Steps to Local Government Reform: A Guide to Tailoring Local Government Reforms to Fit Regional Governance Communities in Democracies

Does the performance of your local government leave something to be desired? Maybe you're not satisfied with the services your government provides, or maybe the cost for these services is far too much. If so, take heart; you can do something about it.

Steps to Local Government Reform is your step-by-step guide to undertaking reform on the local level. Public manager Allyn O. Lockner combines years of experience in the public sector to show how you, as a resident or an elected local official, can work with others to successfully implement change within your community. Lockner explains how to make numerous choices regarding the preparation for, and the study, planning, marketing, approval, implementation, and evaluation of reforms. He also shows you how to share these reform results with others.

Using various criteria, comparisons, practices, analyses, and other studies aimed at local government performance, Lockner delves into the sometimes tricky world of enacting reform. He reveals how local government works and provides a map for maneuvering around bureaucratic roadblocks. In addition, he includes a comprehensive bibliography for research, an appendix of terms commonly used in the reform process, and guides to creating reform models that are likely to work.

With this compendium, you can help resolve vital issues, improve your community, and live a better life.

Allyn O. Lockner holds a PhD in economics, specializing in public finance, from the University of Colorado and subsequently studied economics and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a graduate of the Executive Development Program at the Federal Executive Institute, Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Kansas Certified Public Manager Program. Most of the author's writings have been unpublished memoranda, monographs, and research reports for three state governors; testimonies before committees of three state legislatures; issue papers and reports for elected and appointed state officials; and research reports and public policy analyses for two appointed senior federal officials. The author's career positions include the following: Research analyst, Wyoming Legislative Research Committee, focusing on local property taxation and school finance, 1959-1961; Director, Wyoming Legislative Research Council, supervising professional research of state and local issues, 1961-1963; Financial economist, governments division, US Census Bureau, analyzing the collection of property tax facts from fifty states for the census of governments and developing a quarterly report on state tax collections, 1963-1965; Assistant, associate, and full professor of economics, South Dakota State University, teaching macroeconomics and teaching and researching public finance, including state and local taxation, 1965-1973; Member of two and chairperson of one South Dakota Governor's Tax Councils to, among other things, reduce the finance of public education through the property tax by the adoption of an income tax while at South Dakota State University, 1965-1973; Secretary of environmental protection and a member of the governor's cabinet, State of South Dakota, including work with public water supply systems, and with air, water, and solid waste pollution control systems of cities, counties, and businesses, and with