Archive
Oftentimes, customer service improvements occur only after very public and very embarrassing failures.
Consider the IRS. In the late 1990s, a series of televised Congressional...
Government leaders are seeing a nice uptake and adoption of the DC Apps for Democracy paradigm - inviting developers to grab hold of city data...
An article in today's Wall Street Journal tells a grim tale of the unintended consequences of federal stimulus funds.
According to Richard Ravitch, the Democratic...
State and local governments have faced big budget gaps before. Typically, things get tight for a while, then the economy perks up, tax revenues recover,...
In his column on "e21" -- a site that looks at economic policies for the 21st century -- Professor Steve Goldsmith argues that the budget...
I've put together a list of some of my favorite resources and reading materials for those interested in transforming government. Based in part on courses...
Steve Goldsmith has weighed in with why old ideas won't work with the current fiscal crunch, making the case that the circumstances are unprecedented and...
Not only is Arizona turning assets into cash through a sale-lease back approach, but Governor Jan Brewer's budget proposal is full of difficult cuts. The...
It should have been a relatively straightforward public-private partnership. In exchange for a lump sum, the city of Chicago would turn over the operation and...
Over the last five years no city in the United States has more experience in large infrastructure public private partnerships than Chicago, including major deals...
Chicago's parking meter privatization is a fascinating study in media coverage and the public perception of public policy. The story has a lot of moving...
Baltimore mayor Shelia Dixon announced she will resign in February after being convicted of misuse of gift cards donated to her office. Interestingly, many citizens...
The use of 311 systems by municipalities to intelligently respond to citizen inquiries is no longer cutting edge, but neither is its use universal. A column...
You've probably seen the ads touting the notion of "building a smarter city." There is little doubt that the technology revolution around Gov 2.0 holds enormous...
The Partnership for Public Service is accepting nominations for its "Service to America" medals, looking to honor the very best of the nation's federal work...
In the good old days, economic slumps were followed by recoveries. To survive lean times, governments tightened their belts, maybe raised some taxes and waited...
For decades, public officials viewed voters either as passive recipients of government largesse or as active advocates for special treatment. Getting reelected generally meant launching...
One of the first official acts Bob McDonnell took last month as the newly inaugurated governor of Virginia was to create a Commission on Government...
In politics, nothing is more dangerous than the truth. Hence, the kerfluffle over Education Secretary Arne Duncan's recent statement about New Orleans. "Let me be...
You may have heard President Obama speak about the need for a new approach to community problem solving, or heard that he's created a White...
February 16, 2010: 3 - 5 pm (EST)
Despite decades of work and billions of dollars, millions of American families remain stuck in a cycle of poverty--often exacerbated by...
The stress on public budgets is real. When public officials say there's nothing left to cut, they really mean it. Truth is, there aren't a...
With states across the nation facing unprecedented budget shortfalls, Medicaid - the largest item in most state budgets - is especially hard pressed. Many Medicaid...
In Clackamas County, Oregon the mental health and substance abuse program was serving 1.3% of its 380,000 residents. Research shows that 27% of people experience mental health problems...
The recently released federal budget has shed a harsh spotlight on government's tendency to spend today while leaving the bill for our children to pay....
The debate surrounding the massive health care system overhaul that has been raging in Washington leaves one thing clear: Redesigning roughly one-seventh of the economy...
By Tim Nash, Kurt Bouwhuis, Alexander Watts, and Jonathan Williams.
Florida is facing a likely $3 billion budget gap in 2011-2012, and the temptation will be...
Those in favor of privatization have a new slogan: "Privatization saves puppies."
It's true. When Kansas City privatized its animal shelter, it knew it would...
Government regulates a lot. Whether checking up on the cleanliness of a restaurant, making sure people don't speed, or ensuring building codes are followed, government...
The numbers do not lie. States, the federal government and many nations around the globe are facing an existential threat in the form of massive...
As I write this column I am listening to my iPod and typing on my new Dell computer. Both of these products impressed me from...
Three simple tools are revolutionizing the delivery of city services. The phone, the camera and the GPS, now generally contained in the same device, are...
"Typically, the current administrative structure of municipal government and its relationship to the private sector and civil society can pose significant barriers to developing integrated...
How do you nurture the best approaches to getting communities out of poverty? How can we abandon strategies that don't yield results, and grow the...
It is an age-old debate: Can competitive outsourcing help struggling cities stretch scarce tax dollars? In this 8 minute video from the John Stossel show, Stephen...
The National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices has just come out with a new study called "The Big Reset," which provides guidance for states...
For mayors across the country a single budget item threatens their cities' capacity to maintain parks, keep the streets safe, pick up the trash and...
This interesting article in the Washington Post by Bill Eggers and John O'Leary lays out some of the challenges associated with getting big things done...
I've complained before that established, proven technologies such as 311 aren't being adopted fast enough. Well, if you live in one of the many locations still...
First off, this 87-page book is available free as a download, so it has an endearing quality right off the bat. Secondly, it offers a...
APPLICATIONS ARE DUE APRIL 7, 2010
Wednesday is the deadline to submit a program or nominate an initiative for the Innovations in American Government Award .
Administered by
John O'Leary on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" talks about his recent Washington Post piece, "Can the U.S. Still Tackle Big Problems? Lessons from the Health...
During this time of fiscal crisis, public employees are developing new and creative ways of helping the public and taxpayers save money while preserving quality...
In this column from the National Conference on Citizenship blog, Stephen Goldsmith weighs in on the role of social innovation in fostering approaches to big...
What can be done to catalyze and grow innovations that promise transformative social progress?
In this interesting column from the Case Foundation blog, Stephen Goldsmith...
Want a solution? Try offering a prize. To spur innovation, the federal government is turning to competitions and crowdsourcing.
When Charles Lindbergh flew across the...
Bev Stein remembers with dismay the public budget hearing that marked her debut as the chief elected executive in Multnomah County, Oregon. Although it happened...
There's no excuse for failing to invest in change.
Indiana had to cut its 10-year welfare-privatization contract short, showing that there is no silver-bullet for improving human services.
Marc Perrusquia, a reporter with the Memphis Commercial Appeal, is the recipient of the seventh annual Hal Hovey Award, presented by GOVERNING and Stateline.org....
Public defenders are often seen as the Rodney Dangerfields of local government: They get respect from neither the prosecutor-loving public nor other public officials. Not...
In cities from Boston to Baltimore to Birmingham, Ala., universities and hospitals have played key roles in revitalizing urban neighborhoods. But expansions of eds and...
Now that American higher education has been racially integrated for decades, what's the role of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)? That's the question that...
As the days of traditional paper and file medical records start to fade, health care delivery is following suit. Patients want better access to care,...
As the complex debate over health-care reform rages, local government hasn't really been figured in.
While lawmakers in Washington at least considered the impact of...
Conservative Utah doesn't usually have a lot in common with liberal Massachusetts. But both states have embraced health exchanges - one of the big ideas...
When Lincoln Chafee kicked off his campaign for governor of Rhode Island in January, he did something unconventional: He actually made news. Rather than stick...
Andrea Boland is worried about cell phone safety, but unlike a lot of state legislators, her focus is not talking or texting while driving. Instead,...
There are places nationwide that get more snow, but among cities with populations greater than 100,000, Syracuse's snowfall is supreme.
Last year, when the city of Raleigh, N.C., partnered with Wake County to announce a new program to help homeless families find housing, officials...
Twenty-nine-year-old Samantha Brooks has a health problem: She just got a job.
In October 2008, Brooks went into the hospital for an emergency gall bladder operation....
On June 10, 2009, state officials in Georgia declared that the severe three-year drought that parched metro Atlanta and much of the Southeast was finally over. But...
The week before Jan. 19, 2010, was a busy one for Tim Webb, Tennessee's commissioner of education. Webb and his aides were in meetings and briefings in...
It's like a page out of the Brothers Grimm. Once upon a time -- and not so very long ago -- there were four giants....
In this January 2010 feature from our archive: State legislatures may not be as partisan as Congress, but they're getting closer.
The past decade has been productive when it comes to making American cities bicycle-friendly. Dozens of cities hired staff designated as "bicycle coordinators." New York...
The dwindling number of primary care physicians is a dagger at the heart of health care reform. If nearly all Americans have insurance, how will...
The Great Recession may technically be over, but it continues to have a devastating effect on the ability of state legislators to craft new legislation...
For better and for worse, it is Pat Quinn's fate to be the governor who followed Rod Blagojevich in Illinois.
Quinn served as lieutenant governor...
While political power has been shifting to the federal level lately, there's a clear exception. When it comes to policies on marijuana for medicinal use,...
Jeffrey Horne wasn't new to social media. He liked using Facebook and Twitter to keep up with friends and had dabbled some in blogging. Early...
The coming year will be excruciating for state budget-makers not just because revenues continue to decline and new rounds of budget cutting are necessary, but...
As a young paramedic in Sarasota County, Florida, Bob Stuckey learned to respond to emergencies using a protocol known as the Incident Command System. Originally...
If all you knew about Bernard Melekian was that he had spent 13 years running the police force in Pasadena, California, you might wonder why the...
Every state wants to create green jobs. Oregon actually has done it. But a political consensus has emerged that the state has done it the...
State legislators in Vermont are the only ones in the country with authority to vote on whether a nuclear power plant can continue in operation....
The tenure of Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard is helping to answer an oft-posed question: What would happen if an "ordinary Joe" was in charge of...
This week, the Senate is taking up the controversial issue of whether health reform should include a public option -- that is, a government-run health...
In picking Mike McGinn as their next mayor, Seattle voters selected a little-known environmental activist over the incumbent and then over a wealthy and well-connected...
Today's leaders are wrestling with a big question: How can they shape next-generation government to fit the changing needs of their communities? At Governing's Managing...
The Gaines County, Texas, Web site is not going to win design prizes anytime soon. The home page features a grainy photo of the county...
As a wave of younger employees, including those from Generation Y, enters the workplace, governments are working to position themselves as employers of choice. Aaron...
Ellen DiIorio, a resident of Union County, New Jersey, had always dreamed of building a first-class archery range. But while the county Parks Department was...
Employers--and that includes states and localities--have been focusing on wellness and prevention as a means of keeping their employees healthy and thereby less costly to...
Steve Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky, is appointing Republicans to key offices--and other Republicans don't like it.
Beshear's display of bipartisanship, GOP leaders say,...
The printed agenda for meetings of the county board in Monroe County, Wisconsin, always reminds elected supervisors to wear name tags, because "it helps visitors."...
California has just enacted a huge and enormously complicated package of bills meant to put an end to the state's longstanding water wars. But the...
Gambling interests seeking permission to move into a state like to tell voters that neighboring states are already profiting from casinos and lotteries, so they...
How well can Johnny add? Right now, states try to answer that question in troublingly disparate ways. According to one recent federal study, a fourth-grade...
In 1982, President Ronald Reagan saw a chance to realign the relationship between Washington and the states. He offered to switch government responsibilities: The states would...
No suburb as big as Georgia’s Gwinnett County has changed so much so fast. But most are changing in a similar way.
The campaigns of Tom Leppert and Anne Raymond spent millions of dollars this spring wooing Dallas voters. Leppert and Raymond debated on radio and television....
The Wu Tang Scram of tofu, bok choy, Napa cabbage and cashews served at Julian's, a restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island, might not seem like...
To the casual motorist driving west on Wilshire from downtown Los Angeles, MacArthur Park comes as a pleasant surprise. With its wide lake and palm...
As the votes were counted in mayoral races across the country, the biggest shock of the night occurred in a race that turned out just...
For the second time in as many years, gay-marriage supporters yesterday suffered a narrow -- but stinging -- defeat at the polls. By a margin...
Jan Brewer was Arizona's popular secretary of state early this year when her political career took a turn for the worse. She became governor.
With...
When Richard Berry won a surprise victory last month for mayor of Albuquerque, voters wondered whether they had chosen new policies or merely a new...
Steven Alm was no courtroom novice when he started handling felony cases as a circuit judge in Hawaii. He'd already been a judge for three...
It's been about five years since Washington State Auditor Brian Sonntag announced the launch of his ambitious effort to bring a new style of performance...
A new law in Georgia makes it the first state to clear a legal path for adopting human embryos in much the same way as...
Here's the problem. The number of Americans who have diabetes is growing at an alarming rate, as are the medical costs of treating the disease:...
There are more than 4 million miles of paved roadways in the United States. Increasingly, renewable energy advocates are looking at all that asphalt and seeing...
Given the limited number of Native Americans, it would be natural to expect that today's tribes would welcome the recognition of any new group with...
In desperate budget times, more and more local governments are turning to their neighbors, hoping to save money by sharing services and equipment. This kind...
At Virginia Tech, freshmen learn mathematics in a 60,000-square-foot box of a building that used to be Rose's discount department store. It's called the Math...
New Mexico's energy conservation and management division has about $2 million to spend in a typical year. So when Joanna Prukop heard about the $41 million of...
This summer, St. Petersburg, Florida, Mayor Rick Baker declared a fiscal emergency. He wanted to reopen a union contract and put the brakes on scheduled 2010...
Gregory Bialecki wants something for Massachusetts that no other state has: a comprehensive statewide zoning code. He thinks that's needed to break down the longstanding...
Put down that can. The sweet soda in front of you may be frosty and cold and just waiting to quench your thirst, but it...
As a member of Congress 25 years ago, Jim Shannon fought to put a self-extinguishing mechanism in all cigarettes that would make them less likely to...
The question in Atlanta's mayoral election this fall isn't just who will win, but what it may reflect about the demographics of the city. City...
Like governments everywhere, cities and counties in Kentucky seem to realize that the current budget environment requires them to keep a close watch on spending....
Bankers, barbers and doctors in Kansas, who pay a fee to support the state organizations that monitors their professions, might want to take a close...
No one really thinks of Bobby Jindal and Barack Obama as personal or even political rivals these days. But it seems like at every turn,...
Suppose you're a state budget director and you started this year looking at a huge fiscal shortfall (as virtually all of them did). It seemed...
Just two years ago, Ray Patchett worked for the city of Carlsbad, California, a coastal town in northern San Diego County. Patchett, now 61, had served...
Learn why hydrofracking is important to Russia and the Middle East for accessing reserves of natural gas a mile-deep.
Most Pennsylvanians over the age of 40 can remember when buying wine or liquor in their state meant walking into one of several hundred state-owned stores...
Justin McNaull grew up in a hurry. By the time he was 23, McNaull had graduated from college, married and gone to work for his local...
Is it retainer medicine, concierge medicine or boutique medicine? When it comes to the practice of paying doctors a fixed fee for expanded primary care...
In April, when Chicago tried--but failed--to lease Midway Airport to private investors, the obituaries for public-private partnerships--PPPs--began appearing. Weak economic conditions and the bankruptcy of...
When he headed up the Washington State Investment Board, Joe Dear oversaw a $67 billion portfolio. Now that he's the new honcho at CalPERS, the California...
Along I-95 in Maryland, rest stops come with fast-food restaurants and gas stations. Along I-95 in Virginia, they have orange barrels that block anyone from...
Other than the presidential election, no vote last November drew more attention than Proposition 8, California's ballot measure on gay marriage. The result, a 52 percent verdict...
Amidst the recent furor over so-called "death panels" and whether or not they are in national health care reform proposals, there's a side story that's...
When Arnold Schwarzenegger's approval rating hit a new low of 28 percent in one poll this summer, it must have been only a small consolation that...
What accounts for the dramatic decline in the number of doctors opting to be primary-care physicians? Simple economics, mostly. "They're not dumb," says Candice Chen,...
When federal officials let it be known that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson would not be indicted in the pay-to-play scandal that cost him a...
Dragnet. 77 Sunset Strip. As a boy growing up in Boston, Bill Bratton lapped up the exploits of the Los Angeles Police Department through his television....
Rhode Island doesn't have any retail health clinics. One major reason: toilets.
Retail clinics are the facilities in drug stores or big-box stores where patients...
The mayor of Shelby County, Tennessee, is one of the relatively few local officials in America who regularly conducts business across state lines. As mayor...
Legislators in many states this year, faced with huge budget shortfalls and difficult choices, must have been tempted to just sign off on any plan...
Read more about big-city schools and cash incentive programs in "Wage Earners" and in "Should the Best Teachers Get More Than an Apple?" in the...
New Jersey has just 21 counties, but it has more than 600 school districts. Although merging small districts is a problem everywhere, New Jersey's system is so...
There's a little joke that makes the rounds whenever Medicaid directors get together. It goes like this: If you've seen one state Medicaid program, you've...
Vallejo, California's bankruptcy last year represented the largest municipal default in 14 years. For 16 months, Jefferson County, Alabama has been unable to pay debts on billions...
As Alaska's new governor, Sean Parnell simply needs to diffuse a politically poisonous atmosphere, mend a fractured Republican Party and guide one of the largest...
Governments are understandably skittish about utilizing social networking sites and other Web 2.0 tools--Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and open-source wiki documents. But some adventurous officials are...
Struggling to deliver more services with fewer resources and to rise to the twin challenges of transparency and accountability, state and local leaders are counting...
While charter agencies may have disappeared in Iowa, the spirit of charters lives on in the state's "lean" initiative. According to John Baldwin, head of...
The deal seemed too good to pass up or to ever undo: Iowa would create "charter agencies" and give them unprecedented freedom and flexibility to...
There's an employer in Colorado that is having serious problems retaining its workers: the state legislature.
Five legislators have left office this year alone, including...
What happens in Vegas is coming to Delaware.
In May, Delaware became the third state, along with Nevada and Montana, to allow betting on sporting...
Prevention is getting a bad rap--a growing number of health economists and providers are casting doubt on the ability of preventive medicine to squeeze costs...
South Carolina is one of the most Republican states in the country, but picking a successor to Governor Mark Sanford is going to be a...
Parking has gotten worse in Chicago, and many see Mayor Richard Daley's decision to privatize parking meters as the culprit. Daley has been a privatization...
People complained for decades that the New York State Senate was dysfunctional. But that was before it shut down altogether.
In April, a special committee...
San Diego just closed an $83 million hole in its budget and is looking at a shortfall conservatively estimated at $115 million next year. For a place...
