WEBSITE RETROSPECTIVE 2025.
B&G REPORTS, 2025 – OUR PERSONAL FAVORITES.
We talk to a lot of very smart public servants and are sometimes lulled into thinking that their approaches to management are more widespread than they are. Here are some of the HR trends we’ve reported based on our interviews, along with our realization that some promising practices may not be as widespread as we thought. Published on September 22, 2025.
We provide lessons we’ve learned over decades that can help cities, counties and states achieve the benefits of performance management and avoid the pitfalls that can hobble worthwhile efforts at measuring and evaluating programs and results. Published on July 20, 2025.
We seem to like lists. We provide eight situations in which prose that is “gritty with numbers” arouses our suspicions. Published on May 12, 2025.
When people ask what we do for a living, our one-line answer is that we “research, analyze and write about state and local government.” The next question they ask is almost always about the politics of their city, council or state – not how well they are managed or what exciting new programs they are developing. We share our wish to see less attention focused on politics and more focused on government itself -- the programs and services delivered; how they work and how to make them work better. Published on February 10, 2025.
Exhausted from long days at work, we spend our evenings in a similar fashion to others – watching streaming television programs. The three at the top of our list at the beginning of the year were past seasons of reality shows. Perhaps you might guess that the first two were Amazing Race and Survivor. But the last one was something of a surprise to us: America’s Next Top Model. The result? Our TV watching habits led to this B&G Report, which covers “a half dozen tips derived from reality tv and how they relate to state and local government management.” Published on January 6, 2025.
GUEST COLUMNS, 2025.
Nearly every Wednesday, we publish a new guest column, for a total of 49 in 2025. Our authors this year included governors, legislators, city managers, public policy professors, deans, association directors and presidents, state and city auditors, CIOs, and a wide variety of current and retired state and local department directors, as well as city, county and state government employees.
To read any of the 125 guest columns we’ve published since the fall of 2023 (when we launched the current website), see the full archive at the bottom of the last column published in 2025, which was written by Teryn Zmuda, chief research officer and chief economist at the National Association of Counties.
If you’d like to write a guest column for Greenebarrett.com in 2026, we welcome suggestions. They tend to run about 850 words, with ideas discussed prior to submission.
Here are three of our favorites from this year:
“EFFICIENCY IS NOT AN EXCUSE FOR PARALYSIS”
By Brooks Williams, City Manager, Ferris, Texas, published October 1, 2025
When floods in Central Texas in early July resulted in the deaths of over 130 people, Texans were outraged. As is generally the case in these kinds of disasters, blame was placed here, there everywhere.
But the real story here is not about the failure of local leaders. It is about a system created in Austin that works exactly the way it was built to work. For more than a decade, state legislators have chipped away at the ability of cities and counties to prepare, to plan, and to protect. They framed it as “tax relief.” They wrapped it in the language of “efficiency.” What they actually built was a structure that leaves local governments defenseless when the moment of truth arrives. (To read more click here:)
GOVERNMENTAL MISTAKES THAT LIVE FOREVER
By Tina Pruett, Human Resources Manager, Pleasanton, California, published July 9, 2025
Organizational debt isn’t just a buzzword—it’s something I’ve lived. Several years ago, I started a new job in a government agency and sat in on the training for a process I’d overseen in multiple other organizations. As the trainer went over each process, I found myself asking, “Why are we doing it this way?”
Each time, the answer was essentially the same: “Because once, years ago, someone made a mistake—and we added this step to make sure it never happens again.” (To read more, click here.)
HOW TO GET A LEGISLATOR TO LISTEN
By Erick Allen, management consultant and former Georgia state representative, published April 2, 2025.
We all know the famous quote from Gideon Tucker. “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” I would also add peace of mind to that list, but that’s just me.
I was a member of the Georgia state legislator from 2019 to 2023, and I know from personal experience that this is the time of year when elected officials are all stressed and looking around the corner to see what may be coming and how it will impact them both individually and in the work that they do...
One of the questions I often get (and enjoy answering) is how to best educate and communicate a position with a legislator. (To Read more, click here.)
INSPIRATIONAL WOMEN IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT, 2025.
In March 2025, Envisio, in partnership with the League of Women in Government, and the Alliance for Innovation, funded and ran a nomination process to select four honorees as “Inspirational Women in Local Government” (This followed up on a similar project on the this website in March 2024.)
Here are the four women who were selected by a panel of judges from dozens of nominations around the US in 2025.
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LETICIA CALLANEN: FOCUS ON OUTCOMES
To read our profile and Q&A with Letitia Callanen, Strategic Planning & Performance Manager for the City of Aurora, Colorado, click here.
As Strategic Planning & Performance Manager for the City of Aurora, Colorado, Callanen has been the driving force behind the city’s strategy and performance management system . . . Beyond her work in local government, she is deeply committed to her community. She serves on the board of the Don’t Look Back Center, where she supports marginalized women as they rebuild their lives after addiction, trauma, PTSD, and domestic violence.
KAY BROWN-PATRICK: A PASSION FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
To read our profile and Q&A with Kay Brown-Patrick, Assistant Executive Director of Economic Development for the City of Arlington, Texas, click here.
Through her role, Brown-Patrick has developed award-winning small business programs that have provided funding, certifications, and contracting opportunities to hundreds of entrepreneurs. Here’s what her nominator said about her: “Kay is a transformational leader whose work in policy development, economic development, and equitable community advocacy has left an indelible mark on local government at many levels.”
ALAYNE KRAUSE: SERVANT LEADERSHIP
To read our profile and Q&A with Alayne Krause, County Administrator for Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, click here.
Starting her work in local government as a summer intern, she quickly rose through a sequence of positions and now leads a team of more than 900 employees across 19 departments.
Kraus sees her county administrator position as honoring the past while opening a new chapter that involves onboarding new department heads who are not tied to a ‘That’s how we’ve always done it mindset.’” In a time when employees have many options, we want to give them a chance to see the impact of their work and the value of public service,” she says.
MELISSA GIBSON: A MINDSET OF CONTINUOUS LEARNING
To read our profile and Q&A with Melissa Gibson, Assistant to the City Manager in Buckeye, Arizona, click here.
Gibson has been instrumental in leading transformational change within the city. She was nominated an astonishing 16 times for this series, with praise coming for her innovative community work, and her forward thinking, positive, inclusive and motivating attitude towards others.
She says her city’s vision “is to be a community of limitless possibilities. It really does feel like Buckeye is full of so many possibilities where you can achieve anything,” she says.
INSPIRATIONAL WOMEN, 2026.
The nominating process for “Inspirational Women of the Year”, 2026, will begin in January with profiles and Q&As with our four 2026 honorees to be published in March.
In the words of Liz Steward, who began this series at Envisio in 2021, the intention is not to only honor women who have reached the top of their profession, but to select outstanding public servants who are changing local government, mentoring their fellow employees and improving their communities at a wide variety of jobs. The goal, she wrote in a guest column in February, 2025, has been “to celebrate women’s achievements in an industry where few make it to the top...to learn and grow from their journeys, and to highlight the importance of female role models. Not just for our daughters, but for all of us—our sons.
NEW SPECIAL SECTIONS, 2025
Starting in March 2025, Civic Marketplace began supporting articles under the standing head, “PROCURING THE FUTURE”. The first article focused on procurement staffing issues. While procurement has remained a central theme in the monthly articles that started to appear in June, these special features have also focused on other critical management and performance topics, often touching on data and AI issues, like the current Q&A with Nicklas Berild Lundblad, “Creating a Learning City”.
PROCURING FOR THE FUTURE
THE FUTURE OF GOVERNMENT FINANCE
We’ve had a long-standing relationship with the Government Finance Officers Association, where we are advisors as well as serving as columnists for each issue of its publication, Government Finance Review.
In June, GFOA also began supporting bimonthly articles on our website under “The Future of Government Finance” standing head. These articles also are used in the GFOA Women’s Public Finance Network newsletter.
Both these sections are located midway down the homepage. Archived features can be found directly under the article that was published most recently.