Kurt Thurmaier

Interlocal Agreements as Overlapping Social Networks: Picket–Fence Regionalism in Metropolitan Kansas City

Public policies addressing complex issues require transjurisdictional solutions, challenging hierarchical modes of public–service delivery. Interlocal agreements (ILAs) are long–established service–delivery instruments for local governments, and research suggests they are plentiful, with a majority of cities and counties involved in at least one ILA. Although ILAs are an established feature of local government operations, previous research is atheoretical, largely descriptive, and unsystematic. This article explores ILAs as social network phenomena, identifying the rationales and underlying values for various ILAs, central and peripheral actors, and brokering roles. In particular, we explore the utility of incorporating network exchange theory into public management network models to identify the relative power of actors in network exchange relationships. We find that a “norm of reciprocity” culture predominates an economizing value as the rationale for an abundance of service–oriented policy networks that produce a picket–fence regionalism of ILA participation in the Kansas City metropolitan area.

Interlocal Agreements as Collaborations An Empirical Investigation of Impetuses, Norms, and Success

Interlocal agreements (ILAs) have long been a useful tool for municipal and county governments to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of local government services. Yet although they have a long history in practice, there is little empirical study of the impetus and success of ILAs, especially on a statewide basis. This study presents results from a statewide survey of ILAs in Iowa created in the period, 1993-2004. Results suggest that ILAs are created to increase the effectiveness as well as efficiency of local services. The impetus for ILAs provides a focusing effect. Moreover, equitable sharing of benefits is important for the success of ILAs, and population and type of service also matter.

Testing the Reluctant Professor’s Hypothesis: Evaluating a Blended-Learning Approach to Distance Education

Abstract As MPA programs search for teaching options that meet students’ needs and maintain program quality, many are exploring various distance learning formats. This paper evaluates whether students with synchronous learning and asynchronous learning experiences received a different quality of instruction in an course that blended distance and face-to-face learning. The authors review the literature on blended learning distance education as an alternative to online-only distance education, discuss the model of blended learning distance education used in the course described in this analysis, and then review their hypotheses, research methodology, and statistical analysis. The authors conclude with a brief discussion of the implications of this experiment for other MPA programs that might explore a blended learning distance education component in their curriculum.

Measuring the Financial Position of Municipalities: Numbers Do Not Speak for Themselves

There are several challenges facing someone who wants to know if a citys revenue structure is fair and reasonable. There are few generally accepted standards to use as benchmarks of financial condition, and there is no generally accepted methodology to assess relative financial position. This article reviews literature on financial position and condition, and then develops a methodological approach that creates a cohort of similar cities for benchmarking financial position, and then forming a basis for assessing financial condition. Based on a study of the financial position of a medium-sized city, the article offers lessons for practitioners and scholars.

The Shifting Roles of State Budget Offices in the Midwest: Gosling Revisited

Almost a decade ago a study of three midwestern states revealed a variety of budget office orientations, ranging from a control to a policy emphasis, including a state in transition from one to the other. This article revisits these states to examine their current orientations and whether different office orientations influence the role of budget analysts in the budgetary process. The results suggest that another stage should be added to Schicks 1966 framework to account for the evolution of some state budget offices to a policy orientation.

Budgeting Rights: The Case of Jail Litigation

Judicial decisions are one element in the erosion of local government budgetary discretion. For example, litigation concerning constitutional rights forces local government officials to allocate resources toward the rights-based population. While rights-based allocation decisions may narrow the budgetary discretion of public officials, some managers may, paradoxically, be “better-off”—defined as the ability to protect and defend their budgets — when discretion is reduced. This thesis is tested through a case study of jail overcrowding litigation in a county government.

The Evolution of Local Government Budgeting in Poland: From Accounting to Policy in a Leap and a Bound

The evolution of U.S. public budgeting has been described by Schick (1966) as a progression from a control orientation to a management and then a planning orientation. Lee (1992) has tracked the evolution of central budgeting staff largely from a group of accountants to a more varied set of backgrounds, dominated by public administration and general liberal arts educations. As Poland decentralizes fiscal and administrative responsibilities and powers to gminas (local self-governments), the gmina councils are beginning to view the budget as more than a financial accounting tool proscribed and prescribed by the central government. They are beginning to see the potential for using the budget as a policy and management tool. The evolutionary transformation of budgeting, which took fifty years in the United States, may take only five years in Poland. The evidence for this metamorphosis is based on interviews with several gmina city budgeters, with special attention devoted to the city of Lublin.

Reformulating and Refocusing a Fiscal Administration Curriculum

Abstract Public administration programs are familiar and comfortable with the self-study and analysis that comes with the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) accreditation process. NASPAA’s curriculum standards historically have focused on core competencies for all Master of Public Administration (MPA) students. There is a noticeable lack of guidance regarding what competencies are desirable for various specializations. No guidelines are available to benchmark the curriculum for the public budgeting and financial management specialization. This essay explicitly addresses the differences in the core skill sets necessary for public managers in general versus those necessary for managers who will be finance specialists, and offers a methodology to reformulate and refocus their fiscal administration core and specialty curricula.

Who Will Pay for the Social Infrastructure? The Role of Polish Local Governments in Housing Privatization

The transformation of countries in Eastern Europe involves sweeping changes in the scope and roles of national and local governments. The reallocation of economic activities between the public and private sectors and decentralization from national to local governments are complex and difficult processes. This article explores the role of local governments in privatizing the social infrastructure assets of state-owned enterprises, especially housing complexes. Two case studies are used to compare approaches used by local governments to assume responsibility for these facilities. The Polish experience suggests that nations undertaking privatization of social assets should give greater consideration to the role of local governments in the process. The local governments are more flexible in their approach than the central government and can tailor the transformation to local conditions.

Political and Functional Local Government Consolidation The Challenges for Core Public Administration Values and Regional Reform

This analysis explores the options for a theoretical model to guide regional collaboration by local governments that is both politically feasible and consistent with core public administration values. The analysis first examines the research on the adoption, implementation and performance of political consolidation. We then examine the theory and research that underlie functional consolidation and assess both types in lieu of the values of public administration. We find that local government managers and elected officials need a theoretical model for regional collaboration that addresses a key obstacle to service consolidation among local governments: the perceived loss of political power and control associated with consolidation efforts. We suggest multilevel governance theory and the concept of shared sovereignty offer an approach to regional problems with an eye to the political as well as administrative issues, and with instruments that promote core public administration values. The concept of shared sovereignty that underpins the regional collaboration of the countries in Europe has both descriptive and predictive theoretical potential as a multilevel governance theory. The EU functions from a web of interlaced, interdependent agreements to share sovereignty in ways that manage political issues, economic factors, and administrative values, and in a fashion aligned with core PA values in the US.