Archive
More than 225 years after the first one, states are considering whether to call a second as a way to rein in the feds. But no one really knows what a convention can and can’t do and how it would work.
With kids on the decline in urban areas, cities can make themselves more attractive to young families by building more playgrounds.
Politicians sometimes promise to eliminate problems like smoking or traffic deaths, but what does that mean for policy?
The cumulative impact of voting-rule changes on the outcome of several key state races in November looks to be hit or miss.
The 32-year-old secretary of state wants to make Missouri’s ethics laws, which are currently among the nation’s weakest, some of the strongest.
Recognizing that the majority of calls they get are now people seeking medical help, some fire departments are diving deeper into a medical role.
Gray Davis was recalled as governor of California -- and recalled again by a minor league baseball team.
More job openings, pay raises and better benefits all appear to be on state and local government managers' minds.
All the public-sector management news you need to know.
Thanks to technology, the systems that run our cities are becoming more and more interconnected. But how we use those systems is always going to be guided by human intelligence.
There are many lessons for public leaders in how a New York City park was brought back from chaos.
As consolidations have become increasingly more common across the country, Massachusetts has the nation's only independent state agency focused on evaluating their effects.
There's a growing trend of teaching young people (especially those from demographic groups that historically haven’t embraced biking) how to repair and ride bikes.
‘Design thinking’ is revolutionizing retailing, and it could revolutionize the delivery of government services.
A city with one of the nation’s worst blight problems is now considered a national leader in reducing vacant and dilapidated properties.
See 50 years state government jobs data.
Gov. Jan Brewer, who developed an international reputation for her vociferous attacks on illegal immigration, is ending her career as an elected politician at the end of the year. But she’s not retiring from politics.
A group of local pension plans has a strategy to fight 2-and-20 fees and lower the costs of private equity investments.
A new report by Smart Growth America charges that states are spending too much on new roads while existing infrastructure deteriorates.
Several school systems are implementing so-called wraparound programs in an effort to help troubled kids, families and communities.
Mark Funkhouser, the former mayor of Kansas City, Mo., and director of the Governing Institute, will replace outgoing publisher Erin Waters.
Facing a national shortage of experts able to battle the growing number of cyberthreats, Delaware's new initiative to boost its cybersecurity workforce could be a model for other states.
When it comes to trying something new in the public sector, we're especially averse to risk. But there are ways to gain support for these kinds of initiatives.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
A new report details state legislation that impacted the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. While much of the report strikes a hopeful note, it also anticipates more political battles ahead.
All the public-sector management news you need to know.
Republicans hold the lead in governorships, but Democrats may be making slight gains in this year's gubernatorial races.
Read the governor's annual address.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
We examine the tossup gubernatorial races in the six states where votes will likely matter the most.
How governments respond to the widening rift between rural and urban America can either help bridge the gap or drive the country down an even more divergent path.
As Texans head to the polls in the year's first primary today, we look at how the Republicans are faring in this year’s gubernatorial races.
Florida has been limiting Medicaid patients to six emergency room visits a year even though federal officials consider such a cap illegal.
Utah tests the state's appetite for wearable technology as part of an overall strategy to try to better serve mobile users.
The National Guard has a critical role to play in coordinating cyber-resources across federal, state and local governments.
If all the parties approve it, a recent agreement will preserve most of the benefits of a sweeping reform law.
There are hurdles that are keeping governments at all levels from realizing the full benefits of cloud computing. To overcome them, we will need new kinds of collaboration.
A new survey shows how cities used money from the 2009 stimulus package to invest in energy efficient infrastructure.
More and more seniors are creating naturally occurring retirement communities, forcing cities to rethink zoning laws and how they provide services.
States are trying to figure out how to budget for a new Affordable Care Act fee that varies based on how much they rely on managed-care companies.
Politicians took to Twitter to respond to the court's decision to strike down Texas' ban on same-sex marriage.
With the ways for funding transportation infrastructure changing, what options do Congress and the states have left?
These people are some of the hardest-working and most innovative individuals in the field of government technology.
Many states and localities are cutting their employees' hours to avoid having to offer them health insurance. Some say they'll make up the workload by hiring more temporary workers.
Frustrated by government inaction, citizens in cities across the country are taking traffic problems into their own hands. But the cities aren't always thankful.
Government officials are intensely aware of the political need to spread out resources equally but doing so means there probably won’t be enough to make a major impact anywhere.
Wage hikes have become the highest-profile antipoverty proposals in states and localities. But some advocates say boosting the Earned Income Tax Credit would be better for the working poor.
The design for part of one of Los Angeles’ airports was inspired by the spacecraft from the film The War of the Worlds.
As many states embrace managed care in an effort to provide quality, affordable health care, some are rushing the switch from fee-for-service care and running into problems.
A few municipalities have banned the use of pesticides on private property, but some state lawmakers don't think it should be up to the localities to decide.
The LGBT population makes up a disproportionate share of homeless youth, so the District wants to make its shelters safer and more accommodating for them.
Allowing drought-plagued Californians to see how much water their neighbors use inspired customers to consume 5 percent less.
In its 25 years, the Internet has drastically changed how government works.
Despite complaints about well-educated white people buying up houses in low-income minority neighborhoods, recent studies show that gentrification often helps the original residents.
Just as seeds need fertilizer to grow well, innovation requires nurturing too.
Since Congress has trouble tying its shoes, states and localities must take the lead reversing the dangerous trends of rising inequality and stagnant mobility.
After years under Michael Bloomberg, known to many as a “downtown mayor,” New Yorkers are looking to their new mayor to refocus resources on communities.
Americans are hungrier now than they've been in generations. Some states are fighting it, but they can only do so much with a Congress committed to cutting budgets.
Some media websites allow people to blog without disclosing their identities, but some worry that can confuse readers and spread misinformation.
In the 1800s, Philadelphia built a prison that isolated inmates so they could meditate and become genuinely penitent. But as views on isolating inmates evolved over time, the prison was forced to close its doors.
The city is retooling its community colleges to graduate more students ready for the workforce. Some worry the changes aren't focused on finding graduates the best kind of jobs.
311 systems have revolutionized the way cities gather information, allowing them to tackle small problems before they get too big. But running them can be extremely costly.
Big infrastructure projects shape our physical environments and even the very wealthiest can't stop those changes once asphalt or steel is poured.
See numbers of worker making the federal minimum wage in each state for 2013.
The assertion that a program will save more money than it costs in the long term is a difficult one to demonstrate.
When the city's marijuana-licensing program faced a crisis, a team trained in efficiency showed how nimble public employees can be.
According to a new report, the share of households that spend more than half of their income on housing slightly declined last year – but the trend could be short-lived. View data for every state.
All the public-sector management news you need to know.
The Affordable Care Act gave state insurance commissioners the power to review rate increases of 10 percent or more but left it up to the states to decide whether they also have the power to reject them.
Government-sponsored challenge competitions save money and harness the public's ingenuity to solve difficult problems.
There are plenty of ways for things to go wrong with any transformational initiative. Leaders need to keep five key success factors in mind.
View demographic data for public transportation ridership in 100 U.S. cities.
People who use public transportation are disproportionately poorer than other commuters in nearly every U.S. city, according to an analysis.
Of the 17 states that have placed additional regulations on the people helping consumers sign up for coverage on the insurance exchanges, Texas has enacted some of the strictest.
Crucial (and complicated) concepts in public money explained.
Crucial (and complicated) concepts in public money explained.
A new report lays out several fiscal planning tools that can help officials see what's sustainable.
Imagine spending your lunch break at a book club meeting. That’s what some Baltimore city employees do and it’s inspired changes throughout the city.
Too often, governments simply take savings from successful human services programs and inject them into the general fund. But that's a dangerous practice.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
Recent audits reveal how poor strategic planning leads to lost opportunities for governments that are looking for new ways to deliver services at the lowest cost possible.
Increasingly, these associations are being used as proving grounds for governors that want to run for a national office.
A presidential commission's recommendations focus largely on improving the polling-place experience. But why do we even need polling places? Let's let everyone vote by mail.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
All the public-sector management news you need to know.
A new report details which states are enacting policies aimed at helping low-income Americans become more financially secure and whether those policies translate into change.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
The states' widening ideological gulfs have begun to spill over into the implementation of federal programs. Are we headed for an age of 'variable-speed' federalism?
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
The Denver-area union blames privatization, but the causes for its retirement fund's troubles are familiar ones that run deeper.
Several mayors have promised to tackle income inequality, but some cast doubt that cities can make a difference.
This week's roundup of money (and other) news that governments can use touches on retirement security, ridiculously cold weather, superdowngrades and more.
In an effort to improve health care, more states are requiring private insurers to provide information about their claims.
View and compare funded ratios for 246 state pension systems.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
Analysts see a better year ahead, but say there are factors that could cause a 2013 repeat.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
When the Jaguars played in London last year, the Florida city's mayor tagged along and used the trip to convince a top financial investment firm to open a new office in Jacksonville.
View state population estimates, including births, deaths and net migration totals.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
The president's State of the Union address included five references to state governments.
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee introduced a plan to subsidize school choice for poor kids in any state. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina is narrowing his attention to students with disabilities or from military families.
Gov. Jan Brewer abolished the child protective services division in her state in the hopes of creating an independent agency that reports directly to her -- something only 10 other states have done.
View current and historical totals for union membership by state.
The Fitch Ratings agency has panned Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposal to save Detroit’s pension fund, calling it “troubling” for bondholders.
Waze and other apps want to save drivers 10 minutes every day, but safety experts say it's too dangerous to use these apps while driving.
While union membership has slowly waned over the past several decades, some states are recording steeper declines than others.
After Phoenix used competition to effectively eliminate veteran homelessness, Chris Coleman, mayor of St. Paul, Minn., will challenge towns in Iowa and Ohio to eliminate veteran homelessness by 2015.
This week's roundup of money (and other) news that governments can use touches on the California drought, college sports and more.
Lawsuits say Health Management Associates used a complicated mix of sophisticated software systems, financial incentives and threats to inflate the company’s payments from Medicare and Medicaid.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson has spent this week on the defensive after he was quoted harshly criticizing Detroit in a controversial New Yorker article.
Read and watch the speech here.
Big problems are solved by collaboration. Asking people to do things is a skill every leader needs.
More than half the states enacted laws to combat metal theft last year, but there’s little analysis of which legislative policies actually work.
California voters eased restrictions in 2012 on how long lawmakers can serve. The changes are already helping some think more about the future when crafting policies.
In 2012, the federal government issued $5.2 billion in tax refunds to people who falsified their identity. Georgia found a way to keep that money out of scammers’ pockets.
In leveraging public-private partnerships to replace many of its deficient bridges, Pennsylvania's new approach is realistic about the true costs of a transportation asset.
This 20-foot sculpture is made from 90,000 stainless steel pet tags.
For every future project the District of Columbia undertakes, it will ask the same question: How does this impact the public’s health?
75 percent of Americans can’t put solar panels on their property. Community-owned solar gardens allow those people to take advantage of renewable energy for a fraction of the cost, but they need state and local support to grow.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
Some of the most promising experiments to improve quality of care while cutting expenses are taking place at the local level.
The Attorney General is poised to beat Democrat Wendy Davis in the state's nationally watched and heated governor's race, but most Texans know very little about him.
In the past year, several states have either created or rekindled grant programs dedicated to improving freight service.
Nikki Haley has railed against the new education standards as she runs for reelection in a state known for its disdain of anything that reeks of federal intrusion. But Common Core was absent from her 90-minute address that was heavy on education.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
Watch and read the governor's annual address.
Read and watch the governor's annual address.
An analysis of retirement data finds that pension reforms contributed to significantly more workers filing retirement paperwork in at least six states.
