|
Addresssing Heath Care Costs
Until global warming really heats up, skyrocketing health care costs are probably the single greatest threat to our future prosperity. For four decades, they have marched upward at 10 percent a year. I’ll devote this letter, and the next, to some answers, in the form of an open memo to candidates across the land.
(September 2006)
[pdf version]
Bureaucracy Busting
Systemic reforms often require legislation. Few state legislators, county commissioners, city council or school board members have much interest in internal reforms. So here’s an easier way: Create a “Bureaucracy Buster Panel” with the authority to grant waivers to rules that drive up costs or stand in the way of improved results.
(August 2006)
[pdf version]
Banishing Bureaucracy Revisited
In 2005, when the last copies of Banishing Bureaucracy sold, I was determined to get it back in print. I’m delighted to tell you that that a new paperback edition has just been published. The preface of the new edition comprises this months Osborne Letter.
(July 2006)
[pdf version]
Customer Service & the 311 Transformation
David Osborne discusses the next step in the 311 call center transformation: using 311 data on how long it takes to respond to problems to create service standards that push agencies to work smarter. Baltimore, for example, now promises to repair all potholes and remove all graffiti within 48 hours of a report. (June 2006)
[pdf version]
Zooming For Results
We’ve all heard of Total Quality Management, and many of us have tried it, under one guise or another. At the Public Strategies Group we’ve been working with two consultants from the Northwest who have developed a TQM-type method that is particularly well adapted to the public sector. Trademarked by Jean Baumann of Present Dynamics, Inc. and Catherine Geissler of Outside Edge, Inc., it’s called Zoom for Change. (May 2006)
[pdf version]
Chief of Police, Chief of Reinvention: Bill Bratton Teaches Through Example
I’ve been writing books for two decades now, and the real fun has always been the research. What better than to find smart, creative people who are breaking out of the bureaucratic box, visit them, and pick their brains? One I missed was Bill Bratton, who has been chief of police in Boston, New York City and now Los Angeles. (April 2006) [pdf version]
The Spread of Budgeting For Outcomes
With the paperback edition of The Price of Government just out, it’s a good time for an update on Budgeting for Outcomes, the big new idea Peter Hutchinson and I unveiled in our 2004 book. Since then, Budgetingfor Outcomes has spread to three other states, large departments in two more states, five cities, two counties and two school districts. (March 2006) [pdf version]
Traditional Consolidation & The FEMA Failure
One of the saddest stories of the Bush administration is the fall of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In the late 1990s FEMA was widely admired--one of the shining examples of reinventing government at the federal level. Today, it is widely viewed as a failure. The lesson for public leaders: Beware the temptation to consolidate. (February 2006) [pdf version]
Whatever Happened to The Permanent Fiscal Crisis?
In recent months newspapers in many states have reported that state government revenues are soaring and state budgets are back in the black. So is the fiscal crisis over? Were Peter Hutchinson and I exaggerating when, in the subtitle to The Price of Government, we declared this fiscal crisis “permanent”? (January 2006) [pdf version]
Charter Agencies
Two years ago we convinced public leaders in Iowa to embrace a strategy that gives agency managers greater flexibility in return for higher accountability. The deal is relatively simple. An agency volunteers to be accountable for producing measurable results; and contribute to closing the state’s budget gap. (December 2005) [pdf version]
|
