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| APRIL 2008 In this month's Management Letter, columnist Ken Miller looks at what it takes to make government processes simpler and more useful for citizens -- and what we can learn from toothpaste and tax forms.
Public investments expert Girard Miller's columns this month focus on how states can evolve the divestment debate, how pension board trustees can avoid conflicts of interest, how some Wisconsin schools got their investments all wrong, and how two other states may be getting theirs just right. This month's B&G Report covers everything from solitaire and class sizes to murder/suicide threats as effective employee motivators. And coming soon from Governing: A new monthly email newsletter tracking trends for senior state and local leaders and other managers whose work involves health and social services. Human Services Monthly debuts this summer. Click here to subscribe |
 Competing Interests Moving Beyond Divestment Pension Board Room Follies Wisconsin Schools Flunk 'Investments 101' Pension Funds Think Outside the Box Benchmarking Livability • In MANAGEMENT INSIGHTS, some of America's top experts share their perspectives on getting the most out of government. The online-only column, a collaboration between Governing.com and Harvard University's Ash Institute for Democratic Innovation and Governance, is updated every Wednesday. Today's topic: the ethics of the Magnificent Seven. • MAYORS WHO INNOVATE: Also on Governing.com is a series of profiles by Stephen Goldsmith, a former Indianapolis mayor and director of the Innovations in American Government Program, profiling mayors around the country who are setting the pace in creative governance. Read the introduction. • Governing's STATE & LOCAL SOURCEBOOK is a powerful online tool providing a trove of frequently updated data on government, along with a comprehensive directory of contacts in state and local government: Sourcebook.governing.com You are receiving The Governing Management Letter because you requested it via Governing.com or the online print subscription process. Have colleagues who would benefit? Forward this edition to them -- they can subscribe by clicking here. To unsubscribe from The Governing Management Letter, click here. Governing Magazine/Governing.com |
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Katherine Barrett
& Richard Greene |
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We've never liked organizational charts. It always seems to us like they're an effort to fit a three-dimensional phenomenon into a two-dimensional space. KEEP READING How well do states treat their cities and towns? We asked that question last month, and some of the responses we got were astonishingly negative.KEEP READING While we're in the e-mail box, we wanted to share the following note from John Kysylyczyn, a former member of a relatively small pension board. He was responding to an item we wrote arguing that pension board members should be required to have a reasonably high level of training and education in the field before being entrusted with huge sums of money. CONTINUED BELOW
Be honest now. How many of you have played solitaire while on a government-owned computer? Or hearts? Or pinball (that's Katherine's favorite).KEEP READING A former editor of ours used to set his watch ahead 10 minutes in order to fool himself into arriving at meetings on time. We thought that was kind of silly. He was a bright guy, and it seemed to us that he must have long ago started compensating for the 10 minutes. Wisconsin just halted development of a $150 million computer project designed to replace about 100 accounting and other software programs across the state, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. But the paper suggests that there might be a silver lining around this particular cloud. Smaller class sizes are better. Everybody knows that's true, right? And, generally speaking, there's no question that educational outcomes are better when students aren't jammed into overcrowded classrooms. But a new study, "Class-Size Reduction: Policy, Politics, and Implications for Equity," makes some important points for managers to consider. KEEP READING Speaking of class sizes, apparently charter schools in Texas have been systematically overstating their admissions numbers — either by accident or on purpose — for a while now. KEEP READING How do you provide adequate incentives for employees? Cash? Time off? Plaques? Praise? The following is another notion — not one we'd advise. KEEP READING If you didn't already think that Wal-Mart and the other giant retail outlets were good places to buy nearly everything, here's something else to put on your government's shopping list: disaster preparedness. Our Source of the Month award goes to Newswise.com, which led us to the previous item. We use it regularly as a great way to keep up on all sorts of information, and thought we'd pass the tip along to you. Tax reform is tough business. Most efforts don't succeed, and it's hard to tell which ones will and which won't. So, we're not making any guesses about the new effort begun in Mississippi. KEEP READING All too many governmental programs claim substantial, if unsubstantiated, benefits. The latest of these to cross our desk came from a study by the Associated Industries of Massachusetts Foundation. KEEP READING The full B&G Report | Who are Barrett and Greene? | |||
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Governing's annual strategic leadership conference on Managing Technology is coming up May 28-30, returning to its original host city of Seattle. For more information,