Will the Stimulus Have Any Lasting Impact on States and Cities?

posted by Zach Patton

Of course we've all heard a lot about the stimulus over the past several months. And we're about to hear a lot more -- the October 10 reporting deadline for states is looming large. (By the way, you can get a preview of how states have been spending their recovery cash in Josh Goodman's October Governing story.)

But what are the long-term implications of the stimulus? Will it have any lasting impact on states and cities?

A panel of stimulus experts tackled that question at the kick-off session for Governing's Managing Performance conference in Atlanta.

The bottom line? Will the stimulus have a lasting impact? No. Except...maybe.

Everyone on the panel seemed to agree that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act won't have any long-term fiscal impact on states and localities. "I don't know of any governor who's counting on this money continuing," said David Quam, the director of federal relations for the National Governors Association. "They see this as a one-time thing."

The ARRA influx of cash did delay states' "day of reckoning," as Mike Mower, Utah's planning coordinator and stimulus czar, put it.

But Mark Muro, policy director for the Metropolitan Policy Program at The Brookings Institution, was blunt about the stimulus' ultimate effect: "I don't think ARRA will be seen as transformative at all," he said. "I think it will be seen as one of the last gasps of federal business-as-usual, a highly visible case-study of the way we've delivered government services for the past 30 years."

So, okay, no movement of the tectonic plates when it comes to states' fiscal picture. But there is one way that the stimulus may change government for the long-term: accountability. The reporting and transparency required by the ARRA may fundamentally shift the way states and cities report on how they deliver services. "I do think we're starting to see a trend" toward great accountability, said Quam. "If it's done right, I could see this having a long-lasting effect."

Quam also said the working relationship between states and the federal government has improved dramatically. "I'm hopeful that the cooperation that's come from working together to create this [reporting system] is actually a model for building a relationship that, instead of being coercive, is actually cooperative."

So, the stimulus: a necessary one-time shot in the arm for state budgets. But maybe the beginning of a long-term evolution toward better accountability and an improved give-and-take federalism.

Or maybe not...

Don't Use IT to Cement a Broken System

posted by Zach Patton

I'm in Atlanta for Governing's 2009 Managing Performance conference.  It's always great to come to these things and meet individuals who are truly committed to improving the way government works for citizens.

I got to sit in on one of the pre-conference workshops this afternoon, and I wanted to share one great tidbit I heard from one of the speakers, Bill Bott, the former deputy CIO of Missouri and now a private sector management consultant.

Bill was underscoring a point I've heard before at this conference (and at Governing's Managing Technology conferences): Technology alone isn't going to fix your problems.

But Bill laid it out in the clearest way I've heard yet: "Eliminate, consolidate and then automate." You've got to streamline your processes and consolidate extraneous parts of your system before you ever think about turning to IT. Otherwise, you're simply automating a faulty system. It's bad IT.

"Technology isn't the answer, because technology typically isn't the problem," Bott said. "It can be part of the solution, but it's not going to be the solution itself."

Much more to come, but I thought that was a great thought worth sharing: Eliminate, consolidate, THEN automate.

No Relief in Sight from Medicaid Pressures

posted by Penelope Lemov

If you’re looking for a snapshot of the hard times states are going through in this Great Recession, look no further than new numbers from a recent survey on the state of state Medicaid.

Going into fiscal 2009, state Medicaid officials estimated that enrollment in the health insurance program for the poor would grow by 3.6 percent. That wasn’t even close. It ballooned by 5.4 percent, the highest rate in six years.

Fiscal 2009 predictions on spending growth for the program were 5.8 percent. The reality: It went up by 7.9 percent, the highest growth rate in five years.

So what have states projected for 2010? Medicaid directors expect spending to ratchet up by an average of at least 6.3 percent. But here’s the kicker: Three-quarters of the states don’t think an appropriation to cover that growth will be enough. That means there will be budget shortfalls and continued pressure to trim services and spending.

All this despite the $87 billion in federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act monies targeted for Medicaid relief. And despite the fact that nearly every state implemented at least one new Medicaid policy to control spending in fiscal 2009 and 2010.

This snapshot comes from Kaiser Family Foundation’s 9th annual survey of Medicaid directors. The survey was conducted in July and August 2009. More details from the report, “The Credit Crunch Continues” are at http://www.kff.org/

Newark Mayor: Conan O'Brien Better Stick With JFK

posted by Zach Patton

Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Cory Booker knows you think his city is a punchline. But he's out to change that.

After Conan O'Brien made fun of Newark this week, Booker bit back with a funny, Web-savvy response.

Here's what Conan said: "The mayor of Newark, New Jersey, wants to set up a city-wide program to improve residents' health. The health care program would consist of a bus ticket out of Newark."

Har, har.

Here's Booker's response:

In my opinion, it's spot-on: a great balance of funny and serious.  And, at a minute and three seconds, it's good for the internets. And it's just the kind of meme Conan might pick up on (whereas if Booker had just railed or made fun of him, that probably would have been the end of it.)

Booker's smart and savvy.  I saw him on the Colbert Report a couple weeks ago, talking about "Brick City," the new Sundance Channel documentary about Booker's fight to improve Newark.

Here's his Colbert appearance:

So if Booker ever does decide to leave Newark, he's got late-night nailed.

Story Behind the Story On Hiatus This Week

posted by Tina Trenkner

Over the last few days, Governing's office has been buzzing over our Managing Performance conference in Atlanta this week. In lieu of another installment of Story Behind the Story this week, Zach Patton will be blogging news, trends and takeaways from Managing Performance over the next few days.

Story Behind the Story will resume next week.

Polanski Case Deserves an Ending

posted by Alan Greenblatt

I'll admit to feeling some ambivalence about the Roman Polanski case, but my bottom line is that if he's extradited and serves time, he'll have gotten what he deserves.

Many of the arguments being trotted out about the supposed excesses of this case -- that the crime took place in 1977; that he's now an old man of 76; that he suffered through two of the iconic acts of man-made cruelty of the 20th century, the Holocaust and the Manson family murders; that he's lived an upstanding life since as a husband and father and Oscar-winning director; that America's sex laws are too prudish -- are all irrelevant.

Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl and then fled the country. That's the core issue.

The well-received documentary of last year, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, seemed to make clear that there was judicial misconduct in the case. Both the prosecuting attorney and the defense attorney agreed in interviews that the judge, now deceased, appeared to care more about publicity and how he would appear than honoring plea agreements and other deals.

Even watching the movie, though, I remained unconvinced that Polanski was somehow being railroaded. The judge's motives may not have been pure but what he was responding to was the idea that Polanski may not have been punished severely enough. It seemed bizarre to me that people seemed to feel that that movie somehow exculpated him.

I don't know the case well enough to know whether the judge was truly overstepping his bounds in how he attempted to apply the law. But the fact remains that Polanski didn't wait around to find out, instead fleeing the country.

It's the flight, not the crime, that undermines charges from, for instance, French officials that the statute of limitations should have passed by now.

Polanski wasn't willing to face justice or the closest approximation California could come up with. His legal problems would all be over by now if he had stuck out his sentence, however harsh or procedurally incorrect. If he's angry about still being hounded now, he has only himself to blame.

So why am I ambivalent? Because it's clear that the arguments his supporters are using -- citing his celebrity and artistry and personal history -- are motivating the legal system in California as well. If Polanski were a run of the mill rapist, this story would not be international news. In fact, there would be no story.

It does strike me as odd that 32 years after the fact authorities in California were still keeping track of Polanski's movements, waiting for their opportunity to strike as he stepped foot in a nation with an extradition treaty with the U.S.

There must have been tens or hundreds of thousands of crimes perpetrated in Los Angeles since 1977. Since Polanski has been caught, he deserves to be extradited and punished. But I'm not convinced that keeping this case so actively open for so long was the best use of resources.

Illinois' Bold Bid to Reshape the Local Food Scene

posted by Zach Patton

I've become something of the go-to guy around Governing when it comes to food stories. I've written about street food carts, urban farm plots and the challenges governments face when they're trying to promote local food production and consumption.

But I missed this story out of Illinois, when the legislature this summer passed a law aimed at making it easier to find local food. From the Chicago Tribune:

The legislation establishes a council to develop a fresh farm and food system in the state, and it creates a system that allows buyers for state agencies to pay up to 10 percent above the lowest bid when purchasing locally grown foods. It also sets a goal for state-owned agencies to increase their purchase of locally grown foods each year so that 20 percent of their food purchase is spent on Illinois-grown foods by 2020.

Plenty of cities and states have set up "Buy Local" food councils, but Illinois' plan goes a lot further. Setting the 20 percent goal by 2020? Impressive. (I'll believe it when it happens, but an impressive goal nonetheless.)

The most progressive aspect of the bill, in my opinion, is the clause allowing agencies to pay 10 percent more for food that's grown locally. Right now, local food growers don't have the institutionalized economies of scale that larger producers do. So giving agencies the ability to pay a little more seems like it could go a long way toward really establishing a local-food system.

If you'll forgive a food pun, there's a lot of low-hanging fruit. Again, from the Trib:

Currently, an estimated 4 percent of the money Illinois residents spend on food each year is for products grown in the state, and just several hundred of the state's 76,000 farmers are producing for the local market, according to a task force report.

As Grist points out, that means that less than one percent of Illinois' farmers grow food to be eaten in Illinois (and I'm sure that would be true for most other states as well). You don't have to be a local-food advocate to think there's something a little wacky about that.

'Julie & Julia' and Bureaucrat Bashing

posted by Alan Greenblatt

I finally got around to seeing Julie & Julia. No one told me how anti-government-work it is.

Julie Powell, the young blogger who seeks to cook all the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, finds a source of fulfillment in cooking that is lacking in every other aspect of her life -- including and perhaps especially her job.

Powell is a cubicle jockey who works for a government agency. Her job is portrayed as so soul-killing that she practically has to take up overly ambitious cooking in a tiny kitchen in order to find any happiness and balance in her life.

All she does is push paper and answer the phone. Her boss is concerned about her abuse of sick-day policy and nothing else. The only coworker who is portrayed is on-screen only to give Powell high fives as her blog begins to become popular.

It's all just a grind.

Score One for the Nanny State

by Penelope Lemov

National Nanny is the usual charge when a government --  federal, state or local -- tries to legislate better health behavior. There certainly was a flurry of that type of charge when, several years ago, smoking bans started moving from the workplace to restaurants to pubs and bars.

But let's score one for the Nanny. Two new and comprehensive reports have found that smoke-free laws reduced the rate of heart attacks by an average of 17 percent after one year (in communities where the bans were in effect); after three years, the rate dropped about 25 percent.

The Wall Street Journal's health blog notes that the reports were based on pooled analyses of separate studies from the U.S., Canada and Europe and that they involved a combined total of roughly 24 million people. According to David Meyers, one of the authors of one of the studies, a 17 percent decline on a national basis would amount to avoiding more than 150,000 heart attacks annually. His report is scheduled to  appear September 29 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The Story Behind the Story: Where to Meet the Mayor

posted by Alan Greenblatt

Before I went to Memphis for our September 2009 cover story on Shelby County, Tennessee, Mayor A C Wharton Jr., at least two people had told me where I could find him -- the Starbucks on Union Avenue in Midtown.

Wharton drops by every day for a cup of coffee, a glance at The New York Times, perhaps a briefing from a county staffer and the chance to meet and greet a few of his constituents. Everyone knows if they want to see him, he's perfectly accessible there. "For $1.50, you can have a cup of coffee and a meeting with the mayor," says John Moore, president of the Greater Memphis Chamber.

Sometimes, it won't even cost you that much. Wharton is known as a soft touch. The day I was there with him, a woman hit him up for a free drink. Wharton waved at the counter help and gestured that her drink was on him. He sat back down but kept an eye over toward the register, wondering what she was going to order. "I get the cheapest drink in here," he said, cupping his $1.65 small (or I should say "tall") coffee, "and sometimes they get one of those $4 drinks."

Not every politician is as regular in his habits as Wharton. Several years ago when I was out doing a story on Bill Richardson in Santa Fe, I can remember him getting some criticism from the local papers because he would send state troopers in to pick up his Starbucks for him.

But whether it's a small capital like Santa Fe or a big city like Memphis, the political world always seems to be a village unto itself. People go to the same restaurants and run into each other, passing on a quick word when they have to. Like the "young lovers" in "The King and I," "they meet, not really by chance."

The Washington Post just ran a big story on Tosca, reportedly the new "in" restaurant for some of Washington's most famous and expensive lobbyists. Tom Daschle eats at Table 26, while his son Nathan, head of the Democratic Governors Association, apparently sits at the bar.

Lunch can cost $100 for two people at Tosca, before wine. That's why it's nice that Wharton hangs out at Starbucks, encouraging the fellow who's been been coming in to work on his movie for a couple of years (it had its premiere while I was out there) and saying hello to the middle-aged-to-old guys who pull up a couple of tables and sit down to talk and solve the world's problems.

You don't need $100 to schmooze him. In fact, if you're tight, Wharton will even stand you to one of those $4 adult milkshakes.

The only people who aren't accommodating there, in fact, are the employees. At least, not to a reporter. When I went to that Starbucks without Wharton to check out the scene, I wanted to ask the manager about him. Someone had told me that the people who work there all love him, so I figured I would suss this out and maybe get a quote.

When I identified myself, though, the manager immediately said, "We have a corporate media office and you'll have to call them," then walked away.

I haven't called corporate in Seattle to find out what they think about the mayor being such a known regular at Location 1361, or whatever it is. Maybe I should do that.

Photo by David Kidd