Katherine Barrett & Richard Greene

Recent Articles

• An Ounce of Encouragement
• Jul 1, 2007
• Some states and localities are taking steps to get constituents to do what they ought to do anyway.

• "Low-Hanging Fruit" and Other Annoying Phrases
• Jul 1, 2007
• Plus: Overly expensive -- and overly designed -- logos, the Philadelphia Productivity Bank, and more
• 1 Comments

• Don't Ask
• Jul 1, 2007
• The more thoroughly you measure the depths of any problem, the bigger that problem will appear to be.

• B&G Interview: Questions for Carlos Alvarez and George Burgess
• Jun 1, 2007
• A conversation with the mayor and county manager of Miami-Dade

• Nerve-wracking Government Jargon
• Jun 1, 2007
• Plus: Unacceptably low graduation rates, the "paperful" office, and more

• The Listening Post
• May 1, 2007
• One of the toughest things for states or localities to do is get bona fide input from citizens on how they're doing.

• How to Get Employees to Sign Up for a "Voluntary" Effort
• May 1, 2007
• Plus: The broadband ZIP-code gap, transportation safety for emergency responders, and more

• B&G Interview: Questions for Laura Chick
• Apr 1, 2007
• A conversation with the controller for the city of Los Angeles

• The Future of Performance Management
• Apr 1, 2007
• Plus: The price of promptness, the problem with playing it safe, and more

• B&G Interview: Questions for John Cape
• Mar 1, 2007
• A conversation with former New York Governor George Pataki's budget director.

• Numbers, Crunched
• Mar 1, 2007
• If budgets are financial plans, then CAFRs tell you what happened to the plan. So why don't more people pay attention to them?

• Do You Know What You Own?
• Jan 1, 2007
• A surprising number of states and localities don't have the kind of inventory of their assets that a decent shoe store has.

• Speed Limits
• Nov 1, 2006
• Response time is the easiest but not necessarily the best measure of performance.

• When Boomers Retire
• Sep 1, 2006
• A number of states are looking to career-building programs to grow their workforces of the future.

• Short on Oversight
• May 1, 2006
• States and localities are outsourcing more of their services, but management of the contracts is in dire need of an upgrade.