Cedar Lake Town Administrator wins award

Congratulations to Ian Nicolini, Town Administrator of Cedar Lake, Indiana! Ian was recently named the Outstanding Young Local Government Manager by the Indiana Municipal Management Association.

IMMA President Tonya Galbraith said Nicolini was recognized for his professionalism and dedication to local government.

"Ian's award is the result of his unwavering commitment to his community and desire to be among the best of Indiana's professional government managers," Galbraith said.
Recipients of IMMA awards are nominated by their peers and chosen by the IMMA executive committee.

The outstanding new local government manager award goes to professional local government managers who have been appointed recently, are integral parts of the professional management of their local governments and have demonstrated extraordinary leadership.

I've met Ian and I'm not surprised to hear that he was selected for this type of award.

Public vs. private sector pay

CNN/Money.com reports on a recently published study by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence and National Institute on Retirement Security. The study finds that public employees are paid 11 to 12 percent less than comparable private sector workers. Even after accounting for the more generous benefits enjoyed by public sector workers, they are still paid about 7 percent less than employees in the private sector.

The findings of this study run contrary to an analysis recently reported in USA Today. That analysis, though, appeared to be merely a crude comparison of averages and didn't take into account the different education levels and occupational mixes of public and private employees.

A more detailed treatment of this issue is available in Paul Light's The Warping of Government Work. Light finds that at the lower end of the skill/salary spectrum, say clerks, manual laborers, and similar jobs, public sector employees are better compensated than their private sector counterparts. He credits this, in part, to increased unionization in the public sector. Also, globalization has depressed private sector wages for lower skilled occupations relative to the public sector.

At the high end, say lawyers and accountants, the opportunities for higher compensation are much more abundant in the private sector than in government. Making it difficult for government to attract the best and brightest, as they say. 

This pay differential in managerial positions affects local governments, too. The City of Muncie recently lost its park director and hr director, because they had more lucrative opportunities in private sector employment.

HT: Association of Indiana Counties

Former Indy Mayor Goldsmith is now NYC deputy mayor

New York City Mayor Bloomberg has named former Indianapolis mayor Stephen Goldsmith as Deputy Mayor for Operations.

HT: @Governing

Death by PowerPoint vs. Writing to Learn

A recent article in the New York Times examines how PowerPoint has affected the way strategy is set and decisions are made in the US military.

Like an insurgency, PowerPoint has crept into the daily lives of military commanders and reached the level of near obsession. The amount of time expended on PowerPoint, the Microsoft presentation program of computer-generated charts, graphs and bullet points, has made it a running joke in the Pentagon and in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

A running joke, maybe, but some of the impacts aren't so funny.

Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster, who banned PowerPoint presentations when he led the successful effort to secure the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005, [likened] PowerPoint to an internal threat.

“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”

...

Commanders say that behind all the PowerPoint jokes are serious concerns that the program stifles discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making.

I agree with the unnamed commanders and think that this issue has implications for local government, too.

Public employee charactures

Unfortunately, like most charactures, there is enough resemblance to reality that you can recognize what is being charactured.

SNL's Public Employee of the Year

In my personnel course, I talk about people's images of public employment and bureaucracy. I think I may use this in class this fall.

HT: @Governing

What I'm reading: Safford; Eggers and O'Leary

Safford, Sean. 2009. Why the Garden Club Couldn't Save Youngstown: The Transformation of the Rust Belt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

I just started reading this and I'll have something to say about it later. I suspect that Youngstown's story is similar to Muncie's in some ways. You can hear Safford present the thumbnail version of his research by listening to an episode of Smart City Radio.

Eggers, William D. and John O'Leary. 2009. If We Can Put a Man on the Moon: Getting Big Things Done in Government. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press.

The idea behind this book may cause my libertarian friends' heads to explode. But Eggers and O'Leary make a good case that even libertarians should want government to be effective.

Continuous improvement: Two lessons from the classroom

The concept of continuous improvement is an important one, not only for organizations, but for individuals, too. I like to think that as I've matured, professionally and chronologically, I've devoted more attention to practicing continuous improvement, both professionally and personally.

Since, I started teaching a couple of years ago, I've found that some aspects of classroom teaching naturally lend themselves to practicing continuous improvement. Yesterday, I was thinking about how I approach continuous improvement in my teaching and the lessons those practices hold for practicing it in other areas.