Does Your Government Measure Up?: Basic Tools for Local Officials and Citizens

A title for Americans who wish to improve the quality of their local government. It introduces the bare essentials for good government in areas of finance, public works, parks and recreation, police, assessment, building codes, emergency medical services, personnel, and Website development.

If you want your local government to be the best it can be, William D. Coplin and Carol Dwyer will outfit you with the tools vou need to get started. Whether your goal is making your assessor's office accurate and citizen-friendly or ensuring that your police department is cost-effective, you will learn how to ask the right questions and encourage necessary change.

Written for candidates, elected and appointed government officials as well as concerned citizens in small cities, towns, and villages, Does Your Government Measure Up? is an indispensable tool for improving local government.

In accessible, straightforward language this book introduces the bare essentials for good government in areas of finance, public works, parks and recreation, police, assessment, building codes, emergency medical services, personnel and even Web site development. The authors show how to use benchmarking to increase government efficiency and effectiveness.

The tools presented in the book have been developed by the Maxwell School at Syracuse University in close cooperation with more than 100 government officials in Central New York and throughout the United States.

This book contains:

Checklists with 60 Bare Essentials for good governance in nine areas

More than 255 guidelines found in Beyond Bare Essential

Simple illustrations of how you can use benchmarking to make decisions

User-ready surveys to obtain citizen feedback

William D. Coplin, PhD., is Professor of Public Affairs and Director of the Public Affairs Program of the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. His most recent previous book, How You Can Help: An Easy Guide to Doing Good Deeds in Your Everyday Life, was featured on CNN's Larry King Live.

Carol Dwyer, MA, is Director of the Community Benchmarks Program of the Maxwell School, Syracuse University, which has published more than 20 widely publicized studies benchmarking local government over the last four years.After beginning her career as a journalist, she served for 11 years as the liaison to local governments and citizens for the Speaker of the New York State Assembly until she accepted her current position in 1996.