Jonathan Walters

Recent Articles

• Performance Auditing: Beyond 'Gotcha!'
• Oct 31, 2009
• It's been about five years since Washington State Auditor Brian Sonntag announced the launch of his ambitious effort to bring a new style of performance...
• 2 Comments

• Is Hydrofracking for Natural Gas Worth the Risk?
• Sep 30, 2009
• Learn why hydrofracking is important to Russia and the Middle East for accessing reserves of natural gas a mile-deep.
• 17 Comments

• For Unions, Tough Bargaining Times
• Sep 30, 2009
• This summer, St. Petersburg, Florida, Mayor Rick Baker declared a fiscal emergency. He wanted to reopen a union contract and put the brakes on scheduled 2010...

• Lean Legacy
• Aug 31, 2009
• The deal seemed too good to pass up or to ever undo: Iowa would create "charter agencies" and give them unprecedented freedom and flexibility to...
• 4 Comments

• Iowa's Lean Initiatives
• Jul 31, 2009
• While charter agencies may have disappeared in Iowa, the spirit of charters lives on in the state's "lean" initiative. According to John Baldwin, head of...

• Investing in Outcomes
• May 31, 2009
• While pondering how to help people recovering from a mental illness, Elise Sanford, a photographer and mental health advocate in Athens, Ohio, had a hunch:...
• 2 Comments

• 'Creaming' Clients
• May 31, 2009
• There is a consistent concern with performance-based contracting in education, physical and mental health, and social services: Providers will want to sign up only those...

• Risky Business
• Apr 30, 2009
• In 2006, Georgia's information technology systems were a borderline mess. No one was a harsher critic than the man in charge of them. "Our business model...
• 1 Comments

• O Citizen, Where Art Thou?
• Mar 31, 2009
• Bev Stein remembers with dismay the public budget hearing that marked her debut as the chief elected executive in Multnomah County, Oregon. Although it happened...
• 1 Comments

• The Millennial in the Cubicle
• Jan 31, 2009
• It takes a single-minded sense of purpose for a government worker to rack up 349,170 Web-site visits during work hours over five months. That sense of...

• Novices with the Numbers
• Nov 30, 2008
• In his first job out of graduate school, Will Barnow practices performance measurement every day. Barnow works in the Maricopa County Office of Justice Systems...