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A couple of weeks ago, we were invited by the National Center for Public Performance to be the inaugural panelists in its series of webinars about performance management. We were fortunate enough to have Monica Croskey Chaparro, assistant city manager in Virginia Beach, Virginia with us to ask us questions, lead the conversation and add many pertinent points from her own experience. You can find the complete video under Special Videos on the home page of our website, but here are a handful of the thoughts upon which we expanded in the webinar: · * The words “performance-informed management” are preferable to “performance-based management.” The latter implies that there can be a formulaic approach to gathering data, with the assumption that it can drive government. But in the real world, that’s just not true, and the real goal of performance management is to gather information that will be helpful in making decisions. * It’s critical to win the trust of people in the data that’s being used – both in and out of government. There’s a tendency in some cities and states to cherry-pick data that shows only the bright side of government performance, but people who actually live in those places can compare the government’s reports to the world in which they live, and when there’s a significant difference between the two, they’ll believe their eyes and not the information the government is issuing. · * There’s an important distinction between having a performance management system, that exists only on paper, and actually having it utilized by public sector leaders and managers to make decisions. This can be particularly difficult when a new administration comes in, and the support of leadership declines. · * Many efforts – notably those that have been dubbed “stat” programs can run the risk of being perceived as ‘gotcha” exercises. When government employees fear accountability exercises, they’re disinclined to buy in and that stands in the way of progress and improvement. · * It’s important to bridge the gap in the world of performance management that can exist between important research done by academics and the day-to-day decisions that need to be made by practitioners. · * While incentives for good performance can be useful, they can also result in poor data quality when the incentives lead to fudging of data. · * When a state or local government sets up a performance management system it’s important to take the next step – providing enough resources to provide staff and research. · * As time has gone on, there have been challenges to the independence of performance management offices. But without non-partisan, independent efforts, politics can prevail over fair, honest reporting. #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceMeasurement #StateandLocalDataQuality #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalAccountability #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceAudit #CityandCountyManagement #VirginiaBeach #MonicaCroskeyChaparro #PerformanceData #PerformanceInformedManagement #PerformanceBasedManagement #PerformanceMeasurement #PerformanceAudit #GovernmentStatSystems #NationalCenterforPublicPerformance #KatherineBarrettandRichardGreene #ThePromisesandPitfallsofPerformanceInformedManagement #SulfolkUniversity #CityStat #StateStat #StateandLocalGovernment #IndependentGovernmentOversight

After 23 years in government John Eller, the director of Social Services in Mecklenburg County, will leave his government job in mid-December. A lot of changes have occurred in his years in county government, and he has a wide variety of predictions, concerns and counsel for the changes that public health and human service agencies like his will face in future years. We talked with him this fall while we were researching our future of government jobs series for Route Fifty. The issues he raised included the following: The need to preserve the lessons learned during the pandemic about benefit program flexibility: Eller has watched the federal drive to unwind pandemic-era human service waivers with dismay. “It just baffles me that we’re talking about going back to the old way, versus looking for ways to continue to innovate what we started with the flexibilities we got during the pandemic,” he says. He cites a system that is audit heavy and risk adverse with confusing, inconsistent and repetitive requirements that rob clients of dignity and create numerous barriers to underemployed individuals who may lack transportation and time due to work schedules. The importance of emphasizing human interaction even as more technology options emerge: While digital skills will inevitably increase in value, he warns of the danger of losing the softer skills that are needed to work with human service customers. “The customer must remain at the heart of the mission and vision,” he says. “The shift into a technology-driven world will impact both our staff and our customers. We value a customer-centric scenario. We value interaction and the more online you go, the less interaction you have. As public human services agencies look to be more strategic, I think they’re going to have to figure out what can, and should, be done online and what doesn’t have to be. We’re going to see this tug of war, this push and pull between the need to be more technology driven, compared to the need to balance the needs of our customers and staff.” To increase the focus on more – and not less – human interaction, Mecklenburg County leadership has a philosophy dubbed “Bringing Mecklenburg to You,” which locates Community Resource Centers that combine public and private shared services “in a seamless way” in targeted geographic locations throughout the county. “Staff can be strategically placed in geographic locations to provide services instead of working from one stationary centralized building so that services are closer to each community” – a change that will also provide a stronger sense of trust with residents. The drive to alter past human resource practices that adversely affect hiring “In order to remain competitive, we’ve got to figure out what the needs of our staff are,” he says. “The decisions about telework and flexible work schedules will be critical to attract someone who can choose this agency or another.” Eller recognizes the complexities of dealing with a remote or hybrid workplace in which employees have multiple different preferences. At the same time, he knows that workplace flexibility is important to applicants and recognizes that a job candidate’s decision to accept or turn down a job offer is often contingent on this factor. “The first thing that job applicants ask is about that detail. How many days will I have to come in the office? That’s changed everything,” he says. Eller also sees a need to lower current minimum qualifications that prevent hiring community college or college graduates because they lack several years of experience. That’s led to Mecklenburg County partnering with local universities and community colleges to allow recent graduates to qualify for public human services programs without previously required years of experience. A focus on retention and building career supports for the staff Like many other individuals we interviewed for our future of government jobs series in Route Fifty, Eller sees a significant benefit in the establishment of career ladders that provide promotions and salary increases based on successfully completing training that broadens skills. In fact, he introduced a new career ladder approach in the Department of Social Services this fall, supported by county leadership. Promotion, in a career ladder system, doesn’t require employees to wait for a job to open or require staff to compete with each other for limited open positions. It depends instead on training and acquiring new knowledge. “The way we look at promoting people is going to change,” he says. #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #PublicSectorHumanServices #HumanServices #CountyHumanServices #AmericanPublicHumanServicesAssociation #FutureGovernmentJobs #FutureofStateandLocalGovernmentJobs #HumanServicesManagement #HumanServicesWorkforce #StateandLocalGovernmentHumanResources #StateandLocalGovernmentWorkforce #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentHiring #HumanServiceHiring #HumanServiceRetention #CountyEmployeeRetention #MecklenburgCountySocialServices #JohnEller #PublicSectorCareerLadder #HumanServiceWaivers #RouteFifty #RemoteWorkinthePublicSector #CountyGovernmentWorkforce

In the tension-filled political week before the midterm elections, we were particularly grateful for a relatively new podcast called “You Might be Right,” a mostly weekly, sometimes biweekly show that features two former governors from Tennessee talking about a wide variety of issues. The particularly refreshing part of this show for us is that Governor Bill Haslam is a Republican and Governor Phil Bredesen is a Democrat, and they talk to each other about complex issues in the most civil terms without attack or easy soundbite. In the first months of the show, produced at the Howard Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, guests have been invited to explain their positions on opposite sides of such topics as the Affordable Care Act, Charter Schools, the National Debt and the Affordable Housing crisis. The governors ask questions, talk about the issues, and occasionally reflect on their own leadership experiences, leaving listeners with lots to think about and no easy answers. The Affordable Care Act discussion, for example, which aired on October 26, gave the governors an opportunity to question Nancy-Ann DeParle, one of the architects of the Act during the Obama administration and Larry Van Horn, a Vanderbilt professor, who has been a noted critic of it. At its conclusion, one of Phil Bredesen’s comments deftly summed up his reaction to the discussion, making a key point about the nature of the podcast at the same time. “Most problems benefit from picking and choosing a little bit from different ideologies. And I think both of us have had the experience of doing that. So, I looked at both of these not in terms of one is the right answer and one is the wrong answer, but what can we glean from each of them, which can be useful in solving the problem.” The show’s title is based on the late Senator Baker’s belief that solid answers to vexing problems emerge when listening to someone on the opposite side. “In politics, the competition for ideas, the competition for the right to serve is fundamental and it is political. But it must be accompanied by a decent respect for the other fellow’s point of view. Because if you don’t do that, the whole system falls, it collapses, if you don’t admit that the other person may be right from time to time.”' New podcasts are generally posted on Wednesdays, with access to episodes here. We like the fact that transcripts are also available as it’s sometimes tricky to tell which governor is talking if you don’t come from Tennessee and have a solid familiarity with their voices. Listen and see what you think of this B&G Report Recommendation. And if the spirit moves you, suggest other podcasts that might be of interested to those of us who are dedicated to state and local government. #DedicatedtoStateandLocalGovernment #StateandLocalPolicyImplementation #IntergovernmentalRelations #QuotesaboutGovernment #BarrettandGreeneRecommendations #PolicyImplementation #PolicyOversight #PodcastRecommendation #StateofTennessee #HowardBakerJrCenterforPublicPolicy #GovernorPhilBredesen #GovernorBillHaslam #AffordableHousing #AffordableCareAct #YouMightBeRightPodcast

Periodically, we make a request in the B&G Report for recommendations of books that provide worthy reading for people who are interested in state and local government. We're back again, and are asking readers to send us new nominations. A few months ago, we went through this exercise and published nine of the titles that came in. It’s important to note that we decided not to include books that were suggested by their own authors. While we know many of these authors personally and think their books were worthy of inclusion, it doesn't feel like it is in the spirit of the effort to include books by recommenders who so obviously had a horse in the race. (For example, we didn’t bring up our most recent book, about performance management, and so we’re playing by our own rules). Following are eight titles. We’ve linked them all to Amazon.com for ease of purchase if you’re so moved, but we’d like to encourage you (as much as we use Amazon.com ourselves) to consider patronizing your own local bookstore. We're waiting to hear from you. The Unheavenly City: The Nature and the Future of Our Urban Crisis, by Edward C. Banfield, recommended by BJ Reed, Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska Omaha The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America, by Alan Mallach, recommended by Alan Ehrenhalt, senior editor, Governing The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, by Heather McGhee, recommended by Alisha Gillis, recommended by Alisha Gillis, senior editor, Route Fifty What Should We Do: A Theory of Civic Life, by Peter Levine, recommended by Karen Garrett, chief of communications, marketing and membership, American Society of Public Administration Speaking Truth to Power: Art and Craft of Policy Analysis, by Aaron Wildavsky, recommended by Dean Michael Mead. Partner at Carr, Riggs & Ingram Greedy Bastards: One City’s Texas-Size Struggle to Avoid a Financial Crisis, by Sheryl Sculley, recommended by Terrell Blodgett, Mike Hogg Professor Emeritus in Urban Management, LBJ School, University of Texas, Austin. Thirty Explosive Years in Los Angeles County by John Anson Ford, recommended by Benjamin M. Effinger, Operations Chief, Cash Management Division, Los Angeles County Treasurer and Tax Collector. Smarter Government: How to Govern for Results in the Information Age, by Martin O'Malley, recommended by Robert Shea, partner Guidehouse. #BandGReportRecommendations #CityandCountyManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalPolicyImplementation #GovernmentforResults #GovernorMartinOMalley #RobertShea #LosAngelesCounty #StateofTexas #TerrellBlodgett #DeanMichaelMead #AmericanSocietyofPublicAdministration #KarenGarrett #Equity #AlishaGillis #RouteFifty #GoverningMagaine #LBJSchoolUniversityofTexas #SchoolofPublicAdministrationUniversityofNebraska #BJReed #BookRecommendationsforGovernmentManagers

A little over two years ago, as we were researching an IBM Center for the Business of Government report about lessons learned from the pandemic, we were confronted with an unfortunate lack of data about the Black population of the United States. As we wrote in the report, co-authored by Don Kettl, “Many states were slow in measuring the disease’s spread among Black Americans, for example, and by mid-summer 2021 some states still did not keep track of the racial background of those who died from the virus.” For obvious reasons – most notably the fact that the Black population was disproportionately hit by COVID – this absence of disaggregated data was particularly troubling to us, as it has been in a number of other areas of inquiry. As a result, when we first heard about the existence of a new project called the Black Wealth Data Center, back in September of 2022, we were intrigued, and wrote a B&G Report about it then. It seemed appropriate for this year's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to revisit and update that column. The Center, which was funded and launched by Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative and incubated by Prosperity Now, makes an important contribution to a world in which data is central to solving problems. Specifically, according to its website, the Center was created to “help address the problem of insufficient and inaccessible data on the topic of Black Wealth.” As the then executive director of the Center, Natalie Evans Harris, said at the demo of the Center’s data-rich website, “You need data that you can rely on, but unfortunately it is often data that is incomplete. . . We want to make sure that . . . government, journalists, non-profits and philanthropies have the data you need in a way that you can rely on it.” The website and data base, which you can find here, explores measures and/or indicators of: Net worth at a national level Business ownership at a national and state level Education at a national level Employment at a national level Homeownership at a national level Population data at a local level Expected annual loss due to natural hazards FDIC Active Institutions per 100,000 people The Center is exclusively a source of information – not a think tank intended to help solve the problems it uncovers. But the Center is actively working to provide actionable data that can help others to take the steps necessary to deal with a whole host of problems, like the fact that Black people have the highest unemployment rate of any race/gender group and that nationwide, the median interest rate paid by the Black population for home mortgages is 4.9 percent, compared with 4.6 percent for White individuals. As things stand, the database is very valuable, but it continues to grow as time goes on. We’d suggest that readers of this B&G Report take a look at the website and the database and provide your feedback about the site by clicking here. #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceMeasurement #StateandLocalGovernmentData #DataDisaggregation #PandemicLessons #DonKettl #MissingData #InaccessibleRacialData #IBMCenterfortheBusinessofGovernment #MissingRacialData #BlackWealthDataCenter #BloombergPhilanthropiesGreenwoodInitiative #InsufficientandInaccessibleData #NatalieEvansHarris #PerformanceMeasurement #ActionableData #BlackMaleUnemploymentRate #BlackAmericanInternetAccess #B&GReport

There’s no shortage of news reports about fiscal scandals, and while we doubt the number of convicted politicians and employees has grown, startling cases of public sector malfeasance crop up with disturbing regularity. We were reminded of this over the weekend, when we saw a Nov. 15 article about the causes of political corruption from the Sol Price School of Public Policy at USC, the University of Southern California. That piece focused on elected officials, but corruption isn’t limited to just people who got their jobs through the ballot box, but also include appointees and others who, one way or another, have their hands someplace near the public coffers. While all governments are vulnerable to fraud, strong internal controls, careful fiscal oversight, and a focus on ethics training can insulate governments from the pain of dealing with fiscal scandals. A couple of years ago, a GFOA session about ethics set us off on a determined exploration of some of the common aspects of fiscal scandals that involve powerful individuals. We subsequently had long talks with the city manager of Durango, Colorado, as well as officials in Cincinnati, Stonecrest, Georgia and Buncombe, County, North Carolina, which had all experienced financial scandals of their own in recent years. Toward the end of July 2022, Route Fifty published our column about the arduous task that government officials have when faced with a financial scandal. Our research also led us to a fascinating documentary called, “All the Queen’s Horses” – also recommended to us by a very smart GFOA staffer, Katie Ludwig. We’ve included a video of the documentary trailer at the bottom of this article. The film itself is worth watching to see the story behind what has been labeled the largest municipal fraud in U.S. history – the embezzlement of $53,7 million over many years by the former longtime comptroller of Dixon, Illinois, Rita Crundwell. When we discovered that the producer and director of the film, Kelly Richmond Pope, was an accounting professor at DePaul University, we decided to learn about the creation of the documentary and the messages that she most wanted this compelling work to deliver. The following is a brief edited transcript of the conversation we had with Pope in July 2022. B&G: What were you hoping that your documentary would communicate to people about government fraud? Kelly Richmond Pope: I was hoping that the documentary would show people how a trusted employee can commit fraud. Sometimes, a finance person or accounting person can be the most powerful person in the room because other people don’t know or understand the same information that they do. A lot of reliance is placed on them. They tend to have a lot of power. B&G: Is there a difference in the level or opportunity for fraud in the public and private sectors? Kelly Richmond Pope: To me, the fraud schemes are pretty much the same, regardless of whether they’re governmental, corporate or nonprofit. B&G: Are their similarities that you see when you look particularly at government fraud or fraud involving high-level officials? Kelly Richmond Pope: I think the commonality is there’s always an abuse of power and always unlimited access because of the blind trust that’s given. Power and privilege are to me, always behind governmental fraud. I don’t believe there are schemes just designed for state and local governments. I think the schemes are the same, but in government you have people who are in positions much longer than in the corporate sector. So, when you have a longtime employee who has been somewhere for 20 years, it’s easier to conceal that kind of thing. B&G: Your documentary paints a very clear picture of the life that Rita Crundwell was able to lead, based on the millions of dollars that she embezzled in Dixon. Were there others to blame besides her for what happened? Kelly Richmond Pope: When I did the documentary, I wanted to make sure that there was a balanced view of blame and a balanced view of accountability. Yes, there was an audit failure on the side of the auditors. And yes, there was some failure on the side of the bank and there was failure on the side of the (elected officials). But there’s also failure on the side of the residents, too. We should mind (government) business the same way we mind our personal affairs, but we don’t. B&G: Does a more aggressive active auditing function help protect an entity? Kelly Richmond Pope: Audits aren’t really designed to find fraud because they take a random sample of transactions. The best thing to do, I think, to protect an entity is to make sure that you have good training and a good internal whistleblowing process in place so that when people have something to say, they will. Those are the things I think are important. B&G: After a scandal, how hard is it to win back resident trust? Kelly Richmond Pope: It’s a tough thing to win back. It may take several administrations in order to do that. The tough part when scandal happens is the thing that you can’t see. It’s the emotional side, the emotional toll that you can’t clean up and that’s what I think is hard. #CityandCountyManagement #PerformanceManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentFraud #PublicSectorFinance #StateandLocalGovernment #GovernmentOversight #HumanResources #PublicSectorHumanResources #PublicSectorWorkforce #EmployeeEmbezzlement #DixonIllinois #PublicFinance #AllTheQueensHorses #GovernmentAccountability #GovernmentAuditing #Whistleblowing #GovernmentTrust #KellyRichmondPope #GovernmentFinancialScandal #StateandLocalGovernmentFinancialScandal #StateofIllinois #TrustinGovernment #StateandLocalGovernmentEmployeeEmbezzlement #PublicSectorFraud

Over the course of years, we’ve given speeches about a variety of topics -- ranging from human resources to performance management to budgeting. But whatever the nature of the talk, when it’s time for Q&A, eventually someone asks us something like this: “There’s so much good happening in our government. How come the press never seems interested in anything but bad news?” First, we suggest in a transparently self-serving way, that if people want to get out important news about their government, they should write to us or call us. After we wait for the audience members to chuckle a bit (which they sometimes do), we generally offer up one or more of the following six pieces of advice, and we thought we'd share them with readers of this B&G Report. 1) Reach Out Yourself. Sometimes state and local governments will send out a press release to announce a new exciting program or initiative. These days that press release often comes through e-mail. But it takes little reflection to realize that the average person who can get an article published has an in-box full of messages competing for attention. What’s more, an impersonal press release is far less likely to capture a writer’s interest than a more informal personal note. Caution here: It’s easy to tell when a mass mailing is being disguised as a personal note, even when the recipient’s name is at the top. You might be surprised to hear how many allegedly personal notes we get that are addressed to “Dear Barrett,” because our company is “Barrett and Greene,” Inc. and auto-generated letter-makers think Barrett must be the first name. (And “and” must be our middle name, like “the” is the middle name of “Smokey the Bear,) We understand that practically everyone in state and local government is overloaded with work, and that writing a good note takes a little time. But that can be the cost of communicating in an effective way. 2) Don’t oversell. We’re talking here about getting good news out. But when the good news is tempered with whatever cautionary details are pertinent it has a great deal more credibility. For example, if there are no proven results for a new program, but you’re excited about its potential, it’s not a bad idea to make that clear to someone who is interviewing you. Some people are inclined to pepper their interviews with multiple superlatives about how the effort underway in their city, county or state is “the first of its kind,” or “a major innovation,” or a “best practice.” And that may be effective with reporters who are reasonably new on the job. But, to borrow a phrase from the advertising industry, you’re “selling the sizzle, not the steak.” Ultimately, if an interviewer asks you for concrete examples about the potent results of the effort, and you have none, that won’t do anyone any good. 3) Tell stories. This may be the single most important piece of counsel we have to offer. Much of the good work being done by government can be pretty complicated in nature. And if you confine yourself to “prose that’s gritty with numbers,” as an old college friend of ours put it, you can easily lose someone’s attention. Consider, for a moment, the kinds of articles that you enjoy reading. It’s our guess that for most of you, it’s the anecdotes that capture your attention. So, providing the stories up front is just good common sense. 4) Try not to pivot. We know for a fact that some institutions train their employees to stick to a bunch of pre-arranged story points when they’re talking to someone in the press. And if a question comes up that’s not part of one of those themes, the idea is to “pivot,” and stay on message. As far as we can see, this might be totally effective if you’re being interviewed, live, for television or radio. The interviewer may not have the time to dig deeper and get you back to the question that was originally asked. But, speaking for ourselves – and we think for others – changing the subject, however subtly, can be frustrating and annoying, and diminishes the chances that the story you want to tell will be told. Instead, we’d recommend answering the question directly, and then pointing the interviewer to the thoughts that you think are important and necessary for readers to completely understand what’s going on. 5) Don’t lie. As we type those words, we picture some of the readers of this B&G report feeling a sense of distaste. Calling people liars is a nasty business. So, maybe we should use a more tasteful phrasing: “Don’t dissemble.” Still, however gently we phrase this idea, it’s not uncommon for people to want to fudge the facts a bit to make things look better. Talking about “huge numbers” of people who support an idea, when in fact, you only know that there are a couple of dozen is a common example. Then too, there are lies (oh, that word) of omission. Failing to mention that a new program is really just in its pilot stages can get it covered. But if the reporter eventually discovers the truth, you’ll have lost credibility. And given the relatively small number of people who are likely to be covering your story, it’s not wise to be seen as an unreliable source. 6) Follow Up When You Say You Will. If, during the course of a conversation with an interviewer, you don't have a fact or figure handy that's easy to understand. There's no reason not to offer to look it up and get back. But when you make that offer, don't forget, or keep the reporter waiting for a long time (or worse yet, ignore entreaties to provide the remaining numbers). This isn't just counterproductive. It's rude. And rude won't get you quoted. #GovernmentMediaRelations #PublicSectorStoryTelling #StateandLocalStoryTelling #StateandLocalManagement #StateandLocalCommunications #StateandLocalPressRelations #PublicSectorMediaRelations #B&GReportRecommendations

Aristotle had it right when he wrote, “The more you know, the more you know you don't know.” We’ve come across this idea repeatedly over the years in covering state and local governments. Those that are doing the best jobs – whether in HR, budgeting, procurement, infrastructure or any other field of public sector endeavor -- tend to be the ones who are most eager to do better. That’s because, in large part, they know how much can be accomplished in the future. Places that fall into the category we’ve long labeled as laggards, frequently believe that they’ve already accomplished what they need to, and don’t understand that there’s more that can be done. We first became aware of this phenomenon in the early 1990s when we were working on the predecessor of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Government Performance Project, for a now defunct and pretty much forgotten magazine called Financial World. We were evaluating and grading a few dozen cities’ management capacity in a variety of areas including one that we then called “Managing for Results,” (which we now think of, more broadly, as performance management). We did something like 150 interviews to do our evaluations in this category to supplement a survey instrument, we had designed for them to fill out. (Some of the relationships we formed then are still active, though most of our sources back then have since retired or left this earthly plane.) At some point in these conversations, we would ask the people with whom we were speaking to self-evaluate their entity. One of the first cities, in which we talked to management leaders, was Seattle. When we asked them to self-evaluate, they told us how much work still had to be done there. We assumed, based on their self-flagellation, that they’d probably come out with a grade of C. Then we talked to more cities, and as time went on it became increasingly clear to us that Seattle was doing a better job than most. What’s more, we began to see that many of the places that gave themselves glowing self-evaluations were doing everything they thought should be done – but that turned out to be very little at all. We won’t name names. This phenomenon – which we dubbed “The Seattle Syndrome” – has repeated itself over the following decades and up until this day. We ran into one example several years ago when we were chatting with people in Washington State’s King County – the twelfth largest county in the country – for a column in Route Fifty about the utility of data in efforts to improve equity, diversity and inclusion in states and localities. We’ve often covered these issues and knew that King County was a national leader in these efforts. In fact. the place actually decided in 2005 to change the meaning of the word “King” in its name from a remembrance of a slaveholder (Rufus King) to one that stands for Martin Luther King, Jr. Though we were talking to people in King County to get ideas that other communities could emulate – and we accomplished that -- we were also told that program managers there saw their efforts as a work in progress, saw problems, and had great plans to improve the county’s efforts to measure and evaluate performance across the enterprise. The fact that leaders in King County recognized ample room for improvement – even though they were already doing a great job – was a mindset we deeply admire. #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceMeasurement #ManagingforResults #GovernmentPerformanceProject #PewCharitableTrusts #FinancialWorldEvaluationofGovernmentManagement #GradingCityManagement #CityofSeattle #KingCounty #SelfEvaluationFoibles

We have to admit it. More than once we’ve referred to a policy or management approach as a “best practice.” But mostly those words were originally uttered by a source we quoted. Frankly, those two overwhelmingly common words often make us uneasy. There may be cases in which best practices can apply from city to city and state to state. Best budgeting practices, for example – such as those developed by the Government Finance Officers Association – can certainly be useful. It’s an accepted best practice in budgeting, for example, that entities should cover current year expenditures with current year revenues -- not revenues borrowed from the future. Who can argue with that? Outside of budgeting, there are some other areas in which best practices can certainly hold up. And many of them. which may not have held true in the past, are now thankfully self-evident. In human resources, for example, it's certainly a best practice to make every effort to avoid explicit or implicit racism in hiring or recruiting. Or consider the realm of information technology, where no one can deny that sufficient training can be fairly called a best practice. Before we go on, it seems worthwhile for us to provide our own definition of "best practice." Others may disagree, but it's the way the words sound to us -- and we suspect to many others. We believe that the ubiquitous phrase should be used to describe management policies that can be applied pretty much universally. Best practices, we'd argue, should be something like plug and play models that others can pick up and use with a reasonable assurance of success. But that's often not the way the words are used. For example, the latest glittery idea that seems appealing (but has only been proven as worthwhile in a smattering of places) can often be dubbed as best. We see this all over the place. People writing reports for any number of significant organizations will take the study of a handful of cities or states and list approaches they’ve uncovered as “best.” Not to seem cynical, but we've noticed that often the words "best practice" are used in consulting firms to sell their own approaches. For years, it was considered a best practice that states set aside exactly 5% of revenues in their rainy day funds. No more. No less. When we researched the topic, we discovered that precise number emanated from an off-the-cuff comment in a speech given by a leader in one of the ratings agencies. As years have passed, thinking on the topic has grown more sophisticated. The Volcker Alliance, for example, has thrown that 5% figure out the window and encourages states to tie their reserve funding to the volatility of revenues. Here are five reasons we are concerned when a best practice is ballyhooed by a government official. 1) Ideas that work in rural areas often don't apply well to densely populated cities 2) Approaches for homogeneous regions may leave out elements important in places with greater diversity 3) Things that work well in healthy economic times may need to be forgotten in the depths of a recession 4) Changing times generally require new solutions. For example, in the depths of the pandemic it was a best practice not to shake hands. Nowadays, people even hug hello. 5) The label is too often applied before a notion has been properly evaluated and proven to be generally workable. Fortunately, there are a number of alternative phrases that can be somewhat more accurate. We prefer "promising," "leading," or "accepted" practice. None of these reflects a universally, unquestionably, absolutely superior way of doing government business. Ultimately, this is all just a matter of semantics. The fundamental reason we feel as we do about practices being labeled the “best,” is that this phrasing may stand in the way of the evolution of thinking that’s necessary for progress in states and localities. If we know the best way to do something, then why look for a better way? And the search for better functioning government is the core of what we do for a living. #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #EvidenceBasedPractices #BestPracticeCynicism #ErroneousBestPracticeLabeling #AvoidingBestPracticeLabels #StateandLocalBudgeting #StateManagement #LocalManagement #PerformanceManagement #EvidenceBasedManagement #EvidenceBasedDecisionMaking #EvidenceBasedDecisionMakingShortcoming #GovernmentConsultantOverreach

It may seem a little heavy-handed, but for years now we’ve been writing about the endless reams of bad data that are used to manage and to make policy. For the most part, we’ve pointed to issues that require careful examination of the information to determine if its trustworthy or not. But, as time has passed, we’ve come across a great many signals, easily spotted and identified, that point to quicker recognition that information should be scrutinized. Here are a half dozen examples: 1) Beware comparisons between absolute figures that come from different size cities or states. If, for example, something criminal happens to hundreds of people in California that may not be nearly as alarming a situation as when the same thing happens to dozens of residents of Wyoming or North Dakota. 2) Sometimes reports or articles use numbers that are so precise as to be unbelievable. It seems to us that when project spending is reported as $1,436,432.15, there’s no legitimate way to figure costs out to cents, dollars or hundreds of dollars. A tight range is often more useful and believable. 3) Speaking of ranges, it’s self-evidently problematic when an expense is reported as somewhere between $100 and $500 million. Either not enough due diligence has been done, or the estimators are living in the Land of the Wild Guess. 4) If you’re relying on data for which no assumptions are provided dig deeper. When discount rates vary between two state pension plans, it’s entirely possible that the liability figures are not comparable. 5) Watch out for figures that are huge beyond common sense. Some years ago, there was a lot of talk about one million children being abducted each year. Living in New York City, news reports were full of the story of just one little boy, Etan Patz who was last seen at a bus stop in lower Manhattan. How could it be that if such huge numbers of children were disappearing, one child was getting so very much attention? It turned out, according to the Denver Post in 1986 that the “national paranoia" raised by the one million figure wasn’t really reflective of scary men luring children into their cars with candy – but rather children taken in a custody battle. (And the often repeated one million figure was also an exaggeration. In 2017, the Justice Department reported that the number of serious parental abductions is closer to 156,000 annually of which about 30,500 reach the level of a police report.) 6) Information that is self-reported to the federal government by states or by cities and counties to the states can he questionable. A question like “does your city use performance information,” can get “yes” answers regardless of differing definitions and degree of use. In the past a big-city mayor told us that his community used measurements to make decisions about road conditions. When we pursued the question, it developed that the only data the city had was an accumulation of citizen complaints about potholes. #StateandLocalDataManagement #StateDataQuality #CityDataQuality #CountyDataQuality #SuspiciousGovernmentData #FlawedGovernmentData #BadData #InaccurateGovernmentData #StateandLocalGovernmentDataHazard #StateLocalGovernmentDataHazard #AvoidingInaccurateStateGovernmentDataComparisons #AvoidingGovernmentDataErrors #HowToIdentifyBadGovernmentData #TrustAndFaultyGovernmentData #StateGovernmentDataAssumptions #StateLocalPensionPlanDiscountRate #PublicSectorDataCaution #DataStandardization #SelfReportedDataSkepticism #SpottingCommonGovernmentDataMistakes

Picture this: You’ve gotten off the interstate highway, and are trying to get to your destination of choice. Your car runs into a big pothole, and you feel the nauseating sensation that accompanies one of your tires slowly flattening. Who should you be annoyed at for the lack of reasonable maintenance? The town? The county? The state? Bet a nickel that you – like we – rarely have any idea who’s responsible for the roads you’re using. Or maybe the roads are just filthy. What governmental entity has let the debris gather? Who knows? But shouldn’t you care about this kind of thing, especially when it comes time to vote for county commissioners, mayors or governors? Roads are a particularly good example of a phenomenon that we think stands in the way of the citizenry’s ability to deal with, or even have trust in, government: On all sorts of levels, people simply don’t know what government does what, with just a handful of exceptions. We don’t believe, for example, anyone is confused enough to think that Minneapolis has the capacity to send troops overseas. Then there are the social services government provides. We’ve had any number of casual conversations with friends, who don’t work in government, and believe that Medicaid is entirely paid for by the federal government. But, of course, it’s shared by states and the feds, and in New York City, by the city, too. (For that matter many people don't even understand the difference between Medicaid and federally supported Medicare.) But if you don’t know who’s paying the bills, how can you possibly think through the issues involved with American health care, which pop up in the press relentlessly. Education is another big one. While the U.S. Department of Education is a hugely important federal agency, it provides fewer than 10% of the dollars that actually go to education. Most of the rest comes from states and localities, with states taking the lion’s share of that. And of course, the state/local split varies a great deal depending on where you live. Then there are jails and prisons. The former are generally under the auspices of counties, and the latter are run by the states. The level of government that tends to suffer most from this confusion are the counties. Not only do are they frequently overlooked by individuals, even the federal government sometimes forget that they even exist. As we wrote in a white paper for the IBM Center for the Business of Government, “Though counties represent the level of government that tends to get the least attention, they have historically served as the cornerstones of health policies, including immunizations that keep diseases like diphtheria, pertussis, and measles at bay. Yet when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a playbook to guide vaccination distribution in October of 2020, counties barely received a mention." So here we have a modest proposal. Wouldn’t it be cool if any visible sign of government work were labeled with the origin of its funding? So, the snow truck would have a sign on the side saying, “Your streets are being kept clear through city tax dollars.” Or, “this jail is making life safer for you, courtesy of your county.” We know that’ll never happen. But we like the idea. Do you? #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalTransporation #StateandLocalGovernmentTransparency #StateandLocalGovernmentAccountability #StateandLocalCitizenOutreach #StateandLocalCivicEducation #IntergovernmentalRelations #IntergovernmentalIgnorancy #CountyRoads #StateRoads #CityStreets #FederalHighways #ConfusingIntergovernmentalResposibility #TrustinGovernment #RoadManagement #StateandLocalInfrastructureManagement #IBMCenterfortheBusinessofGovernment #CountyIgnorance #CitizenCivicIgnorance #PerplexingGovernmentREsponsibilties #SharedGovernmentalResponsibility #BandGReport #BandGRecommendation