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| Public Health |
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Recognizing that keeping patients healthy requires a multi-pronged approach, the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis is one of a growing number of hospitals that provide on-site food pantries. As families that are food-insecure are more likely to develop health problems, these medical clinics have found ways to integrate food pantries into their practice. Other hospital-based food pantries, such as the Preventive Food Pantry at Boston Medical Center, have been filling prescriptions for food from medical providers for several years.
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| Community Development |
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Hayward, California’s Mural Art Program is designed to combat graffiti while imparting public health, public safety, and local history messages on buildings, underpasses, benches, fire hydrants, and other urban fixtures. The program, launched in 2009, conducts outreach to local artists, and has led to the reduction of graffiti and the associated decline in property values as murals are rarely defaced. Hayward has influenced the development of similar programs in a dozen other local municipalities.
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| Privatization |
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In 2011, Sandy Springs, Georgia, completed its transition to becoming a privately-run city with only seven full-time employees that outsources its city services from its parks to the administration of its court system. In addition to soliciting and accepting competitive bids to provide the services, the city has signed contracts with losing bidders as insurance should the winner fail to deliver. With no long-term liabilities, a rainy day fund of $21 million, and the ability to spend one-fifth of its annual budget on capital projects, other cities have taken notice.
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| Education |
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Tennessee has enacted two new voluntary measures to encourage parental involvement in their children’s education. One measure asks parents to evaluate themselves on report cards. Parents who sign up for the four-year pilot program in two of the state’s struggling schools will be given a blank report card to grade themselves on their involvement in their kids' school activities. Another measure has parents in each school district sign “contracts” agreeing to assist with homework and attend parent-teacher conferences. These measures are part of a growing trend in several states to get parents to take a more active role in their children’s academic development.
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| Emergency Response |
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Suffolk County police in New York have joined a statewide pilot program that provides officers with special training to administer doses of a drug that can save the life of a drug-overdose victim. Officers are administering “Narcan,” a nasally-delivered drug which reduces the effects of an overdose by blocking the effects of heroin and other opioids for at least 30 minutes. Several lives have already been saved through the program.
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| Environment |
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Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky have signed on to a multistate water quality trading plan. The plan provides a market-based approach to economical conservation that allows businesses and municipalities to exchange credits for emission of materials into water sources. Under the scheme, a municipality that may need to meet certain water quality criteria could partner with a famer upstream by providing financial subsidies for them to manage their water quality more efficiently. The program stipulates that all states will operate under the same rules and that credits in one state can be applied to another state.
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| The Bottom-Line Benefits of Greening a City |
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Value engineering can reduce the costs of capital projects. But it also can save money over the long haul. Each dollar a city invests in infrastructure produces value, and calculating that value in an intentional and organized fashion will greatly assist policy decisions.
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| Value Engineering: Saving Money While Enhancing Quality of Life |
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In dealing with its combined sewer overflow problem, Philly is demonstrating a better approach to big infrastructure projects. Thinking broadly and calculating benefits scientifically not only can improve decision-making but can bring real enhancement to quality of life.
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| What Failing Schools Need: a Menu, Not a Prescription |
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Bottom-up reforms have a better chance of turning schools around than state-imposed, centrally managed approaches.
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| Kick-Starting the Flow of Ideas |
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Lack of competition is a commonly cited barrier to innovation in government. Baltimore, Chicago, and Louisville are early pioneers in showing the concrete improvements gained from turning business as usual into a healthy fight for the best that city government can do.
Newsletter produced by: Jessica Engelman, editor; Brendan St. Amant, researcher and writer.
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About the Ash Center
The Roy and Lila Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation advances excellence in governance and strengthens democratic institutions worldwide. Through its research, education, international programs, and government innovations awards, the Center fosters creative and effective problem solving and serves as a catalyst for addressing many of the most pressing needs of the world's citizens. The Ford Foundation is a founding donor of the Center. Additional information about the Ash Center is available at http://ash.harvard.edu.
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