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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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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
IS SPEEDY GOVERNMENT GOOD GOVERNMENT?
Not to be overly blunt, but we’ve grown sick and tired of hearing people complaining about how long it takes state and local governments...
greenebarrett
2 min read
REBRANDING LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Over the years, we’ve chatted with high school and college students about the potential of careers working for state and local...
greenebarrett
2 min read
THE ACADEMIC-GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS GAP
We spend a lot of time talking with government practitioners and a lot of time talking with academic researchers. We’ve often wondered...
greenebarrett
4 min read
OUR RESPONSE TO RESPONSE TIMES
When it comes to many vital public services, including police, fire and EMS, one of the primary – and sometimes the only – performance...
greenebarrett
3 min read
WANT TO WRITE SO THAT OTHERS CAN USE WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN? HERE’s YOUR CHANCE!
In 1799 when Napoleon was bearing down on Egypt a stone slab was discovered that came to be called the Rosetta Stone. It bore text in...
greenebarrett
3 min read
WHY MANY STATE AND CITY RANKINGS DEFY REALITY
Back some years ago, when we first started to evaluate management capacity in states, counties, and cities for the now defunct Financial...
greenebarrett
5 min read
WHEN IT COMES TO DATA, CONTEXT IS KING
Back in 2020, then President Donald Trump proclaimed that “The murder rate in Baltimore and Detroit is higher than El Salvador, Guatemala...
greenebarrett
4 min read
FAILURE AS A KEY TO SUCCESS
We’ve just been catching up on one of our favorite podcasts, Freakonomics Radio, and came across a wonderful conversation with Samuel...
greenebarrett
3 min read
TASK FORCES: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
A few weeks ago, we wrote an item for this website about the executive orders that were pouring out of the offices of the nine most...
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
Hide and Seek: A Researcher’s Quest for Contact Information
Leaders in state and local governments persistently claim that they want to be more transparent, and we believe that this is a sincere...
greenebarrett
2 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
A Road to Trust in Government
by Dawa Hitch, Communication and Public Engagement Director, Asheville, North Carolina. In historically disenfranchised communities,...
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
Negative Audits Can Be Good News
Several years ago – right before the start of the pandemic -- our book, The Promises and Pitfalls of Performance-Informed Management was...
greenebarrett
2 min read
A Celebration of National Women’s Month with State Budget Officers
This male-dominated 1953 photo of a National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO) annual meeting would not have been a surprise...
greenebarrett
2 min read
Attack on Auditor Independence in Iowa
Last night, the Iowa Senate quickly passed a bill that effectively limits the State Auditor’s independent oversight by restricting his...
greenebarrett
3 min read
Measuring & Managing Business Tax Incentives
by Dr. Ellen Harpel, Founder of Smart Incentives and Randall Bauer, Director, PFM Group Consulting Randall Bauer Ellen Harpel As...
greenebarrett
3 min read
Harry P. Hatry, Leader and Performance Management Pioneer, dies at 92
On Tuesday evening, we got a phone call to tell us that Harry P. Hatry, the renowned, respected and remarkable leader in the world of...
greenebarrett
4 min read
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