A "Smarter, Better, Faster, and Cheaper" Government: Contracting and Geographic Information Systems

Contracting for management: Assessing management capacity under alternative service delivery arrangements

“…The analyses indicate that managers in direct service delivery governments engage in more service performance monitoring than do public managers in contracting governments. At first glance, these results suggest that, consistent with other recent studies, when governments outsource, they not only reduce their capacity to deliver the service, but also diminish their direct capacity to manage the service (e.g., see Brown & Brudney, 1998;Van Slyke, 2003). Yet, our subsequent analyses show that governments more than make up for this management deficit by contracting with vendors to perform management services.…”

“…That is, in addition to eliminating personnel and equipment associated with producing the service, contracting governments also eliminate the managers responsible for service quality and efficiency. In a study of local governments' geographic information systems (GIS), Brown and Brudney (1998) find that substantial contracting undermined local governments' management capacity, reduced GIS implementation, and lowered utilization of the technology by employees. In a study of social service contracting in New York State, Van Slyke (2003) finds that contracting counties and state agencies lacked the capacity to monitor and manage an increasingly noncompetitive social service market and thus exposed themselves to heightened risks of fraud, abuse, and poor performance.…”

How you buy affects what you get: Technology acquisition by state governments

“…Given this logic, governments are often advised to contract out the design and operation of core systems to specialized service providers, which have acquired a distinct competence to perform specific services (Barret & Green, 2001;Brown & Brudney, 1998;Chen & Perry, 2003;Edmiston, 2003;Garson, 2003). Indeed, this advice figures prominently in the guide to making smart IT choices produced by the Center for Technology in Government, a highly respected research center at SUNY Albany.…”

Incorporating Policy Criteria in Spatial Analysis

“…In the public sector, particularly at the local level, GIS is used for a vast array of activities, including everything from transportation, infrastructure, and community development planning to environmental protection, public safety response, and election management to property assessments, facility siting, and real estate management (Haque, 2001). The use of GIS as a tool for facilitating and enhancing these functions by improving their efficiency and accuracy has been discussed at length elsewhere (e.g., Brown & Brudney, 1998;Foresman, 1998;Haque, 2001;Hissong & Couret, 1999;Martin, 1996;Masser, 1998;NAPA, 1998;O'Looney, 2000;Ventura, 1995). Many of these GIS applications consist of visual representations of the topics at hand on a map.…”