supposed to lead to penalties, the auditor was unable to determine if the contractor was paid accurately because the data had been changed. A lack of policies or consistent processes A Dallas audit in June noted inconsistencies among buyers in the way they conducted sole source and single bid procurements and how they documented their need. This lack of formal written approved and dated policies and processes is familiar to us from audits generally, as is a lack of documentation to support agency actions. Cybersecurity concerns Our upcoming Thursday column in Governing looks at the ways in which government workers compromise website security. One of the issues is inappropriate access and that also commonly appears in contract audits. For example, the Jacksonville paratransit audit chided the contractor for allowing inappropriate system access rights, and “lingering terminated user accounts.”

We’ve been fans of the Center for American Women and Politics for a long time. One of their most interesting ongoing projects is a website where they share the exact number of women currently serving in elective office. With this website as a resource, we thought it might be interesting to compare the number of women serving in elective office now with the number serving 30 years ago in 1987. In comparing these percentages, we were simultaneously struck by how far we’ve come as a country and how far we still have to go. We’ve assembled our comparisons in the form of a few animated GIFs. The number of women serving in U.S. Congress has steadily increased over time. From 5% in 1987 to 11% in 1997 to 16.1% in 2007 to 19.6% in 2017. Interestingly, from 1999-2001, 27.6 % of statewide elective executive offices were held by women so the number has come down slightly since then. As we examine these numbers we’re reminded of the words of Michelle Bachelet, the head of UN Women. “For me,” said Bachelet, “A better democracy is a democracy where women do not only have the right to vote and to elect but to be elected.”

The future of the City of Lawrence auditor’s office does not look good. Although no outright statement has been made saying the office is being defunded, that appears to be the situation. For readers who have not followed this saga in our blog, here’s a short version of the story. In spring 2016, Tom Markus, the new Lawrence City Manager, suggested eliminating the one-person audit office. The City Commission did not agree and the position was funded. In 2017, City Manager Markus tried again. He submitted his 2018 budget with 11 positions eliminated. Ten of the axed positions were vacant. The city auditor position was the only one that was filled. The Association of Local Government Auditors has sent letters arguing for the importance of performance auditing and we have discussed the Lawrence situation  and the importance of government auditing in this blog and in a not-yet-published column for Governing magazine. On June 14, the Lawrence Journal-World ran an editorial which called the city auditor’s office valuable, suggesting that “Perhaps the City of Lawrence should elevate — instead of eliminate — the role of city auditor.” Michael Eglinski, who has been Lawrence auditor since 2008, made a valiant fight to communicate the importance of his position. But the uncertainty of his job future was understandably difficult. He resigned in July to take a job as senior auditor with Johnson County Audit Services. (He says he likes his new job.) The City Auditor website in Lawrence contains a note that the position is empty. But we checked on the city’s job search site and saw that no auditor position had been posted. At the August 1 City Commission meeting, commissioners had a “first reading” vote, in which they approved the proposed 2018 budget, which includes the cut of the 11 positions. There will be a second reading vote at the commission meeting tonight, in which we suspect that the City Commission will give final approval to the budget plan, including the cuts. Funding could always be restored for this office in the future, but for now, it doesn’t appear likely that Lawrence will have a city auditor. (The easiest way to locate our blog posts on the importance of performance auditing is to look at the subject guides to our blog posts in our resources section.)

Our August Governing column is a bit of a rant about “broken links, outdated information and mysterious abbreviations” on state and local government websites. It looks like we’re not the only ones who are frustrated. Here’s a comment we saw this past weekend in a Kansas audit of liaison offices for African American Affairs, Latino American Affairs and Native American Affairs. “Although each liaison office maintains a public website, the contact information provided is limited and in many cases was incorrect. For example, the Kansas Native American Affairs Office’s website listed contact information for an Executive Director who had left more than two years ago. Additionally, the voicemail box for one executive director was full, which prevented us from leaving them a message. “Later an email error at the Kansas Hispanic and Latino American Affairs Commission prevented the Executive Director from sending or receiving messages. We did not attempt to determine what impact these problems might have on constituents who attempt to contact the liaison offices.” As we said in Governing, there is no question that public sector websites, in general, have improved dramatically in recent years. But way too often we encounter broken links and out-of-date information. Keeping info up-to-date and accurate is not a trivial issue. With citizens increasingly dependent on online information, it is fundamental.

The following piece about state legislatures and their relationship with executive branch managers is intended more as a teaser than anything else, We intend to do a great deal more reporting about the topic and publishing a longer piece in the future. As a result, what follows has been written based on 25-plus years of experience, and not any fresh reporting. During the many years when we were working on the Government Performance Project (which ceased publication about nine years ago), one of the topics we covered regularly was “human resources.” We’d ask all sorts of questions about the quality of training, hiring practices, recruitment and so on. In the majority of cases in which we were going to have to give a state a lower-than-desirable evaluation, it was a rare thing that the HR directors and their deputies were hearing anything new. No, they knew they needed more training, just as they knew they needed more up-to-date recruitment practices and more flexibility. So, why weren’t they doing what they thought they should be? The exceedingly commonplace answer was that the state legislature didn’t understand HR. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “The fault wasn’t in themselves it was in their legislative stars.” We continue to hear the same story. And we’re aware of a similar issue when it comes to performance management. Many states and cities have embarked on laudable performance management systems. And many have used them in order to improve the management of individual agencies. But what happens when it comes to using the information gathered for budgeting purposes? You guessed it. We’re told that legislatures just don’t follow through for a variety of reasons. We won’t quote anyone here, but it’s startling to us how many of the executive branch managers with whom we speak use outright epithets when they’re talking about the legislative branch. The word “uninformed” comes up a whole lot. So does  “self-serving.” Do we buy into this ourselves? We’re not in a position to have a strong opinion, except to say that we’ve interviewed many scores of legislators and virtually all of them seem to us to be very bright, genuinely interested in the public benefit and — politically infighting aside — willing to work with agencies to create a government that functions at high-grade levels. So what do we take away from all of this? We think that if we were asked to assemble a list of the least functional elements of state government it would be the lack of good communications between the agencies and the legislators, notwithstanding all the hearings and opportunities for agency-folk to present their cases. The executive branch people who complain that the legislature isn’t doing what they’d like because they don’t understand the issues, may be missing the fact that — especially in tough economic times — many legislators are forced to make next-to-impossible decisions. If you cut budgets for schools instead of roads, you’re anti-education. If you do it the other way around, then you just don’t understand what it’s like to spend an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Split the difference and nobody is happy. By the same token, we’d be disingenuous were we not to acknowledge a tendency among some who sit in state legislatures to aim their votes squarely at the ballot box. They may well know that reductions in training budgets are a short-term solution that will cost productivity in the future. But they also know that nobody tends to win an election based on the “Make Training Great Again” platform. Can a more productive approach to better communications be developed. We’ll bet it can, in many states. But we  don’t have any ideas how, right now. That’s why we tried to take ourselves off the hook in the very first paragraph.

What often passes as citizen engagement in government is anything but engaging. Public meetings are often poorly attended. Formal hearings are deadly and can result in deepening antagonism. “Providing one to three minutes for public comment is generally not productive,” says Grayce Liu, general manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment in the City of Los Angeles. “For me, there’s no point to throwing the doors open to city hall and then slapping people with procedures that are complex and make no sense. You lose the opportunity to connect.” In the ten years she’s worked for the city, Liu has been focused on finding better ways to create a more productive dialogue between citizens and government. She uses Improv techniques with her staff, emphasizing how to get to a “yes” answer instead of automatically saying no; she encourages innovation and speaking up because “we can’t say we want to empower the community to speak up, if we don’t model that with our staff.” One key, she says, is getting citizens to understand how government actions affect their day-to-day lives and then helping them learn how to advocate for what they want. In providing information, it’s important to learn “how to speak human again.” Liu’s department supports the city’s 97 neighborhood councils, which tend to get more respect than in many other cities. In Seattle, for example, Mayor Ed Murray dissolved ties between the city’s 13 neighborhood district councils and the government in 2016.  (A lack of council diversity seemed to be the factor that led to disbanding a three-decade old neighborhood council system.) In Los Angeles, the neighborhood councils are built into the city charter and provided with funding ($37,000 each). The system has a robust reputation and often attracts visitors from other countries who come to learn how the neighborhood councils work.  Visitors are often surprised. “They’re shocked at how much power our councils have over influencing what’s happening in their communities,” Liu says. Encouraging citizen engagement in Los Angeles is not without its challenges. There are a variety of smaller cities within Los Angeles County and many residents are unclear about whether they even live within City of Los Angeles borders. As in many places, people are also very unclear about which services are the responsibility of the county and which are delivered by the city. Then, too, there’s a communications challenge – there are 200 different languages spoken in L.A. So, identifying the need for translation services is part of the job. Over the years, Liu has seen stereotypes about government-citizen interaction fade away – not just among the citizens she works with, but in her own attitudes. She says people start out with an almost antagonistic view of the relationship between their neighborhoods and the government. “When I started and people asked me what I did, I’d say ‘I teach people how to fight the government.’” At one point, a business owner pointed out to her that what her office was really doing was teaching people how to get along with the government. “That humbled me,” Liu says. “That’s exactly what I want to do, but I got caught up in the stereotype of government vs. the public. “When you join government, they teach you about sexual harassment. They teach you about supervision. But they don’t teach you how to do civic engagement effectively. That’s something that needs to change if we’re going to get the type of public participation that is effective for creating a sustainable dialogue.”