Managing Local Government for Improved Performance

A Practical Approach

Brian W. Rapp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429726248
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

After working for nearly three years to improve the performance of the government of Flint, Michigan—and discovering that there was no comprehensive work on the subject of local-government management to refer to—Brian Rapp and Frank M. Patitucci felt a personal as well as a professional need to write a book that would help them understand their successes and failures, and that would help others do a better job in similar situations. The result, this book, is unique both in its approach and in its presentation. The authors, establishing a conceptual framework within which to understand their subject, use Flint as a case city to examine the practical impact of factors affecting city government, and they indicate the major standards and criteria that should be applied in evaluating that impact. Although they recognize that within each city there are unique conditions that make a blanket prescription impossible, the authors are nevertheless convinced that many individuals both in and out of government can do something to improve the performance of their city government, and they have set out to help these individuals understand, in the most concrete terms possible, how they might go about it.

Part I
A framework for understanding managing for performance

In the past we could afford to view local government primarily in political terms: that is, as the resolver of conflicts between competing demands and interests within the community. This reflected the fact that local governments provided a minimum of services; they were caretakers and maintained, not developers or innovators. Today this is not the case. Because local governments are responsible for the delivery of a growing range of services directly related to the quality of life citizens experience, the importance of improving performance has increased. The necessity of managing local government for improved performance is the subject of Chapter 1.

Given the importance of improving local- government performance, it is tempting to conclude that a local government should be managed like a private business. Certainly, the key factors for successfully managing a private business are applicable to a local government; however, they cannot be transferred directly. Chapter 2 examines the reasons for this.

Chapter 3 presents a conceptual framework designed to help practitioners, public and private leaders, citizens, and students better understand what affects the performance of a local government and what they can do about it. This framework enables us to examine the major internal and external factors that affect the process of getting things done and provides a structure for the analysis in Part II.

Chapter 1
Improving Local-Government Performance

The most compelling reason for Congress to reenact revenue sharing is quite simple and quite painful: The failure to do so will result for an absolute certainty in either substantial cuts in police protection, fire protection and other essential local services, or in substantial increases in local property taxes.

Pete WilsonMayor of San Diego

We have no alternative but to raise taxes or cut costs and services.

Abraham BeameMayor of New York City

In 1971, President Richard M. Nixon heralded the beginning of the “New American Revolution”—a revolution that was dedicated, in part, to the return of power and resources to the people. This peaceful revolution promised to give federally collected revenues back to state and local governments without federal “strings,” to be spent to meet locally determined needs in accordance with locally determined policies and priorities. The guiding philospphy of this revolution was labeled New Federalism; its cardinal tactic was revenue sharing.

The president proclaimed that this experiment in federalism would close the gap between the world of promise and that of performance. Through revenue sharing, he declared, the need for heavier property and sales taxes would be reduced, new job opportunities would be created, and competition between domestic programs and defense needs would be reduced. The president further claimed that revenue sharing would allow every individual to find a “sense of participation in government,” produce a “laboratory for modern government,” strengthen the federal government by allowing federal officials to “focus on those matters which ought to be handled at the federal level,” and ensure that local officials could be “held accountable for their stewardship of all publicfunds.” Responding to the pleas of local officials, Nixon proclaimed that if local governments were given the tools they needed they could “finish the job.”¹

Fulfillment of these promises rested on one critical assumption: that cities, as well as other units of local government, had the capacity to use unrestricted funds in an efficient and responsive manner. In short, the president assumed that local governments had the ability to get the job done.

It is surprising that few in the vanguard of Nixon’s “New American Revolution” recognized that it was the lack of management capacity within local government which in part had contributed to the inability of many Great Society programs to achieve their intended results. The Great Society programs represented the most significant direct federal intervention in the solution of social and economic problems in our nation’s history. Yet under these programs federal bureaucrats could only determine procedures, set standards, devise required reports, and withhold funds in the event of failure to comply with established regulations. Federal personnel did not directly train the unskilled, teach ghetto children to read, rehabilitate urban neighborhoods, build health centers, or validate police entrance exams. Local-government officials were responsible for doing these things. Local officials could not be bypassed in implementing programs to improve the quality of urban life.

In reviewing the record of the Great Society programs, Eli Ginzbergand Robert Solow concluded that a major cause of the gap between promise and performance was the inability of local governments to carry out their responsibilities. “It is clear,” Ginzberg and Solow argued, “that the best-conceived federal programs will falter or fail if the agencies charged with implementing them lack initiative or competence. And the sorry fact is that most state and local govern-ments—with some notable exceptions—are poorly structured and poorly staffed to carry out new and innovative tasks. They have a hard time even meeting their routine commitments.” [Authors’ italics.]² It is somewhat ironic that the policy of New Federalism was based on an assumption about the management capacity of local governments which had been called into question by the very Great Society programs this policy was designed to replace.

We are all decentralists now

It is still too early to draw definite conclusions about the success or failure of New Federalism and its principal program, revenue sharing.^* The record is incomplete. One fact, however, is indisputable: revenue sharing has not alleviated the fiscal crisis which many cities and counties were experiencing at the time of its passage. In 1971 county supervisors, mayors, council members, and other local officials argued vigorously that without increased federal funds (revenue sharing) they would be forced to finance growing operating deficits by raising local taxes, cutting municipal services, or both. Five years later, as Congress considered the renewal of revenue sharing, it found that this program had done little to mute the cry for more money. Today we continually read or hear public statements that local governments are dependent on revenue sharing to finance the delivery of basic municipal services. Yet, even with this federal source of funds an increasing number of local governments are not able to balance their municipal budgets. For these public officials the short-term alternatives are bleak: either increase revenue, by raising taxes or obtaining increased state and federal subsidies, or drastically decrease costs, with a corresponding reduction in the quantity and the quality of municipal services.

The growing financial crises facing many of our nation’s counties and cities in the mid-1970s, combined with the growing evidence that revenue sharing had not been used to finance new initiatives, served to discredit the policy of New Federalism. In the main, revenue sharing was used to pay the increased costs of providing traditional maintenance services. Instead of allowing a county or city to initiate new programs to meet needs, it financed the growing costs of existing programs. Reviewing the record, Congress in 1975 and 1976 debated a critical issue of national public policy: should the federal government move back in the centralist direction of the Great Society programs, which were characterized by categorical grants and significant federal involvement in the affairs of local government? Should the federal government tell local officials what they should do and how they should do it? Or should the federal government continue to decentralize power and authority, giving local officials greater autonomy, financial resouces, and decision-making responsibility?

For most local-government practitioners, the answer was obvious. If the Great Society programs accomplished nothing else, they demonstrated that massive federal intervention does not guarantee success in solving major urban problems. Because each locality experiences urban problems differently, “single solution” programs administered uniformly throughout the country are not effective. In simple terms, Congress cannot serve as the nation’s city council.

In many respects, the outcome of the centralíst-decentralist debate by 1975 was moot. As Irvin Kristol noted, “We are all decentralists now.” Few people disagreed with the argument that local-government officials were better able to assess local needs, set priorities, allocate funds, and achieve results than were distant federal bureaucrats. Most people agreed that New Federalism had forced accountability closer to the people and, in the process, eliminated some of the federal red tape that had impeded the successful implementation of earlier programs. It is interesting to note that during the presidential primaries and election of 1976 not one presidential aspirant seriously attacked the basic premises underlying New Federalism. Despite the possibility that local governments might be incompetent or might not spend federal resources in accordance with national priorities, no presidential candidate found it in his political interest to argue for a reversal in the flow of power and money from Washington to the local level.

Responsibility rests with local governments

Whether or not we have all become decentralists, the fact remains that the capacity of local government to manage local programs for performance is the key factor in implementing either Great Society (centralized) or New Federalist (decentralized) programs. Furthermore, after reviewing the history of the past two decades, one conclusion bears repeating: Congress cannot act as the nation’s city council. Strengthening the management process within local governments cannot be accomplished from Washington. Performance will be improved only if local officials assume this responsibility themselves. National policies, be they centralist or decentralist, cannot take into account the vast differences in condition and character of nearly 40,000 units of local government. Local individuals, both within and outside of local government, must assume the responsibility for the way in which their own local government invests and expends its resources to satisfy community needs.

As local officials and local citizens turn to the difficult challenge of managing their governments for better performance, it must be recognized that, in the short term, some may have few options available to them. Like Mayor Abraham Beame of New York, many local-government officials have no alternative but to increase taxes or decrease costs. In the longer term, however, all local governments have a third alternative: they can improve their capacity to use available resources more efficiently and effectively.

The stakes are high

As recently as a decade ago, the necessity of improving the performance of local government was not widely perceived. Today this is no longer the case. During the past decade the business of local government has changed dramatically. Today, in addition to being a “housekeeper” responsible primarily for maintenance functions (the construction and repair of roads, street cleaning, garbage collection and disposal, leaf and snow removal, public safety, and the like), local governments are expected to be agents of change. Today, problems in the areas of air pollution, health care, mass transit, and energy conservation are all the responsibility of local governments. These responsibilities, combined with the growing interdependence among federal, state, and local governments, have exacerbated the consequences of poor government performance.

The economic impact of local government is also great and becoming greater. From 1965 to 1974, local-government expenditures increased 153 percent. By fiscal year 1974, they accounted for 10 percent of the gross national product, double the percentage in fiscal year 1955. Local-government expenditures increased from $26.2 billion in 1953 to $140.4 billion in 1974—a fivefold increase.

Local government is also growing as an employer. In 1974,11 out of every 100 people in the civilian work force were employed by local government, as compared to only about 6 out of every 100 in 1955. The role of local government within the national economic picture is thus expanding. Historically, economic growth has depended primarily on the performance of the private sector. As the production of goods and services by government increases in proportion to total economic activity, maintenance of continued economic growth will depend increasingly on improving the performance of government in general and of local government in particular.

Another reason for concern with local-government performance is the growing level of citizen discontent.³ Upset about rising governmental expenditures that require ever-increasing taxes, and angered by the fact that few local-government officials can tell them what their tax dollars actually buy, citizens are rebelling. They are turning down bond issues,⁴ defeating incumbents, and electing candidates who promise to hold the line against increased costs and higher taxes. As citizens’ discontent increases at the same time that their perceived ability to do someting about it decreases, the result is a growing sense of alienation and apathy—major enemies of a democratic system of government.

Increased responsibility, increased economic significance, and greater citizen discontent are persuasive arguments for an active strategy to improve the performance of local government. Local officials, as well as the citizens to whom they are accountable, must address the difficult but important question: how can we manage our local government for improved performance?

Note

* We do not distinguish between general and special revenue sharing. Both programs involve the transfer of federal revenues to states and localities. The principal difference between them is that special revenue sharing restricts the use of money to broadly defined purposes: community development, transportation, economic development; general revenue sharing has no effective restrictions. Special revenue sharing may be distinguished from bloc grants in that the latter require matching funds from recipient state and local governments.

Chapter 2
Managing Local Government as a Public Business

If only they could run city government the way they run General Motors.

Anonymous

It is tempting to those engaged in efforts to improve the performance of a local government to look toward what would appear to be a simple solution: manage local government as if it were a private business.

It is true that many of the management techniques used in a private business are transferable to a public business. These techniques should be transferred more often and more rapidly than they have been in the past. But, as we have pointed out, the “business” of local government has certain characteristics that are not found in most private businesses. To understand what affects the management process in local government, it is necessary to understand how it is different from private enterprise.

Lack of performance imperatives

In private business, success in the marketplace determines the viability of an enterprise. ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• List of Figures
• List of Exhibits
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Performance and the Management Process
• PART I: A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING MANAGING FOR PERFORMANCE
• PART II: APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK
• PART III: GETTING FROM HERE TO THERE
• GLOSSARY
• APPENDIXES
• NOTES