Christmas Eve, 2010
SEASON'S GREETINGS
This is the last Orange Alert of the year, and, in the holiday spirit, in this issue we'd like to recap for you some of the efforts by Public Works and our consulting team to do our small part for peace on earth and goodwill to all people. We wish you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
WORKING TO "MAKE POVERTY HISTORY"
From its inception, Public Works has been dedicated as a firm to promoting economic opportunity and a large portion of our consulting practice has addressed issues of poverty and economic opportunity:
New Approaches to Poverty in Atlanta. The City of Atlanta asked Public Works to help the Mayor and her Cabinet consider whether Atlanta city government should undertake some sort of anti-poverty initiative, of what it might consist, and how best to proceed. The retreat resulted in a combination of efforts aimed at poverty alleviation, including promotion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Individual Development Accounts; a public education/outreach campaign to "put a face on poverty"; and job training and workforce development initiatives both within the city government itself and aimed at the private sector and workforce citywide.
New Mexico Governor's Poverty Task Force. Public Works assisted the Governor's Poverty Task Force in identifying national best practices in key areas, generating several bold new policy proposals representing novel initiatives the Task Force could recommend and New Mexico could undertake, providing presentations on new ways to think about poverty at a public meeting of the Task Force, arranging input from additional national experts, researching proposals and requests by Task Force members, and writing and editing portions of the Task Force report.
College Scholarship Program for Young People in Need. Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio, hired Public Works to create a college scholarship program designed to accomplish two objectives - enabling more young people in Cuyahoga County to afford a college education, and encouraging young people to remain in Cuyahoga County after graduation.
Entrepreneurial Government Programs for Low-Income Families. Public Works helped develop proposals for former Pennsylvania House Appropriations Chair Dwight Evans on expanding Earned Income Tax Credit outreach, improving pension portability, reducing sub-prime lending costs to low-income families, and improving residential gas service to a largely low-income urban population.
Delaware Opportunity Agenda. Public Works has worked for years with Delaware State Treasurer, and now Governor, Jack Markell on ideas to expand access to savings and capital for low-income working households. Public Works has worked with the Governor the last two years on development and implementation of programs to bring economic development to inner-city neighborhoods and to help poor families recover from the Great Recession and helped to develop the idea for Governor Markell's innovative LIFT program to increase access to capital for small businesses, to help them keep their doors open and their workers employed.
Philadelphia Children's Investment Strategy. Public Works oversaw a wide-ranging strategic planning process creating the Philadelphia Children's Investment Strategy for the city and the non-profit Philadelphia Safe and Sound to increase investments in, and improve the quality of, services to children. This strategic planning effort included the development of a comprehensive Children's Budget to identify and categorize spending for children by federal, state and local agencies, and to track trends in the public sector's investment in Philadelphia's children; the Children's Budget is developed in conjunction with an annual Children's Report Card measuring key indicators of childhood wellbeing. Together, these spending and outcomes measures form the foundation for the Children's Investment Strategy. Through an array of new and expanded services, combined with a strong focus on performance, accountability and targeting of services, the strategy targeted spending to where it is needed most, providing a roadmap for attracting $150 million in state, federal and private sector funding, and ensuring that government is maximizing the dollars it spends.
California Department of Social Services Welfare-to-Work Incentives Study. The Department retained Public Works to research welfare sanction policies and recommend whether a stricter policy was needed to encourage compliance and participation. Public Works determined that for certain welfare recipients, tougher sanctions, coupled with adequate services, could have a positive effect on recipient behavior and program compliance. We also determined that tougher sanctions were not called for as to others - and we found that, in general, the sanctions were pointless unless the state funded efforts to help address the reasons underlying non-willful noncompliance. The proper application of sanctions could reduce state cash payments between $17 million to $40 million annually, enabling the state to shift resources spent on noncompliant recipients to increased investment in programs that some recipients needed to boost their compliance.
New Jersey Coalition for Affordable Housing. The New Jersey Coalition for Affordable Housing and the Environment retained Public Works to evaluate a range of reforms to revitalize urban areas; discourage sprawl and protect open space; expand affordable housing and preserve neighborhoods; and improve the quality of life and standard of living for New Jersey residents. We surveyed national and New Jersey experts on the most effective proposals in achieving the Coalition's goals, including regional tax base sharing, two-tiered land value taxation, a smart growth system requiring state funding be used for projects in designated growth areas, and economic incentives to encourage investment in cities and distressed areas.
National Policy on Child Care and Early Childhood. CNP engaged Public Works to develop recommendations on establishing a national policy focus on child care and early childhood education. We developed a white paper that has been widely quoted in the Congressional Record and by CNP. The paper recommends the development of a comprehensive national policy on child care and early childhood education. Such a policy would address dire funding needs for quality child care programs; better coordination of educational and social programming for children; development of more effective child care professional training programs, research and dissemination of best practices, and program standards; and promotion of equity.
A MAJOR FOCUS: KATRINA RECOVERY
When Louisiana Governor's Office retained Public Works in 2004 to provide policy advice and recommendations on a wide-ranging series of issues, including the development of policy proposals to reduce poverty and encourage economic self-sufficiency, we didn't realize it would result in a long-running association with the state and its efforts to recover from the greatest natural disaster in US history.
Like many, Public Works has been involved in various aspects of the recovery from Katrina over the last five years - from handing out relief supplies, and gutting molded houses and church basements, to advising the state's workforce agency, the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA), and various state and local officials on bringing in - and spending more efficiently - the dollars needed for rebuilding. Dr. Linda Rhodes designed and helped to push through the construction of a new, state-of-the-art senior living facility for poor elderly New Orleanians displaced by the storms, which is slated to open this April (see orange sidebar). The firm also conducted a complete review of the post-Katrina performance of the Louisiana Recovery School District in New Orleans, one of most challenged school districts in America.
Public Works was retained by the Administration on Governor Bobby Jindal when he took office because his workforce officials were so impressed by the work we had carried out in the state to that point. Thus has enabled us to continue building on our extensive work starting in late 2005 and 2006 with the preceding Administration of Governor Kathleen Blanco. Governor Blanco asked Public Works to help to develop the federal legislation in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Governor's state recovery legislation, and the Louisiana Recovery Authority's housing redevelopment plan, as the following article describes:
"Involved with Katrina"
John F. Kennedy School of Government Bulletin, Summer 2006
The day that Katrina hit, Eric Schnurer, MPP 1983, sent an e-mail to Andy Kopplin, MPP 1992, chief of staff to Louisiana's governor Kathleen Blanco, to offer the help of his consulting firm, Public Works. "I figured I wouldn't hear from him for months. I know how much events like this completely change the landscape for you when you're in government," Schnurer says.
Public Works President Eric Schnurer talks with a New Orleans resident during clean-up efforts.
Exactly a week later, however, he got an e-mail from Kopplin, saying he needed policy help - immediately. "Of course, I called right away," Schnurer says. "Andy wanted fresh thinking on what, from the state's perspective, should be in the federal relief legislation that was apparently going to move through Congress any day. Andy wanted someone whom he thought could think about the interests of displaced Louisianans and what should be in the federal relief legislation to help them," Schnurer says. "He more or less gave me 24 hours."
The timeframe wasn't the toughest part of the assignment, however. "The biggest challenge was the awesome sense of responsibility you have in such settings," Schnurer says. "We felt we had a tremendous opportunity to make a difference in a huge number of people's lives, but that also meant we had a huge duty."
Over the next few months, Public Works employees would assist Louisiana's recovery efforts by offering public policy strategies pro bono, personally working on cleanup, and opening a new and unexpected chapter in the firm's growth as a leader in private-sector-based public service.
Public Works staff threw themselves into the assignments and produced dozens of recommendations for emergency relief in the Gulf, all pro bono. The following week, Kopplin called again, asking for policy proposals for the emergency session of the Louisiana state legislature the Governor called for later that week. Although Public Works was given a contract to cover the second phase of policy work, the firm donated the proceeds to a Katrina relief charity. "We were pleased to help the people of Louisiana pro bono and to donate our proceeds to a health clinic serving hurricane victims," said Schnurer.
Public Works' Eric Schnurer and Linda Rhodes wear protection suits against mold during cleanup operations.
