The National Governors Association hosted a National Summit on Government Redesign in Arlington, VA on December 13-14. The summit allowed state teams to learn about best practices and share experiences around efforts to reform and streamline state government. The meeting emphasized reforms and changes that reduce the cost of state government, as opposed to those reforms that make government more efficient but do not reduce its cost. Topics included pension and benefit reform, agency consolidation and streamlining, changing Medicaid to constrain cost growth, managing state assets, managing K-12 budgets to promote efficiency, corrections reforms, and how to implement a budget review. The meeting included a mix of plenary and breakout sessions to address national trends as well as specific state examples.

AGENDA

PRESENTATIONS:

• Creating the Framework for Change
  • Lenny Mendoca, director, McKinsey & Company, Inc.
  • Mike Mower, deputy chief of staff, Office of the Governor, Utah
• Pensions and Benefits
  • Ronald K. Snell, senior fellow, National Council of State Legislatures
  • Paul Matson, director, Arizona State Retirement System
• Consolidation and Streamlining Agencies
  • Christina Dorfhuber, principal, Deloitte Consulting
  • Jill Satran, deputy, Office of the State Chief Information Officer, State of Washington
  • Dale Erquiaga, senior advisor, Office of the Governor, Nevada
• Curbing the Growing Costs of Medicaid
  • Vernon Smith, managing principal, Health Management Associates
  • Darin Gordon, director of TennCare and the division of Health Care Finance and Administration, Tennessee
• Improving Management of Assets and Cutting Red Tape
  • John Gamberoni, executive partner, Accenture
  • Keith Gardner, chief of staff, Governor’s Office, New Mexico
• Maximizing Investments in K-12 Education
  • Karen Hawley Miles, president and executive director, Education Resource Strategies
  • Ben Cannon, education policy advisor, Office of the Governor, Oregon
• Corrections
  • Jeff McLeod, policy analyst, NGA Center for Best Practices
  • Reuben Young, secretary, Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, North Carolina
  • Marla Decker, secretary of Public Safety, Virginia
• Looking Forward: The Outlook for State Budgets
  • Scott D. Pattison, executive director, National Association of State Budget Officers
  • John Nixon, director, State Budget Office and Department of Technology, Management and Budget, Michigan

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

• Pension and Benefits Reforms
  • Boston College, Center for Retirement Research. Peter A. Diamond, Alicia H. Munnell, Gregory Leiserson, and Jean-Pierre Aubry, Problems with State-Local Final Pay Plans and Options for Reform.
  • Center for State and Local Government Excellence, Strengthening State and Local Government Finances: Lessons for Negotiating Public Pension Plan Reforms. 2011.
  • Pew Center on the States, The Trillion Dollar Gap Grows Wider.
  • National Conference of State Legislatures, Pension and Retirement Plan Enactments in 2011 State Legislatures.
  • Arizona State Retirement System. Paul Matson and Susanne Dobel, A Comparative Analysis of Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution Retirement Plans. 2006.
• Consolidation and Streamlining of Agencies
  • Deloitte. “Closing State Budget Gaps.”
  • Deloitte Review. William D. Eggers, Robert Campbell III and Joel Bellman, Red Ink Rising: Navigating the Perils of Public Debt. 2011.
  • Deloitte. “A Framework for Cost Reduction: U.S. State Government Guide.”
• Maximizing Investments in K-12 Education
  • Education Resource Strategies. “Rethinking Resources for Student Success: School Budget Hold ‘em.”
  • Education Resource Strategies. Karen Hawley Miles and Karen Baroody with Elliot Regenstein, Restructuring Resources for High-Performing Schools: A Primer for State Policymakers.
  • McKinsey & Company, Byron Auguste, Paul Kihn, and Matt Miller, Closing the talent gap: Attracting and retaining top third graduates to a career in teaching.
• Corrections
  • NGA Issue Brief: Efforts in Sentencing and Corrections Reform, Jeff McLeod (October 2011).
  • CrimeSolutions.gov
    This website, launched in June 2011 by the Office of Justice Programs, provides a single, credible, online resource to inform practitioners and policymakers about what works in criminal justice, juvenile justice, and crime victim services.