Reinventing public policy consulting

Public Works has extensive experience providing policy development and guidance to government officials and agencies throughout the country. Some examples of these efforts include:

• In 2005, the Louisiana Governor's Office retained Public Works 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; ensure that recipients of the state's social services could be apprised of all available services for which they were eligible, regardless of which social service agency or programmatic "door" they entered; encourage rural and inner-city economic development in ways that contribute to smarter growth and development; and enhance workforce development in areas that will support statewide economic development. Some of these policy proposals already have led to the issuance of executive orders and have been included in the Governor's legislative agenda.
  
  
• Public Works now serves as on-going policy advisors to the New Mexico Governor's Office. Public Works currently is working on coordinating a range of inter-agency policy initiatives for the Administration, developing an outcomes-based budgeting and performance measuring system for the Governor, and a range of policy initiatives to be announced over the course of the next year.
  
  
• From 2000 - 2003, Public Works served as the policy office for the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA). Public Works devised a strategic plan for developing the vision of next generation environmental regulation into specific and achievable action steps, and "selling" the vision and action steps to various audiences, including the Governor, the legislature, the general public, and the environmental and business communities, as well as suggesting other areas in which Cal/EPA could be advancing new policy initiatives. We developed a comprehensive and unified agenda for Cal/EPA at the secretarial level for the ensuing 2-3 years, including further developments in brownfields clean-up; the state's then-pending electricity crisis; promotion of clean energy technologies; development of an Environmental Management System for the agency's own work practices; smart growth policies in state government siting and building decisions; water, pesticide, and mercury pollution policies; environmental equity; and the agency's own information technology capabilities.
  
  
• Public Works provided the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality with policy development, long- and short-term planning and management, and research and analysis support for the Department's newly created Office of Children's Environmental Health. The main goals were to develop a streamlined management structure for the Office and provide the Department with policy recommendations to improve existing programs governing the protection of children's environmental health. Public Works helped to develop specific policies and legislative proposals that the office could pursue.
  
  
• Making up more than 40 percent of the state government, Indiana's Family and Social Services Agency (FSSA) is one of the largest state agencies in the nation. But facing staff turnover and a state budget crisis, FSSA had five out of six spots at the agency policy shop unfilled. FSSA asked Public Works to recommend how it could restructure the delivery of family and social services. The effort focused on pilot programs in two counties to coordinate services offered and delivered by multiple agencies of both the state and county governments for families and their children on welfare and to establish a seamless, single-point-of-contact system for beneficiaries.
  
  
• Public Works provided wide-ranging policy advice to the California Attorney General's Office, assisting in the development of a number of criminal justice and public health initiatives, including developing a novel "Crisis Response Box" that was provided to every school in California to help them take concrete steps to prepare for and respond to critical school incidents. Public Works also designed technical assistance programs for county anti-violence efforts and produced a comprehensive study of statewide health care and hospital quality and access issues.
  
  
• If you want to know more about Public Works, please contact us today.