State & Local Weekly News Wrap-Up

By Timothy Brett posted Aug 19,2011 07:55 AM

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MULTI-STATE:

State legislators in California and Colorado are considering measures that would increase government transparency. Lawmakers in Colorado are pushing two bills that would provide more information about how the state is spending transportation dollars and how impact fees are paid out. In California, a Democratic assemblyman defied his party to push a measure that would require lawmakers to disclose their staff budgets and expenditures to the public. California, Colorado consider transparency measures

It is hard to find a time in recent history where the budget picture for state and local government looked as bleak as it does now. Faced with a multi-trillion dollar federal budget deficit, credit rating downgrade and shrinking revenues, state and local governments are forced to find ever more creative ways to provide services or make potentially damaging cuts. In light of this, shared services models are being examined more closely by state and local governments as a means of saving money and fostering efficiency. Shared services as an idea is nothing new. The private sector has been implementing shared services models for years and the idea has been floating around the public sector equally as long. But recently, as state and local governments are faced with making massive budget cuts, shared services models are being examined with renewed interest. Can shared services save state and local budgets?

The possibility of a double-dip recession is worrying state officials who thought they had put the worst downturn since World War II behind them. State officials say the bleak economic news of the past few weeks has triggered new alarm just as jobs are slowly increasing and tax collections are improving. Some economists have said that last week’s stock market swings, reports of slow growth and the downgrading of U.S. debt by Standard & Poor’s could be early indicators of the first dual recession since the early 1980s. Another recession on the heels of the one that ended in June of 2009 would negate the slight progress many states have been making with their finances. States grow anxious about possible recession

NORTH CAROLINA

Reuben Young will head a newly created Department of Public Safety, a souped-up law and order agency that will include the Highway Patrol, the National Guard, prisons, parole officers and youth centers. Gov. Bev Perdue named Young, the current secretary of Crime Control and Public Safety, to the new agency that will fold his department in with two other Cabinet agencies - the Department of Correction and the Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The consolidation, to take place Jan. 1, is part of an effort by Perdue to streamline state government, which she initially announced late last year and which the legislature approved. Reuben Young will lead state Public Safety

OKLAHOMA

Oklahoma City is putting its performance data online. Residents will now be able to see how quickly the city is responding to a variety of problems from graffiti removal to pothole repairs. The initiative is part of a larger website from the city Finance Department which provides spending data. The new page will show how well the city is meeting self-defined performance goals on response time, reliability and completion. In 2005, the city started to put departmental performance and spending data online to more easily identify links between performance and process. Rather than keep the study internal, the city put the data on a public website so that citizens could also review the data. OK City puts performance data online, Virginia asks residents to ID deadzones

WEST VIRGINIA

Wireless devices have become an important tool for business and government users, but their security risks have tended to restrict organizations to a limited set of approved handsets and vendors. The downside to this approach is that agencies get locked into a limited set of features in a market that is constantly producing new innovations. West Virginia wants to open its lineup of acceptable devices. In doing so, it is deploying a new software-based system that would allow users to securely access business-related information from any mobile device. Although the state is still limiting user options to a selection of vetted devices, the technology could potentially allow government employees to safely use their own personal mobile handheld devices for work - and vice versa. West Virginia expands mobile phone options for state workers

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