Better Government

Over the course of the past decade, thousands of organizations have used business process redesign and information technology to get to know their customers well, and they have used that information to do a better job of meeting their customers’ needs. Five years ago, anyone who had a checking account, a mortgage, an auto loan, and a credit card with the same financial institution might as well have been dealing with four different companies. Today, more often than not, that individual gets one statement each month that consolidates his or her entire relationship with that financial institution. The bank knows the extent of its relationship with each customer, and its customers can manage their accounts and loans in a unified, coordinated manner.

The Pacheco Law was enacted by the Massachusetts legislature in 1993. The law, now M.G.L. ch. 7 sections 52-55, set up a series of tests that a state agency must pass before it can award a contract to a private company to perform services that had been previously performed by state employees.

This report explores the current budgeting and staffing process and the problems arising from it—striking productivity declines, rapidly rising costs, and, most importantly, systemic inequities in the distribution of resources.

Increases in the price of rental housing in Massachusetts during the economic boom of the 1990s have spurred a push to construct additional subsidized housing.1 This report presents alternatives to construction that could significantly increase the available supply of subsidized housing. The study compares public and subsidized housing in Boston and the Commonwealth to other cities and states in terms of subsidized units per capita, vacancy rates, overhousing rates, and average tenancy tenure. The data indicate opportunities for both state and city housing authorities to manage more effectively the existing stock of public and subsidized housing.

"The Boston Convention Center's shrinking market" was provided in May 2001.

The central objective of the Government Effectiveness Index (GEI) is to assess how Massachusetts is doing in comparison to other states. It seeks to provide measures of effectiveness based on the efficient use of resources (inputs as a function of quantity or output) and on performance outcomes (quality of output). It does so in regard to eight “core” functions of state government (functions common to most states): K-12 education, higher education, highways, transit, state police, the judiciary, corrections, and financial administration.

The civil service system in Massachusetts is no longer up to the important task of helping government recruit and hire the most talented personnel. When the system was created in 1884, the Commonwealth was at the forefront of the battle against patronage in government hiring. Over the course of a century, Massachusetts has fallen well behind the leaders in public sector personnel administration practice.

An increasing number of American cities are pursuing an economic development strategy aimed at boosting convention and visitor activities. From Boston to Atlanta, San Antonio to San Francisco, cities are mounting massive construction projects to provide new or expanded convention center space.

The study then looks at potential savings from implementing alternative delivery methods that employ a quality- and price-based selection process, and found that the three other states have indeed benefited from their experiments with A+B Bidding and Partnering.

Public transit agencies across the nation are struggling to control costs without reducing service. One effective strategy used by a growing number of public transit agencies is to contract competitively for bus operations. Almost without exception, these agencies report that private bus companies can deliver equal or better service at a 20 to 30 percent lower cost.