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Pools of new talent for state and local governments are in short supply. One state, which has come up with a significant new effort is Utah with its program called Return Utah. Launched a year ago, it is designed to welcome individuals who have taken a break from work, for a wide variety of reasons, back into the workforce. “State agencies, just like everyone else, are experiencing a labor shortage where they need qualified candidates to fill roles that run the gamut,” says ShayAnn Baker, Return Utah’s program manager. “This is another hiring pool to pull from, which is often overlooked and stigmatized.” Word of the success of this program has spread and states like Washington and New Mexico and several cities in Florida have recently started to explore emulating it. Baker, a former television reporter in Salt Lake City, knows about the stigma of withdrawing from the workforce from personal experience. Eight years ago, she left her TV job to stay at home with her new baby. Since then, she had two other children and acquired a wealth of experience that comes with child-rearing, school fund-raising, and organizing community events. But none of that showed up on her resume. ShayAnn Baker, program manager of Return Utah, with her children “I knew that getting back in the news industry would be almost impossible,” she says. “I wouldn’t have any recent professional experience and then I was terrified about my resume. How do I cover that eight-year gap when you’re taught that gaps are bad?” A year ago, Baker, who ultimately became manager of the program, was one of seven new workers who were part of the first cohort of the Return Utah pilot. Some of the new hires, like Baker, were employed on a temporary basis – in her case in the Department of Commerce. Others were put on the payroll with the “intent to hire” in a permanent spot. Like the other members of the pilot group, a regular job orientation period at her new agency was supplemented with 16-weeks of transitional coaching and assistance that included a technological refresher course, mentorships, and individual coaching to build her resume, establish a new network and build up her confidence. Why does a returner need something like this? Baker’s answer: “Well, because they are rusty and that rust creates a lack of confidence. When I had my interview, I thought ‘Are they even going to listen to me because yesterday I was covered in peanut butter.’” When Baker’s temporary job with Commerce ended, the Division of Human Resource Management offered her a full-time job as manager of the continuing Return Utah program. With 16 individuals, the second Return Utah cohort will be finishing its 16-week session in two weeks. It includes a handful of women who, like Baker, had left the workforce to stay home with their children, as well as two individuals who had been out of the country; two whose withdrawal from professional work had resulted from illness and three who had left work to pursue education. Nine of the returners are women and six are men. A new bunch of returners will join the program in May. Baker says that Return Utah is currently the only public sector program of its kind in the country, although there are many similar programs run by private companies. The program has been supported by the state’s executive leadership from day one. It was initially suggested by Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson’s chief of staff, who had left the workforce for eighteen years to raise her family. The Lt. Governor also had a shorter, but similar work gap for the same reason. The Governor was on board immediately, launching the program with a April 2021 executive order that asked agencies to remove barriers of employment that prevented the hiring of individuals without recent work experience. The idea? “Basically, to reduce the stigmatization that comes from career breaks so that that we could access a different hiring pool,” says Baker. What lessons have been learned from the first year of the program? On the positive side, she cites the importance of having a group of individuals who support each other as they go through the 16-week back-to-work transition period together. Also important, she says, was having technological refresher instruction, mentorships and access to executive leadership. In terms of areas to improve, she believes that more flexibility in program design would be beneficial to both agencies and participants. Like many new programs, Return Utah has been operating on a shoe-string budget, as it is solely an executive initiative that has not yet received funding from the legislature – something that will be requested in 2023. “We’ve learned that good solid budgets are necessary,” Baker says. Continuing the program is not a hard sell and plans currently are to begin welcoming three new cohorts a year. “It helps agencies fill a need and it helps returners get transitional support so their confidence can increase and their skill set can be renewed,” she says, adding that there are other benefits, as well. “They bring energy and motivation. They shake up the culture of the bureaucracy.” Utah Lt. Governor Diedre Henderson with the current Return Utah cohort #PublicSectorWorkforce #StateofUtah #HiringCrisis #PublicSectorHumanResources #StateAndLocalGovernment #StateandLocalGovernmentHiringCrisis #StateandLocalGovernmentHumanResources #ReturnUtah #ResumeGaps #LieutenantGovernorDeirdreHenderson #ReenteringtheWorkplace #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement , and it’s designed to welcome back into employment individuals who have taken a break from work for a wide variety of reasons. “State agencies, just like everyone else, are experiencing a labor shortage where they need qualified candidates to fill roles that run the gamut,” says ShayAnn Baker, Return Utah’s program manager. “This is another hiring pool to pull from that is often overlooked and stigmatized.” Baker, a former television reporter in Salt Lake City, knows about the stigma of withdrawing from the workforce from personal experience. Eight years ago, she left her TV job to stay at home with her new baby. Since then, she had two other children and acquired a wealth of experience that comes with child-rearing, school fund-raising, and organizing community events. But none of that showed up on her resume. “I knew that getting back in the news industry would be almost impossible,” she says. “I wouldn’t have any recent professional experience and then I was terrified about my resume. How do I cover that eight-year gap when you’re taught that gaps are bad?” A year ago, Baker was one of seven new workers who were part of the first cohort of the Return Utah pilot. Some of the new hires, like Baker, were employed on a temporary basis – in her case in the Department of Commerce. Others were put on the payroll with the “intent to hire” in a permanent spot. Like the other members of the pilot group, a regular job orientation period at her new agency was supplemented with 16-weeks of transitional coaching and assistance that included a technological refresher course, mentorships, and individual coaching to build her resume, establish a new network and build up her confidence. Why does a returner need something like this? Baker’s answer: “Well, because they are rusty and that rust creates a lack of confidence. When I had my interview, I thought ‘Are they even going to listen to me because yesterday I was covered in peanut butter.’” When Baker’s temporary job with Commerce ended, the Division of Human Resource Management offered her a full-time job as a manager of the continuing Return Utah program. The second Return Utah cohort, which includes 16 returners, will be finishing its 16-week session in two weeks. It includes a handful of women who, like Baker, had left the workforce to stay home with their children, as well as two individuals who had been out of the country; two whose withdrawal from professional work had resulted from illness and three who had left work to pursue education. Nine of the returners are women and six are men. A new bunch of returners will join the program in May. Baker says that Return Utah is currently the only public sector program of its kind in the country, although there are many similar programs run by private companies. The program has been supported by the state’s executive leadership from day one. It was initially suggested by Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson’s chief of staff, who had left the workforce for eighteen years to raise her family. The Lt. Governor also had a shorter, but similar work gap for the same purpose. The Governor was on board immediately, launching the program with a April 2021 executive order https://rules.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/Utah-Executive-Order-No.-2021-08.pdf that asked agencies to remove barriers of employment that prevented the hiring of individuals without recent work experience. The idea? “Basically, to reduce the stigmatization that comes from career breaks so that that we could access a different hiring pool,” says Baker. What lessons have been learned from the first year of the program? On the positive side, she cites the importance of having a group of individuals who support each other as they go through the 16-week back-to-work transition period together. Also important, she says, was having technological refresher instruction, mentorships and access to executive leadership. In terms of areas to improve, she believes that more flexibility in program design would be beneficial to both agencies and participants. Like many new programs, Return Utah also has been operating on a shoe-string budget, as it is solely an executive initiative that has not yet received funding from the legislature – something that will be requested in 2023. “We’ve learned that good solid budgets are necessary,” Baker says. Continuing the program is not a hard sell and plans currently are to begin welcoming three new cohorts a year. “It helps agencies fill a need and it helps returners get transitional support so their confidence can increase and their skill set can be renewed,” she says, adding that there are other benefits, as well. “They bring energy and motivation. They shake up the culture of the bureaucracy.”

​ By Bruce Waltuck, Professor, Kean University, College of Business and Public Management and an award-winning creator and facilitator of better outcomes for organizations It is ok. You can admit it. You have watched Sesame Street. If you are my age, you have probably watched from the first day it was on the air. Right now, Sesame Street is in the midst of a two-year initiative to teach people (yes…all people, not only children) a simple, yet powerful framework for creative problem-solving. It sounds like this: I wonder… What if…? Let’s try! While the problems facing governments are not the same as those that Elmo and Big Bird face, we can all learn powerful insights from our friends on Sesame Street. The problems facing government organizations are many and highly varied. That is no surprise. What is a surprise to most public managers and leaders, is that there is a problem in the way we understand the problems, themselves. Let’s call that the “Problem with Problems.” Sometimes the challenges that confront governments are clear and obvious. Everyone who sees the situation agrees on what it is, and what needs to be done. If the traffic light at Broad and Main is out, we will send folks out to fix it. Some problems that governments experience are somewhat more complex. How can we address homelessness? Or gang violence? Do we all agree on what is happening? Do we all agree on what to do? Can experts give us highly reliable solutions to our complex situations? The Problem with Problems is that even though complex situations are inherently unknowable, and that no expert can give us a guaranteed reliable solution, leaders act as if as if consultants will provide solutions with outcomes that are knowable and predictable in advance. Sadly, that’s not possible. Why do so many managers and leaders make the Big Mistake of treating ambiguous, uncertain, and unknowable situations with the assumption that some expert could fix it? In a word… fear. Fear of admitting we don’t know what to do. Fear of not knowing how to define metrics for outcomes in situations where we need to know “how well…?” as much or more than we need to know “how much?” “how many?” or “how quickly?” As government leaders and workers, we have to answer these questions all the time. Then we need to figure out “how will we decide what to do?” “who will decide?” and after we act, “what happened, and what do we do now?” An understanding of the types of problems and situations we experience, together with the powerful framework from Sesame Street, and a simple technique from the ground-breaking book “Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In” can lead government organizations to optimal outcomes more easily. “I wonder…” We each see complex situations differently. What can and will we do, to include and consider all voices in our dialogue, planning, and action? “What if…?” we saw the situation this way. If we could act on it this way. What might we learn? What might happen? What if we succeed? What if we fail? What can we do to not be afraid of failure? What if we agreed to learn as much from failures as from successes? “Let’s Try!” We have a range of ideas that each seem to have a good chance of working, even with the most complex situations. The optimal way to act in these situations is to try multiple promising ideas…at the same time. We can experiment, and carefully observe what happened to the best of our abilities. As we assess outcomes, we can act next to expand what is working for us and stop the things that are not working. With no fear, no blame. I wonder…what if… we as government managers and leaders, could learn to work together in this way? As we work and act together, we know that our funders and stakeholders will want to know what happened. We also know that some things… typically the “how many?” and “how much?” metrics are fairly easy to assess. We also know that the truly complex situations we need to act on, have “how well…?” metrics that are not easily countable. So… I wonder…what if… government managers and leaders adopted a simple, powerful practice from “Getting to Yes.” What if… each team brainstormed and reached consensus on a short list of Core Values and Operating Principles. Maybe six to eight criteria, used together by everyone, to assess each of the “What if…?” options. These can be criteria that the team will also use to hold themselves accountable for acting consistently with their agreed-on core values and principles. So even when promising ideas don’t work out as intended, we can assure ourselves and our stakeholders that we have acted consistently with our most important principles. I do not wonder if this works. I know that it works. These concepts and practices were at the heart of what became an award-winning initiative for employee involvement and process improvement at the U.S. Department of Labor, that I co-created and led. I wonder…how many state and local government groups everywhere, will benefit from learning and using the Sesame Street framework, and Integrative Collaboration. What if…we all acted with continuous curiosity, courage, consideration of all ideas, and full commitment to all ideas the team agrees on. What are you waiting for? Let’s try! ​ The contents of this guest column reflect those of the author, and not necessarily those of Barrett and Greene, Inc. ​ ​#StateandLocalGovernment #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceManagement #BruceWaltuck #KeanUniversity #CreativeProblemSolving #SolvingComplexProblems

About a month ago, we wrote a column for Route Fifty about a dramatic transformation in the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (DHS). The change, which has taken place under the leadership of Human Services Cabinet Secretary Justin Brown, was simple and surprisingly powerful and it’s helping Oklahoma to more effectively use state dollars to serve people in need. It can be replicated in other states, as long as non-profits, foundations and government agencies are open to productive collaboration. We were so thoroughly intrigued by the singular changes in Oklahoma that we wanted to give you some more insider insights into the way they’re working. To that end, here’s an edited interview with Sarah Roberts, vice president of programs at the Oklahoma-based Inasmuch Foundation. She is one of 16 members of an advisory committee assembled by Oklahoma’s DHS to provide insight and advice on how to invest $100 million of reserve fund dollars that had accumulated from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF). The interview was originally done for the Route Fifty column. B&G: What was your role, as a representative of a foundation, on the advisory committee that you were asked to join in 2021? Sarah Roberts: We were involved in assisting the Department of Human Services in rethinking how to better distribute TANF dollars throughout the state. There was a backlog of those dollars that had built up prior to Secretary Brown taking over as director of the Department of Human Services. I believe this happened nationwide. It wasn’t exclusively in Oklahoma. It was a lot of work to figure out how to line up nonprofits, which are already doing amazing work with TANF eligible clients, with those TANF dollars. B&G: Could you help us to understand why this partnership between Oklahoma foundations and the Department of Human Services was so important? Sarah Roberts: We’ve always prioritized public-private partnerships at Inasmuch Foundation and in Oklahoma. We are hyper-aware that philanthropy just doesn’t have the dollars that government has and so without public-private partnerships, it can sometimes be hard to have synergy and longevity for great initiatives. B&G: We know that you work with many nonprofits. Can you explain a bit more about the impact that better communications had on them? Sarah Roberts: I think that, at times, nonprofits can be intimidated by government and that’s sometimes been a barrier to accessing public funds. Some of them have never dreamt of applying for funding through government. Secretary Brown has been willing to listen. He has brought nonprofits to the table in a way that hadn’t been done before on such a large scale. That has resulted in mutual trust being built. It has also pushed nonprofits to get stronger in terms of compliance because they have a clearer sense of the reason for some departmental/federal rules. It took a while for foundations and nonprofits, to stop thinking about this as Big Brother State Government and realize it is a funder which is wrestling with how to solve community problems as efficiently as possible. B&G: What were some of the insights that foundations like yours were able to give to the Department of Human Services? Sarah Roberts: I think some of it is just recognizing that a wide variety of nonprofits exist. In the past there were nonprofits that received ninety-nine percent of their funding from the government. They didn’t know anything about private funders because they’d never done anything but be funded by the government. Then there are other nonprofits that are intimidated by the government. They are looking to the private sector to fund everything and it probably would be better if both groups were a little more open to public/private partnership. We didn’t really have any traction on this until Secretary Brown arrived and he was receptive to that conversation. B&G: Has that situation changed? Sarah Roberts: I think what Secretary Brown has done beautifully is listen and send a coordinated message that we could probably strengthen all of these nonprofits if we gave them a little bit more balanced funding, with some from the government and some private funding and due diligence in both scenarios to make the nonprofits stronger. DHS clients are already working with nonprofits so it is a wonderful way to meet families where they are in their own communities. B&G: Is there an example that you can give us of a program that is now getting new funding through this new kind of partnership? Sarah Roberts: There are two programs in Oklahoma that have similar missions. They are trying to divert mothers with children from prison. The program in Tulsa is called Women in Recovery and in Oklahoma City it’s called ReMerge. Both provide housing, job training, substance abuse and mental health treatment. Women are able to gain job skills and become employed. This has been incredibly successful. More than 500 women, who have graduated, are working, contributing, tax-paying citizens and present in their children’s lives. Alternatively, they would be serving an average sentence of 10 years in state prison. B&G: We’ve heard from your peers and individuals involved in community organizations that the kind of partnership that’s evolved in the Department of Human Services has been happening elsewhere in Oklahoma government. Sarah Roberts: I think many of the Cabinet secretaries feel charged with interacting with us in a way that wasn’t top of mind in previous administrations because they didn’t have a governor who was stating that as a goal. Many of the cabinet secretaries have served in the private sector and get the value of public-private partnerships. They’ve been involved with philanthropy either by being philanthropists themselves or being parts of nonprofit boards. I think there is a real love and respect for the nonprofit sector among some of the current cabinet secretaries. B&G: Any final comments? Sarah Roberts: We’ve been promoting the benefits of Public-Private Partnerships for years prior to anyone listening. It’s been really exciting to watch other people get on fire with this idea, see the value and watch it play out beneficially for vulnerable families in our communities. #StateandLocalGovernment #PublicSectorHumanResources #HumanServices #OklahomaDepartmentofHumanServices #StateofOklahoma #PublicPrivatePartnerships #TANF #StateGovernment #CabinetSecretaryJustinBrown #ProductiveCollaboration #JustinBrown #SarahRoberts #OklahomaDHSAdvisoryCommittee #OklahomaDHSAdvisoryCommittee #PublicSectorStakeholderInput #TANF #TemporaryAssistanceforNeedyFamilies #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceManagement #BuildingNonProfitandGovernmentRelations #NonProfitandGovernmenRelations #FoundationandHumanServicesPartnership #InAsMuchFoundation

On April 1st a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that there was a crisis in mental health among America's teens. A few specifics from the CDC: Over 50% of teens experienced emotional abuse, 44% felt persistent sadness/hopelessness and 20% seriously considered attempting suicide.” To help confront the mental health crisis among youth, New York State, has been leaning on legislation passed in 2018, which made it the first state to mandate that schools must include instruction in mental health. The law decreed that all school districts “ensure that their health education programs recognize the multiple dimensions of health by including mental health and the relation of physical and mental health to enhance student understanding, attitudes and behaviors that promote health, well-being and human dignity.” In and of itself, this was a very worthwhile means to combat a problem that had already been identified by 2018 and has just been magnified by the pandemic. But we fear, based on a new audit from the comptroller’s office that this may be yet another instance in which the passage of a law is only the starting point, and that without sufficient oversight, it’s nearly impossible to discern the vigor and virtue with which the law is being implemented. According to the Comptroller, of a sample of 22 districts surveyed, three of them could provide no documentation that they were actually following the law. Others varied in the effort they were making to get to the law’s intended outcomes. “Without some level of oversight” said the audit report, "the Department (of Education) cannot be assured that students are receiving mental health education or that the instruction achieves the intent of the law.” This is a recurring theme in our experience with states and localities. Public officials really take pleasure in the accomplishments they can make with new, worthwhile statutes. But if they don’t mandate sufficient oversight, they may have little or no notion of whether the pats on the back they gave themselves were warranted. #NewYorkStatePolicyImplementation #PoorPolicyImplementation #GovernmentOversight #NewYorkStateComptrollerAudit #GovernmentAccountability #StateandLocalGovernmentAccountability #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceAudit #SchoolMentalHealthInstruction #CDCMentalHealthStatistics #StateofNewYork #FlawedNewYorkPolicyImplementation #PolicyImplementationOversight #StateandLocalPolicyImplemenationOversight

“A California budget surplus that is already expected to be massive could end up being billions of dollars more than initial estimates,” reported KTLA Morning News’s website in February. We mention this, not because we want to write about fiscal conditions in California, but because we want to carp a little bit about one of the most widely misused and misunderstood words in all of state and local government finance: “surplus.” This is of particular significance right now, because thanks to the money that’s been flowing into state and local coffers this last year, we’re seeing the word used quite frequently, and not only in California. As Chris Hoene, executive director of the California Budget & Policy Center explained in an interview we did with him for the Government Finance Research Center, “I wouldn’t use that term, because a surplus is the money that’s left over at the end of a fiscal year. This is unanticipated revenue that state leaders are authorized to allocate as part of the annual budget process.” In fact, when you see mentions of surpluses in the press right now, it’s more than likely that the word is being misused. By definition, a state or locality can only have a surplus at the end of the fiscal year, and since that doesn’t come until the end of June for most of these governments, the extra money they have on hand now is decidedly not a surplus. The same kind of confusion is also found in the popular use of the word “deficit.” The mangled use of that word has been bothering us for a long time, and we wrote about it in Governing Magazine in 2011. We addressed this when we wrote a glossary for the Volcker Alliance’s Truth and Integrity in State Budgeting reports. Here’s how we explained it there: According to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), deficits “reflect expenses outstripping revenues at the end of the year. It is not to be confused with a shortfall, which represents revenue shortages that accumulate during the year and may be eliminated by spending cuts, tax or fee hikes, or one-time actions to avoid a year-end deficit.” This isn’t all just a matter of semantics and we don’t want to come across as sounding like somebody’s eighth grade English teacher. We’re always happy when elected officials talk about the need for transparency in government. But when the language of finance is badly miscommunicated to the general public, all the transparency in the world doesn’t mean that voters will really understand what’s going on. And that’s important. #StateandLocalGovernment #PerformanceManagement #BudgetManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentBudgetManagement #GovernmentFinanceResearchCenter #GovernmentJargon #CaliforniaBudgetPolicyCenter #MisunderstoodBudgetTerms #ChrisHoene #VagueLanguage #DefiningSurplusandDeficit #CaliforniaBudgetSurplus #StateofCalifornia #GoverningMagazine #GoverningMagazineBarrettandGreeneColumn #VolckerAlliance #TruthandIntegrityinStateBudgeting #PublicSectorBudgetManagement

We both really like listening to podcasts and even though we don’t have nearly the time to tune into all the ones we enjoy, we’re always on the lookout for good recommendations for those that add context and conversation to our work about government. (Though our favorite doesn’t fall in that category. It’s Alan Alda’s Clear & Vivid. It occurred to us that perhaps you are also seeking some good recommendations of podcasts that overlap with your interests in all things state, local and federal. Here are a few. (And, we’d welcome more good ones to listen to ourselves and share with our readers). The Academic Minute. A very short take on a topic of note to academics, explained in understandable and lay terms that give a brief sense of the topic. On Mondays, there’s a preview of what’s coming that week. Last week, the show featured a handful of talks from Portland State University, including one about tiny houses as a way to help the difficult homelessness problem and one that focused on an evaluation on non-police response to 911 calls that don’t involve criminal activity. Andy Feldman’s GovInnovator Podcast. Last week we listened to GovInnovator’s 200th podcast, an interview with Naomi Goldstein, deputy assistant secretary at the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services about the nobility of evaluation, courage, “constantly changing bureaucratic constraints,” leadership and reconciling personal views with changing political priorities. Other March podcasts featured Sara Dube, director of the Results First Initiative at the Pew Charitable Trusts, and two that focused on the Promise Programs, and the bipartisan appeal of tuition-free college programs. The Ethical Life Podcast. This features interviews on different topics that focus on the interplay between modern life and ethics, and while they’re not strictly about government, they often overlap with public policy topics. The podcast features conversations with Dr. Richard Kyte, director of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin, The one we listened to yesterday focused on how much attention one should pay to what a leader’s family members are doing. Mathematica’s On the Evidence. This is hosted by the talented J.B. Wogan, with whom we used to work at Governing. Podcasts appear every two weeks on Wednesdays. As the title of the podcast suggests, themes are generally evidence, evaluation and data focused. One March podcast centered on community wastewater testing. One in February looked at the role of evidence in state and local spending of federal pandemic relief funds. (A couple of years ago, we were honored to be chosen by J.B. to be podcast guests, talking about the ways states blend performance measurement and evaluation. It was fun to be on the other side of the microphone. #StateandLocalGovernment #PodcastRecommendation #StateandLocalGovernmentPodcasts #BarrettandGreeneRecommendations #BandGReportRecommendations #PerformanceMeasurement #HumanServices #EthicalLifePodcast #AcademicMinute #AndyFeldmansGovInnovatorPodcast #MathematicasOnTheEvidence #JBWogan #GovernmentEthics #DBReinhartInstituteforEthicsinLeadership #CommunityWastewaterTesting #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceMeasurement #PublicSectorPerformanceMeasurement #StateandLocalPandemicReliefSpending #DrRichardKyte #SaraDube #ResultsFirstInitiative #NaomiGoldstein

On the morning of April 1, 2022, the New York Times gleefully reported this very long sentence about the happy news from the Department of Labor’s monthly jobs report. “A continued torrent of consumer demand, paired with an emerging atmosphere of normalcy as coronavirus caseloads and health restrictions fade away, led to a burst of new jobs last month, giving reason for optimism despite the year’s increasingly uncertain economic outlook.” The Times piece didn’t, however, address itself to jobs in state and local government which we anticipated would be somewhat different. So, this morning we turned to Joshua Franzel, Managing Director of MissionSquare Research Institute, formerly the Center for State and Local Government Excellence at ICMA-RC. Franzel, a leading authority on government job statistics, helped fill us in on that part of the picture. Here are the highlights from our conversation with him (which took place about an hour before we posted this B&G Report). “When you step back and look at the point when the public health emergency was declared and then look at today’s numbers that were released from March, overall, the state and local employment levels are still down 3.6 percent. That equates to about 729,000 jobs.” "From a state and local perspective, it really is a mixed picture. You see with the new March numbers that came out this morning that state government employment actually is trending downward. It followed a recent peak in February 2020, right before the pandemic started. It began to recover and then peaked once more in June of 2021. But since June of 2021, it’s continued to trend downward.” “On the local side the news is a bit better in terms of the overall number of local government positions. They continue to increase, though they’re still not anywhere close to where they had peaked in February of 2020. But when you peel back the layers of the onion, a lot of that increase was from local education, where the positions needed to be filled. But when you exclude education, those positions are on a downward trend. This includes transportation and hospitals.” We need to focus on the quit rate which has been consistently high. Retirements were at a 20 year high in the summer of 2020 and they have continued to be almost twice the typical rates since then, even though you are seeing a growing number of efforts in state and local governments to increase compensation, a topic I read about in your piece in Route Fifty this morning. Most governments now are in a very optimal position to provide either one-time increases or longer-term increases.” (As to the future), “I think overall there’s really no way to predict it. States and localities are still facing positions that need to be filled to provide essential services, and I do think these efforts will continue to bear fruit. But we’re also dealing with demographic changes of an aging population and we’re going to see an uptick in retirements which just puts more pressure on employers of all sizes and sectors to try even harder to recruit talent into the workforces.” #PerformanceManagement #StateandLocalGovernment #PublicSectorHumanResources #StateandLocalGovernmentHumanResources #PublicSectorWorkforce #MissionSquareResearchInstitue #JoshuaFranzel #StateandLocalGovernmentStaffingCrisis #StateandLocalGovernmentJobsDecline #GovernmentQuitRate #StateandlocalGovernmentTurnover #PublicSectorTurnover #PublicSectorStaffCapacity #FederalJobsReport #GovernmentJobStatistics

When states invest money, whether for their pension plans or other purposes, to what extent is it sensible for them to trade potentially better returns on their money in exchange for other benefits, including social good or economic development? We’ve heard arguments on both sides of this discussion and have come to the conclusion that there may be no simple answers, and that this question may likely best be considered on a case-by-case basis. We first began to think about this issue in the early 1990s, when we had a discussion about this with Ed Schafer, the governor of North Dakota, the only state that owns its own bank, which is used as a repository for the state’s investments. We suggested to him, at the time, that perhaps the state could get higher returns on its cash with other venues for investment. His response was that, even if this was the case, the ability of North Dakota to make sure its farmers were able to borrow at affordable rates, through the state’s bank, more than offset any potential diminution of return. The governor’s long-ago sentiments were buttressed recently by an article written by Robert Chirinko, a Professor in the Department of Finance at University of Illinois at Chicago for the Government Finance Research Center there. That conversation emerged from the depths of our memories just last weekend, when the Anchorage Daily News ran an editorial about the Alaska Permanent Fund’s in-state investment program, which, according to the editorial, “carves out $200 million for private equity investments in businesses with Alaska ties.” The editorial complained that this was bad policy for several reasons the first of which was that “The Permanent Fund’s mission is maximizing returns above almost all other considerations.” In addition, the editorial stated that “The Permanent Fund wasn’t established to be an economic development agency.” After reading that editorial, we did a little Internet searching to see what had been written about the biggest cash hoard many states have available for investment, pension funds. There’s been a trend in places like California to turn to so-called ESG investing *for environmental, social and governance.” A well-researched piece, released in October 2020, by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, came to the conclusion that running investment plans with an eye on the environment or social benefits “does not appear to be costless—plans earn less in returns and fail to capture beneficiaries’ interests.” So, without enough independent research for us to form an opinion on this issue, we turned to a Government Accountability Office report from 2018, which stated that; “Fiduciaries may have difficulty determining appropriate issues to consider in investment management involving ESG factors. Fiduciaries that decide to pursue using ESG factors may face difficulty identifying and evaluating available options. Lastly, without additional information plans may be reluctant to pursue ESG strategies because they do not understand risks that could be considered material and they may not be able to effectively select and monitor an ESG strategy.” As we do more research about this topic, we invite readers of the B&G Report to send us their opinions and comments at greenebarrett@gmail.com. #StateBanks #StateofNorthDakota #PublicSectorInvestmentManagement #PublicSectorInvestment #GovernmentFinanceResearchCenter #StateandLocalGovernment #ESGInvesting #StateofAlaska #AlaskaInStateInvestmentProgram #EdSchafer #RobertChirinko #StateofCalifornia #CenterforRetirementResearch #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceManagement

The Michigan Office of the Auditor General (OAG) recently came out with a scathing performance audit about the state’s Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance (CHIP) programs. With some 2.8 million people in the state enrolled in Medicaid and another 237,500 in CHIP, this is a matter of serious concern, not just to recipients but to Michigan residents who don’t want their tax money wasted. But beyond the actual audit findings, we found the back and forth between the agency responsible for these payments, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), and the Auditor General to be of interest. In our experience it’s relatively rare for this kind of back and forth to find its way into newspapers. But in this case, the headline of an article about the audit in the Detroit News read: “Audit flags $2.4B in ‘improper’ Medicaid, CHIP payments; Michigan cries foul.” We must admit to having a little problem with the wording of the headline, which seems to indicate that the Auditor General isn’t just as much a part of Michigan government as one of the executive branch agencies. But that’s just a quibble. We took a close look at the report and thought you’d find the back and forth between the two – transparently displayed in the audit – to be of interest. We’ll focus on one of the findings. In its effort to assess the effectiveness of the “efforts to complete accurate Medicaid and CHIP client eligibilty determinations,” the auditor found that there were “inaccurate eligibility determinations and failure to maintain documentation resulting in estimated improper payments of $2.3 billion and $89.5 million for Medicaid and CHIP, respectively.” With $14.7 billion in direct Medicaid payments in fiscal year 2019, that means that about one out of six of those dollars was paid out improperly. But MDHHS, didn’t like this finding. As its response was stated in the audit report, “MDHHS strongly disagrees that the estimated improper payments are an accurate depiction of payments in error.” The agency indicated that it had requested an audit conference to discuss this disagreement, during which time it provided additional background and details. “Given the complexity of Medicaid eligibility, MDHHS took this additional step to partner with the OAG to help educate them on state and federal policy, operations and technology and resolve concerns with incorrect audit findings to ensure an accurate and representative audit product.” This complaint didn’t seem to faze the OAG much, and it defended its background and knowledge and capacity to understand the complexities of the Medicaid program. It wrote that “Our professional audit staff has decades of experience auditing the Medicaid program via mandated federal single audits (required since the mid 1980s) and various performance audits.” It then went on to address the specifics of MDHHS’s issue, writing that “Late during this audit, MDHHS brought new concerns to the OAG which were discussed in the audit conference, a process the OAG affords to all auditees. We removed 4 exceptions from the findings. THE OAG did not remove the remaining exceptions requested by MDHHS because the department could not provide sufficient evidence . . . “ The pages of the audit report are a study in how this kind of disagreement can be veiled in words that are the model of politeness but reveal a thorough lack of genuine consensus about pretty much anything. The agency’s overall comment included this: “MDHHS is always looking for opportunities to improve its programs and how they are operated. . . The efforts we have underway to improve this program and its activities are not necessarily a direct result of audit activity and does not mean that MDHHS agrees with all components of a finding. MDHHS can disagree with the OAG’s methodology, interpretations of policy and determinations on particular cases, without conceding our commitment to continuous improvement.” The OAG’s response: “Regardless of whether MDHHS’s efforts to improve processes or implement corrective actions are a direct result of our audit, it does not negate our responsibilities to communicate reportable issues. The department’s actions further support this weakness exists and that the finding ws warranted. Therefore, the finding stands as written.” #PerformanceAudit #StateOfMichigan #Medicaid #CHIP #HumanServices #EligibilityManagement #AuditorAgencyRelations #MichiganAuditorGeneral #StateandLocalPerformanceAudit #MichiganMedicaidAudit #StateandLocalPerformanceManagement #PerformanceAuditConflict #MedicaidAudit #AuditorAgencyConflict

We often talk about performance auditors on this website. These dedicated professionals may be appointed or elected. They use well-accepted auditing standards to assess risks, uncover management problems and gauge how well programs perform, providing valuable insight and oversight throughout the country. Then there’s California. In addition to the traditional kind of performance auditing, which takes place in many of the state’s cities, and counties, it also has an unusual approach to local oversight that makes use of about 1,100 citizens each year to provide assessments of how programs operate. It’s called the California Civil Grand Jury system. In each of the state’s 58 counties, jurors serve a one-year term, map out plans for the topics they want to tackle and then plunge in. About 900 reports are produced each year. Recent topics have included the monitoring of idle oil wells in Santa Barbara County; efforts to increase affordable housing in Santa Clara County, and the homeless animal problem in Contra Costa County. Details about the reports – as well as official reaction to them -- are available through “California Grand Jury News, “ a blog that’s published by the California Grand Jurors’ Association. If you want to find more, there’s a new 50-page e-book, which the association wrote about in a blog post yesterday (March 20th). This is a powerful example of citizens participating in their governments that’s unlike that found most anyplace else. If you live in California, by the way, the association is very eager to increase the pool of qualified jurors. From the e-book: “Qualifications for serving as a grand juror are simple: The applicant must be a citizen of the United States: 18 years or older; a resident of the county for one year immediately prior to being selected; in possession of their natural faculties; of ordinary intelligence, sound judgement and fair character and possessed of sufficient knowledge of the English language.” (Note that we also wrote about California’s Civil Grand Jury in a blog post about five years ago, which you can see here. ) #PerformanceAudit #CitizenParticpation #CaliforniaOversight #CaliforniaCounties #GovernmentOversight #GovernmentAccountability #CaliforniaGrandJurorsAssociation #CaliforniaGrandJuryNews #CaliforniaCivilGrandJury #CitizenInput

Performance auditors frequently do a very good job at holding agencies in their states, cities and counties accountable, by doing careful analysis and frequently making recommendations. But how many of those recommendations are actually implemented, and how many wind up as nothing more than well-intentioned suggestions (rather like the New Year's resolutions people make to lose 30 pounds in the next year)? Many entities do reviews of recommendations and the city of Portland, Oregon has just done a notable job of comparing how agencies responded to recommendations made by City Auditor Mary Hull Caballero through 2021. We want to congratulate the auditor's office for doing this review -- and making it totally transparent by sending it out to people like us! According to a release that accompanies the report, "Recommendations from a 2018 audit of Parks and Recreation’s scholarships have yet to be implemented, and the Police Bureau is still working on half of the 10 recommendations we made to improve overtime management in 2019." There was good news as well. For example the report's summary points to "Human Resources and Technology Services [which] topped the list of percentage of recommendations implemented with 86 and 67 percent." “Carrying out audit recommendations is essential for improving how Portland works,” Hull Caballero said in the release. “Portlanders are best served when managers implement our recommendations to make their programs and operations more efficient, effective, and equitable." Here are the actual results, as shown in the auditor's follow up of audit status report, which can be found at: https://www.portland.gov/audit-services/annual-follow-status-reports#toc-summary #AuditRecommendations #AuditRecommendationImplementation #PortlandAudit #PortlandAuditRecommendations #GovernmentAccountability #GovernmentOversight #CityAudit #PerformanceAudit #CityPerformanceAudit #PerformanceAuditDashboard

As we say on the home page of this website, we are "dedicated to state and local government." Notwithstanding that, we feel awkward about going about our day-to-day work as though the world was in a "business-as-usual" mode. It's not. We at Barrett and Greene, Inc (which is to say Katherine and Rich) want to speak from our hearts, and say -- like millions of others have said: "Our hopes and wishes go to the valiant people of Ukraine. May they soon know peace and freedom." Credit: Adam Young (Canadian/contemporary) Hearts for Ukraine, 2022 Acrylic on wood 24 x 24 inches Private collection