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B&G REPORT.
The B&G Report features newsy items relating to a wide variety of state and local government management topics, including state and local performance audit, state and local performance management, government budgeting, state and local human resource issues, and a variety of other public sector issues.
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DO YOU SPEAK DATA?
Nearly every city, county or state gathers huge quantities of data for a variety of purposes. Some of it is effectively used, some is...
greenebarrett
4 min read
IN DEFENSE OF OLD TECH
Recently, we were involved in a project that involved reaching out to dozens of officials in cities across the United States. As you...
greenebarrett
3 min read
GOVERNMENT IS MORE THAN RED VS BLUE
We’re looking forward to participating in a panel at the upcoming annual conference of the American Society for Public Administration...
greenebarrett
3 min read
REALITY TV AND REALITY IN GOVERNMENT
In 2024, our professional life was very busy (as our colleagues, family and friends know), and so we hardly had the energy in our...
greenebarrett
3 min read
PERFORMANCE READER’S GUIDE (Part 3)
As we approach the last several weeks of December, our plan is to take a full vacation starting on December 14, continuing through New...
greenebarrett
2 min read
SEVEN REASONS FOR THANKS ON THURSDAY
Thanksgiving is just a few days away and we thought this was an appropriate time to dig into some of the state and local government news...
greenebarrett
3 min read
RX FOR PERFORMANCE PITFALLS
Last week’s B&G Report included the second in a series of lists, compiled by experts, about managing performance. The first such list,...
greenebarrett
4 min read
HOW TO IMPROVE GOVERNMENT COVERAGE
Over the years, we’ve written a great deal about ways in which government officials can improve their relationship with the press. We...
greenebarrett
3 min read
LOOKING BEHIND THE HEADLINES
We recently came across an online report by a local NPR station that began with a headline that stated that, “Philadelphia and Wilmington...
greenebarrett
2 min read
ARE BEST PRACTICES REALLY THE BEST?
Just the other day, we were editing a Guest Column for this website (we won’t bother to mention the name of the author) and discovered...
greenebarrett
3 min read
WHAT DO – OR DON’T – THE FEDS DO?
Over the course of time, we’ve written repeatedly about the confusion many Americans have about which level of government provides which...
greenebarrett
2 min read
AN OPEN LETTER TO ELECTED OFFICIALS
Good day, Last week we were talking to an inquisitive person who is rising in the local public sector world. The conversation turned to...
greenebarrett
3 min read
POTHOLES ON THE AI ROAD
We’re not scared of AI. It doesn’t take much historical memory to know that pretty much any new technology brings out fear and...
greenebarrett
3 min read
GOVERNMENT INTERNET FRUSTRATIONS
We get a great deal of information from the Internet for our work, and there’s little question that the easy access to tons of reports,...
greenebarrett
2 min read
NINE TIPS FOR IMPROVING MEETINGS
Over more than 30 years of covering state and local government, we can’t recall ever talking to a public sector manager who loved going...
greenebarrett
3 min read
THE TWELVE BIG LIES ABOUT STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
There are all kinds of variations on the theme of the three big lies that people tell in the normal course of day-to-day life. One of our...
greenebarrett
2 min read
TOO MUCH DATA – TOO LITTLE TIME
Typically, when we hear about a city or state choosing not to gather more potentially useful data because it’s too time consuming, we...
greenebarrett
3 min read
Budget Lessons from the States for the Feds:How to Radically Change Expectations about the Federal
by Dr. Carolyn Bourdeaux, Senior Visiting Scholar, University of Georgia; Board Member of the Concord Coalition; Former Member of...
greenebarrett
4 min read
Bridging the Academic/Practitioner Gap: Public Finance Journal
by Craig S Maher, Director School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska, Omaha and co-editor of the Public Finance Journal...
greenebarrett
3 min read
When the Vision Meets the Real World
We’ve just been reading a splendid book by Erik Larson, titled “The Splendid and the Vile,” that tells the tale of Winston Churchill in...
greenebarrett
3 min read
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