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Grading the States ’08. How does your state measure up?

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

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