David H. Folz

Recycling Program Design, Management, and Participation: A National Survey of Municipal Experience

materials. Disposal of urban wastes in the old county dump is a practice quickly nearing extinction in the United States. More stringent national and state environmental standards and a citizenry concerned with the public health consequences of traditional modes of disposal have contributed to a crisis in solid waste disposal that dominates the political agendas of many local governments. Financially and politically, it is now much more difficult to dispose of the nations steadily growing volume of waste that by some estimates will increase this decade from 3.6 to 4.0 pounds per person, per day. By 2000, local officials will have to manage some 190 million tons of solid waste annually (Office of Technology Assessment, 1989).

Explaining the Performance of Mature Municipal Solid Waste Recycling Programs

This paper assesses the contextual, programmatic and decision-making factors that affect the performance of mature municipal solid waste recycling programs. Tobit models were prepared for cities with populations of less than or more than 25 000 to facilitate analysis of recycling performance. Recycling participation rates were found to be higher among cities in both groups that offered more convenient recycling programs and whose residents had a higher mean household income. The larger cities that achieved higher participation rates employed a decision-making process known as ‘collaborative learning’, imposed sanctions on improper sorting recyclable materials, and had a larger non-minority population. Among smaller cities, higher participation was attained by using variable fee pricing for solid waste collection and by mandating household participation. The study findings suggest that future research should focus on improved ways to characterize and measure the decision-making processes used to make policy changes in order to facilitate analysis of the causal and temporal relationships between decision-making processes and program performance.

Executive Behavior and Decision Making in Small U.S. Cities

This study examines how chief executives in small U.S. cities allocate their time, view their involvement in decisions related to the dimensions of the governmental process, who they consult in making decisions about local services, and the extent to which they perceive that their decisions are influenced by community interest groups. The study confirms that several differences exist among the different types of executives with respect to time allocation and role emphases. City managers spent more time on and perceived themselves to be more extensively involved in decisions related to local mission, policy, administration, and management compared with mayors. Mayors and city managers exhibited different patterns of consultation with key stakeholders inmaking decisions about local services. City managers were more likely than mayors to engage in activities related to the city’s mission and policy, but they tempered that involvement with a more inclusive pattern of consultation.

Recycling Policy and Performance: Trends in Participation, Diversion, and Costs

This panel study examines trends in recycling participation, diversion, and costs among a national sample of municipal programs in 1989 and 1996 and identifies the recycling policies associated with changes in performance. This study finds that local recycling officials made recycling performance comparisons with other jurisdictions and engaged in a rational process of policy experimentation to fine-tune the performance of their programs during the 1990s. The policies that distinguished higher performing recycling efforts included mandatory recycling, curbside collection and free recycling bins, operating composting programs, and banning disposal of yard wastes. Recycling participation increased about 36% to a mean level of 73% by 1996. Diversion increased by 111% to a mean level of 33% by 1996. The total costs for recycling programs rose an average of 220%, but many cities with curbside collection also improved efficiency to the point where unit recycling costs were competitive with the costs of solid waste collection and disposal.

Professional Management and Service Levels in Small U.S. Communities

Based on a national survey of small U.S. cities between 5,000 and 25,000 in size, this study classifies the level of municipal services provided by small communities and examines the community and governmental features that are related to those cities that provide higher levels of urban services. The study finds that after controlling for differences in population size, wealth, education, and metro status, those small cities that have a professional city manager and an adaptive or administrative type of local government structure are somewhat more likely to provide qualitatively higher levels of municipal services, suggesting that professional managers play an important role in advancing the level of service provided in the communities they serve.

Practicing the Politics of Inclusion: Citizen Surveys and the Design of Solid Waste Recycling Programs:

This study presents a framework for applying and interpreting citizen surveys to formulate community recycling programs. Viewed as a coproduced service, a recycling programs success depends on strong and sustained public support and participation. We find that knowing citizen opinions and attitudes toward recycling can help public managers maximize citizen participation in recycling. This analysis supports the value of conducting citizen opinion surveys as part of the recycling program design. Furthermore, such surveys are useful management tools for learning local opinions and attitudes that can be used to improve program design and sustain citizen participation in a community recycling program.

Evaluating State Hazardous Waste Reduction Policy

EVERY YEAR more than 23,000 largequantity generators in the United States produce over a ton of hazardous waste for each citizen.1 The real and perceived threats to human health and environmental quality, and the widely reported incidents of hazardous chemical spills and discoveries of abandoned waste sites, have fueled popular demands for government to “do something” to limit public exposure to hazardous waste dangers (Dunlap 1995; Lester and Bowman 1983). One policy response that was recommended as early as 1976 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urged industries to reduce, avoid, or eliminate the generation of hazardous waste in the first place (EPA 1976). To public officials, the appeal of reduction was obvious: what was not generated could not threaten the public’s health, degrade the environment, or divert resources for expensive liability lawsuits. The 1984 Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments encouraged industries to reduce hazardous waste wherever possible, but Evaluating State Hazardous Waste Reduction Policy

Vote Centers as a Strategy to Control Election Administration Costs

The rising costs of election administration in an era of fiscal stress have motivated some local officials to test the feasibility of ideas for reducing election costs while enhancing voter convenience and perhaps even increasing voter turnout. One such pilot project in a suburban community in the South involved replacing precinct-based voting on election day with a vote center that all voters could use regardless of their precinct of residence. A comparison of election costs across two municipal elections showed that replacing precinct-based voting with an election day vote center resulted in substantial cost savings. While there was no statistical difference in voter turnout in municipal elections held before and after implementation of the pilot project, voters were highly satisfied with the convenience of the vote center as well as other aspects of their voting experience. The findings suggest that an election day vote center can be a viable strategy to control election costs and enhance voters’ perceptions of the convenience of voting.

Reviews and EssaysOsborneDavid and HutchinsonPeter The Price of Government: Getting the Results We Need in an Age of Permanent Fiscal Crisis (New YorkBasic Books, 2004)

W The Price of Government appeared in the spring of 2004, the book’s timing could not have been better. The fi scal stresses experienced by governments during the previous three years were vivid, and the recent postrecession growth in revenues did little to abate deepening concern about inexorable increases in health care costs and unfunded mandates and growing service demands. As he did in 1992 with publication of Re inventing Government, Osborne (together with coauthor Peter Hutchinson, a partner in the Public Strategies Group based in Minneapolis) issued a warning that resonated with many government offi cials: American government has entered a permanent and perfect “fi scal storm” that requires profound changes in the way government functions in order to get the results that citizens demand at a price they are willing to pay. Osborne and Hutchinson’s 370-page treatise places equal blame on the “bankrupt ideologies” of the left and the right for this terrible state of fi scal affairs. The authors take great pains to articulate what amounts to a manifesto for change that targets traditional incremental budgeting practices and accounting gimmicks that they believe have contributed to growing debt and defi cits as well as increasing political alienation among citizens. What the authors propose to substitute involves a distinctly different approach to budgeting that focuses on buying results for citizens rather than making incremental changes to last year’s spending levels. Based on their consulting experiences with governments in Minnesota and Washington, among others, the authors suggest a fi ve-stage budget process whereby offi cials (1) defi ne the nature of the problem, (2) determine what citizens are willing to pay for services, (3) establish government priorities, (4) allocate available resources across priorities, and (5) develop a purchasing plan for each desired result or outcome. Once these decisions are made, “smarter sizing, spending, management, and work processes” will result and make it possible to produce the desired outcomes for the set price. Chief among these approaches are creating ongoing review processes outside the budget process; consolidating funding streams and policy organizations; rightsizing management; buying services competitively; rewarding performance, not just good intentions; letting customers choose between service providers; creating employee teams to engender trust; injecting fl exibility in rules to get greater accountability for results; modernizing staff functions; and adapting smarter work processes used by industry. David Osborne and Peter Hutchinson The Price of Government: Getting the Results We Need in an Age of Permanent Fiscal Crisis (New York: Basic Books, 2004)