As the City of Houston’s 2011 fiscal year winds down, hard decisions have been made to overcome a $70 million shortfall. Enacting mandatory furloughs and lay-offs, reducing library hours and closing some neighborhood pools are just a few of the methods the city administration has chosen to use to balance this year’s budget. With suchRead… Read more »
This post was co-written by GovLoop’s own Joseph Porcelli and Lauri Stevens. You’ve likely seen the pictures and videos from Vancouver: the looting, the beatings, the couple kissing. And how can we forget the videos of the few courageous citizens who, in the midst of the violence and chaos, stood up for their community? AfterRead… Read more »
Here at EPA, we were quite busy this spring providing information about radiation levels resulting from the earthquake and tsunami that damaged Japanese nuclear reactors. Check out the site! Now we’re thinking about lessons learned, and one thing I came up with was a concept of a question/answer “hourglass,” where we take in questions fromRead… Read more »
Here are some of the issues with traditional milestone reviews (especially in Acquisitions) as I have experienced them in the past: They are very hard to schedule for in-person meetings Engineers and other involved parties rarely review the documents ahead of time Decision makers never review the documents, always relying on the engineers or involvedRead… Read more »
This interview is part of a series on GovLoop called “GovInsights” where we interview and highlight the thoughts and perspectives of professors at who are researching and writing about government issues. This time we talked with, Dr. Patrick Malone is an Executive-in-Residence Professor for the Department of and Policy at American University, in Washington, D.C.Read… Read more »
CBP’s Secure Border Initiative (SBI) was officially cancelled in January of 2011, but had already been re-organized at the beginning of the fiscal year as the Office of Technology Innovation and Acquisition (OTIA). As part of the transformation, our boss became the Component Acquisition Executive, or CAE, for all of Customs and Border Protection. WhatRead… Read more »
Kevin Paschuck, VP, Public Sector at RightNow offers his perspective on cloud computing at the 2011 SIIA CloudGov conference in Washington, DC. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EbuV2_aSoo&feature=player_embedded
On March 24, Facebook rolled out the Questions feature to all its users. It’s a new way to ask and get answers from your friends or fans on Facebook. For government, this could be a great opportunity to get direct feedback for Product development How can we improve our current website? How difficult was itRead… Read more »
The recent events in Japan, and the subsequent danger looming from a possible nuclear melt down have some U.S. lawmakers calling for a review of regulations in the U.S. This coming on the heels of 20 proposed new U.S. nuclear power plants that are awaiting approval, following a 30 year lull in new construction afterRead… Read more »
Over the weekend, I learned about LexPop, a new wiki-based site that invites participants to collaboratively craft public policy on any issue (see their current project: Policy Drive: MA Net Neutrality). From the about page (emphasis theirs): Just as pamphlets were once the most efficient and effective means for distributing ideas, so too was thisRead… Read more »