Archive
Talk about rocking the health care world -- at least as it pertains to retirees. General Motors, which has 100,000 salaried retirees and their dependents on ...
Earlier this year, I wrote about how the local-food movement is being viewed in some places as an economic development opportunity. I profiled Woodbury County, ...
As California goes, so goes the nation?
This time it's not leadership in some cutting-edge trend that other states are following. Rather, it's the failure ...
In this year's presidential and VP debates, there hasn't been all that much talk about local policy. But last night's debate between Barack Obama and ...
Clinicians in Pennsylvania are getting training in a new field: gambling addiction.
Casinos began opening in the state two years ago. Compulsive gamblers surely are ...
"State Street, that Great Street?" It's not the only one. They also applaud that street called Broad. And toast Champagne to Annapolis' ...
The New York Times has an interesting update on drug courts. Here's the money quote:
"[R]ecidivism rates for participants are reduced by about 10 ...
Scranton, Pennsylvania, is one of those much-maligned towns that's attained almost a mythical status as a rough, hardscrabble, blue-collar place nobody wants to live.
It's ...
Yesterday I received an email with this subject line: MI Report: How Access to New Drugs has Slowed the Growth in America's Disability Rates It ...
The Memphis Pyramid is quite possibly the biggest municipal white elephant in the U.S. today. Built in 1991 for $68 million, the huge arena was never ...
The Washington Post devotes a sizable chunk of its front page today to comparisons of health coverage plans put out by John McCain and Barack ...
Thousands of residents in Houston -- including the mayor! -- are in flagrant violation of a city law. So....the city's doing away with ...
Thinking ahead? Thinking of saving money by converting the state or local defined benefit pension plan into a defined contribution plan -- one that wouldn'...
Be sure to read Governing's Ballot Box blog this week for all your state and local elections news. Governing staff writers Josh Goodman and ...
Think the annual financial report from an airport sounds like a boring read? Then you should check out Birmingham International Airport's "Report & Accounts 2007-2008."
If your frog-calling skills are a little rusty, better brush up! The state of Georgia is looking for some help:
Wildlife biologists need volunteers for ...
posted by Zach Patton Last week, the people of Silverton, Oregon (pop. 9,588) elected Stu Rasmussen as mayor -- the first openly transgender person to serve as mayor in U.S. history.
New York City's gilttering night skyline is an iconic symbol of the city. But it's also becoming a thing of the past, as ...
The election of Randi Weingarten as president of the American Federation of Teachers this past summer signaled a greater willingness from that union to accept that new ideas and education "reforms" are inevitable.
According to the CDC, Huntington, W.Va., is the unhealthiest town in the nation:
Nearly half the adults in Huntington's five-county metropolitan area
are ...
Among economists, one of the most talked about books of the past year has been The Race Between Education and Technology . This blandly named, data-rich ...
Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, has ousted John Dingell as chairman of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee.
This has repercussions for state ...
Unlike my colleague Chris Swope, I still am uncomfortable with the whole trend of corporate naming rights -- naming stadiums and high school hallways after ...
Daily City was featured in Life magazine in the 1950s as a classic postwar suburb (see image).
I put up a very quick sketch on our other blog of Jan Brewer, the Arizona secretary of state who would fill Janet Napolitano';s ...
In an effort to expose problems in the New York City register's office -- namely the fact that city clerks aren't required to ...
You may not give much thought to traveling horse dentists, but in Texas, they're causing quit a stir: Here's the deal: These equine ...
Since the late 1980s, cities have bought heavily into the "broken windows" theory: the notion that an unkempt, disorderly environment breeds crime. Leaders ...
John Yoo provided the legal justification and framework for the Bush administration's torture policies as head of the Office of Legal Counsel, but he ...
Governing recognized Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff as a Public Official of the Year last month for his "unflagging commitment to bipartisan comity," ...
Moral issues aside (which of course is a pretty tall order), people seem to agree on one thing about legalizing gay marriages: it's good for the economy.
The British government plans to force merchants to keep cigarettes and other tobacco products under the counter and ban their public display. If this policy ...
Washington state is looking at about a $5 billion budget shortfall over the next couple years, given current projections. That doesn't necessarily mean legislators in ...
Barack Obama managed to find someone acceptable both to teachers unions and the education "reform" crowd with his selection of Arne Duncan, the ...
Here's the darkest headline I can remember seeing on a press release:
Cities Officials Hold the Worst Outlook in the Nation's Direction in ...
Here's an interesting -- and beautiful -- way to look at immigration patterns. Using data from the Department of Homeland Security, a grad student ...
When the stories began leaking out about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office pressuring the Yankees for a luxury suite in the new ...
When Congress finally passed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout in October, it was a triumph -- oddly enough -- for counties in the rural West. ...
When the insurer AIG failed, at a cost to taxpayers thus far of $150 billion, a few federal lawmakers felt they knew just whom to blame: ...
From the Of-Course!-Why-Haven't-We-Thought-About-This-Before? Department: A company in the Netherlands has installed what it calls the world's first device that uses the motion ...
California lawmakers are finishing another ordinary year. Once again, their budget is a mess, with lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger arguing about how to close ...
We've all been hearing an awful lot lately about newspapers facing bankruptcy and cutting the size of their staffs. (As Jon Stewart put it ...
By Ellen Perlman
An interstate bicycle system! That's what the plan is and I'm all for it. The American Association of State Highway ...
It would be easy to conclude that New Mexico's program of tax incentives for film and TV producers has been a big success. The ...
By Ellen Perlman
Speaking of bleak headlines, as Alan Greenblatt did here, how about this one: "Obama Administration to Inherit a real mess on Real ...
Maryland is thinking about charging a fee for E-ZPass users, whether they use the pass or not, according to a Baltimore Sun story. Not a ...
Today's Washington Post has a nice story on DC chief technology officer Vivek Kundra. The opening of the article especially underscores how Kundra not ...
The evidence is surprisingly strong, some neuroscientists say. Attention and self-control are particularly harmed by urban life. The best antidote seems to be a big ...
Ah, a performance czar for the feds. What a concept. That Barack Obama has appointed Nancy Killefer, a former treasury official under President Clinton and ...
It's taken months and months since Missouri did it, but another government has landed in Second Life, the online virtual world. And, get this, ...
We wrote last year about New York City's plan to spruce up its marriage bureau in an effort to attract more matrimony-minded couples (and ...
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell has made infrastructure the centerpiece of his presidency of the National Governors Association and, along with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and ...
I was so ready to praise the District of Columbia's electronic prowess. Then, just like a crash test dummy, I hit the wall at ...
Who reads the newspaper while driving? I'm guessing not that many. Who texts while driving? More than the number who read newspapers, is my ...
Confused by credit default swaps? Baffled by the fact that most municipalities can't issue debt at affordable rates? Fuzzy about Gödel's critique ...
"Saturday Night Live" alum Amy Poehler has hit federal government (with her hilarious take on Hillary Clinton) and state government (with her instant-classic ...
The Pittsburgh Steelers are playing the Baltimore Ravens this Sunday in the AFC title game. Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl found that, under the circumstances, he ...
Here are some mindblowing stats for you. There are approximately one trillion unique URL's in Google and roughly two billion Google searches daily. One ...
Washington, DC, is settling back to normal after the unprecedented crowd that descended on the city over the weekend for the inauguration. Many of the ...
Imagine the shock. Obama's technological whiz kids arrive at the White House only to find Stone Age software in the vaunted West Wing. The ...
I was late to Twitter. Well, relatively. Didn't think I'd like it. Didn't really see the point. Didn't think anyone cared ...
Apropos of the Obama staff's rude tech awakening in the White House, Megan McArdle asks, "Why is government IT so awful?" And ...
If you want to follow the stimulus package state by state, the Center for American Progress is one place to go. CAP released a map ...
Here's one of the more unusual "State of the State" stories I"ve seen in a while. A couple of weeks ...
President Barack Obama signed a memo last week on government transparency. Even before he has named a chief technology officer, he's directed that person ...
Today's Washington Post has a huge A2 story about Mark Zandi, the founder of Moody's Economy.com and the most quoted guy around ...
This week, GOVERNING is hosting our annual Outlook in the States and Localities conference here in Washington. As usual, we'll be taking an in-depth ...
GOVERNING kicked off its Outlook in the States and Localities conference this afternoon with a panel on the economic challenges that cities and ocunties are ...
In a discussion this afternoon at GOVERNING's Outlook conference, local leaders from around the country dicussed the priorities that are highest on cities' lists ...
Nancy Killefer, Obama's pick to serve as the federal government's first chief performance officer, is withdrawing from the administration.
More to come on ...
So the situation's bad and the priorities are varied. But for the public officials and industry leaders gathered at GOVERNING's Outlook in the ...
Today, we heard the bad news from our Outlook in the States and Localities panelists. But I doubt the grim fiscal outlook is a surprise ...
As GOVERNING's Outlook conference kicked off its second day this morning, attention turned from the localities to the states. But the message was the ...
Just in case it still wasn't clear just how bad the economic outlook is for cities and states, Moody's economist Mark Zandi laid ...
It's hard to know what's more heartening -- the fact that "broken windows" policing seems to be working in Lowell, M....
Some state budget stabilization funds wound up on the stimulus cutting room floor yesterday. Matthew Yglesias wonders why seemingly strong political constituencies like state-level politicians ...
Stimulus Watch looks like a website that probably should have been around long before the stimulus package: a thumbnail glance at all of the "...
Maryland has made a really, really valiant effort with a new ad encouraging residents to e-file their taxes this year. It's a parody of those ...
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman is mad. Earlier this week, when President Obama was in Indiana drumming up support for the stimulus, he emphasized that ...
With the stimulus package dominating the news, there is constant talk about the multiplier effect: Every dollar pumped into Medicaid, say, could translate into upwards ...
We here at Governing (I'm a little ashamed to admit now) sometimes have made fun of the fact that states choose an official state ...
I wrote a story last fall that centered on the question of whether
state governments can force local governments to consolidate. We're starting to get the answer -- and it isn't surprising
The Washington Post ran a story the other day that was quite revealing about the politics of school closures. Everyone knows it's politically difficult ...
Several U.S. cities in recent years have been talking about banning the use of flimsy plastic shopping bags -- or imposing fees on them ...
What is it about bad times and weapons?
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that courthouse screeners in L.A. County seized banned weapons last ...
Forget the Hollywood red carpet at tonight's Oscars ceremony. The best spot for political star gazing today was the J.W. Marriott on Pennsylvania ...
For all their problems paying for Medicaid, state employee health benefits, SCHIP and retiree plans, the one source of soaring health costs states don't ...
Much of the National Governors Association's winter meeting here in Washington this past weekend was devoted to discussions about infrastructure. The message out of ...
Yesterday's Washington Post was filled with stories about the decline of the newspaper business, with two stories touching directly on state and local government ...
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case tomorrow regarding conflicts of interest for judges. The case resolves around a West Virginia justice who ...
I just read a story about a man charged $27,000 in Internet access fees for watching a football game on his laptop. That's nothing. Yesterday, ...
Once upon a time, people were skeptical about governments wasting their time creating Web sites. Remember those days? Yeah, me neither. Now we have Web ...
Many states have created their own versions of recovery.gov, the federal Web site that tells taxpayers where their economic stimulus dollars are going. But ...
The New York Times has put together a fascinating map of the nation that plots joblessness rates on a county-by-county basis. You can filter the ...
Urban planners tend to applaud when pedestrians replace cars (something NYC is now considering for Times Square.) But officials in Boston are now considering the ...
The National Association of Counties (NACo) begins its annual legislative conference tomorrow in Washington, DC. Earlier this afternoon, NACo President Don Stapley, a county supervisor ...
A frequent topic of conversation in the local-government sphere is the changing nature of libraries. As more and more books and research resources move online, ...
Utah is the happiest state; West Virginia the least. That's according to a Gallup self-reporting happiness survey. Broadly speaking, there seems to be a &...
Many states have programs to target the street people who make up the bulk of the chronically homeless. Few have comprehensive plans for families that ...
Last weekend's "Saturday Night Live" included a skit set in a Hawaiian resort. In it, SNL host Dwayne "No Longer Nicknamed '...
The foreclosure debacle is a crisis for communities and neighborhoods. It's a financial disaster for property owners (both those threatened with foreclosure and those ...
Wait a minute. Topless coffee shops are allowed? Unless otherwise specified? I ask because a topless coffee shop opened in Vassalboro, Maine, and the only ...
This year's Washington meeting of the National League of Cities was all about the love from the Obama administration. Multiple cabinet secretaries addressed the ...
Lots of mayors support a proposal, which the U.S. House approved yesterday, to expand national service programs. The bill would boost the number of ...
Over the weekend, Time magazine highlighted a new study from Princeton that may predict what could happen to a city if one of its daily ...
Friday night I was in Baltimore for the Lil' Wayne concert. I didn't actually go to the concert; I watched it with the Baltimore ...
The Florida Legislature is considering cutting every state worker's salary by 5%. Let's put that in some context. In the 2008 Grading the States, here'...
The Brits aren't any better at avoiding government jargon than we are. Hence the list of 200 of words the Local Government Association would like ...
Will Kempton, California's transportation chief, said that the state can't bar a group from its Adopt-a-Highway anti-litter program based on distaste for the ...
Don't be alarmed tomorrow evening if the lights in your city are suddenly a lot dimmer. More than 2,000 cities across the globe will be ...
Lots of state and local techies are gathering with their federal brethren here in Washington for Government 2.0 Camp, an "unconference" on using technology ...
Fast-food chain KFC is offering to fix four cities' pothole problems in a public-private partnership designed to help advertise the freshness of the restaurant's ...
I'd heard about Wisconsin's newly redesigned logo a little while ago. The new tourism logo, for which the state paid a design firm $50,000, ...
Gov2.0 camp was the most astounding example of the wisdom IN crowds I've ever witnessed. First thing in the morning on Friday, no one ...
posted by Ellen Perlman I've added a second video to my post about Government 2.0 Camp (and a third below, as you can see). The ...
Last night, the Maryland Senate unanimously cleared a bill for Governor O'Malley's signature that would allow the state to oversee local deployment of ...
Ely, Minnesota, population nearing 4,000, is hoping to host the 2016 Olympic Games. Crews are starting now to drain Miners Lake to create the first in-ground Olympic ...
Because it's Friday, and because we haven't had a good ol' personalized license plate story in a while, check out this story from ...
A few people at Governing are anticipating tonight's premiere of NBC's "Parks and Recreation," a mockumentary about a deputy director of ... ...
The least surprising headline in yesterday's Washington Post was bannered across the top of the front page: "At Nationals Park, District of Dreams ...
Planning to run for governor in 2010? Or 2014? Or 2018? Get your domain name now. Don't let a cybersquatter shake you down for the Web site ...
State lawmakers from across the political spectrum are moving haltingly
toward a consensus on corrections policy. Corrections costs have increased far more rapidly than the rate of inflation over the past couple of decades.
Looking for some money to save your city's budget? Or to ease the way for your agency? If you and your co-workers have been noodling ...
One of Governing's Public Officials of the Year 2008 was Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins. In fact, he was on the cover of our November ...
Here's a map, courtesy of SloshSpot, of brewery density per capita in these United States: As a native Montanan, I'm not surprised we'...
What exactly is growing in Detroit right now?
A little digging finds that urban gardens have and are taking root in the Motor City. The ...
That headline grabs you doesn't it? So did this one, when I read it yesterday morning: "San Jose Council votes down porn filters ...
The recession has hit it hard. The foreclosure rate is horrific. Housing prices are in free-fall. But don't count California's golden touch out ...
We've all heard about carbon footprints and how we--personally and as governments or corporations--should take responsibility for being a Big Foot, for doing the ...
People in thousands of government offices perform similar jobs. If only they could find a way to tap the expertise and wisdom of others via ...
Only one of last week's Pulitzer winners had already been laid off. Here's this week's early winner for the cheap irony award ...
The Washington Post ran a long article about Greenwood, South Carolina, looking at how the community is faring thus far in the age of Obama (...
State education officials have adopted a new mantra: "Fewer, clearer, higher."
The term refers to education standards -- what each state feels its ...
Two words are reverberating around
the halls of the Marriott in Baltimore this week where state CIOs are meeting: Transparency and recovery act money. Okay, ...
Dayo Olopade, a reporter with The Root Web site, has written a story suggesting that President Obama's Office of Urban Affairs, and his urban policy ...
I have a piece in our May issue about how the political dynamics have shifted on the question of same-sex marriage, with momentum suddenly on ...
Those of you who read David Osborne's Health column in this month's Governing (Rx for Reform) know he laid out the case for ...
From Google, state-by-state and county-by-county graphs of unemployment figures for easy comparison. Soon, we'll be able to do this with more data. Hat tip: ...
The following Thomas Jefferson quote is getting a lot of play these days in connection with transparency Web sites. Not that Jefferson was much of ...
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has updated its report on state budgets. Not surprisingly, the news is pretty bad.
According to the Center, ...
How will your local government inform citizens if there's an emergency? I ask because a week or two ago, sometime during the swine flu ...
AP is reporting that President Obama will name Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., a Republican, his ambassador to China on Saturday.
Huntsman has been mentioned ...
Creative class guru Richard Florida is guest blogging in Andrew Sullivan's space this week. His first entry ponders where college grads, facing an uncertain ...
So, remember all that fuss about how former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich wanted to appear on the reality competition show "I'm a Celebrity, ...
In 2004, former Wayne County, Michigan, prosecutor Mike Duggan became the chief executive of the troubled Detroit Medical Center. On day one, he was told the ...
Love this map from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch site! It uses Google Maps to plot the location of dozens of treasured (?) sitcoms. According to the ...
This is from an
economist's blog: The discussion is about why, during the go-go years leading up to the present recession, bankers took so
...
While we're on the subject of maps, I just ran across these terrific maps of subway systems in different world cities, all drawn to ...
Nobody envies the position California's lawmakers are in. They have a $21.3 billion hole to fill.
But do those of us who aren't state ...
You got ideas? The White House wants to hear them. Remember that Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government President Obama issued in January? Well, the ...
