Archive
Sometimes even the best program design and execution fail to get a government service to a recipient who needs it. There are ways to overcome those final hurdles.
Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee say they want more information from EPA nominee Gina McCarthy, despite having already asked her a record number of questions.
The reluctance of banks and major pension funds to underwrite loans for downtown projects has been a consistent problem for the struggling city.
Two bills aimed at eliminating obstacles facing transgender people cleared the Assembly largely along party lines Thursday, including one measure to let students choose the bathroom and sports team that correlates with their gender identity.
Texas has been a monster job creator over the past ten years with steady employment growth despite massive increases in the state's labor pool and a spike in unemployment in 2009.
The battle over plans for a series of massive coal export terminals across the Pacific Northwest took a new turn Wednesday when the energy company Kinder Morgan announced it was dropping its plan to build a $200-million facility on the Columbia River in northern Oregon.
Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown is expected to announce his plans to run for Governor in a speech today. The speech will also lay out several campaign priorities, including a stepped-up focus on fighting racial and other disparities in health care, education and employment.
Officials of Washington State said on Thursday that the Washington State Court System website has been hacked and about a million driver's license numbers and about 160,000 Social Security numbers may have been accessed.
A historic vote Thursday in the Minnesota House positioned that state to become the 12th in the country to allow gay marriages and the first in the Midwest to pass such a law out of its Legislature.
Thirty-eight states saw voter turnout drop last year, driven in large part by young adults and non-Hispanic whites heading to the polls at lower rates.
Better ways of using data can speed up solutions to urban issues. But a number of traditional problems stand in the way.
Map shows data for average hospital charges, by state, for treatment of various conditions.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has proposed making city streets more accommodating to bike riders while toughening penalties for drivers as well as cyclists who violate the rules of the road.
The two initiatives could quickly become the largest bike sharing programs of their kind in the U.S.
Federal grants that aided police in the Boston Marathon bombing have shrunk in recent years and are at risk of further cuts under the president's reform proposal.
In a speech where he hinted at a possible run for governor, former Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado called out Gov. Jerry Brown for his handling of prison crowding in the state, calling the policies being pursued an "early release" program.
The project would improve freight rail connections to the nation's largest port complex, but it could spur court challenges alleging violations of environmental and civil rights laws.
The effort failed on a 26-24 vote with Democrats against and Republicans in support.
The Minnesota Senate narrowly approved a modest increase to the state’s minimum wage that directly contrasts with the higher wage hike approved by the House and endorsed by Gov. Mark Dayton.
Seventeen other states have tuition waivers for foster children.
Four employees who tested positive for cocaine or high blood-alcohol levels — but faced no disciplinary actions — were among a handful of incidents described in an auditor general’s report.
Kate Brown said she has agreed to changes to address privacy concerns, as well as worries from minor political parties faced with rapidly increasing their numbers to keep their ballot status.
The administration of Gov. John Hickenlooper, as well as the oil and gas industry, opposed several of the bills.
Companies hoping to sell marijuana for medical use in Massachusetts will be required to hire an independent lab to test their products for contaminants, under final rules that regulators approved by unanimous vote.
D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson described the effort as a first-of-its-kind partnership that will produce neither a traditional school nor a charter school but something in between.
The bill, inspired by the case of Caylee Anthony, makes it a felony when parents knowingly fail to report to police their child has been missing for at least 24 hours.
New federal data sheds light on hospital pricing for the most common diagnoses and treatments. View data for your state.
As the legislature considers lifting a decades long ban on unconventional drilling which would allow hydraulic fracturing the state's unique geography is prompting concerns about disposal of the wastewater the drilling produces.
The Wisconsin legislature has passed a bill requiring recipients of food stamps to spend at least two-thirds of their assistance money on state-defined healthy foods. A separate bill re-addressing food stamp fraud was also passed.
The state is the first to establish regulations for legalized marijuana. But hanging over them is the possibility that the feds will take action.
Act 2, part of Gov. Bobby Jindal's 2012 package of education reforms, diverts money from each student's per-pupil allocation to cover the cost of private or parochial school tuition.
The bill approved was the sixth try in the past three years to pass a stoned-driving limit, which supporters say will give prosecutors a tool to combat an increase in stoned-driving cases.
Presidential budgets are all about theater. But this year’s was more theatrical than most: Its biggest single new proposal — the sin tax to generate $78 billion to fund a preschool education program — vanished almost as soon as Obama announced it four weeks ago.
Mark Sanford is headed back to Congress after trouncing Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch with 54 percent of the votes, a 9 percentage point victory that dashed predictions of a close race.
Delaware is the 11th state to legalize same-sex marriage.
The bill sets aside $10 million in state money to allow public schools to apply for matching grants to hire police officers for schools that don’t already have them.
Something was missing at a public hearing held by the State Senate to examine New York City’s campaign finance system: the public.
Political experts say the New Jersey governor's decision to undergo stomach surgery in an effort to lose weight could help his chances at a presidential run in 2016.
Baltimore schools CEO Andrés Alonso tearfully announced his resignation, ending a six-year tenure marked by bold yet often divisive reforms and casting uncertainty on the future of the long-troubled school system.
A new report by the Government Accountability Office forecasts a gloomy outlook for state and local government budgets, finding an ever-widening gap between projected revenues and expenses for years to come.
A newly released federal report reveals that the number of people who died in traffic accidents inched up last year, reversing a downward trend in road deaths that began in 2006.
The California Supreme Court gave local governments the power Monday to zone medical marijuana dispensaries out of existence, a decision that upholds bans in about 200 cities but does little to solve Los Angeles' struggle to regulate hundreds of storefront pot outlets.
Despite opposition from national Democrats, the former Vermont governor's bid to build up party infrastructure in every state was a success in the unlikeliest of places -- at least while it lasted.
Pat Brady, the chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, announced his resignation Tuesday amid a simmering controversy over his support for gay marriage legislation.
One wonders what incentive there is to work for a government at all unless you’re in it for the long haul.
No longer just concerned with saving the state's underfunded pension system money, reform efforts now seek to stop allowing interlopers who aren't state workers into the taxpayer-supported retirement systems.
Three months before a new state law goes into effect requiring police to sell any weapon they receive, Phoenix officials plan to destroy as many guns as residents bring them.
The Michigan Department of Education (MDE) recently decided to freeze the district’s April, May and June state aid payments after state officials discovered the district had received $580,000 in state aid for a program for incarcerated youths that the district no longer ran.
Over the last year, state and federal court rulings have limited the use of solitary units, which prison officials defend. State legislators, meanwhile, have proposed regulating them further.
Majorities in every California county voted last fall to scale back the state's Three Strikes law so thousands of inmates serving life sentences for relatively minor third offenses would have the chance to be set free. Five months later, there is no such unanimity among counties when it comes to carrying out the voters' wishes.
Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a bill that would have required his administration to get the state Legislature's approval to go ahead with a plan to privatize parts of the New Jersey Lottery.
At stake is $51 billion in federal funding to provide insurance coverage to 1 million low-income Floridians. House Republicans blocked that from happening during the regular session, which ended Friday.
A GAO report found that 10 of the 12 planned courthouses, including Nashville’s, were not justified.
State officials who awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to lure jobs here sometimes missed critical red flags in vetting the grant recipients.
Gov. Chris Christie — whose weight has long been the subject of public worry and late-night talk show jokes — said he underwent lap-band stomach surgery in February.
It's the first time any version of the legislation, which state and local leaders have long fought for, has ever been approved by either chamber of Congress.
Pennsylvania's capital, which is under receivership after nearly going bankrupt, is the second municipality or state to get charged with securities fraud this year.
The U.S. Forest Service has asked a dozen states to return $17.9 million in federal revenue-sharing funds, so the agency can meet its sequestration budget cut obligations.
At least ten states are considering renovations to their capitol building. Though repairs and upgrades are expensive and can take years, more than two-thirds of the states have carried them out since 2000.
So far, no state has successfully set rules about what people can buy with food stamps. Wisconsin and South Carolina want to be the first.
States are trying to figure out ways to stem the tide of the secret money that played an unprecedented role in the 2012 election cycle. The first step is to force tax-exempt advocacy organizations and trade associations out of the shadows.
Port Chester, N.Y., presents a microcosm of the costs and benefits that immigration reform could offer.
City leaders this month are unveiling an ambitious Climate Action Plan, with the goal of making Seattle carbon neutral (zero net emissions of greenhouse gases) by 2050
Tens of thousands of West Virginians will soon be eligible for Medicaid coverage after Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin announced the state would expand its program under the federal health care overhaul.
The so-called fusion centers -- they sift intelligence about terrorism, determine threat levels, and investigate suspicious activity and potential crises -- have become a fixture in post-9-11 America. There are 78 centers nationwide.
After a lack of congressional action after last fall's deadly meningitis outbreak, 15 states have taken up bills to step up the regulation of facilities like the one linked to the outbreak.
Over the past 25 years, crisis intervention team training has spread among law enforcement agencies across the country. Now it is being tested in the nation’s prisons, which have become the largest repositories for people with mental health problems.
Amid objections from municipal officials and housing activists, the Christie administration has begun the process of seizing $150 million or more in subsidized housing money from municipalities around the state and is keeping a tight lid on its policy objectives.
Otis “Doc” Bowen, the small-town doctor who succeeded in providing property tax relief as Indiana governor in the 1970s and then became one of the first federal officials to seek funds to battle the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, has died.
As members of the National Rifle Association gathered with a wide array of national figures in Houston, Rick Perry talked up Texas' gun-friendly nature and again called for weapons manufacturers to come to his state.
Making spending decisions based on evidence and analysis can be hardest to do in times of austerity, but that's precisely when these tools are most useful.
Advocates for the poor now say that by weeding out a relatively small number of people with too many assets, the Department of Public Welfare made getting food stamps so complicated that deserving low-income people became inundated by paperwork and lost their benefits.
The Florida Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision, has ruled that police must obtain a search warrant to view the contents of a person's cellphone when they are taken into custody.
Public-sector management news you should know.
The direction the agency takes under its next chairman will have major implications for governments, for growth and for innovation.
The economy added 165,000 jobs last month while the unemployment rate fell slightly to 7.5 percent.
While some states have tightened gun restrictions since last year's mass shootings, many in the South and Midwest have passed new laws being celebrated by the National Rifle Association.
With cybersecurity legislation stalled in Congress, the White House is looking to partner with states to protect critical infrastructure from attacks.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has told Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback that a new state law attempting to block federal regulation of some guns is unconstitutional and that the federal government is willing to go to court over the issue.
Under pressure from Congress to reduce its dependence on federal subsidies, Amtrak is looking at either closing 28 short-haul routes or getting 19 states to cover the costs. Most of the states have already agreed to pick up the costs.
The rankings are bestowed by the League of American Bicyclists and are based on funding for biking legislation, bike programs and policies, infrastructure, education and planning.
Mayor Vincent C. Gray unveiled his proposal to allow illegal immigrants to apply for District driver’s licenses.
Gov. Jan Brewervetoed a bill that would have made Arizona the second state to allow gold and silver coins to be used as legal tender.
The bills allow same-sex weddings and also allow couples who joined in civil unions to change their status to married.
The summary report — released by the Colorado Department of Human Services, the first required under a law passed last year — examines cases of child fatalities, near fatalities and incidents of egregious abuse or neglect from 2012.
After years of budget cuts, and after voters approved Gov. Jerry Brown's tax hike in November, the pressure on the governor will be intense from lawmakers and advocates eager to restore money to programs that were sliced to close deficits.
A stinging audit has found that the state's flagship jobs agency repeatedly failed last year to follow basic standards in state law for ensuring the clear and proper use of millions of dollars in taxpayer money, prompting lawmakers of both parties to call for immediate changes.
Adjustable pension plans could help governments control both risk and their out-of-control retiree-benefit costs.
With a stroke of a pen, Gov. Martin O'Malley removed the death penalty from state law Thursday -- making Maryland the 18th state in the nation to have abolished capital punishment.
After two years as the emergency manager for Detroit Public Schools, state-appointee Roy Roberts will retire in the next two weeks from his job at the helm of the state's largest school district.
With a deeply divided Democratic caucus and no sign of compromise in sight, Minnesota House Speaker Paul Thissen announced there would be no floor vote on gun control legislation this year.
Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation providing $24 million to clear the backlog of weapons known to be in the hands of people who purchased them legally but were then disqualified from owning one. The funds will be used to hire 36 additional special agents.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott vetoed an emotionally charged bill that would have ended permanent alimony in divorce cases, but signed into law ethics and campaign finance measures that were important to legislative leaders.
The decision to close what was also the state’s first online school deals a blow to Gov. Robert F. McDonnell’s goal of expanding virtual education options.
Senate Minority Leader John McKinney charged that the governor's trip was an illegal lobbying effort and that Dannel Malloy violated state ethics regulations.
Democrats are growing frustrated over Gov. Jan Brewer’s struggle to get her Medicaid-expansion proposal into the Legislature and say efforts to appease reluctant Republican lawmakers with anti-abortion legislation threaten their support.
Was Gov. Corbett correct when he said Pennsylvania employers "can't find anybody that . . . has passed a drug test"?
Gov. Mark Dayton is intensifying pressure on legislators to legalize same-sex marriage this year.
The house speaker suggests taking 2 percent more from worker paychecks over two years, raising the retirement age to 67 for younger workers and scaling back cost-of-living increases.
The Camden Board of Education voted to endorse a state takeover of the school district, saying it was in the "best interest of the children."
Hours after the bill was signed, leaders of Oregonians for Immigration Reform said they plan to file paperwork to place a referendum challenging the law on the November 2014 ballot.
Many of the top entrants for Innovations Awards demonstrate that technology applied creatively can shift governments from reactive service delivery to prescriptive solutions.
A new survey tallies pay and benefits for chief appointed officials across the country, finding compensation varies greatly by locality.
News you should know about government and technology.
Preliminary tax data from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government for 45 states shows revenues are up nearly 13 percent from last year.
The business and restaurant rating site is now being used to rate an unconventional entity -- prisons. Inmates are reporting about the quality of the food, the friendliness of deputies, and more.
The mortgage interest deduction, widely viewed as a tax break for a broad slice of middle-class America, benefits the residents of some states far more than others, according to a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Trailing in the polls in his bid for reelection and being sharply criticized for the lack of job growth in his state, Gov. Corbett blamed unemployment on workers who could not pass drug tests.
Both sides of the aisle are using parliamentarian tricks to maneuver around the most controversial issue of the session, which ends Friday.
A pension reform bill that would have moved new state workers and teachers into a 401K plan and blocked them from enrolling in the state pension system, failed in the Florida senate. Several Republicans joined the Democratic minority to defeat the measure 22-18.
Gov. Terry Branstad’s office contends in a document that poor Iowans could wind up paying more for health care if Medicaid is expanded than they would if the state adopts the governor’s health plan.
Government authorities should end the practice of placing juveniles' names on publicly accessible sex-offender registries, Human Rights Watch says in a report warning of lasting and unwarranted harm to some youths.
Arms manufacturers in at least two states with strict new gun laws are making good on their promise to move their operations -- along with thousands of jobs and millions in tax revenues -- to locales they deem friendlier to the industry.
The bills call for a moratorium to allow more time to study the impacts of hydraulic fracturing, which involves blasting a mix of chemicals and water deep underground.
Arizona is one of the nation’s leading states in letting families choose where and how their children are educated, according to the Center for Education Reform, a Washington, D.C., education think tank that ranks Arizona sixth in the country for school choice.
Some property owners are refusing to give the federal government access to their property. And Gov. Christie isn’t happy about that.
A state Supreme Court ruling led to a bill now before the Legislature to change the state law on what doctors must tell their patients.
Arizona's attorney general withdrew his threat to sue the small city of Bisbee, Ariz., after its lawyers agreed to rewrite a controversial ordinance recognizing same-sex couples to remove rights that he said were reserved for married couples under state law.
Free Wi-Fi Internet access will soon be broadcast from 16 existing pay phones in Boston.
A program to lift people out of homelessness under President Obama's stimulus package yielded some encouraging early results, but lacks a long-term funding source. Some states are turning to welfare.
The new legislation mirrors laws in 11 other states in protecting witnesses and victims of drug overdose from prosecution.
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Virginia Freedom of Information Act provision allowing state and local governments to deny record requests from out-of-state residents.
Rural populations are shrinking as Americans migrate to cities and suburbs. As a result, rural areas are mobilizing to grow and convince residents to stay.
Small businesses in states that choose not to expand Medicaid could be liable for billions in federal tax penalties that companies in states that do expand will not have to pay.
The elimination of the unit, which had been in operation for about a decade, comes despite the strong protest of some members of a state workforce advisory board.
DCS is under a federal court order to revise its system for investigating child deaths after DCS lawyers had acknowledged that they had miscounted just how many children had died under the watch of the agency.
Following New York City's lead, state lawmakers have taken up the cause to raise the minimum age for cigarette purchases from 18 to 21 statewide.
FBI agents are conducting interviews about the relationship between Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, his wife, Maureen, and a major campaign donor who paid for the food at the wedding of the governor’s daughter, according to four people familiar with the questioning.
Virginia Democrats renewed demands that Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli resign after he belatedly disclosed about $13,000 worth of gifts that he claimed he forgot to declare in four years' worth of economic disclosure reports.
A new reveals that14 percent of self-identified Republicans preferred New Jersey Gov. Christie as their choice for president, compared to 16 percent for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and 18 percent for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
Gov. Jan Brewer signed legislation to require that any weapons that come into a city or county's possession must be sold off, with the profits used to bolster the local treasury.
The Supreme Court rebuffed the state of Alabama by deciding not to intervene in a case where federal judges blocked a state law that criminalizes the harboring of illegal immigrants.
Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a bill to grant in-state tuition rates to undocumented immigrant students who graduate from state high schools. The measure is expected to generate millions of dollars in revenue for the state.
A new study reveals that uninsured adults who receive Medicaid coverage experience negligible effects on their physical health, but substantially improve their mental well-being. It previews how the federal law could impact poor, childless adults who get coverage through the Medicaid expansion.
When there’s public outcry over something -- whether it’s gun control or apartheid -- states and cities reevaluate what their pension plans invest in. But should they be social investing at all?
Coordination between public agencies and utilities will keep streets from being torn up, again and again.
The Charlotte mayor's nomination as DOT secretary is being viewed as an overture to the role of metro areas in transportation planning.
Gov. Rick Perry often touts Texas’ economic success, which he attributes to lower taxes and fewer regulations than cash-strapped California. But if Texas is so compelling, why did Perry go to California looking for new companies?
These demographics will have a profound effect on the needs of the country, and state and local officials need to take notice.
A case before the nation’s highest court could change the way citizens, journalists and entrepreneurs access government-held information.
Low-income people need more than a steady paycheck to achieve financial stability. They also need help gaining access to traditional banking and credit services -- something 28 percent of Americans lack.
The number of out-of-work teens and twenty-somethings climbed to record levels during the recession. View data for each state.
Most state lawmakers supplement their legislative job with one in the private sector. To reduce the conflicts of interest that inevitably arise from this, states are considering revising their ethics laws.
Many municipalities prohibit sex offenders from living near parks. L.A. and Miami are taking it one step further and calling patches of grass “parks” in order to rid their cities of the offenders who currently reside there.
California’s lieutenant governor, widely seen as a potential gubernatorial candidate, writes about the importance of citizen engagement in his new book “Citizenville.”
Local boards were designed to take politics out of education. But increasing politicization of the boards themselves has led to calls to eliminate them.
In Santa Rosa, Calif., the electricity powering a lamp may very well come from recycled wastewater.
Four years after President Barack Obama declared high-speed rail a national priority, the financial hurdles seem higher than ever.
As Obama pushes for universal preschool, a new report shows that states endured a historic drop in pre-K funding last year, and enrollment stagnated for the first time in years.
