Grading the States '08. How does your state measure up?
| March 3, 2008 |  View for printing |
The Mandate to Measure
Information is king. No single idea emerges more clearly from year-long research done for the 2008 Government Performance Project. As always, this report focuses on four fundamental areas of government management: Information, People, Money and Infrastructure. But this year, the elements that make up the information category — planning, goal-setting, measuring performance, disseminating data and evaluating progress — overlap with the other three fields to a greater degree than ever before. Information elements, in short, are key to how a state takes care of its infrastructure, plans for its financial future and deals with the dramatic changes affecting the state workforce.
Governors understand this. A growing number are now personally involved in improving the way information is used to manage their states. Ted Strickland, Ohio's governor, began a "Turnaround Ohio" plan that includes flexible performance agreements with his agency heads. Similarly, Maryland's Governor Martin O'Malley is building StateStat, a comprehensive means for making decisions based on data, similar to his CitiStat effort in Baltimore. He describes it as a system "that actually sets goals and has the guts to measure progress towards achieving those goals. All of that with relentless follow-up."
By Katherine Barrett & Richard Greene
Full Story and Report: http://governing.com/gpp/2008/index.htm
No reader comments so far. Be the first to comment by clicking the button below.
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law. Full copyright retained by the original publication. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
