Governing: State and local government news and analysis
Imperial presidents, a diminished Congress and powerful judicial review. History and its players have shaped a Constitution that might surprise the framers.
Left turns are dangerous and slow down traffic. One solution? Get rid of them. New research shows that limiting left turns at busy intersections would improve safety and reduce frustrating backups.
A school nurse's caseload can vary dramatically based on a school's size and the number of students dealing with chronic disease, poverty, housing insecurity and many other concerns.
COVID-19 proved even to skeptics that a lot of government business can be done from anywhere. So what happens to all the physical spaces that cities and states invested in to house their workforce?
The state’s public schools could be facing the largest number of teacher retirements ever, but factors like enrollment drops should take the sting out of it.
Municipal utility districts seem to work in the Lone Star State. They have increased the housing supply, using lighter regulations, resulting in downward pressure on costs. Now, they may be catching on elsewhere.
Sandy Stosz, a self-described stubborn retired vice admiral, digests the lessons in leadership from a 40-year career in the U.S. Coast Guard.
Cities and towns across the nation are reducing their hours or closing pools altogether because they cannot staff enough lifeguards. Reasons for the shortage vary but are related to fallout from the pandemic.
The breach of a Florida water treatment system that could have poisoned citizens sent shockwaves through local government. No-cost assessment tools and low-cost fixes can increase security in this sector.
Conservative efforts to keep it out of public schools amount to an esoteric cultural war aimed at dividing us further. We should teach the truth — the good and the bad — about our history.
Any new federal infrastructure program should provide states and localities with the flexibility to tap the private-sector innovation and expertise that can produce new revenues, meaningful savings and operational efficiencies.
It's gaining in popularity around the country, touted as a way to restore civility and bipartisanship. But it's not a perfect solution, and it doesn't come without costs.
No city in the country has had as much success keeping its residents safe from the coronavirus as San Francisco.
In many cases, state and local governments have more jobs than applicants. HR departments are fighting employee burnout, rising retirement and competition from the private sector to fill them.
Technology leaders in California, Colorado and Minnesota convened at NASCIO to offer best practices on bridging connectivity and digital literacy gaps in their states.
Taking away a license over unpaid fines for minor traffic infractions makes work and family life a misery for low-income Americans. States should reform this punitive, unjust practice.
It’s a bold attempt to transform cybersecurity. State and local government organizations, along with their vendors, will benefit from strengthened federal requirements.
Jealously guarded as the country's most sacred text, the highest law in the land is an artifact of history even as competing forces put demands on it to guide the country into the future.
Big tech companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple could soon face a 2 percent tax in New York state for profiting off of consumer data — if a recently proposed bill gains enough support to become law.
Body-worn cameras and freedom of information laws do enable oversight and accountability of the police, but they also hold the potential to force sensitive data and stressful episodes in private citizens’ lives into public view that’s easily accessible online.
The breach highlighted the ability of ransomware to interrupt the vital services on which Americans rely. The incident raises important legal and ethical questions surrounding ransomware payments. Just because paying off cyber attackers may be lawful in some contexts, that still doesn’t make it the morally correct thing to do.
The Great Depression crushed the economy. The New Deal saved it. Can an analogy be made with today’s economic situation? Professor Jason Scott Smith talks about what happened in the 1930s and what might happen today.
The research is clear: The creative and cultural sectors are a powerful force for helping communities large and small turn the corner on the pandemic’s economic shocks.
The author of a new book on the pioneers of the civil rights movement says, as different as the two were from each other, they were also each other’s alter egos in the struggle against racism.
The U.S. could have done much better in battling COVID-19, preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths. But its decentralized system of governance failed to rise to the challenge.
Its growth will provide more and more high-demand, high-wage jobs. Our education system is key to training that workforce of the future, with a particular focus on marginalized communities.
Half the states have passed legislation to address policing, sometimes in ambitious fashion. But rising crime and discomfort with a racial reckoning have slowed momentum in many places.
The battle over Route 17, a rural highway in upstate New York and a popular route to the Catskills, is a microcosm of national divisions and choices in transportation policy.
Much depends on their tax structures, particularly if Prop. 13-style tax caps are in place. But inflation-driven pressure for wage increases could squeeze budgets and crush pension funds.
They need to leverage public spending and build partnerships to create and nurture sustainable-wage employment and training for local residents, particularly those from underserved communities.
