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Barrett and Greene

Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene

Contributors

Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene, who have analyzed, researched and written about state and local government for over 30 years, are contributors to Governing; executive advisors for the American Society for Public Administration; visiting fellows at the IBM Center for the Business of Government; advisors to the Government Finance Officers Association; columnists for Government Finance Review; commentary editors for the International Journal of Public Administrators; and senior advisors to the Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois, Chicago. They are also fellows at the National Academy of Public Administration.

Their latest book, co-authored with Donald F. Kettl, is “The Little Guide to Writing for Impact,” published in 2024. For more information on them and their work, visit their website at greenebarrett.com.

The public sector is more obsessed than ever with using data to make decisions. But some think the quality of it may be getting worse.
Too often they fall victim to political expediencies. If it’s not the answer that will garner votes at election time, it’s not going to happen.
Small test-runs can help an entity avoid big mistakes, but there's an art to getting meaningful results.
The amount of missing and unusable public-sector data is stunning.
As Maryland has learned, it’s crucial to know the costs of proposed legislation.
Ironically, it can happen because managers skip steps in an effort to go faster.
They fool some of the people most of the time.
Governors are slowly realizing that they need someone to take on the things they don’t have time for.