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We’ve heard repeatedly about the frustrations felt by leaders in towns, cities, and counties that regularly hold public meetings to get resident input only to find that the opinions voiced frequently come from the same small portion of the population that has time and interest to show up at meetings – often called by civic leaders, the “usual gang of suspects”. This can often leave out people who are working multiple jobs; parents who can’t afford the expense of childcare; portions of the older population for whom travel can be difficult and others. Even when the meetings are held online, there are plenty of folks who aren’t comfortable expressing opinions on a screen – often without getting any sense of reaction to their comments. This is all part of a broader phenomenon confronted by communities that we’ve been thinking a lot about lately: selection bias. One way this phenomenon exhibits itself is when states or local governments send out surveys to find out how well they’ve been doing in the eyes of the public. It’s our belief that many of the people who respond are either very happy or full of misery they want to get off their chests. Residents in the middle aren’t nearly as incentivized to speak up, and that can lead to misleading conclusions. Though this doesn’t have anything to do with cities and states, we ourselves had such an experience recently. Often when we go to conferences, we’ll get a survey form asking what we thought of the hotel at which we stayed. And because we barely have enough time to get our work done, we are often lax at filling them out. But recently the hotel was one of the least satisfactory we can remember. We won’t go down our litany of complaints here, but we were plenty unhappy. Suddenly, we had the time to fill out the form, packed full of specific gripes. We doubt that the hotel took much notice of our form (at least we didn’t hear back from them with any kind of apology), but cities, counties and states can take this kind of feedback pretty seriously, and can be misled to believe that they’re working in a world in which nothing they do is ever appropriately appreciated. We’re also concerned about the conclusions reached by membership organizations, think tanks or individual public sector entities that want to get input from other places in order to guide the work they’re undertaking. Often, in that case, the input received is weighted in favor of those respondents who want to tell a positive story. We’ve been through this ourselves when we’ve reached out to a wide swath of similar agencies across the states or a cross section of cities or counties around the country. Even when we promise not to identify respondents by name, individuals with a less promising story to tell are also less likely to reply. If we aren’t careful, that can too easily leave us with an unreasonably positive conclusion. When we’ve been at conferences recently, we worry that academics have a similar issue. If their surveys address promising practices, the entities that respond are more inclined to do so if they’ve got a happy story to tell. And here’s another problem. Data requests generate responses from places that have the data in the first place. This rules out many towns, cities and counties that lack the resources or staff capacity to gather reliable data. There’s a kind of paradox here. Much of the policy that wends its way through county administrators, city councilmembers or boards of commissioners, is intended to help places most in need of remediation. But places with lower capacity can’t effectively get their two cents in. The result? Policy solutions may be less helpful to places that are in most need of help. One more concern – and this is of relatively recent vintage: With a growing federal emphasis on catching and exporting men, women and children who aren’t deemed worthy of domicile in this country, you can hardly expect them to fill out any kind of form, even when they have every legal right to live where they’re living. This kind of chilling effect on individuals who want to avoid attention, easily winds up providing public leaders with misleading information and weak guidance on a host of critical policy issues.. That, we think, may be the saddest part of this whole story. #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalManagement #StateandLocalPerformance #CityGovernmentManagement #CityGovernmentPerformance #CountyGovernmentManagement #CountyGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceMeasurement #StateandLocalGovernmentData #CityGovernmentData #CountyGovernmentData #PublicSectorMissingData #StateandLocalMissingData #SurveySelectionBias #AcademicSurveyResearch #StateandLocalSurveyResearch #StateandLocalSelectionBias #PublicHearingAttendanceBias #StateandLocalResidentOutreach #StateandLocalCitizenOutreach #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc

“Open your eyes. This horrible mess is your life. There is no sense in waiting for it to get better. Stop putting it off and live it,” wrote Robin Hopp in “The Mad Ship”, a book that was published in late 2003. Though the wording is kind of extreme, we think that a somewhat similar sentiment applies to city, county and state government. As good ideas wend their way to fruition, they’re going to encounter the unexpected, like it or not. If leaders expect a neat predictable unaltered path that leads to a worthwhile goal, without encountering the mess that is part of government life, they’re going to be deeply disappointed and maybe not even embark on an interesting initiative at all. Over the years, when we’ve talked with many government leaders about some of the best things they’ve accomplished, they’ll generally concede that the road from a captivating idea to a positive result is laden with detours, potholes and garbage- laden paths. This phenomenon is often hidden from the general public. When elected officials make a pronouncement of an accomplishment, rarely do they ever bring up all the unexpected craziness that cropped up in the months or years before they got in front of a microphone. Consider the effort to provide smoother ground access to Los Angeles Airport. Right now, people are forced into a single congested multi-level roadway shared by personal vehicles rideshares, rental cars and public city buses. That’s a recipe for frustrated travelers who wind up in the middle of this muddle. Sometime in the next few months, we’d like to predict that there’s going to be a great deal of hoopla when the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) completes a driverless electric train system intended to carry 30 million passengers a year, in plenty of time for the 2028 Olympics. Once completed this totally sensible piece of infrastructure can soon leave forgotten all the mess along the way, including difficult civil engineering challenges encountered after construction began in 2019. The biggest hurdle of all was a massive contract battle between the union and LAWA in 2023. That postponed the original plan to open. Ultimately, in order to break the deadlock a $550 million settlement was reached to compensate the union for the costs associated with the delays. Talk about a mess. Perhaps the only thing that’s worse than the messes that new projects, programs and initiatives encounter, is the fear of messiness. That can easily lead public officials to avoid taking risks. And risk-taking is essential for any kind of real progress to be made. We quoted Don Kettl, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland , a few months ago on his topic, and here’s what he had to say: “With inescapable demands and an enormously turbulent environment, state and local officials need to learn how to take risks—to experiment with new strategies for solving problems, to explore how best to connect with citizens, and to learn—fast—about how to adapt to unpredictable changes. It’s a hugely exciting time but one full of enormous challenges, and it’s a time where business-as-usual leaders are doomed to fail.” Actually, we’d argue that when public projects are forced to follow the initial game plan, without a bit of complexity along the way, a lot of new knowledge can be lost. And so, when the messiness enters the scene, and people learn enough to change their own minds, that’s inclined to lead to a superior, more iterative process that is more likely to wind up with some semblance of success. Ultimately one of the sources of mess is the simple notion that collaboration, which is necessary for progress, is inevitably chaotic. But unless dissent is suppressed (and that’s decidedly not a good thing) there are going to be pushbacks from residents as well as government staffers and elected officials. Barriers, while painful to advocates, can help to create consensus out of dissonance. Finally, as governments increasingly rely on data to make decisions (and we’ve long thought that was a good idea), the often-contradictory metrics can easily create a situation in which there’s no assuredly right data to lead to the best conclusions. We carefully follow performance audits from states and localities, and one of the biggest issues that they bring up is the lack of consistency in the data upon which leaders rely. That inconsistency leads to differing opinions along the way, from people whose opinions are “data-based”. The search for absolute truth is a quixotic venture, and in the meantime, as opinions are filtered through the lens of differing data sets, the process is bound to be – shall we say it again? – messy. #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalManagement #CityGovernmenManagement #CountyGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceAudit #StateandLocalGovernmentData #StateandLocalPerformanceMeasurement #CityGovernmentData #CityPerformanceMeasurement #CountyGovermentData #CountyPerformanceManagement #CityGovernmentPerformance #CountyGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalPublicAdministration #CityPublicAdministration #StateandLocalCollaboration #StateandLocalInnovation #CityInnovation #CountyInnovation #DealingWithGovernmentMess #StateandLocalGovernmentComplexity #StateandLocalRiskTaking #StateandLocalRiskAvoidance #BandGReport

Any day of the week, in hundreds of states, cities and counties. there are staffers engaged in brainstorming efforts. Often, they’ve been brought together from different programs or divisions to provide a cross-section of opinions. The idea is that brainstorming will be satisfying – a positive experience that will lead to innovation and solutions to outstanding problems. But brainstorming isn’t just a matter of bringing a bunch of people together in a room and hoping that magic will happen. In fact, over the years we’ve been aware of a number of these sessions that yield little but frustration. For one thing, bringing together a variety of opinions can lead to a bunch of disagreements that result in tabling the discussion until the leadership can just make the hard decisions without the intrusion of conflict and friction. We’d like to offer up several observations and ideas about how to make brainstorming bring down nourishing droplets of ideas instead of acid rain. The first comes from our experience with improvisation, as a form of entertainment. Our son was involved in this field for years and he taught us that the key to turning a bunch of random ideas into a funny scene is contained in the words “Yes. . . .and” As television star and writer Tina Fey explained in her 2011 autobiographical memoir, Bossypants, “If I start a scene with 'I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,' and you just say, 'Yeah…' we’re kind of at a standstill. But if I say, 'I can’t believe it’s so hot in here,' and you say, 'What did you expect? We’re in hell.' ... now we’re getting somewhere. To me, YES, AND means don’t be afraid to contribute. It’s your responsibility to contribute. Always make sure you’re adding something to the discussion." Even worse than letting a new idea languish is immediately shooting it down. Either of these create an environment of fear that can derail the conversation from having genuine value. If people are afraid that they’re going to be ignored or shot down by colleagues, then there can be an inclination for them to stiffen in the seats and withdraw. A good brainstorming rule is that people who enter a session with the sense that their opinions are desired should leave that meeting with the same impression. Another problem comes up when a group discussion has a dominating leader. A few years ago, we were involved in a project for which we had done a great deal of research. We were brought into an office with a long (far too long, we thought) conference table with about eight people around it. For a while, attendees, including us, were debriefing the group about the work we all had been doing, but then the person who was in charge took off on a tirade about exactly how the project was going to work. It quickly became clear that sharing ideas was never really intended because important decisions had already been made. This was frustrating to us, and we could tell by the expressions on the faces of other people in the room that they felt much the same way. At the end of the session, ironically, the boss thanked everyone for their wonderful insights, and perhaps he genuinely appreciated some of them. But they didn’t seem to make a difference to the final outcome. A related phenomenon is something we’d like to call “the power of the whiteboard.” One approach that large groups can take to brainstorming ideas is to split up into groups of five or six individuals, who are charged with considering various elements of the issue at hand, sharing ideas between themselves and then reporting out their findings to the full team. The idea of splitting up into smaller groups is genuinely appealing, because there’s more opportunity to dig deeper into the topic. But typically, one person is put in charge of taking good notes, and then presenting the thoughts raised by the smaller group to the full group. There’s an awful lot of power in that position, and we’ve seen more than one instance in which the ideas that are put forward are largely those of the person with their hands on an erasable marker, putting thoughts on a whiteboard. Lots of good ideas disappear into the ether that way. Our suggestion is to make sure that the person who will be reporting isn’t necessarily the one with the strongest opinions, but rather someone who will agree to be held accountable to represent the full range of ideas that the group discussed. Two last thoughts: It’s important at the beginning of a brainstorming session to focus the group on the single question or questions it is supposed to address. Otherwise, it’s easy for people to go off track and waste valuable minutes While it’s impossible to make sure all the participants have equal time – and maybe that’s not even a good idea – it can help a lot to make certain that no one dominates the room. Just a few weeks ago, we were involved in an online meeting with a bunch of knowledgeable people, but one gentleman with a prestigious background, would follow the ‘yes . . and” rule and then go on interminably with the “and” part. That left a bunch of potentially interesting thoughts from other participants unsaid when the meeting was over. This is a situation in which a strong leader can intervene and try to encourage others in the group to contribute. There are even ways to gently interrupt the non-stop talker to move things along. . . it’s not easy but it can be done by waiting for a slight pause and then interjecting, “What a great thought. Does anyone else have something to say.” On a personal note, the two of us are perennially brainstorming together, just the two of us, and even though it’s somewhat easier to do this than with a large crowd, we follow most of the notions we’ve set out. In fact, that’s kind of the way this column was written. #StateandLocalPerformance #StateandLocalManagement #PublicSectorBrainstorming #PowerOfBrainstorming #PitfallsOfBrainstorming #StateandLocalInnovation #CityInnovation #CountyInnovation #BrainstormingAndGovernmentInnovation #BrainstormingAndStateLocalGovernment #StateandLocalBrainstormng #BrainstormingAndStateAndLocalInnovation #StateandLocalPerformanceManagement #CityPerformanceManagement #CountyPerformanceManagement #CityGovernmentBrainstorming #StateandLocalPerformanceManagementAndBrainstorming #RulesForSuccessfulBrainstorming #PublicSectorBrainstormingMistakes #ImprovisationLessonsForStateandLocalManagers #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc

Over the course of the last few years, we’ve found ourselves writing increasingly about the challenges and accomplishments of towns, small cities and counties. In the past, it’s been a real temptation to focus on the work of large cities, as they tend to wind up in the news – and are more inclined than smaller places to publicize their accomplishments. But about one out of three incorporated communities in the United States has a population of under 50,000. We were inspired to write this B&G Report by a LinkedIn post by Brooks Williams, who is city manager of Ferris, Texas, with a population of a little over 5,000. As he wrote, “Many smaller cities are dealing with the same infrastructure pressures, public safety needs, development demands, water and wastewater realities, employee issues, legal constraints, financial tradeoffs, public expectations, and political dynamics.” Ithaca, New York, for example, may only have a population of about 35,000 but take a look at its website and you’ll see some of the exciting things leaders there have been promoting. Two years after the city council adopted its Green New Deal resolution aiming at carbon neutrality by 2030, “Ithaca established itself as a world-leader in climate mitigation planning and continues to pave the path forward as a blueprint for other cities across the U.S. and the globe,” according to its website. Then there’s Elk Grove Village, Illinois. Last year it was awarded a Local Government Excellence Award in the “program excellence” category by ICMA (the International City/County Management Association). Elk Grove’s approach to drug problems has moved away from “the traditional criminal justice system and into treatment and support services,” according to a late 2025 press release, which goes on to explain that “Under the program, anyone seeking to enter an addiction recovery program can contact the Elk Grove Village Police Department, which will then connect them to one of several partner organizations that provide substance abuse recovery services.” The program, dubbed Elk Grove Village Cares, which is largely funded by state and local grants, is accessible to anyone who comes forward, even if they have no resources to pay for treatment. As Elk Groves Mayor Craig Johnson was quoted as saying, “we’re hopeful that as awareness of Elk Grove Village Cares increases, more local governments will take on this very stubborn challenge in the name of helping people and making communities safer and healthier.” Several weeks ago, the Village of Peck, Michigan, with a population of nearly 600, announced that its improved procurement operations have “helped reduce infrastructure project costs significantly below available funding levels,” according to a fact sheet from the Partners for Public Good, which supported the community’s efforts to effectively use an EPA grant. The fact sheet explained that the village has expanded vendor outreach and engaged with vendors earlier in the process; made participation clearer and more appealing for new entrants and created a more competitive procurement process. The tangible results of this work, thus far: Peck delivered infrastructure upgrades without passing additional costs onto households. As a result, the Village is saving each household approximately $240 annually. Of course, as with Elk Grove and Peck, many smaller communities need to rely on outside funding, whether from other levels of government or from philanthropic organizations and external consulting assistance, in order to advance initiatives to the point where they can make a difference. Ultimately, budgets in small places – especially in rural America – are often stretched and don’t leave capacity for significant undertakings. But towns, small cities and counties can make up for the lack of their own resources with excited innovative leadership. As Brooks wrote, “Some of the most transferable skills in public administration are developed in places where there is little margin, the staff is stretched, the resources are limited, and the public still expects the work to get done. “That experience teaches range and it teaches consequence. It teaches how policy becomes payroll, how infrastructure becomes trust, how one staffing vacancy becomes a service problem, how one delayed project becomes a political issue, and how one financial decision can shape the next several years of a community’s future.” #CityGovernmentManagement #CityGovernmentPerformance #CityGovernmentPerformanceManagement #CountyGovernmentManagement #CountyGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalInnovation #CityInnovation #CountyInnovation #StateandLocalProcurement #CityProcurementManagement #CountyProcurementManagement #StateandLocalManagement #StateandLocalPerformance #StateandLocalPublicAdministratio #CityPublicAdmiistration #CityManagerBrooksWilliams #FerrisTexas #VillageOfPeckMI #ElkGroveIL #ElkGroveVillageCares #PartnersForPublicGood #ICMA #StateandLocalVendorOutreach #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc

We’re happy in our work life (and our home life as well). In fact, two of our favorite things we do professionally are writing the column you’re reading now and building this website. Yet barely a day goes by when something doesn’t frustrate or annoy us – often during our research – and we thought we’d share a few of these impediments to workplace bliss with you. We wonder how many of you are confronting the same challenges – and we invite you to send us any frustrations of your own. 1) Ancient data. It’s surprising how frequently when we’re reading a report, we discover that the information in it is based on data that can be five, ten, fifteen or even twenty years old. Maybe this is legitimate in certain kinds of academic literature (which is where we often find the old information), but we find it hard to believe that translating these documents into real-world action is a wise approach. Old data can lead to conclusions that aren’t applicable to the world of today. 2) Out of date legislative sites. We often visit legislative websites to keep up with what’s happening in states. Frequently they haven’t been updated, and we often find they promise more than they deliver with sections that suggest the coverage of topics, but contents that stem from way before the pandemic. Very old reports have a place in archives but are disappointing when you’re seeking information that’s useful today. 3) University centers that promise more than they deliver. Periodically, when we use a search engine to find a good source of information, we come up with university-based think tanks or subject centers. For example, when we recently looked for a website with a good reputation about the future of humanity (for an article we were writing), we found that the “best for institutional research” on this topic was the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford. And apparently it was once one of the world’s most famous research centers for topics like the potential threats of AI. But when we took the next step, it turned out that its website looked something like an obituary. Apparently after scandals, Oxford stopped funding the institute several years ago. 4) The road to nowhere. We fully understand that many potential sources need to have a protective layer around them to make sure they use their time effectively. But increasingly, the only way to reach out to them is through online auto-email connections. We fill in all the blanks, asking for a conversation, and then all too often we never hear back. This isn’t purposeful we think – it’s our guess that these general e-mail forms are continually overly full, and nobody on the other end is carefully going through the messages. 5) Missing contact information. Following up on the previous item, finding a direct e-mail address or phone number is a challenge. Increasingly, the names of individuals who head program areas or divisions are absent, as well. This is a clear obstacle to the transparent practices that cities, counties and states aspire to for their governments 6) Missing dates on reports and studies. We try to stay on top of the news, especially for the Management Updates that run on this site every Tuesday. But it’s frequently the case that we find a fascinating document, think it’s worth writing about, but are unable to figure out when it was released. (Truth in advertising; we’re not meticulous about dating some of the items on our own website. But we’re planning on being better about this in the future). 7) The misuse of the word "bureaucrat." We've written about this before in a B&G Report titled "Bureaucracy is not a Dirty Word," but we're going to hit on it again. The word “bureaucrat,” is often used as a pejorative. But in fact, it’s the people to whom that word is applied who actually get the business of government done. In our minds, the word should not be an epithet. #StateandLocalManagement #CityGovernmentManagement #CountyGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalResearchReports #StateandLocalResearchFlaws #StateandLocalGovernmentTransparency #StateandLocalPerformance #StateandLocalPerformanceReporting #StateandLocalGovernmentData #CityGovernmentData #CountyGovernmentData #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalGovernmentTransparency #CityGovernmentTransparency #CountyGovernmentTransparency #StateandLocalWebsiteTransparency #StateandLocalPublicAdministration #InDefenseOfBureaucracy #GovernmentBureaucrats #StateandLocalResearchFrustration #StateandLocalGovernmentAccountability #StateandLocalGovernmentAccessibility #OutOfDateLegislativeWebsites #MissingGovernmentContactInformation #MissingDatesOnGovernmentReports #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc

We’ve just come across a study titled “Best and Worst States to Be a Police Officer by WalletHub. This is just the kind of study that we like to follow for use on this website. In the study, California was ranked as the best. Then we took a moment to reflect on the findings of this research, and it struck us that it may not make sense to look at the best place to be a police officer by state when this is really a local issue. It could well be that it’s terrific to be an officer in one city and a nightmare of a job elsewhere – particularly in a state like California where there’s such huge variation from place to place. So, though WalletHub clearly outlined its criteria (for which it gets credit), giving a little thought to its findings made us somewhat more dubious. We’ve been concerned about studies like this, as over the years, we’ve happily written about scores of reports (probably hundreds) that are focused on broad areas of state and local government, like budgeting, human resources, performance management, infrastructure and so on. And we’ve been involved in creating some of these, too. All of this made us reflect on the ways in which we try to determine the value, validity and common sense of reports about state and local governments. Some time ago, we wrote about the reasons that we distrust some of the studies and reports that we read because of hidden flaws. Sometimes, these are just sloppy errors. Anyone can make a mistake. But the warning signs have remained consistent. We often spot them when we probe for more information. For example, our suspicions escalate: · When a study focuses on a common problem in a government program, but the author can’t produce a concrete example or answer basic questions we pose when we call. · If the data chosen to support a report’s findings is too old to logically represent current conditions or if a survey sample is too small to extrapolate a credible conclusion. · When a report on a controversial topic includes only the supporting evidence on one side of an issue, ignoring a stockpile of facts that take the other side. (We’re not looking for an “on the one hand; on the other hand” approach, but researchers owe it to the audience to acknowledge a contrary point of view.) In a blog post that we wrote more than a year ago, we recalled a time when we wrote and co-produced a documentary about Walt Disney. For that project, we interviewed 77 people. Many knew Disney personally. Others were film and Disney company historians. In a conversation that was taped with one, he told us that Disney’s father had never had any success in life. We pointed to information we knew that contradicted this point and the historian said the following: “Yes, that may be true, but it doesn’t fit into the theme.” Years ago, one of our editors (who we’ll not mention by name, for obvious reasons), complained that “we hadn’t come to our conclusions” before we embarked on reporting. We were younger at the time and lacked the courage to argue that this approach was ridiculous. Fortunately, it didn’t take long to know that it was also relatively rare. Most of the academics and journalists we know do try to be fair and balanced in their work. But we are watchful for situations in which that’s not the case. And that’s a problem, particularly when other researchers rely on misleading published narratives, the false conclusions can be repeated until everyone believes they’re true. #StateandLocalManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalManagementResearch #StateandLocalPerformanceResearch #StateandLocalGovernmentReports #StateandLocalReports #StateandLocalStudies #StateandLocalResearch #StateandLocalResearchFlaws #WaltDisneyDocumentary #WaltDisneyManBehindTheMyth #StateandLocalGovernmentData #StateandLocalDataQuality #UnbalancedResearchReports #StateRankingFlaws #QuestionableSurveyResearch #ReportBias #MissingData #OldData #WalletHub #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc

It won’t come as a surprise to anyone who works in state or local government to hear that many of our interviewees suggest – notwithstanding what ails their employer – that they’re going to solve many issues with new and improved technology. And to be sure, technology is increasingly an important part of any formula for success, and cities, counties and states that aren’t involved in improving their high-tech profile will be left behind. Still, as a state CIO characterized his approach to his job in a recent conversation, “I’m technology last. If you start with technology first, you’re too restrictive. . . I’m always focusing on solving the problem and meeting the need. If you can't agree on the problem at the 50,000-foot level, there's no reason to go on.” We think he makes an excellent point. Especially in a day when AI is often thought to be a cure-all, it’s critical to first think carefully about precisely what the problem is, before starting to invest in technology that may or may not address the real issue. Yet that’s exactly what many entities do. It’s interesting to see how many vendors of software and hardware offer themselves as providing “solutions,” which greatly oversimplifies the issues that states and localities confront. The use of that word makes it sound like whatever software they’re selling is a panacea, something like the old-fashioned salespeople who boasted that the elixirs they sold could cure whatever ails you, from tuberculosis to shattered nerves. Consider for example, entities that are currently purchasing variations of AI in hopes that they will spit out solutions, when a critical problem they face is problematic data. With AI, the old saying “garbage in-garbage out” should be altered to read “garbage in-garbage out faster than the twinkling of an eye.” There are lots of reasons why unthinking reliance on technology is so common. For one thing, it appears to be a politically practical approach. A mayor can get more positive press by announcing an investment in a new high-tech innovation than by digging into a problem to figure out the cause and a smart approach to make it go away – even if that takes three or four years. The allure of a quick-fix is powerful, and most deep-seated problems that cities, states and counties face take years to solve. In the interim, a high-tech fix is easier to explain to voters than the multiple steps inherent in a thoughtful iterative approach. In addition, no elected official wants to appear to be behind the times, when neighboring states or communities are announcing their own alluring technological solution. Since our minds almost immediately jump to the benefits of performance management, here’s our recommendation to help ameliorate the “shoot first ask questions later” approach to technology procurements: Before acquiring any shiny new bells and whistles make sure to clearly spell out what the actual results of the acquisition will be – and how you define success. This should be part of a clearly wrought plan before even issuing an RFP. Then, on a regular basis, do performance audits to catch any hitches along the way, before they get permanently built into the techno-structure. #StateandLocalManagement #StateandLocalTechnolgyManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalGovernmentTechnologyPerformance #StateandLocalPerformanceAudit #StateandLocalDataGovernance #StateLocalGovernmentGenerativeAIPolicyandManagement #StateandLocalAI #StateandLocalArtificialIntelligence #CityGovernmentManagement #CityTechnologyManagement #CountyGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalInnovation #CityInnovation #CountyTechnologyManagement #CityTechnologyPerformance #CountyTechnologyPerformance #DedicatedToStateandLocalGovernment #StateandLocalDataQuality #TechnologyLast #TechnologyFirstMalady #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc

Though residents may assume that state and local government work is generally performed by public sector workers, in fact, a huge number of jobs are in the hands of third-party contractors and consultants. This can include garbage collection, road and bridge construction, and a wide variety of health and social services. Additionally, as cities, counties and states increasingly depend on technology, many – particularly smaller entities – don’t have the internal capacity or expertise to carry out the many jobs necessary to keep computers (and, increasingly, these days, artificial intelligence) running smoothly. While many government entities have performance management systems in place to measure the success or failure of the work that’s done in house, this can be trickier when it comes to the contractors and consultants who are sometimes referred to as the “hidden workforce.” When we regularly review performance audits, we often discover that the lack of oversight and measurement of contracted work is extremely commonplace. Last month, for example, we came across an audit from the Austin, Texas Auditor’s office, and its findings were alarming. During Fiscal Years 2023 – 2025, the city spent over $279M on consultants – a tidy pile of cash used by almost all the city’s departments. Here’s what the auditor found: 82 percent did not have a formal evaluation showing why the work could not be done by city staff 64 percent of them did not include a formal performance appraisal What’s more, even when there were evaluations, they were not always accurate. One of the complexities involved in effectively measuring the performance of individual contracts is that in many instances, they are overseen by multiple agencies. So, even though one agency may be carefully monitoring performance for some of the services delivered, other important issues may easily be overlooked. In addition, even when procurement departments carefully include performance measures in a contract, that doesn’t guarantee that agencies, which oversee the contract, will follow through to see that planned targets are achieved. This work, we’d argue, can’t wait until a performance audit comes through and discovers that they’re needed. They should be part of a city, county or state’s ethos, and preferably done in real time, so that problems are uncovered as quickly as possible and can be ameliorated before a little cavity in the teeth of a city turns into an abscess and requires the municipal equivalent of an extraction. One of the most important things to measure is the project completion rate. When project managers let things slide, it’s easy for a contracted task to be completed months or years after originally promised. A common problem involves scope creep, when a company realizes that additional money is needed to fulfil the task, and requests an extension to the original timeline and an addition to the budget, as well. The solution to this very common issue doesn’t come into play once the project has gotten rolling. Instead, it can help be prevented when key performance indicators are established before anyone has signed on the dotted line. When there’s a clearly defined metric, and it’s addressed, it’s easier to turn down a contractor’s request for new features that may be unrelated to that output. Additionally, it’s good practice to make sure there’s regular face-to-face contact with the contractor or consultant. A weekly, monthly or quarterly conversation can be a straightforward way to catch problems before they expand. Ongoing contact and careful performance monitoring, removes the temptation to hide problems until the auditors step in. #StateandLocalGovernmentProcurement #CityGovernmentProcurement #CountyGovernmentProcurement #StateandLocalContractManagement #CityContractManagement #CountyContractManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceManagement #CityPerformanceManagement #CountyPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceAudit #AustinCityAuditor #ContractPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceMeasurement #StateandLocalContractOversight #StateandLocalConsultantOversight #CityandCountyContractOversight #CityandCountyConsultantOversight #StateandLocalContractScopeCreep #MonitoringStateandLocalContractPerformance #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc

“For years, opinion surveys have identified property taxes as the ones Americans hate the most,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). There are lots of reasons this has been the case. For one thing, property taxes are clearly the most visible of the major tax streams that go to municipalities. As Jon Cannon, executive director of the Nebraska Association of County Officials, told us in a recent conversation, “It’s a tax you can’t avoid. You can make purchases across state lines to avoid sales taxes. For income taxes, if I’m sophisticated enough there are ways to avoid it. But dirt is dirt and homes are homes and you can’t escape them. And because it’s so hard to escape, it’s got greater visibility.” To make matters worse, as the NCSL points out, “payments must be made in large lump sums . . . Unlike sales taxes that are paid in small increments or income taxes that are withheld, property tax bills come with a large sum due.” With that in mind, elected officials in a number of states – including Florida, Montana, Texas and North Dakota – have all been considering efforts to reduce or eliminate local property taxes. This seems to us to be a wicked tradeoff. On the one hand, the idea that a state is forcing counties and localities to cut or eliminate their property taxes could be a very popular idea at the ballot box. But on the other hand, this kind of move will nearly inevitably bring enormous fiscal pain to the localities. At the Conference of Minority Public Administrators, which we attended in North Carolina in late February, all four of the panelists – county and city managers or their deputies – pointed to the specter of state intrusion in their property tax streams as one of their greatest concerns. One of the big problems here, we believe, is that there’s a disconnect between people’s perception of the property taxes they pay and the services they receive in return. Nobody much wants to see public safety budgets cut, but they don’t necessarily see that if their property taxes are eliminated in all or in part, that’s exactly what could happen. As things stand, nearly every state has some kind of limitation that’s already in place. What’s changed, according to Ginger Delegal, executive director of the Florida Association of Counties, is that in the last 18 to 24 months there are upwards of 20 states now where there is very serious discussion about the elimination of property taxes, either from start to finish, or for at least homestead property. Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis has been a poster child for the elimination of local property taxes, and even though this move hasn’t made it past the state legislature despite multiple efforts in recent years, his position is clear: As was posted on his X account the Governor asked "Do you think it's fine that you buy property, you buy a home, you own it outright . . . and yet you have to continue to pony up money to the government just for the courtesy of using your own property?" He seems to be missing the point here. Property taxes are far from a punitive measure for owning property, but rather the most reliable means for paying for schools, the police department, fire department, roads and all the other services for which property taxes are a fundamental source of revenue. But of course supporters of reducing or eliminating property taxes in Florida understand that somehow localities are going to have to pay their bills. There’s no great call for increased sales taxes and the state doesn’t even have an income tax. Where is the replacement money going to come from? It appears there's some anticipate that it will appear a result of the saving that the state will accrue from its DOGE-like efforts. As DeSantis posted on X, “Florida was DOGE before DOGE was cool,” So far, however, the state has yet to demonstrate the colossal savings it anticipates from its DOGE efforts. Want a guess? The number is going to be underwhelming and not nearly enough to make up for any future dramatic reductions in property taxes. Meanwhile, municipalities in states that have already mandated significant cuts in property taxes are already feeling the pain. According to an article by the Pew Charitable Trusts “Indiana passed sweeping legislation to give homeowners $1.2 billion in tax relief between 2026 and 2028 through an annual tax credit of up to $300 on property tax bills and caps on local income tax rates, among other provisions. But those savings come at a cost to local government coffers—an estimated $1.5 billion over the three-year period. Many localities now face budget shortfalls and are enacting budget cuts in response. Fueled by such concerns, Accelerate Indiana Municipalities (AIM), which represents the state’s cities and towns, is pushing the Legislature to consider several changes to the law during its 2026 session.” Pew also points to Wyoming as a case in point, writing that “Meanwhile, counties and municipalities in Wyoming are also facing fallout from state legislation that cuts property taxes by 25% for up to $1 million of a home’s property value—without backfilling local governments for lost revenue. Public schools could be the hardest hit. They receive roughly 70% of all property tax revenue in Wyoming with the rest going to local governments. The impacts of these revenue losses are rippling through local government budgets, forcing cuts to libraries, city park maintenance, and hospitals.” #InDefenseOfPropertyTax #StateandLocalGovernmentBudgeting #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentFunding #StateandLocalFinancialManagement #StateandLocalTaxes #StateandLocalTaxManagement #StateandLocalPropertyTaxes #CityGovernmentBudgeting #CityPropertyTax #CityGovernmentManagement #CityFinancialManagement #CountyPropertyTax #CountyGovernmentManagement #PropertyTaxCutsAndCityFiscalStress #CityFiscalStress #CountyFiscalStress #SchoolFiscalStress #CityandCountyPropertyTaxCuts #NationalConferenceStateLegislatures #NCSL #PewCharitableTrusts #WyomingPropertyTaxCutStress #IndianaPropertyTaxCutStress #AccelerateIndianaMunicipalities #GovernorRonDeSantis #NebraskaPropertyTax #NebraskaAssociationCountyExecutives #FloridaAssociationOfCounties #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc

In a “VOICES FROM ASPA" video that ran on this website a couple of weeks ago, Valerie Lemmie, senior advisor of state and local government at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, told us that “I am at times surprised how little our graduate students know about civics and then I am reminded that we don’t teach it in school anymore, you don’t learn it in high school. You don’t learn it in college. And so, it’s incumbent upon you, who are preparing for the profession (in public administration) to learn the history. . . “ We couldn’t agree more. A 2024 study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which evaluated survey instruments from 2,000 registered voters, found that “more then 70% of Americans fail a basic civic literacy quiz on topics like the three branches of government, the number of Supreme Court justices and other basic functions of our democracy. Just half were able to correctly name the branch of government where bills become laws. “While two thirds of Americans say they studied civics in high school, just 25% say they are “very confident” that they could explain how our system of government works.” And consider this: These are registered voters. While we don’t have data about this, it’s our guess that people who aren’t registered to vote are probably even less knowledgeable. But on the other hand, and we don’t want to seem overly cynical, if we’re right about that, perhaps we’re all better off if people who have little or no notion of how government works don’t vote at all. It’s kind of like our desire for people who don’t have drivers licenses to stay off the roads. A couple of years ago, we looked at the state of civics education in the nation’s schools, and discovered a 2024 Hoover Institution report that found that eight U.S. states — Alaska, Delaware, Kansas, Maine, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wyoming — required neither a civics course nor a civics test for students to receive a high school diploma. Just four states — Idaho, Louisiana, Virginia and West Virginia — require a full-year civics course and the passing of a standard civics test. Nationwide, there’s long been a dramatic shortage of funding to help young people get a grasp of how their government works. In 2024, the Carnegie Corporation of New York released a report titled “Connecting Civic Education and a Healthy Democracy.” The study found “funding for civic learning (from both philanthropy and government) is woefully inadequate.” For example, the data shows the US invests “just 50 cents in civic education for every 50 dollars that goes to education in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects.” While the ignorance about government isn’t new, we’d argue that it’s even more important now than in the past. In a world in which disinformation about governmental policies has reached epidemic proportions, we can’t help but wonder how well-equipped Americans are to evaluate the actions their government are taking, if they don’t have a solid idea of how it functions in the first place. Meanwhile, and we’ve written about this before, there is clearly a widespread lack of comprehension about what level of government does what. While there’s general knowledge that the army and navy are run by the federal government, when it comes to basic interactions with the functioning of government, that’s hardly the case. People may complain about how bad their roads are. But do they know whether the pothole they’ve encountered is the responsibility of their city, county or state? They generally do not, in our experience. (Note that this was also a topic recently raised by Michael Jacobson, former Deputy Director of Performance and Strategy in a recent guest column on this website.) Though it’s likely that educated Americans are more likely to understand the basic questions of civics, even they often miss the idea that government is a lot more than just politics. We’ve complained about this in the past but it’s a never-ending source of frustration to us that when we meet someone new at a public gathering and try to explain what we do for a living and say we research and write about government, their immediate next question (assuming they find this interesting at all) is about politics. While there may be interest in the passage of individual policies, when it comes to discussions of policy implementation, that’s when our new acquaintances generally excuse themselves to get another glass of wine or use the restroom. Management of government simply isn’t on the radar for many. While they may complain about the so-called “bureaucracy,” meaning the people who they think are wasting their hard earned tax dollars, they don’t seem to get that it’s behind the scenes employees who ensure that their garbage is picked up, their bridges don’t fall into the river, the elections are run fairly, their children are educated, and on and on. With trust in government low (and not just for the federal government, but for states and localities), this is all a real pity. It’s simply too easy to mistrust the unknown. #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalPerformance #AmericanSocietyForPublicAdministration #ASPA #ValerieLemmieVideo #CivicEducation #StateandLocalCivicEducation #CivicEducationAndTrustIn Government #TrustInGovernment #ValerieLemmie #CharlesFKetteringFoundation #FightingGovernmentDisinformation #CivicEducationRequirements #GovernmentIgnoranceGap #HooverInstitutionCivicEducationRequirementsReport #CivicEducationFundingShortage #CivicEducationVsStemEducation #CarnegieCorporationOfNewYork #ConnectingCivicEducationAndHealthyDemocracy #StateandLocalPolicyImplementation #MichaelJacobsonGuestColumn #CountyVsCityVsStateResponsibility #ScapegoatingBureaucracies #BureacuracyComplaints” #StateandLocalGovernmentBureaucracy #StateandLocalGovernmentWorkforce #StateandLocalGovernmentEmployees #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc

There are certainly justifiable reasons to be concerned about the far-reaching ramifications of artificial intelligence. Nobody really knows for sure its impact on the workplace. And in the absence of guarantees that the benefits will outweigh the flaws, fear runs rampant. But when we talk with friends about AI, they forget that this isn’t the first technology to conjure up fear and loathing. In fact, historically almost every new scientific advance has led to public concern, and even terror among some – only to become adopted as the wrinkles are ironed out (which may, admittedly take a little time). With that in mind, we decided to see what people were thinking when new innovations first came on the scene. Back in the late 1700s, Edward Jenner developed a vaccine against the then deadly scourge of smallpox by exposing people to far less virulent cowpox. But when the government started to mandate that people receive the vaccines, concerns spread that government was putting poison into their blood. As the Morgan Library and Museum states “opposition to Jenner’s vaccine was quick to emerge, with its bovine origins often provoking some of the most vehement criticism. Objections were made on both medical and religious grounds, condemning vaccination as a dangerous and unsanitary procedure involving the forbidden mingling of animal matter with human flesh. “Outspoken opponents such as the physician Benjamin Moseley (1742–1819) sought to alarm readers with luridly worded arguments against the abominable practice of introducing a “bestial humour into the human frame,” while hinting darkly at the “strange mutations from quadruped sympathy” that might result as well as relating fantastical accounts of vaccinated children sprouting cow hair or developing facial features distorted “to resemble that of an Ox.” Later on in that century, when steam trains came into popular use, there were several frightening scenarios foist upon the populace. Traveling over 30 miles per hour could cause “delirium foriosum” some said. This was a kind of insanity that they believed could result from looking out the train windows to see the landscape whizzing by. There was even concern that the vibrations and speed could cause miscarriages or damage to women’s reproductive organs. By the late 1800s, there was yet another new-fangled innovation to fear: electricity. Some Americans were particularly concerned that electricity (like water from a tap) cold leak into a room from an empty socket if the switch was left on. Humorist James Thurber wrote in his wonderful “My Life and Hard Times” that his grandmother was fearful that electricity was “dripping invisibly all over the house.” When we first read this story, we assumed that Thurber was just making this up (even though “My Life and Hard Times” was intended to be a memoir.) But it turns out that his grandmother wasn’t alone in her trepidation. In fact, “President Benjamin Harrison and his wife Caroline were the first to live in an electrified White House, but electricity was so new at the time that the couple refused to touch the light switches for fear of electric shock. The White House staff was in charge of turning the lights on and off,” reports the U.S. Department of Energy. Then there was the radio. Some were fearful that this kind of in-home entertainment would effectively kill off normal social life, as people stayed home and listened to the new magical boxes. (And by the way, Ladies Home Journal reported that a similar phenomenon was afoot when people were able to rent videos from places like Blockbuster. We know this because we – and now we’re embarrassed by this – wrote the article over 40 years ago). But there were even more dramatic concerns about the advent of radio in the 1920s. “Farmers of the 1920s used to blame too much rain, earthquakes, and droughts on the new technology of radio,” according to Paleofuture: The History of the Future. When television first came into American homes, just as with radio, there was similar concern that it would destroy any kind of social life. Finally (and there are many more examples) when computers came into broad use, just as with AI, there was widespread belief that mainframes (with less computing power than a cellular phone today) could allow automation to lead to mass unemployment as middle-class jobs would be rendered obsolete. In fact a 1957 film Desk Set, featuring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, was based on the fear that a new computer was going to put Hepburn and all of her compatriots out of work. This wasn’t just the kind of concern spread by entertainment. Consider the Time Magazine article from 1961 titled “The Automation Jobless.” Time wrote that “Dr. Russell Ackoff, a Case Institute expert on business problems, feels that automation is reaching into so many fields so fast that it has become ‘the nation's second most important problem.’ (First: peace.) #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentGenerativeAIPolicyAndManagement #StateAndLocalTechnologyManagement #FearOfTechnology #FearOfTheUnknown #StateandLocalAI #StateandLocalArtificialIntelligence #StateandLocalGovernmentWorkforce #StateandLocalHumanResources #StateandLocalHR #FearOfChange #AutomationJobless #DeskSet #PaleofutureTheHistoryOfTheFuture #AutomationAndUnemployment #FearOfInnovation #StateandLocalInnovation #BandGReport #FearOfSmallpoxVaccine #FearOfVideos #FearOfComputers #FearofElectricity #BarrettandGreeeneInc

Not long ago we were at a presentation by an academic about a topic that was of genuine interest to us. As is often the case, she had many interesting slides, showing all of the data she had gathered over months of research. But when one of the members of the audience inquired about the meaning behind the data, her answer was simple. “I don’t know. I only know the numbers.” This was frustrating to us, and we suspect other folks in the audience. But it’s been our experience at various conferences, webinars and other presentation venues that a great deal of academic work doesn’t seem to take the next step forward, beyond doing meticulous research in order to find out what the research really means. Don’t misunderstand, we know that academic research is often limited by time and money. But we’d like to make a modest proposal (and maybe this isn’t practical, but that doesn’t stop us from suggesting it): After the heavy number crunching is done, we’d like academics to have a handful of discussions with experts in the field to see how they would interpret the information they’ve gathered. The responses that could be garnered through this extra step wouldn’t need to be published as gospel – but could at least give users of the published work a sense of what it might mean, creating a starting point for their own reflections. We hasten to add that we’re not saying that all research should be qualitative. We’d just like the important findings of quantitative research to be presented in a real-world context of some kind. Some of those reading this B&G Report will remember the Government Performance Project (GPP), which was a Pew-Charitable Trusts effort that was published in Governing Magazine, with the goal of evaluating the management capacity of the states (and occasionally cities and counties). The research included lengthy survey instruments that covered the areas of human resources, budgeting, performance management, information technology and infrastructure, in an effort to evaluate the management capacity of states. We were deeply involved in its inception, research and writing. (Actually, it was loosely based on a similar, far less rigorous exercise that we did for the now defunct publication, Financial World.) The GPP included a cadre of very smart academics with small teams of graduate students to go through the survey instruments – had scores of sub criteria that were then pulled together to analyze how the governments fared on clear-cut criteria, and then brought a full step forward to come up with overall evaluation. That could then be translated into grades. But we also had a team of journalists, who did many hundreds of interviews with people in all fifty states and tried to get answers and context for all of the sub-criteria that the academics were using. This wasn’t always easy, but we were able to get people on the phone, to work with the journalistic team. The journalistic input provided two benefits. First, it sometimes discovered flaws in information that came from the surveys. While the journalists made every effort to reach people who were at the higher levels of government, sometimes the surveys were filled out by interns who didn’t necessarily provide the most accurate answers. When this happened, the academic team was able to re-evaluate, and the two groups came together to find a consensus that we thought approximated the truth. On the other side of the coin, sometimes interviews were inclined to whitewash their stories and put the full emphasis on the positives. The academics provided an intellectual grounding that provided accountability. The other advantage was that the journalists were able to tell the stories that allowed readers to get more than “just the numbers.” We didn’t just provide the total grades and the grades in the criteria, but we were able to publish the stories behind the most intriguing results. We apologize for this little trip down memory lane, but this exercise and the collaboration between journalists and academics has been a highlight of our careers, and taught us a great deal about the potential flaws in relying just on interviews (the way that journalists are inclined to do), as well as the booby-traps that can be hidden in seemingly accurate and complete data. The results bore out the process, and we were aware that a number of states actually took action based on the findings. And whether you’re an academic or a journalist what could be better than that? #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #CityGovernmentManagement #CityGovernmentPerformance #CountyGovernmentManagement #CountyGovernmentPerformance #GovernmentPerformanceProject #PewCharitableTrusts #GoverningMagazine #FinancialWorld #StateandLocalGovernmentData #GovernmentDataAndRealWorldContext #StateandLocalPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceMeasurement #CityPerformanceManagement #CountyPerformanceManagement #JournalistAcademicCollaboration #StateandLocalInformationTechnology #StateandLocalInfrastructureManagement #StateandLocalHumanResources #StateandLocalHR #StateandLocalGovernmentBudgeting #CityBudgeting #CountyBudgeting #StateandLocalFinancialManagement #CityFinancialManagement #CountyFinancialManagement #GradingStateManagement #GradingCityManagement #GradingCountyManagement #AcademicJournalistPartnership #StateandLocalData #StateandLocalDataMeaning #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc