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The boosters behind Boston's competition to host the 2024 summer games are promising a transparent process, but there's little sign of it yet.
Low-income old people are experiencing confusion and frustration after the state tried to move almost 500,000 seniors and disabled people automatically into managed care.
Less than 1 percent of the programs 50 million beneficiaries have used the benefit so far. Experts blame the government’s failure to promote the program, rules that limit where and when patients can go for counseling as well as the low fees for providers.
This city and others are using the Internet of Things and sensor data to more efficiently plow the roads during winter storms.
In widely opposed move, UC regents are set to hike tuition up to 5 percent annually.
Most of the candidates public-sector unions spent time and money supporting this fall were defeated, prompting leaders to question the effectiveness of endorsing any candidates at all.
The Bell Gardens, Calif., politician battled public injustices and personal demons.
The National Guard will leave the Texas border by spring, earlier than many thought.
Popular park and fountains opened as conservation calls ratcheted up.
Montana's ban on same-sex marriage was struck down Wednesday afternoon by a federal judge who called the ban unconstitutional.
Perry's legal team had argued that the two felony charges against the governor must be voided because special prosecutor Michael McCrum did not properly take an oath of office when he began working on the case, negating every act performed over the past 15 months _ including the indictment accusing Perry of abusing the powers of his office.
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock is the frontrunner to become the next chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, an appointment that would put him at the center of the party’s effort to bounce back from a 2014 election season that saw Republicans tighten their grip on the nation’s statehouses.
One veteran of many Republican Governors Association meetings called it "the peacock parade."
But notably absent from this week's GOP confab in tony Boca Raton, Fla., is Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, often ballyhooed as a candidate for the U.S. Senate or vice president.
The rapidly unfolding issue quickly overtook what was supposed to be a three-day victory lap here at a pink flamingo-colored resort where they have gathered for the annual meeting of the Republican Governors Association.
If Ohio Gov. John Kasich really is running for president, he accomplished one goal yesterday at the Republican Governors Association meeting.
Municipal bond investors have started asking governments to disclose their area's environmental hazards, but a lot of the information they want is not yet known.
States and localities can profit from it, and it’s time to start talking about how.
The transition from one administration to the next sets the tone for a new governor. But there are ways to mess it up.
The city’s aggressive attempts to attract immigrants have helped increase its population for the first time in decades. Should other struggling cities adopt a similar strategy?
Following a trend of jazzing up roadways, the city installed rainbow crosswalks in honor of the LGBT community.
It’s time to rethink how we manage transit systems.
Having a high number of deeply entrenched residents helps shape the character of a city. See how your city’s population compares to others.
Candidates like Texas Sen. Wendy Davis and Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald are examples of the Peter Principle: They were both successful, but both lost their campaigns for higher office.
The militarization of police has come under fire, but it’s just a distraction from the real civil rights issues.
Many cities that declare bankruptcy ultimately emerge from it in a year or two. But regaining the trust of their citizens is a long-term proposition.
States have reduced smoking to an all-time low. But future efforts suddenly seem hazy.
Inspired by an idea that originated in 1970s Brazil, urban planners in America are increasingly thinking small scale to solve big problems.
Grand Rapids, Mich., stands as tangible evidence of what cities can do to reduce human impact on the environment. But the city’s efforts also underscore its limitations.
Artificial light is a growing problem that’s hurting humans and animals. What are cities doing about it?
If the new Congress defunds the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the impact on states will vary.
Many cities are partnering with nonprofits, but Detroit’s project may represent the best effort to create a vision for the future and provide the tools to make it a reality.
A new federal rule designed to ensure care is more visitor-friendly and home-like than nursing homes could make it difficult for facilities to qualify for federal money.
As demand for data analysts in government grows, what may be the nation's first master’s program that teaches not just public policy knowledge but technology skills too has launched.
A new study shows that when legislators make their stance on even controversial issues public, they convince people to join their side.
That’s what the U.S. Supreme Court will decide in a case that could make judicial elections even more like other political races.
Adelanto, a small city with many prisons, debates whether it needs another. Supporters say the proposed 3,264-bed jail is the only option to avoid insolvency.
The governor of New Jersey is much less fat than he used to be. Many see the accomplishment as essential if the Republican intends to make a 2016 bid for the White House.
Plus more public-sector management news you need to know.
Data shows states with most overcrowded correctional facilities.
A new report shows that in recent years, six Western states -- Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon -- saw declines in "unauthorized immigrants" entering the country illegally.
A proposal by the administration of Gov. Paul LePage to remove 19- and 20-year-olds from MaineCare violates the Affordable Care Act and would be illegal, a federal appeals judge ruled Monday.
The D.C. Council on Tuesday agreed to overhaul the city’s civil asset forfeiture program with a bill that would give property owners new rights and eventually require that seizure proceeds go into the city’s general fund rather than to the police department.
As promised, Gov. Steve Bullock on Monday unveiled his plan to make another run at asking the Legislature to accept millions in federal dollars to provide health coverage for 70,000 low-income Montanans.
The Senate failed to vote for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline Tuesday, rebuffing a Democratic senator fighting for her political career and setting up a confrontation between President Barack Obama and a Republican-controlled Congress over the pipeline next year.
The country's new USAID strategy has roots in the Gates Foundation's decade-old Grand Challenges, a global incubator for solutions to eradicate diseases, improve health and reduce poverty.
The 9th Circuit says sex offender Internet rules violate free speech protections.
A handful of states expect their prison populations to shrink, but most expect growth, according to a new report. View data for each state.
Most states have employee suggestion programs that financially reward workers for improving services and saving money. Here's how one works.
The $333 million Columbia Pike streetcar, and an adjoining $217 million Crystal City line, had been hailed by advocates as the linchpin of redevelopment efforts along the congested pike and in Bailey’s Crossroads in Fairfax County, but it's not going to happen.
He helped rescue New York in the 1970s. Next up: Detroit.
While Brower admits that he's not "100 percent comfortable" with his actions, he insists what he's doing is right.
Instead, the working group — which had been meeting for months — decided to submit more than a dozen different and often conflicting ideas for new regulations to the legislature, which will re-argue the issue beginning in January.
Gov. Bill Haslam is raising questions about plans by two state Senate Republicans to repeal Tennessee's controversial Common Core education standards and create a new panel to make recommendations on their replacement.
There's a small but growing number of Christians joining health care sharing ministries, in which members agree to abide by Christian lifestyle principles and contribute to each other's medical expenses.
The sheer number of kids in California who have nowhere to call home and the failure of the state's leaders to address the growing crisis place it 48th among the 50 states for dealing with children's homelessness -- ranking it just above Mississippi and Alabama.
A state House member has introduced legislation that would enact a mandatory ultrasound and waiting period for women seeking abortions, the first formally proposed restriction on abortion after this month's passage of Amendment 1.
Citing "the possibility of expanded unrest," Gov. Jay Nixon on Monday declared a state of emergency and prepared to send the Missouri National Guard to help maintain order in the St. Louis region when a grand jury decision is announced in the Michael Brown case.
In June, the state education agency revoked the charter of the Honors Academy Charter School District, Well into the new school year, all seven Honors Academy schools, which enroll a total of almost 700 students, are still open.
Climate change seems nearly impossible to solve. But simplifying the bureaucratic process for solar permitting is something that local and state governments can start doing today.
As Ebola scare dies down in the U.S., infectious disease preparations wane.
Four years ago, the Forest Service pledged to change the way the Tongass' abundant natural resources are managed, shifting the emphasis toward harvesting younger trees and supporting the growing tourism and fishery industries, which depend on the 17 million-acre expanse. A new study argues that hasn't happened.
We’re honoring these nine outstanding individuals for their continued commitment to public service, their remarkable leadership and their innovation.
Former Georgia Governor Carl E. Sanders, Sr., a statesman, businessman and philanthropist, champion of education and better government, died Sunday. He was 89.
A novel unity ticket featuring independent Bill Walker and Democrat Byron Mallott has defeated Republican Gov. Sean Parnell of Alaska in an election so excruciatingly close that its outcome was not known until 10 days after the polls closed.
Governor Andrew Cuomo's top donors contributed six times as much to help elect Republicans to the State Senate as they did to similar efforts to help Democrats, a Capital New York analysis shows.
They stood in a crowded meeting room, arms locked at the elbows, as the tap, tap, tap of police batons grew louder.
A unit of the California Army National Guard has been ordered to mobilize for possible deployment to West Africa to support U.S. and international efforts to stem the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.
Technology-based practices adapted from the commercial world are taking social services beyond the one-size-fits-all approach.
The Oregon city is using a special fund to spark new thinking in its agencies while minimizing financial risk.
A foundation-backed "research institution without walls" is studying new strategies for tackling tough problems.
Thousands of acres across the country were partially developed during the housing boom. What should happen to them now?
Many states and localities are pushing for more car alternatives as Americans reduce driving.
With potential for the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down insurance subsidies in the states that don't run their own health exchange, some are rushing to protect affordable care.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
Cities and states are trying to come up with ways to combat disabled parking abuses, including stepping up enforcement and ending free parking at meters.
Los Angeles Unified School District officials made a very controversial argument in a civil case filed last year by a student who had a five-month sexual relationship with her math teacher.
Small Business Health Options Program, or SHOP, is scheduled to go live Nov. 15. But SHOP plans will be organized by state — posing an additional challenge to small employers with workers who live or work in different states.
The abrupt closure of Paseo this week amid news that the popular Seattle restaurant is being sued by former workers set sandwich-loving tongues wagging about wage theft, a problem local officials have been struggling to address for years.
Federal requests to hold undocumented immigrants in Texas jails longer so they can possibly be deported have dropped by the thousands, according to report released Wednesday.
A board of medical professionals appointed by Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday that the state should provide health coverage to low-income Texans under the Affordable Care Act — a move the Republican-led Legislature has opposed.
The Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that secret documents used in the high-profile redistricting case should be unsealed.
A federal appeals court on Wednesday delayed plans to handle a challenge to the Obama administration's health care law because the Supreme Court is stepping into a separate case covering the same legal ground.
The federal and state health insurance exchanges open for business Saturday amid guarded optimism that the seemingly successful window-shopping period on HealthCare.gov earlier this week suggests things will go better than last year's torturous roll-out.
OpenGov Foundation gets $750,000 to pioneer open lawmaking tools to citizens.
Some 49 people drowned inside vehicles in Florida between 2008 and 2012.
Residents of Virginia's Nelson and Augusta counties, are refusing to allow Dominion Resources to come through their land and survey for the pipeline right of way, saying they'll do whatever they can to try to stop the $5 billion project.
The food service workers at the Capitol and Pentagon, joined by workers at the National Air and Space Museum and the National Zoo as well as Union Station, will strike for a day to protest wages and working conditions.
At some point, the city is going to have to face reality. The alternative is becoming the next Detroit.
The report is full of harrowing details alleging that five New Orleans Police Department detectives in the special victims unit may have failed to investigate sex crimes over a three-year period.
In 2000, New York had 17,000 untested rape kits, a yearslong accumulation of potential evidence in some of the city’s most violent crimes. Over the next four years, in a push to clear the backlog, the city had the kits tested. The result was 49 indictments connected to unsolved cases in Manhattan alone.
Moves by some U.S. states to legalize marijuana are not in line with international drugs conventions, the U.N. anti-narcotics chief said on Wednesday, adding he would discuss the issue in Washington next week.
Outgoing Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe said Wednesday he plans to pardon his son's felony marijuana conviction, arguing he deserves the same second chance as hundreds of other nonviolent offenders.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Kansas can't block gay and lesbian couples from getting married.
For the first time, an annual Census survey measures local Internet adoption. See which cities have the highest rates.
The justices heard arguments Wednesday in a case that could cause localities across the country to lose millions in annual tax revenue.
Pension plans want to support environmental projects, but there is one thing holding them back.
Frustrated for decades in its search for a new source of water, the Texas city thinks it has finally divined the answer. It will pay big money to let private companies do the work.
Last week, service was disrupted for 18 voting information websites serving citizens around the nation this midterm election. But the nation may have bigger problems when it comes to voting technology.
The nation's 18,000 police agencies are expected to submit specified categories of crime statistics every year to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program. Inclusion of justifiable homicides is optional.
Americans recently passed a milestone when federal officials reported that water use across the nation had reached its lowest level in more than 45 years: good news for the environment, great news in times of drought and a major victory for conservation.
Idaho will be one of a dozen states, along with Washington, D.C., to run its own online marketplace this year — and the only one whose state government is completely controlled by Republicans.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan's lead over Democratic Sen. Mark Begich shrank slightly, and Gov. Sean Parnell fell a bit further behind challenger Bill Walker in his bid for a second full term, as Alaska election officials Tuesday continued counting votes in what promises to be a long process.
Gov.-elect Tom Wolf is restricting members of his transition team from accepting gifts of any kind, a ban that he soon plans to extend throughout the executive branch of state government.
A Fulton County Superior Court judge has upheld Mayor Kasim Reed's historic 2011 pension reform, siding with the city in a class-action lawsuit brought by employee unions, the mayor's office announced Tuesday.
Gov.-elect Larry Hogan (R) said Tuesday that his transition team is working hard to “put a government together” but that he does not plan to talk publicly about substantive policy issues until he is sworn in.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said the “pillars of safety and speech” will mark how law enforcement responds to any unrest after a grand jury decides the fate of the 28-year-old police officer who fatally shot an unarmed teenager more than three months ago.
The ruling in two cases challenging Alabama's legislative maps could have an impact on congressional and legislative maps across the country.
In authorizing casinos some states have also created funds to help address problem gambling.
Both major parties, along with a host of outside groups, are now gearing up for 2016, when this swing state will be back in the spotlight.
Between 2005 and 2013, agents apprehended more than 40,000 people at the nine most inland Border Patrol stations representing locations as far as 350 miles from Mexico.
There are two forward leaps in how cities track pollution. One new effort aims to harmonize the many methods cities use for tracking their greenhouse-gas emissions. Meanwhile, London is looking to push the whole field of city emissions tracking to a new level.
The recession may have ended in 2009, but a new report shows that declining revenues and state aid are keeping many big cities from recovering.
For Anthony Mitchell, the Fourth Quarter Residences were a godsend, a low-rent haven for homeless and disabled veterans at a time when he and his wife were living in their car.
Alleging that Pennsylvania's education-funding system is "irrational and inequitable," a group of parents, school districts, and organizations on Monday sued the commonwealth, saying it had failed to provide all students with an appropriate education.
State election officials are calling a lawsuit claiming votes were incorrectly tabulated on abortion measure Amendment 1 “absurd” and without merit.
Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration has made dramatic adjustments to state worker health care benefits for 2015 after tremendous public outcry and a threat of at least one lawsuit over next year's health insurance offerings.
The new Republican Congress is headed for a clash with the White House over two ambitious Environmental Protection Agency regulations that are the heart of President Obama’s climate change agenda.
The day before Kansas was to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a stay that temporarily prevents the state from doing so.
Possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana no longer will be grounds for arrest in New York City under a new policy aimed at ending the lifelong stigma that can follow pot users, city officials announced Monday.
The division avoided a top-down approach and let front-line workers help shape the overhaul.
After the winners of Tuesday’s elections are sworn in, there will be only seven white Democrats left in the Texas Legislature.
A bipartisan group of lawyers led by former Texas Solicitor General James C. Ho filed an amicus brief Monday in Austin, asking a judge to dismiss the case against the state's governor.
Back in the spring of 2014, speculation was already growing about the significant impact that technology and cybersecurity might have on the 2014 midterm elections.
People who qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly called food stamps, use Electronic Benefits Transfer cards to purchase food, but some people use them to turn a profit.
Drought-stricken Cambria, Calif., reduces water use dramatically, but the town is still struggling.
The bonds tap private money for public health and human services projects. Some wonder whether such “pay-for-success” contracts are useful or cost-effective.
Critics say that the zones over Disneyland and Walt Disney World, which each cover a three-mile radius, would be useless against a true terrorist attack and that the restrictions mostly harm pilots who tow advertising banners.
A recent survey of state CIOs shows how governments can modernize and run efficiently.
The practice of civil forfeiture has come under fire in recent months, amid a spate of negative press reports and growing outrage among civil rights advocates, libertarians and members of Congress who have raised serious questions about the fairness of the practice, which critics say runs roughshod over due process rights.
Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler said Thursday that the state does not have the legal authority to execute the four men who remain on death row following the legislature’s decision last year to abolish capital punishment.
Few states have experienced the political volatility that Colorado has over the last two decades.
A federal judge has struck down a 2005 Arizona law that made smuggling immigrants a state crime, saying it conflicted with federal laws governing immigration.
Chastened by the conservative movement’s startling success at using national money to dominate state legislatures, liberal activists this week will ask top donors to support a plan to reverse the precipitous Democratic decline in state governments, where the party was trounced yet again on Tuesday.
Several assisted living residents in Queens received a shock recently after FEMA asked for reimbursement on aid given out following Superstorm Sandy.
Gov. Scott Walker, in an appearance Sunday morning on NBC's "Meet the Press," said a Republican governor would make an ideal presidential nominee -- and suggested he may end up getting into the race.
An emerging system of "variable speed federalism" is allowing federal policy to adapt to the states' political and policy diversity. But at what cost?
The high court will once again decide fate of Obama's health care law.
A federal judge on Friday approved a plan to end Detroit's historic Chapter 9 bankruptcy, giving the Motor City an unprecedented shot at recovering from decades of economic despair and municipal mismanagement that left the city awash in debt and struggling to provide basic public services.
A roundup of money (and other) news governments can use.
New data suggests job growth for state and local governments is among the slowest of any sector.
Governing rated three types of contests during the 2014 campaign cycle: gubernatorial races, state attorney general races, and control of the state legislatures.
With a $50 million foundation grant, the largest in its history, the American Civil Liberties Union plans to mount an eight-year political campaign across the country to make a change of criminal justice policies a key issue in local, state and national elections.
A bill to repeal Common Core education standards in Ohio passed a House committee yesterday -- but there is doubt about whether it has the momentum to go further.
Gov. Rick Perry appeared in court Thursday to watch his attorneys, armed with plenty of theater, try to convince a judge that the prosecutor pursuing abuse-of-power charges against him was improperly sworn in.
A federal appeals court panel in Ohio upheld four states' bans on gay marriage Thursday, setting the stage for the Supreme Court to rule finally on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage.
Thanks to a law enacted in October, Massachusetts health insurers have to make all their prices public – in advance.
A federally run nutrition program for women, infants and children is complex and difficult to use. But now there's an app to fix all that.
Several victorious governors promised to find more money for transportation, while the Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate may slow progress on a federal surface transportation bill.
