THE STATES AND LOCALITIES September 2012 …THE STATES AND LOCALITIES September 2012 $4.50 THISGUY JUST RETIRED Aging baby boomers and the looming challenges for government A SPECIAL

THE STATES AND LOCALITIES September 2012 $4.50

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baby boomers and the looming

challenges for government

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GOV09_Cover.indd 1 8/14/12 2:41 PM

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September 2012 | GOVERNING 1

09.2012

VOL. 25, NO. 12

Uzeir Ispahi,

an Ahiska Turk

whose family

immigrated to

Dayton, Ohio

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FEATURES

25 AMERICA IS GETTING OLDER. FAST.

26 TALKIN’ ’BOUT MY GENERATIONWhat makes the boomers the boomers?By Neil Howe

34 BOOM(ER)TOWNHow will an aging population reshape America’s cities? By Ryan Holeywell

40 ROCK THE VOTEThey hold tremendous infl uence, but baby boomers and their role at the polls are a bit hard to pin down.By Rob Gurwitt

44 WITH OPEN ARMSForget Arizona. Dayton, Ohio, and other cities are actively working to attract immigrants. By Dylan Scott

52 LOOKING AT THE BOOKSAre the fi nancial reports cities and counties issue once a year useless? By Jonathan Walters

S P E C I A L S E R I E S

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PROBLEM SOLVER

58 Raising Drug-Free Families Drug abuse is a common problem in child neglect cases. An Arizona program treats parents in an eff ort to reunite families.

60 Smart Management Poorly managed sick pay is a growing fi scal headache.

61 Idea Center Georgia wants to use robots to fi x highways.

62 Tech Talk Failure of the federal Cyber Security Act leaves critical infrastructure vulnerable to attack.

64 Public Money It is more crucial than ever to know whether government programs are eff ective.

66 Last Look Wisconsin is home to the longest-serving state lawmaker in the country.

DEPARTMENTS

4 Publisher’s Desk

6 Letters

OBSERVER

9 Recall FeverRecall attempts have been rising,

but recent eff orts have stumbled.

10 Taxing the CloudStates wrestle with how to tax

something you never possess.

12 Forget the PlanAtlanta voters turn back a major

transportation funding measure.

POLITICS + POLICY

14 Dispatch It’s time to rethink the parking lot and how to measure its value.

16 Potomac Chronicle Today, the nation’s capital is more about what you own than what you do.

17 FedWatch Sewage overfl ows cause a stir between the feds and localities.

18 Health Michigan’s “4x4” is not a truck, but a plan to fi ght obesity.

20 Green Government San Francisco wants a streetlight that can think for itself.

22 Economic Engines Centennial Campus is the poster child for today’s business parks.

23 Urban Notebook Despite their high value, urban trees are on the decline.

16

GOVERNING | September 20122

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PUBLISHER’S DESK

The Aging Boom

The aging of America is under way and it’s transform-ing our cities, counties and states. Consider these projections for 2030: The entire U.S. will look more like Scottsdale, Ariz., where today roughly one in fi ve

residents is 65 or older; ten states will have more Medicare-eligible seniors than school-age children; and even Utah, currently the youngest state in the nation, will experience a doubling of its elderly population.

The challenges and opportunities behind these trends are at the heart of a multi-issue series titled “Governing Generations,” which we introduce in this issue on page 25. Additional coverage can be found at governing.com/generations.

Governing has already focused on the aging issue through a series of roundtable and conference events in partnership with

AARP. In June, we held just such an event in Michigan, where Bill Rustem, policy director to Gov. Rick Snyder, talked about eff orts in Grand Rapids, Traverse City and Detroit to build livable com-munities that will attract and serve citizens across generations. As a result, these hard-hit cities are experiencing economic gains. Working with public and private entities, they have developed master plans to address quality of life, transit-oriented devel-opment, economic vitality and

zoning. Leaders in Traverse City, for example, developed a plan “for what they wanted to be when they grew up,” and it’s begin-ning to work. Their recommendation to other offi cials: Identify the major factors impacting their jurisdictions, determine what they want their communities to be, make a plan and build coali-tions within and beyond government to implement it. Such a systematic approach is working in Michigan and could be a model for other states.

According to the International City/County Management Association, only half of our local governments are ready to han-dle the eff ects of aging, which makes it vital that public leaders adapt and develop a sustainable way to provide for this grow-ing generation of citizens, who will need an array of specialized services. This special four-month series will look at aging as it relates to transportation, politics, health care, housing and more. For instance, we’ll examine what government is doing to address its own aging workforce. Where and how will we cultivate the talent needed to lead government through the next 30 years?

Want to share how your government is preparing for an older workforce? Email me at [email protected].


Publisher Erin Waters

Editor Tod NewcombeExecutive Editor Jonathan WaltersEditor-at-Large Paul W. TaylorManaging Editor Elizabeth DaigneauSenior Editor Zach PattonAssociate Editor Jessica MulhollandChief Copy Editor Miriam Jones; Copy Editor Elaine Pittman Staff Writers Ryan Holeywell, Dylan ScottCorrespondents John Buntin, Alan Greenblatt Contributing Editors Penelope Lemov, Steve TownsColumnists Katherine Barrett & Richard Greene, William Fulton, Peter A. Harkness, Donald F. Kettl, Alex Marshall, Girard Miller

Editor, Governing.com Kathy A. GambrellDeputy Editor, Governing.com Caroline CournoyerData Editor, Governing.com Michael MaciagSocial Media Specialist, Governing.com Brian Peteritas

Creative Director Kelly MartinelliDesign Director & Photo Editor David KiddArt Director Michelle Hamm Senior Designer Crystal HopsonIllustrator Tom McKeithProduction Director Stephan Widmaier

Chief Marketing Offi cer Margaret MohrMarketing Director Meg Varley-Keller

Founder & Publisher Emeritus Peter A. Harkness

Advertising 202-862-8802Associate Publisher, Infrastructure Marina LeightAssociate Publisher, Finance Erica Kraus Associate Publisher, IT Fred Kuhn Account Director Jennifer GladstoneAccount Manager Kori Kemble Offi ce Manager Alina Grant Digital Media Associate Elisabeth FrerichsMedia Account Coordinators Hillary Leeb and Lauren MandellMarketing/Classifi ed [email protected]

CEO Dennis McKennaCOO Paul HarneyCAO Lisa BernardExecutive Editor Steve TownsExecutive VP Cathilea Robinett

Reprint Information Reprints of all articles in this issue and past issues are available (500 minimum). Please direct inquiries for reprints and licensing to Wright’s Media: 877-652-5295, [email protected]

Subscription/Circulation Service

Eenie Yang [email protected]://www.governing.com/subscribe

Governing (ISSN 0894-3842) is published monthly by e.Republic Inc., with offi ces at 1100 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Suite 1300, Washington, D.C. 20036 and at 100 Blue Ravine Road, Folsom, CA 95630. Telephone: 202-862-8802. Fax: 202-862-0032. Email: [email protected]. Periodical postage paid in Washington, D.C., and at additional mailing offi ces. Copyright 2012 e.Republic Inc. All rights reserved. Repro-duction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Governing, Governing.com and City & State are registered trademarks of e.Republic Inc.; unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. U.S. subscription rates: Government employees—free; all others—$19.95 for one year. Foreign subscriptions: $74.95 in U.S. funds. Postmaster: Send address changes to Governing, 100 Blue Ravine Road, Fol-som, CA, 95630. Subscribers: Enclose mailing label from past issue. Allow six weeks. Member: BPA International. Made in the U.S.A.

Erin Waters, Publisher

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Work anywhere, security everywhere.AT&T has solutions to protect constituent data, no matter where it is – in a pocket, on a desk or dwelling in a data center.

State and local governments can count on AT&T’s legendary reliability to provide both security and solutions to support and protect your agency.

Rethink how government does business inside the network of possibilities from AT&T.

To fi nd out how, visit att.com/secureworkforce

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Download the free scanner app at http://scan.mobi and scan this code to learn more. © 2012 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other AT&T marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affi liated companies.


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LETTERS

He’s On to SomethingNice job on the David Walker article [“Man With a Plan,” July 2012]. Straight talk, fact-based, nonpartisan leadership is exactly what this country needs. Unfortunately, elections are won and lost on emotion, not facts. There are only so many ways to keep the nation in one piece … and the status quo approach ain’t getting it done. David Walker appears to be going in the right direction. This means he will likely be crushed on the rocks by the current political process.

—Frank WashWalker, Mich.

David Walker has been banging out a similar drum beat for a number of years. I recall asking him around 2004 if Congress was listening to his well-reasoned points and I don’t believe he felt they were par-

Correction: In the July issue of Governing, John Buntin’s article “Let’s Talk” stated

that George Kelling, one of the criminologists behind the “broken windows” theory of

policing, did his research walking the beat in New York City. In fact, it was Newark, N.J.

AUDIENCE BREAKDOWNThe following chart shows which articles from the August issue of Governing drew

the most reader views. Although we receive many article comments online, letters

to the editor are still welcome and encouraged at [email protected].

ticularly responsive. We are in a far worse condition now, and yet congressional inertia is absolutely alarming. I sincerely hope that Mr. Walker continues to be a strident critic.

—Earl MathersGallatin County, Mont.

A Pet PeeveI am the executive director of the Animal Rescue League of Western Penn-sylvania. We are the shelter that holds the animal control contract with the city of Pittsburgh. I was shocked when I read your recent article regarding Pittsburgh’s spay/neuter eff orts [“Pet Problems,” July 2012]. The comments made by city repre-sentatives were untrue. Your article made it sound like we euthanize all of the ani-mals that come in through animal control. I cannot share the actual numbers per our contract with the city of Pittsburgh, but I can share our overall stats from 2011: over 700 lost animals reunited with their own-ers; over 6,100 adoptions; [and] over 8,400 spay and neuters completed. We did all this on a $3.5 million budget last year. Not too bad for a “private not-for-profi t busi-ness, if you want to call them that.”

The Animal Rescue League is also an open-door shelter—we take in any animal that has the need for shelter. We do not euthanize for time or space. I fully sup-port and agree that spay/neuter is the solution to pet overpopulation, but shel-

ters are not the problem. It is the shelters providing the spay/neuter services for city residents, and at a price that does not cover our costs. However, we take the loss because it’s the right thing to do.

—Dan Rossi, executive director, Animal Rescue League

Pittsburgh

37%

24%

12%

8%

5%

“Over-the-Counter Culture” by Dylan Scott

“Get on the Bus” by Ryan Holeywell

“Street Litigation” by Alex Marshall

“The Story on Agenda 21” by Ryan Holeywell

“Dancing Around the Truth” by Steve Towns

What Do You Think?

Ryan Holeywell’s August feature, “Get

on the Bus,” dealt with bus rapid tran-

sit (BRT) and how some in the transit

community aren’t sold on the idea.

We asked our readers on Facebook:

Could this be the best solution for

transit in large metro areas? Here’s

what some of you said:

Tim Seidel: I did a capstone project for my graduate degree on a proposed BRT in my city last year. While I generally found BRTs an interesting and cost-effective solu-tion to improving public transit, I am still concerned about their ability to increase ridership (especially among “choice riders”) relative to more per-manent solutions such as streetcars. Additionally, I wonder about using a BRT to spur things like transit-oriented development specifi cally because a BRT line is not necessar-ily permanent and could be moved to a different route (depending on the specifi c implementation).

Tara Wildes: [It’s] lots cheaper than other options for cash-strapped cities;for areas as large as Jacksonville, Fla., (over 870 square miles) it may be the only reasonable option to have an effective public transit system for the outlying areas.

Tell us what you think at

www.facebook.com/governing


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IT’S TIME TO

ENGAGE EMPLOYEES

IMPROVE DECISIONS

DRIVE AFFORDABILITY

CHANGE THE CONVERSATION

Shaping Behavior. Impacting Results.

At UnitedHealthcare we are committed to helping people live healthier lives. We are a recognized leader in developing innovative solutions that improve employee health decisions, facilitate quality and cost transparency and drive affordability.

We work with state and local governments to transform their role from providing and funding health benefi ts to offering options that improve employee engagement, decisions and productivity, and result in reduced costs. We can help you start shifting the conversation to promote health ownership and engagement for your employees.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN EMPLOYEE HEALTH

©2012 United HealthCare Services, Inc. Insurance coverage provided by or through UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company or its affi liates. Administrative services provided by United HealthCare Services, Inc. or their affi liates. Health Plan coverage provided by or through a UnitedHealthcare company.

VISIT US ONLINE AT:uhc.com/employers/public_labor_education/government.htm to see how we can deliver on our mission of helping people live healthier lives.


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A proposed Settlement has been reached with Wachovia Bank, now called Wells Fargo, defendants in a class action lawsuit that alleges price-fixing in the sale of municipal derivatives transactions by Wells Fargo and other companies. The case, In re Municipal Derivatives Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 1950, No. 08-02516, is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Who Is Included in the Settlement?This Settlement includes all state, local and municipal government entities, independent government agencies and private entities that purchased:(1) Municipal derivative transactions through negotiation,

competitive bidding or auction, directly from any Alleged Provider Defendant or Co-Conspirator or brokered by any Alleged Broker Defendant or Co-Conspirator,

(2) Any time from January 1, 1992 through August 18, 2011 in the United States and its territories or for delivery in the United States and its territories.

The Defendants and Co-Conspirators are listed in the detailed notice available on the Settlement website.

What Does the Settlement Provide?Wells Fargo will pay $37 million as follows: $20 million has already been paid into an escrow account and the remaining $17 million will be paid later. This Settlement is only a partial settlement of the lawsuit because it only affects the claims against Wells Fargo. The lawsuit is continuing against other Defendants. Morgan Stanley has already settled. Wells Fargo will cooperate with the Class Representatives in the litigation that will continue against the other Defendants.

What Do I Do Now?Remain in the Settlement. To remain in the Settlement Class and participate in the Settlement, you do not have to do anything now. If the Court approves the Settlement, you give up the right to sue Wells Fargo for the claims in this lawsuit and you are eligible to receive a payment. Claim forms are not available now. Register on the Settlement website to receive a claim form when it becomes available. If you remain in the Settlement Class, you still have the right to exclude yourself from any other Settlements reached in this lawsuit.

For more information: 1-877-310-0512 www.MunicipalDerivativesSettlement.com

If You Purchased Municipal Derivative Transactions from January 1, 1992 to August 18, 2011

You Could Get a Payment for a Class Action Settlement.

Exclude yourself from the Settlement. If you do not want to remain in the Settlement Class, you must exclude yourself. You must send a written request for exclusion by first-class mail, postmarked no later than October 19, 2012 to the Settlement Administrator. If you exclude yourself, you cannot participate in the Settlement, but you retain your right to sue Wells Fargo on your own for the claims in this lawsuit.Object or Comment on the Settlement. If you remain in the Settlement Class and want to object to or comment on the Wells Fargo Settlement or any part of it, you must file an objection with the Court and deliver a copy to Class Counsel and Wells Fargo no later than October 9, 2012.

When Will the Court Decide Whether to Approve the Settlement?

The Court has scheduled a hearing on December 14, 2012, at 2:00 p.m. at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, United States Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, New York, NY 10007, to consider whether to finally approve the Wells Fargo Settlement as fair, reasonable and adequate, whether to approve Class Counsel’s request for reimbursement of litigation expenses, and to consider any objections. The Court has appointed the law firms of Hausfeld LLP; Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP; and Susman Godfrey L.L.P. to serve as Class Counsel and represent all Class Members. If you want to be represented by your own lawyer, you may hire one at your own expense. You or your lawyer may ask to appear and speak at the hearing but are not required to. If you want to be heard by the Court, you must file a written notice of your intention to appear with the Court and deliver a copy to the Class Counsel and Wells Fargo no later than October 9, 2012. The Court may change the time and date of the hearing. Any change will be posted on the Settlement website.

Get More InformationFor more information on this lawsuit, your rights, or to obtain a list of defendants, call or visit the Settlement website listed below or write to Municipal Derivatives Settlement, c/o Rust Consulting, Inc., PO Box 2500, Faribault, MN 55021-9500.

Legal Notice


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9September 2012 | GOVERNING

By Alan Greenblatt

Has the Tide Turned for Recalls?

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AT JUST ABOUT THE TIME

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker survived

his recall election, two other high-pro-

fi le recall attempts were turned back

due to lack of suffi cient voter interest,

those against Michigan Gov. Rick

Snyder and Oakland, Calif., Mayor

Jean Quan.

Does that mean the recall wave

has started to recede? It’s possible,

but not likely.

The number of recall elections has

risen dramatically over the last decade,

thanks in part to the success of the

2003 recall against California Gov. Gray

Davis. Most have been brought against

local offi cials—not just mayors, but

school board members and the like—

although legislators have been tar-

geted, too, most notably in Wisconsin.

Most recalls don’t succeed. Even

when elections are called, offi cials

manage to keep their jobs about two-

thirds of the time, as Walker certainly

did. Sixty percent of Wisconsin voters

think recalls should be reserved for

cases of offi cial misconduct, according

to exit polling. “Recalls should only be

used for the equivalent of high crimes

and misdemeanors, but they’re often

used as a way to circumvent the politi-

cal process,” says David Schecter, a

Fresno State political scientist who has

studied the history of recalls.

For that reason, recalls aren’t likely

to go away, he says. Some groups

contemplating a recall attempt may

be discouraged by the failure to oust

Walker, just as others were enticed

by the decision to dump Davis. But

in general, the rare, high-profi le recall

elections at the statewide level merely

act as reminders that the tool is avail-

able to those angry at some local

offi cial. “If conditions are right, people

know it’s available,” Schecter says.

That’s too bad, because recalls are

typically not being used against offi -

cials like former Illinois Gov. Rod Blago-

jevich who fail to recognize their own

unfi tness for offi ce and resign on their

own. (Illinois legislators passed a recall

law almost simultaneously with Blago-

jevich’s impeachment.) Instead, recalls

have become the ultimate expression

of displeasure with policy.

They are part of America’s perma-

nent-campaign culture. Any offi cial

who does something controversial in

a state that allows recalls, like rais-

ing taxes or attacking public-sector

unions, knows that he or she will be at

risk. Voters should be able to express

their wrath, but doing it immediately

after a policy dispute makes it that

much more diffi cult for offi ceholders to

make decisions they believe will pay

off by the end of their regularly sched-

uled terms.

“It places all decision-making

within the context of an ongoing cam-

paign,” says Max Neiman, a political

scientist at the University of California,

Berkeley. “There seems to be no focus

on solving actual problems, but only

positioning oneself for reelection.” G

A recall attempt

against Oakland

Mayor Jean

Quan fi zzled.

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BUYING SOMETHING is different

from renting it. That distinction is at the

heart of the debate in a dozen states

about how—or whether—to tax cloud

computing services.

In the old days (say, back in the

1990s) individuals or companies

wanting to use software went

to a store and bought a disk.

That changed with the advent of

downloadable software, but states

ruled that downloads were still

taxable purchases. The software may

not have been sold as a physical

item, but its code was still a tangible

How Do You Tax a Cloud and Pin It Down?

“You can always have more transparency, [but] you can’t live your life in a goldfi sh bowl.”—New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who vowed to operate the most transparent administration in the state’s history and has recently come under fi re for concealing his aides’ communication between one another.Source: The New York Times

product consumers were taking

possession of.

Nowadays, a lot of software is never

controlled by the consumer. Instead,

it’s accessed remotely, via the Web

and distant servers (an arrangement

now commonly called the cloud). The

software that allows people at separate

computers to meet in real time, for

instance, isn’t downloaded. Instead,

businesses may pay a monthly fee to

access the meeting software. “What

you’re doing is accessing the software as

a service,” says Kelley Miller, a state tax

expert with the law fi rm Reed Smith.

Some state offi cials have ruled that

these different ways of using software

all amount to basically the same thing,

and therefore are subject to tax. “Our

statute says anything that would have

been taxable in tangible form is taxable

in electronic form,” says Scott Smith of

the Utah State Tax Commission.

Tax departments in several other

states have taken a similar position

over the past couple of years, ruling

that many cloud-based services are

akin to software sales. Needless to say,

not everyone agrees. The line between

services and sales is already blurry

along Main Street; things get even

trickier when you move to the cloud.

Some tax advisers argue that most

of what happens in the cloud is purely

a service and therefore not subject

to sales tax in most jurisdictions.

“Historically, only material which

you take physical possession of is

appropriate for taxation,” says Vermont

state Sen. Vincent Illuzzi. “It’s only when

you obtain a product, not just use a

product that you never have control of.”

Vermont legislators put a moratorium

on taxing the cloud this year, pending

further study. Meanwhile, the Stream-

lined Sales Tax Governing Board has

been trying to defi ne which cloud-

based activities are sales and which

ones are services. Given the amount

of fl ux and the disagreements between

legislators and tax departments,

companies often don’t even know what

their tax rate should be. “It’s impossible

for a person like myself to give proper

advice to companies about how to tax

their service,” says Joel Waterfi eld of

the accounting fi rm Grant Thornton. G

Some state offi cials ha

these different ways of us

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10

30

“You should never worry about the consequences of

doing what’s right. ”—El Paso Mayor John Cook, who made the controversial

decision to restore domestic partner benefi ts to city workers after residents voted to revoke them. He’s since fended off two recall attempts. Source: Governing.com


GOP Beats Block-Grant DrumWITH THE SUPREME COURT’S DECISION to make the Aff ordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion eff ectively optional, GOP governors are fl oating an idea that’s an old favorite among conservatives: Let’s turn the low-income insurance program into a block grant.

Five Republican governors have said they would consider voluntarily expanding their Medicaid program if in return the federal government gave them all their federal funding in one block. Federal Medicaid spending (which accounts for 50 to 75 percent of the program’s budget) currently operates on a sliding scale, predicated on states meeting minimal require-ments for eligibility and coverage.

Conservatives raised the idea in the 1980s and 1990s, but it’s received renewed attention as a cornerstone of the budget plan proposed in Congress by GOP vice presidential

nominee Rep. Paul Ryan.Proponents argue that it would encourage

fi scal responsibility and reform, freeing states from federal conditions. “A fi xed federal

block grant would be the mother of inven-tion for state health care innovation and reform,” Chris Edwards of the libertarian

Cato Institute wrote in 2010.But critics assert that it would remove

accountability and hamper the program’s ability to adjust to changing economic cir-cumstances. “Ultimately, there’d be no way of measuring what a state is doing with phenom-enal amounts of money,” says Sara Rosenbaum, professor of health law and policy at George Washington University. “The only thing left is to eliminate public insurance, and then you no longer have Medicaid.” —Dylan Scott

FOR MANY NEW YORKERS, a tiny apartment is something of a badge of honor. Under a new pro-gram recently announced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Gotham City dwellings could get even smaller. As part of a pilot project called adAPT NYC, the city’s Department of Hous-ing Preservation and Development has issued a request for propos-als to develop micro-apartments between 275 and 300 square feet—roughly the size of a couple of park-ing spaces. That’s about 30 percent smaller than the current 400-square-foot-mimimum size required by city code. But making an exception to the code is necessary, Bloomberg says, to meet the changing needs of urbanites. New York has 1.8 million one- and two-person households, according to the city, but only 1 million studios and one-bedroom apartments. “Developing housing that matches how New Yorkers live today is critical to the city’s contin-ued growth, future competitiveness and long-term economic success,” Bloomberg said in announcing the test program. “People from all over the world want to live in New York City, and we must develop a new, scalable housing model that is safe, affordable and innovative to meet their needs.” G

—Zach Patton

New York Apartments Go Micro

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Transportation Plan? Atlanta Voters Say No Thanks

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An unfi nished steel

beam bridge across

Atlanta’s Ponce De

Leon Avenue is

part of a proposed

network of trails and

light rail lines that

the transportation

package would

have funded.

SOURCES: COMMERCE DEPARTMENT,

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF STATE LEGISLATURES,

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, CENSUS BUREAU

THE BREAKDOWN

$242b 71%The portion of U.S. households connected to the Internet in 2010—up from 61.7 percent in 2007.

$7.25The new hourly wage of nearly 400 city workers in Scranton, Pa., where Mayor Chris Doherty temporarily cut police, fi refi ghters and his own pay, among others.

The amount state and local governments spent on construction in May, the lowest since 2006. Meanwhile, private construc-tion spending has soared to its highest level in more than two years.

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE isn’t always enough to please anyone. That moral can be drawn from the failure of a major transportation funding measure in Atlanta.

Business groups disturbed by Atlanta-area congestion decided to borrow an idea from Western cities like Phoenix and Denver. Rather than waiting for federal funds, they wanted to ask residents to pay for improvements. They got the Legislature on board, and voters in Atlanta and a 10-county area were presented in July with a ballot measure to raise sales taxes by a penny to fund some $6 billion in transportation projects. (Other regions throughout Georgia voted on similar, more modest packages.)

Hoping to win public support, local offi cials had agreed on 157 specifi c projects that would’ve accounted for most of the spending. Voters generally are likelier to accept tax increases if

they can see what their money will buy. This package was designed to look like earmarks for various geographic areas. “Everyone is for infrastructure,” says Rob Puentes, a transportation expert at the Brookings Institution. “No one is going to vote for a sales tax increase that says we’ll fi gure out what we’re doing later.”

But the strategy didn’t pay off. Though the projects were carefully spread around the voting area, people in many places still thought they were being shortchanged and would be left footing the bill for distant projects. “The projects are supposed to be regional, but a lot really aren’t,” says Baruch Feigenbaum, a senior fellow at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation.

Race also played a role, with the word MARTA—the Atlanta area’s transit system—connoting “black” among some voting communities. Most local black

offi cials backed the measure, but the NAACP opposed it. An odd-bedfellows coalition of Tea Party groups and the Sierra Club railed against the package for diametrically opposed reasons (too much transit versus not enough), but nevertheless managed to help sink its chances.

Like a defense attorney, all these groups had to do was plant a kernel of doubt about the measure in order to sink it. Given the tax dollars at stake, it was easy to convince most voters that it amounted to a huge boondoggle—despite protests from big companies like Coca-Cola, Home Depot and Delta that the package was crucial to the region’s future economy. “It’s always easier to kill something than it is to create something,” laments Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. G

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DES MOINES, IOWA—It feels illicit and maybe even illegal. It is the moment when your car’s wheels leave the asphalt and begin to leave tire treads on—gasp—grass. These exceptional moments tend to be limited to overfl ow parking for things like weddings, concerts and sporting events such as stock car racing or baseball games.

Yet there may be a permanent place for grass in parking lots. As cities work to make large swaths of concrete and pavement more sustainable, they are rethinking the lot as a public space that benefi ts the people who live and work nearby. It is not enough to add land-scaping to regimented rows of freshly striped asphalt. That model is limiting, not liberating, says Michael Lehrer of California-based Lehrer Architects. He suggests turning the conventional model on its head. “Park cars in a park, not trees in a parking lot,” he says.

When I met Lehrer this summer in Des Moines, he had just toured much of the city’s heritage architecture and the Pappajohn Sculpture Park, a 4.5-acre refuge in the city’s center. The experi-ence reinforced his core belief that good architecture shapes space “to create practical and emotive places.” He speaks in terms that are more poetic than those

By Paul W. Taylor

Learning to Love the LotIt’s time to rethink the parking lot and how we measure its value.

lots themselves—not cars—were “a key element in the destruction of the small-scale pedestrian urban fabric associated with ‘good’ cities.”

Parking lots lack a natural constitu-ency. While reforming parking lots is not a big priority, rethinking how we approach them could be allied with sus-tainability, urban renewal and economic development. Ben-Joseph writes that parking lots get scant attention even from the people who are responsible for them. “Planners, designers, developers, and the public rarely pay attention to the design of parking lots. Most parking regula-tions deal not with the design of the lot, but rather with the minimum number of spaces required for new developments.”

Everything we know about the auto-mobile is under scrutiny: its relationship to public transit, the future of the inter-nal combustion engine amid a growing number of high-tech alternatives, and whether it can (or will) drive itself. It follows that greener, cleaner vehicles could use a greener, cleaner place to share with those of us who still rely on them. If we get it right, “park” can be a both a noun and a verb. G

Email [email protected]

used by most urban planners—that “beauty and delight are rudimentary to human dignity.” Lehrer, who has applied that thinking to the design of homeless shelters, neighborhood centers and commercial buildings with after-hours community uses, now asks, “Knowing what we know, can we redeem the lowly parking lot?”

To do it, we need to challenge our assumptions about their composition—from concrete to permeable (or porous) asphalt to grass and other ground cover—and how we measure their value—as a metered revenue-producing civic asset, a storage space for unproductive cars or as a public space for people.

Lehrer is extending arguments made by the handful of researchers who have studied parking lots. Former urban planner Eran Ben-Joseph, now a pro-fessor and the author of ReThinking a Lot: The Design and Culture of Parking,argues that parking lots are “ripe for transformation” from single-purpose “repositories for stationary vehicles” to social, public spaces with the potential to contribute “as much to their com-munities as great boulevards, parks, or plazas.” In his detailed history of a cen-tury of parking lots, he argues that the M

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A rendering by architect

Michael Lehrer of what

a parking lot could

look like.

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Washington’s Other 1-Percent ProblemThe nation’s capital is more about what you own these days than what you do.

By Peter A. Harkness

More than 35 years ago, a colleague and I attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner to collect an award for investigative reporting for the news service where we worked.

The tables at that black-tie aff air were sponsored by the nation’s leading newspapers, wire services and press syndicates. The attendees included a lot of big-name journalists, along with members of Congress and senior administration offi cials. Presi-dent Jerry Ford handed us our (modest) check, which was signed by Ben Bradlee, who then, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, was perhaps the most famous editor in America. For a young journalist and his researcher, it was pretty cool.

I’m glad I saw it when I did because now I wouldn’t want to go back. The dinner has evolved (or devolved) into a self-important, narcissistic gathering of corporate chieftains, big-name lobby-ists, Hollywood celebrities, reality TV stars and a diff erent breed of journalists—more from TV, especially cable TV, and glamour magazines like Vanity Fair than The New York Times. A few old-time journalists grouse about the change, but for the most part, the coverage, replete with photos of women in fancy dress and men in tuxedos, is all breathless and gushy.

As much as anything, the dinner reeks of a mixture of hyper-affl uence, celebrity and power. And it is emblematic of a profound change that has seeped in since I began my career here almost

45 years ago, when what you were worth had more to do with what you did than what you owned. Sure, there were some wealthy people in Congress and the various administrations. But what really mattered was how much infl uence you exerted on shaping policy.

That’s no longer true. Power still is important, but money plays a much more critical role in the city, both within the politi-cal community and in a much larger social structure refl ective of an expanded, more diverse economy.

Put simply, Washington has become a very wealthy town. It recently became the fastest growing city in the nation. Its regional economy has been expanding at a rate almost fi ve times faster than

the rest of the country. The city’s highest-earning population—its top 1 percent—has seen its annual household income soar to a minimum of $617,000, even in the midst of a recession, according to Sentier Research.

Signs of the ascendancy of affl uence are everywhere. The local city magazine, the Washingtonian, is loaded with ads for high-end clothing stores, spas and plastic surgeons. A recent cover story featured the 50 most expensive houses in the region, starting at $7.2 million and topping out at $45 million. But the Washingtonian almost reads like the Public Aff airs Quarterly com-pared to something called Washington Life, which describes itself as “the premier luxury-lifestyle magazine in the National Capital Region, published since 1991 by well-connected lifelong Washingtonians who have exceptional insight into the community.” With cover stories like “The Power 100,” “The A-List,” “The 100 Most

Invited,” and a regular feature called “Pollywood” (Hollywood on the Potomac), you get some idea of the community being served.

Unsurprisingly, the overall increase in wealth is refl ected in Congress. A recent analysis in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, using the minimum valuations listed in disclosure forms (not including personal homes), found that members of Congress have enjoyed a 25 percent increase in net worth in just three years. This is at a time when the median net worth of families nationally has fallen by 39 percent, according to the Federal Reserve.

The question is whether that wealth increase is also con-nected to power. Exhaustive investigations by The Washington Post and 60 Minutes provide some disturbing answers. Basically,

Politics+Policy | POTOMAC CHRONICLE


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By Ryan Holeywell

Sewage Overfl ows Cause a Stir The feds want to collaborate with localities on clean water regulations, but local leaders remain skeptical.

Many of the U.S. sewer systems are more than 60 years old. Some are much

older, reports the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). So when heavy rains

and large snowmelts overwhelm the systems’ capacity—producing sewer runoff

into lakes and rivers—a city can fi nd itself in violation of the Clean Water Act.

To fi x the problem, the EPA issues “consent decrees” requiring cities to modify

their utility systems, sometimes at a cost of more than $1 billion. These demands,

mayors and utility offi cials say, come when there’s little to no money for upgrades

(lest they enact unpopular rate hikes) and no federal grants attached.

But federal offi cials are taking a new approach to enforcing clean water

regulations and want to work more closely with municipalities to fi nd more cost-

effective solutions. This summer, the EPA

released a new framework that it says will

offer more fl exibility and possibly more sav-

ings to cities as they pursue compliance.

Nancy Stoner, the EPA’s acting assistant

administrator for water, says the policy was

developed with input from utility managers,

mayors and other local offi cials. The goal is

to let local leaders prioritize improvements

to address the most pressing problems fast-

est. Historically, Stoner says, a community

facing sewer overfl ows would have to craft a

long-term plan to address what investments

are needed to stop them. If other issues came up—like discharges at the water

treatment plant or leaking pipes—they’d also need to be addressed, but separately.

The voluntary policy would let cities develop comprehensive plans that

address multiple environmental issues at once. The move comes as federal offi -

cials estimate that the cost to all levels of government of improving clean water

infrastructure over the next 20 years could exceed $400 billion.

The policy doesn’t give mayors a pass, and the EPA isn’t abandoning issuing

consent decrees either. Some city offi cials argue that by not pledging to cut back

on enforcement, the EPA is undermining the collaboration and fl exibility it says

it’s promoting. “Cities are not criminals or criminal enterprises, and should not be

treated as such,” said Mayor David Berger of Lima, Ohio, at a recent congres-

sional hearing on the subject.

Overall, groups representing localities have expressed cautious optimism about

the plan. The U.S. Conference of Mayors praised the EPA for recognizing that cities

have limited resources. Carolyn Berndt, who leads the National League of Cities’

federal relations efforts on infrastructure issues, says that framework may signal

a shift at the EPA from a top-down approach to a more collaborative one. And

Lawrence Levine, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council,

adds that while the EPA’s framework is short on specifi cs, it shows a strong desire

for collaboration. “We’re hopeful it will lead to positive results,” Levine says. “At the

same time, I think it’s also clear there are a lot of important things that are yet to be

known or understood about how this will

work in practice until it’s actually applied

to some early adopter cities.”

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Find out what thefeds are up to at governing.com/fedwatch

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some “130 members or their families have traded stocks worth hundreds of millions of dollars in companies lobbying on bills that came before their committees, a prac-tice that is permitted under current ethics rules,” according to the Post. Not only that, but congressional leaders of both parties had adjusted their portfolios after intense discussions with administration and Fed-eral Reserve offi cials during the worst of the fi nancial meltdown in 2008.

But the real surge in affl uence is in the law and lobby fi rms, the major trade groups and professional associations that surround the Capitol. A National Jour-nal listing of annual total compensation for current and former heads of major trade groups range from $5.6 million at the Business Roundtable to $1.7 million at the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. The same with law fi rms: A recent news item reported that the fi nan-cial disclosure of a lawyer who had been nominated as inspector general of the Jus-tice Department showed that he had been paid $4.6 million by his fi rm in 2010 and the fi rst six months of 2011.

It goes on. One of the greatest concen-trations of wealth resides in the private corporations that do an increasing amount of the government’s work, particularly in the defense and IT sectors.

If there is an Achilles’ heel, it is due in large part to Washington’s own dysfunc-tion. The so-called “fi scal cliff ” looms ahead at the turn of the year, when sched-uled massive budget cuts and tax increases threaten to end the frivolity in Pollywood.

Somehow, I’m guessing it won’t happen. G


Power still is

important, but money

plays a much more

critical role in the city.”

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By David Levine

Michigan’s Newest 4x4It’s not a truck. It’s a comprehensive program to drive down obesity rates.

This past June, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave Jon Stewart a gift when he announced his much-publi-cized plan to ban supersized soda drinks in the Big Apple. The comedian rode a weeklong riff about the propos-

al’s silliness, but the problem the mayor is trying to address is far from silly. States and cities nationwide are struggling to improve their constituents’ health, and to reduce both expanding bottoms and the bottom line of medical costs.

While New York City got all the headlines, Michi-gan also unwrapped a program to fi ght obesity that Stewart can’t joke about. It’s a well-thought-out, evi-dence-based, all-hands-on-deck approach to healthy living, one that Michigan hopes will take it off the list of the 10 fattest states in the nation. It would also help cut the more than $3 billion it costs the state annually in obesity-related health care (a cost that is expected to rise to $12.5 billion by 2018).

The program is called the Michigan Health and Wellness 4x4 Plan, and it encourages everyone in the state to follow four healthy behaviors (eat a nutritious diet, get regular exercise, have a yearly physical exam and avoid all tobacco) and monitor four key health measures (body mass index, blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol). It’s part of Gov. Rick Snyder’s call to include good health as a cornerstone of Michigan’s economic revival. And it started last year when the Department of Community Health hosted a summit where about 500 stakeholders hammered out the details of what would become the 4x4 plan.

Granted, none of the eight behaviors and measures is new or earthshaking. But in many ways, that’s the point, says Olga Dazzo, director of the department. Those eight markers are the science-based best practices to prevent or delay costly chronic illnesses. Snyder himself came up with the 4x4 term, Dazzo says, “because he thought it would be wonderful to have a concept that is easy to remember and gets people excited.”

The problem, of course, is getting those people to follow the program. It hasn’t worked in the past in most locations, Dazzo says, because of a lack of coordination. “Everyone works on it, but it’s a little here and a little there,” she says. “It’s not comprehensive, and that’s why we are not moving the needle. What is diff erent about this initiative is, we want to engage the entire state so that we all move in the same direction.”

Dazzo says this program focuses both on individual responsi-bility and creating an environment where individuals can succeed. That means partnering with schools to ensure access to healthy lunch items, enlisting grocery chains to work harder at supplying

food deserts with ample produce, pushing the private sector to add healthy snacks to vending machines, and prodding all these places to encourage workers and students to move around more.

Dazzo hopes to establish coalitions with community leaders throughout the state who will help implement the plan. She is also engaging trade and professional organizations, school systems, employers and all departments within state government to join the eff ort. A media blitz is, of course, also part of the campaign, and an online dashboard has been created to help promote and measure Michigan’s health and wellness.

“Our goal is to have every Michigander adopt health as a core value,” Dazzo says. “We want everybody talking about this by the end of the year. It takes an individual about 18 months to truly change his or her weight, so this is not something we will see hap-pen overnight. The 4x4 plan is a vision and framework, but the hard work to implement it at the local level begins right now.” G


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Eat a nutritious diet

Avoid all tobacco

Have a yearly physical exam

Get regular exercise

Monitor blood pressure

Monitor blood sugar

Monitor cholesterol

Monitor body mass index

Michigan Health and Wellness 4x4 Plan

Healthy living

could help cut

$3 billion in

health-care costs.

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By Eli Richman

San Francisco is piloting lights that can adjust to surroundings in real time.

The “smart city of the future” idea means diff erent things to diff erent people. In San Francisco, it means street-lights. City offi cials there are hoping that by connecting streetlights to mini-grids, allowing them to be moni-

tored and controlled remotely, they can cut maintenance costs, energy expenses and CO2 emissions.

That connectivity would allow the city to dim streetlights in areas where they’re not needed. If one part of town is socked in by fog, the lights could be brightened. If traffi c in another neighbor-hood is particularly light on a Wednesday night, the lights could be dimmed accordingly. Being smarter about light levels saves energy and money, says Mary Tienken, a project manager at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. Additionally, the city would know instantly when a particular light is damaged or needs replacement. “As opposed to getting a report from a citizen in a nebulous control system, it will be automatic,” Tienken says.

Here’s how the pilot project will work. Nodes attached to each streetlight will monitor the light’s power consumption and relay that information to the utility. Using that data, the city can monitor conditions, remotely control the streetlights or set timers or auto-matic indicators for turning the streetlights on or off . Down the line, Tienken says, additional motion sensors could detect things like vehicle and pedestrian traffi c, meaning the city could adjust to lighting needs in real time. Along with a parallel project that’s converting street lamps from high-consumption sodium bulbs to LED fi xtures, the city expects to cut its lighting bill in half.

The streetlight project is part of a larger pilot program the city is currently investigating, which would ultimately attach several services to a unifi ed wireless system. Such a program, which is only in the planning stages, would let the city monitor everything from vehicle charging stations to parking meters to traffi c cameras, and adjust city services accordingly. “This would solve not just our individual interest” in cutting streetlight energy consumption, says Tienken, “but [it would also start] solving a larger issue” of delivering services more effi ciently.

“We’re defi nitely moving forward with an ambitious plan to make our city smarter and more effi cient,” says utilities commis-sion spokesman Charles Sheehan. G


Politics+Policy | GREEN GOVERNMENT


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December 11, 2012 | Atlanta Botanical Garden

www.governing.com/events

Healthy LivingATTEND OR SPONSOR, PLEASE CONTACT

Susan Shinneman

VP of GOVERNING Events

[email protected]

916.932.1337

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healthy living programs and strategies in your communities.CONNECT, DESIGN, & IMPLEMENT


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to be close to the commercialization action. The University of Nebraska recently cre-ated the Nebraska Innovation Campus adjacent to its main campus in Lincoln. It’s a direct knock-off of the Centennial idea, as University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken, a former systemwide adminis-trator at the University of North Carolina, would be the fi rst to admit.

Centennial’s infl uence has even reached the unlikeliest place of all: Research Trian-gle Park (RTP), the other major economic engine in the Raleigh-Durham area and, for the last 50 years, a business park best understood as the anti-Centennial.

Like Centennial in the 1980s, Research Triangle Park was North Carolina’s major economic development initiative in the 1950s. Hatched by the state and its uni-versities, the idea was to create a free-standing research park capable of luring big corporate research facilities from the Northeast that would benefi t from being

Close QuartersOne university found that bringing everyone together spurred innovation.

‘K nowledge transfer,” Claude McKinney used to say, “is a contact sport.”

McKinney knew what he was talking about. The longtime dean of the School of Design at North Carolina State University (NCSU) had worked on the new town of Columbia, Md., for the legendary developer James Rouse and on the 1964 New York World’s Fair. So when, in the 1980s, McKinney was put in charge of designing the Centennial Cam-pus at North Carolina State, a pet project of then-Gov. Jim Hunt, he put decades of common-sense experience to good use.

If North Carolina was truly going to have the most advanced economic devel-opment eff ort in the nation, McKinney reasoned, then academic researchers, nonprofi t institutions and for-profi t businesses shouldn’t be separated from one another. They should all be thrown together in the same location, in order

to facilitate the constant and intense interaction required to bring research breakthroughs to market.

A quarter-century after its incep-tion, Centennial—located just south of the main North Carolina State campus in Raleigh—is now everybody’s poster child for how a university business park should work. It’s not exactly urban; in fact, it’s quite pastoral. And just as McKinney envisioned, it is a mixture of research and business: NCSU’s College of Agriculture and College of Textiles are located there, along with a wide range of companies that work with NCSU’s research institutes, faculty and students. It’s a great example of open innovation in action.

Now, it seems, every university wants to create a mixed-use research/commercial-ization campus within walking distance of faculty labs. Arizona State University has moved many of its health-related academic operations to downtown Phoenix in order

By William Fulton

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Month 2012 | GOVERNING 23

in a low-tax state near three major uni-versities. Located on the Wake County/Durham County border west of Raleigh, RTP is a world unto itself: a 7,000-acre research park that is at once a nonprofi t foundation, a for-profi t development com-pany and a governmental taxing district.

On its own terms, Research Triangle Park has been fabulously successful, with about 22 million square feet of offi ce space, 170 companies and 40,000 work-ers. But RTP is in danger of becoming a dinosaur, a monument to an earlier age when research and innovation occurred in closed corporate research labs behind locked gates. The number of workers has been fl at for a decade and RTP is at last running out of land. So it’s not surprising that RTP is now trying to become more like Centennial.

It hired New York-based Cooper, Robertson & Partners, an architecture and urban design fi rm, to draw up a new master plan, focused on creating a mixed-use center. Although RTP won’t reveal exactly where the mixed-use center is to be located, it most likely will be adjacent to one of the two planned rail transit sta-tions along the eastern edge of the RTP property. And RTP just hired McKinney protégé Bob Geolas—a graduate of North Carolina State—as CEO.

In reality, Centennial and Research Triangle Park do not compete in building the Raleigh-Durham regional economy. Each plays a very particular role in the region’s prosperity, and they play to dif-ferent markets.

But it’s also clear where the future of economic development lies: not behind the gates and walls of Research Triangle Park, with its proprietary innovation on closed corporate campuses, but in the walking, strolling and random interaction of Centennial. Think Silicon Valley, where open-source innovation thrives because people from diff erent situations—aca-demic, research, fi nancial and start-ups—interact freely with one another. This kind of knowledge transfer is the future and it is very much a contact sport. G


By Tod Newcombe

| URBAN NOTEBOOK

Stump CityDespite their high value, urban trees are on the decline.

Trees have a tough life in cities. They face heavy stress from storms, insects, air pollu-tion, road salt, low-quality soil and even reckless drivers. Yet the benefi ts of a healthy tree population are vast, from the numerous environmental qualities to the aesthetic value that comes with a green canopy in a city park or along a busy street.

There’s also the economic value of trees. Real estate experts say trees on residen-tial and commercial properties can increase the value by as much as 23 percent. They can also cut the cost of cooling a home or building, and their ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide makes them a great investment. According to the U.S. Forest Service, that value can average $2,500 per tree in urban areas.

Despite the clear-cut evidence—excuse the pun—that more trees are better, our urban forests are in decline, according to a study released this year by Forest Ser-vice researchers. By analyzing aerial pho-tographs of tree cover in 20 cities, they found cities suff er a net loss of 4 million trees annually. New Orleans had the worst loss of tree cover (Hurricane Katrina was a major factor), followed by Houston and Albuquerque. With 19 out of the 20 cities showing a reduction in tree cover and 17 showing losses over a time period ranging from three to six years, there is a clear downward trend in urban tree cover.

The reasons for such a broad decline vary, according to Eric J. Greenfi eld, a for-ester for the U.S. Forest Service and co-author of the study. He mentions wind storms, drought, pest infestation, old age and removal as some of the key contributors. But the last problem cited might be the biggest contributor as cities continue to cut down trees to make way for new development.

To counter the problem, a number of cities have started campaigns to plant more trees. New York City, which already has 21 percent of its land area covered by trees, launched a widely publicized campaign to plant one million. But last year, after reaching the halfway mark, the city was struggling to maintain the pace. It was con-fronting a rather high mortality rate among planted trees of between 7 and 11 percent, according to The New York Times. Boston (which has 29 percent of its land covered) began a similar though smaller-scale campaign fi ve years ago to plant 100,000 trees. City offi cials say only 10 percent of the trees have been planted so far.

Given the sorry state of city budgets, it’s unlikely the public sector will reverse the decline in trees anytime soon. Chicago; Louisville, Ky.; and other urban communities that once proudly labeled themselves as “Tree City USA” are now derisively known as “stump city” in some planning circles, thanks to neglect and poor maintenance.

The good news is that our understanding of how trees benefi t cities has been extensively documented, and more people are being trained in urban forestry. Soft-ware tools like i-Tree have been developed that can accurately assess and analyze an urban forest, and community groups continue to raise funds to pay for tree plantings. Hopefully, as cities emerge from the last vestiges of the Great Recession, we will see a revival of interest—as well as investment—in our urban canopy. G


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PM

For the next two decades, baby boomers—the 76 million Americans born

between 1946 and 1964—will turn 65 at a rate of 8,000 a day. By the time you

fi nish reading this paragraph, another fi ve boomers will have reached 65.

That massive transition marks an unprecedented demographic upheaval—

and a historic challenge for government at all levels. Much of the discussion

about the so-called silver tsunami involves the impending pressures on

federal entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare.

But the wave of aging Americans poses sweeping challenges to states and

localities as well.

Over the next few months, Governing will explore the impact of this

generational shift through in-depth analysis in the magazine, as well as

additional data and interactive content at governing.com/generations.

By 2030, one in fi ve Americans will be over 65. Is government prepared?

America is getting older. Fast.

Special Series

generatıons

CO

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IS

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Talkin’’bout My

Generation

In 1946, less than a year after World War II ended, Americans began to notice something unexpected: The economy was not sinking back into the Great Depression. Rather, to everyone’s surprise, it was growing strongly. And then people noticed something else: lots of babies. Married couples who had put off having kids in the 1930s and during the war were now eager to start a

family. Birth rates surged. The nation was ready to grow. “The Great American Boom is on,” announced Fortune magazine that summer.

By the early 1950s, everyone was talking about this “baby boom.” When would it end? Not soon, it turned out. Increasing productivity and rising wages for young workers—along with new social infrastructure such as suburbs and the interstate system—kept families grow-ing for another decade and a half. By the mid-1960s, the live-for-today counterculture fi nally extinguished the urge to marry early and have lots of kids, and the birth rate fell. But by then, America had already experienced a seismic demographic shift unlike anything in its history. Baby boomers, defi ned by the Census Bureau as everyone born from 1946 to 1964, had arrived.

The oldest boomers began entering America’s college campuses in the mid-1960s, helping to ignite countercultural passions and push the nation into an era of political idealism, cultural

What makes the boomers the boomers?

generatıons

By Neil Howe

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awakening and social upheaval. In the years that followed—from LBJ to Reagan, from hippie to yuppie—boomers shook the windows and rattled the walls (to paraphrase Bob Dylan) of every-thing their parents had built. In so doing, this generation began to manifest so many of the collective attitudes and behaviors for which they have since become famous: their individualism, their attraction to personal risk, their distrust of big institutions, their carelessness about material wealth, their cultivation of self, their die-hard moralism.

Now the baby boomers are starting to get old. The fi rst boomer born in 1946 turned 65 last year; the last will reach age 65 in 2029. By then, the total population of Americans over 65 will swell from 41 million to 70 million, a 75 percent increase. In many states, the increase will be even more extreme. For most of the next two decades, the senior population will be growing at well over 3 percent per year. That’s far faster than total U.S. population growth, and faster than real gross domestic product (GDP) growth (in recent years, anyway). In 2010, seniors accounted for 13 percent of the population; in 2029, they’ll account for 19 per-cent. One in fi ve people you see walking down the street will be over 65.

And the elderly themselves will be getting older. Thanks to the tremendous advances in medicine over the past half century, the boomer wave isn’t just about the post-65 crowd. Between 2020 and 2039, boomers will expand the 75-and-over population by 93 percent. Between 2030 and 2049, the number of Americans 85 and over will climb by 113 percent. Come midcentury, people over 65 will outnumber those age 15 and younger.

The consequences of this quantitative population shift are dramatic and sweeping. First and foremost, of course, health-care consumption will skyrocket, along with massive spending increases in federal entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. As retirement-age boomers begin to move out of the workforce, there will be a depressing eff ect on employment, production, revenues and GDP. Consumption rates will increase, while savings rates will fall. Public capital investments in areas such as training, education and work-related infrastructure will likely decline.

But the real story of America’s aging population goes far beyond the numbers. There are huge forthcoming shifts in the attitudes and behaviors of seniors. The generation that’s about to retire will have vastly diff erent wants, needs, likes and dislikes from previous waves of retirees. To understand the real impact that this demographic change will have—to prepare for this unprecedented shift in population—one must examine what it is that makes this particular generational cohort unique from all others. It’s time to get to know the boomers.

There’s a persistent myth that baby boomers have a lot of wealth. They don’t. Even before the Great Recession, boomers weren’t very well positioned for retirement. In 2007, just before the housing bubble burst, older house-

holds (between 55 and 64) had a median net worth of $266,000, according to data from the Federal Reserve. As David Callahan, an author on wealth and a senior fellow at the liberal Demos policy organization, wrote in June, “That fi gure included every-thing—home equity, savings, 401(k)s, etc.—and is hardly the kind of money people need to get through their golden years. By 2010, though, the nest eggs of Americans approaching retirement had shrunk dramatically, falling to $179,400—a 33 percent drop.”

Thanks to a host of factors—including a declining focus on socking money away, the high costs of funding their kids’ college educations and paying for their own aging parents’ care—a large portion of boomers have found their savings wiped out. A Harris Interactive poll last year found 25 percent of boomers don’t have any money saved for retirement, and 26 percent have no personal savings at all.

Today’s elderly, especially “Silent Generation” retirees cur-rently in their 70s, are fairly well off . Indeed, relative to younger households, present-day retirees are more fi nancially comfortable than at any time in history. This is a generation that, for the most part, played by the rules and saved scrupulously. They were able to retire on generous defi ned-benefi t pension plans and got to cash out their home and retirement assets before the 2008 crash. Federal data released earlier this year show that, for the fi rst time ever, households headed by people age 75 and over have a higher median net worth than any younger age bracket.

Yet this elder affl uence is destined to fade fast as successive waves of boomers turn 65. There will be a pronounced, predict-able shift in retirees’ overall socioeconomic situation, including a decline in educational attainment and the share with college degrees, a decline in the professional share, a decline in household net worth and pension assets, and a relative decline in pre-retire-ment income. As a result, these new elders will be in gradually greater risk of ending up in poverty or on the brink of it. That means a rising challenge for public offi cials concerned for “young elders” without income, food, personal care or health insurance.

At the same time that the living standards for the median elder will be on the decline, the inequality of living standards will be on the rise. As economists Mary Elizabeth Hughes and Angela M. O’Rand explain in The Lives and Times of the Baby Boomers, this generation (especially the late-wavers) was hit hard in the 1960s and ’70s by rising divorce rates, surging immigration and a widening gap between college and non-college wages. The

By 2030, 10 states will have more Medicare-eligible seniors

than they have school-age children.—AARP

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combined eff ect was to increase the distance between the haves and have-nots. Other authors, such as Myron Magnet or Charles Murray (in his recent book, Coming Apart), stress a diff erent reason for the rising “spread” in boomer outcomes: the greater lifestyle freedoms young boomers enjoyed, including the freedom to not go to school, get a job, get married or plan for the future. They argue this freedom has adversely impacted America’s work-ing class more than its elite.

Whatever its causes, this rising inequality will reshape the material look and feel of the new elder lifestyle. High-end vaca-tions and luxe retirement goods may still fi nd a niche market. But staunchly middle-class retirement options likely will disappear. Boomers invented “the hourglass economy,” according to business writer Michael Silverstein, which is characterized by “death in the middle” for the merely average, as opposed to the premium or discount. Even if they can aff ord it, most boomers are repelled by the idea of a middle-class brand. In the homes of tomorrow’s Old Aquarians, you’ll fi nd more things from Restoration Hardware or the Dollar Store, and fewer items from anywhere in between.

Ethnic and racial diversity will also be on the rise. If today’s Silent Generation of elders seems culturally homogeneous, there’s good reason: Due to their spot in history as children of the Great Depression and young adults of the 1950s, the Silent Generation has turned out to be the least-immigrant generation per capita in American history. Boomers will not follow suit. The Hart-Celler Act of 1965 greatly widened the legal window for newcomers, and many other boomers climbed through windows that weren’t exactly in the law—making boomers a generation of rising immi-gration from fi rst to last cohort. Between now and 2030, the Hispanic share of Americans ages 65 to 84 will jump from 7 to 12 percent; the Asian share, from 3 to 6 percent; and the African-American share, from 9 to 11 percent.

Boomers aren’t as diverse as the younger generations—Gen-eration Xers and millennials—that follow them. But in languages, cuisines, religions and customs, boomers will be a markedly more diverse generation of retirees than the last.

What does all this mean for retiring boom-ers? How will they diff er from the generations that preceded them?

For starters, boomers will redefi ne the whole idea of retirement. As the

“G.I. Generation” (born between 1901 and 1924) began to retire in the mid-1960s, they pulled the retirement age down dramatically. Back in 1960, one-third of all males over age 65 were employed. By the mid-1980s, thanks to Social Security, Medicare and the spread of private retirement plans, only 15 percent were employed. The retirement age has essentially remained unchanged since then, but boomers are starting to push it up again. The median age of retirement on Social Security, after lingering around 63 for many years, recently ticked up to 64. And the number of Americans in their late 60s who are still working has skyrocketed. In fact, the Great Recession has hardly touched the employment of seniors. Since 2007, the number of jobs held by Americans over 60 has risen by 3 million—while declining by more than 5 million for everyone 60 or younger.

It’s not hard to explain why more seniors are working, and why the number will accel-erate even faster as more boomers rush past 65: economic neces-sity. According to AARP, “current fi nancial need” is by far the single biggest reason older workers cite for working past the normal retirement age. What’s more, this is no surprise to most boomers, who have known for a long time that they would have to retire later. Between 1996 and 2006, according to the Employee Benefi t Research Institute, the share of workers ages 45 to 54 who expected to retire at some point beyond age 65 rose from 13 to 31

percent. Since the fi nancial meltdown, the numbers have simply tilted further. In 2012, 43 percent expect to retire after 65.

But money isn’t the whole story. Even among aging Americans who can aff ord to retire, many will choose to keep working. For a lot of successful boomers, retirement sounds like death. They’ll choose to stay engaged in productive activity even if they don’t need the money. One out of fi ve boomers, according to AARP, insist that they work mainly for “psychological or social fulfi ll-ment.” Millions of boomers are following the model of Bill Clinton or Bill Gates and starting a post-retirement “encore career,” using their skills in the service of some higher cause—education, health, the environment, social welfare—for little or no pay. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof calls this a “give-back revolu-tion” and hopes that if enough boomers fi nd a meaningful calling late in life, “they may just be remembered more for what they did in their 60s than for what they did in the Sixties.”

The bottom line is that over-65 households in the next few decades are much more likely to be working households than their counterparts 10 or 20 years ago. That will be helped along by the increasing popularity of free-agent and part-time work-ing arrangements, as well as broadband and other technological improvements that make it easier and more acceptable for the multitude of boomer “cultural creatives” to work from home.

Boomers whose jobs don’t allow them to work remotely or part-time—and those with disabilities that prevent them from

generatıons

At 17 percent, Florida has the nation’s highest number of people over

65 as a share of its population. By 2029,

the share in every state will

be higher.—AARP

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continuing to work—will be at a disadvantage. Unfortunately, many of those people are already low-income earners. In recent years, boomers (mostly those without college degrees) have been “retiring” on disability insurance (DI) before age 65 at a 50 per-cent higher rate than the Silent Generation did back around 1990. Few DI recipients ever work again or regain any sort of income security. The disability boom among boomers (DI cash benefi ts have grown nearly as fast as Medicare over the last decade), accompanied by surging employment by nondisabled boomers approaching age 65, further reinforces the widely divergent out-comes within this new generation of elders.

All told, retirement for boomers won’t look anything like what it’s been for the past several decades. For most, retirement will be delayed and gainful employment will become the new normal. And if the weak job market lingers for younger Americans, fat senior wages could trigger broader policy changes. Gen Xers and millennials may complain that boomers’ refusal to retire is mak-ing it impossible for them to advance in their careers. It was just that kind of argument that helped secure passage of the original Social Security Act of 1935—intended to clear out the deadwood and, in the words of New York Sen. Robert Wagner, the original sponsor of the bill, to “make new places for the strong and eager.”

Thirty or 40 years ago, there were stark, clear diff erences in generational likes and dislikes. Youthful boomers invented the generation gap and the notion that you shouldn’t trust anyone over 30. Boomers actively, purpose-

fully chose to have nothing in common with their parents. Not so today. Pop culture now is much more universal. Boomers and their kids swap book recommendations and trade emails about last night’s “American Idol.” They post Facebook updates about the same celebrity breakups, and they see the same movies. Their iPod playlists overlap. The generation gap has been erased.

Beyond pop culture, a growing closeness between boomers and their young adult children refl ects a major shift in family dynamics. One example: Millennials are much more comfortable gravitating back home. In 1980, 11 percent of 24- to 34-year-olds lived with their parents. In 2010, 22 percent did. Part of that cer-tainly has to do with the weak job market, but it’s also indicative of the complete closure of the values gap. Boomers and their chil-

dren maintain much closer fi nancial relationships than boomers did with their own parents. Boomers are still helping their kids fi nd jobs, cosign mortgages or car loans, pay for family vacations, and care for grandchildren. Grown kids, meanwhile, are helping their boomer parents with chores, shopping and other errands.

Those stronger family connections will continue to play out as boomers get older. When the G.I. Generation retired, many of them packed up their bags, sold their homes and moved to retirement communities in sunny climes far away from their adult children. Most boomers won’t want that—partly because of the desire to be near their kids, and partly because, again, many boomers will continue working well past retirement age. The new elders are much more likely to choose to age in place, in the house where they already live, than to decamp to an existing retirement village. The boomer buzzword for this phenomenon will be NORC, or “naturally occurring retirement community.”

Four out of fi ve boomers tell AARP they want to remain in their own homes even when they need assistance. The next decade promises to be the golden age of the home remodeler, as boomers with funds turn that circa-2000 pleasure-palace McMansion into a rambling circa-2020 extended-family home reminiscent of the rambling Depression-era residences in all those old Frank Capra movies.

To the extent that boomers do move, they’ll be much less interested in exclusive elder communities. Many will prefer mixed-use urban quarters where they can be around young people. And of course many will be attracted to locales—univer-sity towns, art centers—where they can reaffi rm their connection

to the world of the mind and culture. Even when they do opt to move to active adult communities, they’ll choose to stay closer to home. Already, retirement-home developers have begun build-ing fewer massive seniors-only projects in Arizona and Florida, and more smaller developments around various cities in the Northeast and Midwest. Wherever it’s located, though, the elder community of the next couple decades is likely to have fewer rules and more opt-out provisions. Forget those restrictions against kids living in the communities. (For now, such edicts remain a great favorite among local authorities who want the

As of 2010, one-thirdof boomers wereeither divorced,separated orhad never beenmarried.

—Bowling Green State University analysis of Census data

67The age most people today expect to retire.

60That fi gure in 1996.

—Gallup (April 2012)

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revenue that comes with retirees, but not the extra costs that come with kids. That will change.)

With boomers, as always, one must keep in mind the widening spread in outcomes—not just between rich and poor, but between familied and unfamilied. Coming of age amid feminism and water-shed changes in gender roles, lots of boomer women have chosen not to have kids. To be specifi c, the share of women who are child-less at or near the end of their childbearing years has risen from 10 percent for those born around 1940 to 20 percent for those born around 1965. So even with all the reconnecting within extended families, a growing number of boomer elders will have new ways of defi ning family. They will be adoptive parents, connecting into blended families through remarriage or doting on their nieces and nephews. Many will gather in intentional communities, coopera-tives or just close groups of friends and neighbors and consider these their “family.” Today, we habitually think of elders as defi ned by their lifetime marriages and nuclear families. Twenty years from now, we no longer will.

Compared to their parents’ generation, boom-ers have always lived on the edge. In their youth, they launched a behavioral trend toward personal risk-taking: higher rates of drug use, teen pregnancy, suicide and self-

infl icted accidents, along with lower test scores, later marriages and later career choices. They’ve taken that “born to be wild” streak—“If I have to break the rules to do it my way, I will”—and stuck with it. Americans in their 50s and early 60s have recently been experiencing sharply rising rates of drug overdoses, sexually transmitted diseases, motorcycle fatalities, and suicides. This will continue as they move past age 65.

Especially worrisome are personal-risk habits that have adversely aff ected their health. As boomers have reached midlife, for example, rates of chronic disease for people in their 50s and 60s have risen sharply, especially diseases driven by obesity, like type 2 diabetes. Disabilities that limit activities of daily living (ADLs) are also more common. For the last 30 or 40 years, as the G.I. and Silent generations retired, ADL disabilities among those 65 and older have been on the decline. Some health experts and demographers believe that as boomers move past 65, that trend may reverse. “Even in older age, people have an amazing ability to change behavior and for that to change health risk,” Teresa See-man, professor of epidemiology at the University of California in Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times a few years ago. “If we don’t do anything, we’re going to face an older population that is bigger and much more disabled.”

The implications for health-care spending are alarming. Even before the boomer age wave hit, U.S. health spending was already growing faster than GDP. The sheer size of the boomer demo-graphic is certain to accelerate the pace of health spending. The elderly spend three times more than the average per capita on acute care, and 10 times more on long-term care. Adding the extra kicker of accumulated lifestyle behavior will push costs up even more. In other words, higher risks have higher costs.

Yet boomer attitudes toward health care may come with a bright side. This is a generation that came of age with a new

“natural” and “holistic” attitude toward diet, exercise and healthy living. While that hasn’t proven very eff ective in improving lifestyle habits, it has certainly changed boomers’ approach to health-care treatment. More than their parents or grandparents, boomers look energetically for alternatives to high-tech industrial medicine and want to be fully informed and personally involved in their own healing. Most phy-sicians believe these attitudes tend to improve compliance and keep costs down. Hospitals are now starting to off er natural foods, allowing complementary and alternative medicines, building rock gardens, and hiring spiritual and lifestyle counselors. Many of these New Age tools may help. They can’t hurt. And they’re much cheaper than installing another million-dollar MRI scanner.

Boomers’ aversion to long-term institutional care—combined with the greater willingness of family to pitch in and the reluc-tance of government to spend—has already led to a dramatic reduction in the new nursing home units that state and local governments are expected to build. (Several states have fl atly declared they will build no new units.) Boomers will be much more interested in home-health options or more fl exible modes of assisted living. When boomers do enter long-term care, a growing share will insist on small, informal, decentralized units that have live-in staff and allow plenty of plants and pets. One prototype for this new approach is the Green House Project, whose motto (“Caring homes for meaningful lives”) is pitch-perfect for boomers.

Overall, boomers are struggling with the challenge of stay-ing healthy, and many are losing in that struggle. Yet they’re also much more open to the argument that health is partly a state of mind. For states and cities, this outlook could allow health dol-lars to be more eff ectively targeted. It certainly opens the way to positive reforms in the way the health-care industry is organized and how it provides services.

generatıons

Wyoming and New Mexico are projected

to see their over-65 populations increase

by 130% overthe next two

decades—morethan any other

states.—U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services

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There’s long been a notion that elders are active, engaged citizens and one of the big-gest, most organized political blocs. That was largely true for G.I. and Silent genera-tion retirees. But don’t expect it to continue.

Boomers in old age will be less “gray panthers” and more “bowl-ing alone.” The generation that invented McMansions and the exurbs has never been big on group cooperation, and that isn’t going to change now. With every age bracket they’ve entered so far, boomers have marked a decline in civic participation, includ-ing voting, municipal meetings, petition campaigns, letter-writing and responding to pollsters. That attitude will start to transform the reputation of seniors as highly engaged civic participators to something far less—or at least diff erent. The media keeps reit-erating the idea that boomers will add their vast numbers to the powerful senior associations that exist today. But the me-fi rst boomers don’t join associations.

Boomers will engage on issues, but they’ll tend to be single-cause issues. Unlike their parents, boomers have never organized successfully around their own self interest. In other words, boomers won’t respond at all until you push their buttons and

elicit passionate and perhaps “uncivic” engagement. Distrust and cynicism will rise. Today’s retirees tend to be civil and respect expertise even when they may disagree with it. Tomorrow’s boomers will fi nd it much easier to be uncivil, to regard passion as a sign of commitment and to disrespect expertise freely. Pre-pare for a plethora of angry bloggers and retired professionals who know how to fi le an obstructive lawsuit in a heartbeat.

For state and local governments, that could represent a shift in how they communicate and interact with the population at large. Currently, government communications often start with older generations—including seniors—as the best way to get everyone on board: Elected offi cials phone civic leaders, visit corporate boards and place editorials in newspapers. By engaging older

38%The number of non-retirees who say they’ll have enough money to live comfortablywhen they retire, a new low.—Gallup (April 2012)

people and getting their attention and compliance, the assump-tion is that tuned-out young people will simply go along. As time passes, governments may want to rethink that strategy. A better way may be to try harder to connect with a more trusting, net-worked and plugged-in generation of young adults while actually doing less with an increasingly unplugged generation of elders. This means communicating more through K-12 schools, col-leges, youth groups and on Facebook—and leveraging the power of young parents and volunteers to spread the message and sway opinion through their own networks.

Boomers can still be helpful, but in a new way. The boomers’ parents—those whom we still call “senior citizens”—were (and in their 80s and 90s, still are) happy to serve as ground troops, licking 100 envelopes, phoning 10 friends, and following any directions they are given. With boomers, though, that won’t be any more eff ective after age 65 than it was before. What works much better is to bring in boomers early in the process, listen to their insights, help them “discover” for themselves the need for a new government initiative and then let them communicate that “vision thing” to the community in any way they want. Again, boomers have always been better talkers than doers. Don’t even try to give them orders. Instead, inspire them to become passion-ate advocates of your cause.

Even while boomers fall in civic engagement and dissociate themselves ever further from the “senior citizen” self-image, they will continue to rise in terms of social cachet and cultural cre-ativity. They’ll continue to drive popular culture: Expect to keep seeing the likes of Mick Jagger, Tom Petty, Madonna and Brian Wilson celebrated during Super Bowl halftimes even as they age into their 70s. For boomers, the most sought-after local commu-nities will be renowned for their culture, their soul, their unique story, their authenticity—not, as it might have been for G.I. Gen-eration retirees, for their wide roads, gleaming tiles and endless golf courses. Many boomers will be congregating around univer-sities and colleges, art and music hubs, and natural and historic landmarks. In so doing, the boomers will have entirely reversed the reputation of their G.I. Generation predecessors in old age as civically powerful and culturally weak; elder boomers will be civically weak and culturally powerful.

The takeaways for policy leaders are clear. Even as offi cials push communication about rules, regulations, cooperation, and compliance toward the young, they will want to invite the old to frame the rhetoric and announce the vision around which the community is being asked to come together. In the 2020s, young people will listen to the old on values—in a way they never dreamed of doing back in the 1970s. G


Neil Howe is a historian, demographer and the author of several books on generational change, including The Fourth Turning and Millennials in the Workplace. He is the founder and president of Lifecourse Associates, a consulting group focused on generational transitions. Neil is a baby boomer.

Data and graphs at governing.com/generations

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Is Your Community Ready?AARP can help you meet the challenge and seize the opportunities. Through research, policy analysis, and on-the-ground experience, we offer practical guidance for making your community more livable for people of all ages—from improving public transportation and accessibility, to developing housing and land-use policies.

Learn more about communities at aarp.org/home-family/livable-communities

And to see our policy reports visit aarp.org/research/ppi/liv-com

In 2030

501 in every 3 Americanswill be

or older

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Walk around Arlington County, Va., the compact, urbanized jurisdiction just outside Washington, D.C., and you may start to notice some interesting design details. The side-walks are wide—six feet in commercial areas and fi ve in residential neighborhoods. Pedestrian “walk/don’t walk”

signals have been replaced with newer versions that count down the seconds left before the light changes. And buses sit lower, eliminating the need for passengers to climb up and down steps to board and exit.

These are just a handful of the new elements that have been implemented in recent years as Arlington has pursued a plan to prepare for its aging baby boomer population. In 2006, the county assembled a task force to examine what it would need to do to accom-modate older residents. The move was prescient, but to some residents it may even have seemed unnecessary. Arlington is a bastion of young, educated, urban professionals, many of them working for the federal government and associated industries. More than one-third of the county’s residents are between the ages of 25 and 39 ; nationwide, fewer than one in fi ve Americans fall into that age range. But county leaders knew that change was on the horizon. By 2030, the county’s over-65 population is projected to double, and its over-85 group is set to almost triple. In the not-too-distant future, offi cials realized, their relatively small population of seniors would become vastly larger.

Some of the changes—like the new crossing signals and the minimum sidewalk widths, which will better accommodate residents using walkers and wheelchairs—are fairly small tweaks. Other changes are more signifi cant. Arlington County has expanded

How will an aging population reshape America’s cities?

By Ryan Holeywell

Boom(er)Town

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a transit service that provides door-to-door transportation for the disabled. Parks and recreation offi cials are sponsoring bicycling groups for seniors to help introduce them to a driving alternative. And a new zoning ordinance allows some homeowners to build accessory dwelling units, often known as “granny fl ats,” where aging residents can live in proximity to relatives or friends.

County leaders say they’re expecting to see the population age not just as existing residents grow older, but also as young professionals move their parents to Arlington to better care for them. Terri Lynch, director of the Arlington County Agency on Aging, says that given the changing behavior of elderly people, the county has to take a diff erent approach than communities may have in the past. Because retirees live longer and are more active than they previously have been, it’s crucial that the county address the needs of older residents, Lynch says. “It isn’t your grandmother’s aging.”

Across the country, urban planners and transit offi cials are realizing that the wave of boomer retirees will transform the way cities look, from the way they grow and sprawl to minutiae such as curb heights and the fonts on street signs. “We’re in a period of transition that’s pretty dramatic,” says David Dixon, who leads the planning and urban design practice at the Boston-based fi rm Goody Clancy. “You look at major metro areas, and sometimes a third or more of their growth for the next 30 years is folks over 65. That’s a hugely [signifi cant] and rapid transition.”

Gone are the days when retiring meant packing up and mov-ing to adults-only communities in Arizona or Florida, says Nancy LeaMond, executive vice president of AARP’s state and national group. Surveys by her organization indicate that 84 percent of baby boomers plan on staying in their current homes as they age, she says, some because they want to, and others because they can’t aff ord to move. Those empty nesters who do move may be more interested in relocating to smaller apartments in connected urban centers than to retirement golf-course communities.

The bottom line, planners say, is that city and county govern-ments face a growing challenge: how to design a community for a population they haven’t had to cater to in the past. If they come up with the right answer, they can help aging residents lead fulfi lling lives and remain engaged and active, even in their senior years. But if they fail, they risk alienating and isolating a rapidly growing cohort of taxpayers. “We’re trying to be pre-dictive about where the populations are in a community that doesn’t necessarily have senior citizens now, but in a few years will have a tremendous population,” says Anna Ricklin, manager of the American Planning Association’s Planning and Commu-nity Health Research Center.

Many of the aspects of designing an age-friendly community—walkable downtowns, cohesive transit networks, mixed-use urban villages—are the same things smart growth advocates

have been pushing for 20 years. “By making the space accessible for seniors, you’re making it more accessible for everyone else,” Ricklin says.

But there are other issues that are directly related to aging residents. A recent World Health Organization report on aging

Transit offi cials have generally had a rather

straightforward job: move the masses. But a

growing number of transit agencies are turning

their attention to individual riders through a relatively

new technique called mobility management.

The strategy involves partnering with other

agencies and nonprofi ts to improve convenience for

individual riders and achieve cost savings at the same

time, says Art Guzzetti, vice president of policy at the

American Public Transportation Association (APTA).

The approach, which has gained traction over the last

decade in Denver; Portland, Ore.; Michigan and else-

where, is especially crucial as transit agencies face

an upcoming surge in the number of senior residents

expected to use their service.

This spring, APTA held a conference devoted

entirely to the concept of mobility management. “The

trends are all pointing to this,” Guzzetti says. “We really

need to plan and participate.”

In Louisville, Ky., for example, the Transit Authority of

River City (TARC) created a mobility manager position

in 2006. Nancy Snow, who holds that job, works with

the community to assess the needs of riders and match

them with the best available transit option, whether it’s

paratransit or a particular bus or trolley route. “We need

accessible, universal and affordable transportation,”

Snow says.

To that end, TARC has stepped outside its traditional

role and partnered with about a dozen nonprofi ts. Since

these organizations will increasingly help transport the

over 65 and disabled, TARC will perform low-cost

vehicle maintenance. Building partnerships with other

providers is important, says TARC Executive Director

Barry Barker, because the agency doesn’t have the

money to increase the size of its own vehicle fl eet.

The agency is also contracting with private taxi ser-

vices to supplement its federally mandated paratransit

service, and is using federal grant funds to make its

entire bus fl eet wheelchair accessible. That move could

offer disabled passengers more freedom since they

wouldn’t have to make advanced reservations to use

paratransit, and it could save TARC money since it’s

less expensive to provide bus service than paratransit.

Once aging baby boomers hang up their car keys,

they’ll begin relying on transit agencies to “demystify

the experience for someone where public transit is

new,” Guzzetti says. Snow has partnered with the city

to improve bus stops and surrounding sidewalks for

passengers, and she’s helped coordinate travel training

to teach residents how to use the transit system.

TARC’s Barker says the concept of mobility man-

agement extends beyond Snow’s role and is now part

of the agency’s culture. “It is all about giving people an

array of options where they live.” —Lauren Henry

Going Mobile

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Bobby Dinkins admits his idea to

build a playground for seniors

wasn’t exactly original. “I actu-

ally just got the idea [through] Google,”

says Dinkins, director of the Boyd

Esler Senior and Community Center

in Springfi eld Township, Ohio. “I went

online and googled ‘exercise equip-

ment for seniors’ and read about the

Hyde Park playground in England. I

realized they were really popular in

Europe and Asia, but not over here.”

Dinkins is right: Playgrounds

designed specifi cally for aging resi-

dents have popped up in England,

Finland, Germany and throughout Asia.

But the idea is just now taking off in

the U.S. The parks feature low-impact

exercise equipment designed to pro-

mote balance and fl exibility, such as

elliptical machines, static bikes and

body fl exors.

After securing $33,500 in Commu-

nity Development Block Grant funds

for the facility, Dinkins opened it last

November. “The idea behind the equip-

ment is to get seniors to stay active

and to prevent them from falling,”

Dinkins says. “Improving balance is

important because a fall can be physi-

cally and emotionally devastating for

seniors. Plus, it’s just fun.”

The Hyde Park playground that

inspired Dinkins was built in 2009 with

the idea that many older residents in

the nearby neighborhood felt discon-

nected from the community, says

Joanna Hughes, a spokeswoman for

The Royal Parks, the United Kingdom

government agency that manages

eight parks in London. “While there are

certainly physical health aspects to the

playground, it is also there to nurture

social and mental health.”

In the U.S., the approach seems to

favor playgrounds that cater to multiple

generations instead of being designed

exclusively for the elderly. KaBOOM,

a nonprofi t organization that builds

playgrounds in low-income areas, has

partnered with the Humana Foundation

to build multigenerational playgrounds

throughout the country. Eleven have

been built since last year; another 16

are in the works. Their intent is to pro-

vide a place where aging adults can

participate alongside their children

or grandchildren, says Mike Vietti,

a KaBOOM spokesman. “This way,

instead of adults just sitting on benches

while their kids play, they can also be

active and keep an eye on the kids.”

One of the recently opened

KaBOOM projects, at the Midway Safe

Harbor Center in Sanford, Fla., has

been a big asset to the community,

says center Director Brenda Knight.

“When you’re talking about an area

with high crime and poverty, it is often

the case that the grandparents are tak-

ing care of their grandchildren. Before

the playground, neither the kids nor the

grandparents had a place to go, and

now they have a place to go together.”

—Leigh Ann Renzulli

Back to the Playground


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London’s fi rst

senior playground

opened in 2010.

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communities, for example, highlights the need for things like greater numbers of public benches, safer crosswalks and plenty of public toilets to accommodate older people.

Experts say communities will also need to consider how they make transit service available to boomers, since many will become increasingly dependent on buses and rail as they stop driving. Offi cials in Westchester County, N.Y., for example, have been conducting outreach campaigns to sign seniors up for fare cards and teach them to use the bus. “In all of the surveys that we do of seniors and the outreach to the senior community, we fi nd that their No. 1 concern about getting older is transportation,” says Naomi Klein, director of planning at the county’s public works and transportation department. “They don’t want to lose their independence. There’s real concern about having to give up driving.”

In addition to teaching seniors how to use the bus system and read schedules, Westchester offi cials have also changed the design of their bus timetables to make them more readable for people who have trouble with small typefaces. And one bus route was altered to ensure it reached destinations that seniors were most interested in visiting, including pharmacies and the medi-cal center.

When it comes to buildings themselves, many advocates have touted the idea of universal design—making buildings more accommodating to all, often in subtle ways—and encour-aging developers to embrace these principles. That means wider hallways and doorways, and the absence of thresholds to help prevent trips and falls. There’s also been a movement to encour-age builders to introduce facets into their structures that cater to people who might not be disabled today but could be in the future. For example, residential bathrooms could have walls designed to accommodate the eventual installation of grab bars, since it would be easier and less expensive to do that dur-ing the construction phase then to have to replace drywall later on. Related to that is the concept of “visitability”—the idea that even if you aren’t disabled yourself, your home should be able to accommodate guests who are.

Portland State University, for instance, has worked with the city of Portland to include language in the city’s planning guide that emphasizes the needs to address accessibility issues for the elderly and disabled. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros and others have called for governments to consider age-friendly plans modeled on home weatherization programs that would modify buildings to accommodate older people with mobility issues. AARP, for its part, says it plans to work with homebuilders and developers to get them to volun-tarily adopt these types of standards; the group believes such a strategy will be more eff ective than pursuing zoning and building code reforms across the country.

What’s clear is whether it’s through municipal building codes or voluntary, market-driven adjustments, the home design will need to change to accommodate the older population, says Alan DeLaTorre, project coordinator at Portland State University’s Institute on Aging. “For the last 50 to 100 years, we’ve been build-ing Peter Pan housing. It assumes you’re not going to grow up and grow old.”

What features are essential for an age-friendly

community? The World Health Organization studied

33 cities in 22 countries across the globe, and it

published a checklist of the elements a city needs

in order to be a place where residents can

age comfortably.

The full checklist includes more than 80 items.

Here’s a sampling:

Outdoor spaces and buildings

❏ Pedestrian crossings are suffi cient in

number and safe for people with different

levels and types of disability, with nonslip

markings, visual and audio cues, and

adequate crossing times.

❏ Services are situated together and

are accessible.

❏ Buildings are well-signed outside and

inside, with suffi cient seating and toilets,

accessible elevators, ramps, railings and

stairs, and non-slip fl oors.

Transportation

❏ All city areas and services are accessible by

public transport, with good connections and

well-marked routes and vehicles.

❏ Specialized transportation is available for

disabled people.

❏ A voluntary transport service is available

where public transportation is too limited.

❏ Taxis are accessible and affordable, and

drivers are courteous and helpful.

Housing

❏ Suffi cient, affordable housing is available in

areas that are safe and close to services and

the rest of the community.

❏ Home modifi cation options and supplies

are available and affordable, and providers

understand the needs of older people.

❏ Public and commercial rental housing is

clean, well maintained and safe.

Is Your City Age- F

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On a broader scale, the aging trend will also require a rethinking of the type of housing stock that’s off ered. While single-family homes with multiple

bedrooms are often the cornerstone of residential communities, they aren’t necessarily practical for an elderly retiree, says Dixon, the urban designer. “Large parts of this country have a housing stock that is increasingly out of sync with demand in the market today and really out of sync going forward.”

Beyond that, some communities are starting to focus on better incorporating hospitals, nursing homes and other elder facilities into the community. John Norquist, president of the smart growth organization Congress for the New Urbanism, has touted eff orts in some California communities to try to more closely link hospitals to sidewalks and transit. He says similar eff orts could be adopted at some retirement communities so that instead of being surrounded by a parking lot, which may promote a sense of isolation, retirees can have access to the sur-rounding neighborhoods.

Implementing those kinds of changes will be a challenge. Many seniors who are aging in place live in suburbs that haven’t embraced walkable design and may not have large enough popu-lations to support the density that would make it possible. Ellen Dunham-Jones, author of the book Retrofi tting Suburbia, suggests the key to designing cities for the elderly is creating brand-new town centers, in some cases built upon the sites of old shopping centers. She touts Mashpee Commons, an open-air mall in Cape Cod that was a typical shopping center in the 1960s but was rede-veloped in the 1980s and today includes a nearby library, Boys & Girls Club and senior center. City and county leaders in Wis-consin Rapids, Wis., renovated a former downtown Walmart into a community center. The city-owned facility leases space out to an adult day care and an organization that helps connect elderly people with resources like Medicare and transportation. It also has a community theater and space for after-school services run by the parks department. Planning experts say facilities like that can help foster a sense of community in the elderly.

Part of the solution could lie in reinterpreting federal law. Architect Scott Ball, author of the book Livable Communities for Aging Populations, advocates a reexamination of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The 1990 law uses buildings codes to ensure the disabled have access and maneuverability within individual structures. But it doesn’t address the larger issues of designing an accessible community. Ball and others say the ADA should consider things like zoning, and he argues that providing access to the disabled can be more of an urban planning issue than an architectural one.

In that sense, designing an age-friendly community is about much more than wheelchair ramps and countdown walk signals. It involves a comprehensive approach that focuses as much on the individual as technical standards. “There are few places that are getting any younger,” says LeaMond of the AARP. “We don’t want people, as they get older, to get more and more isolated from community activities and services they need.” G


generatıons

Social participation

❏ Venues for events and activities are

conveniently located, accessible, well lit and

easily reached by public transport.

❏ Activities and attractions are affordable,

with no hidden or additional costs.

❏ There is consistent outreach to include

people at risk of social isolation.

Respect and social inclusion

❏ Older people are regularly consulted by

public, voluntary and commercial services on

how to serve them better.

❏ Older people are specifi cally included in

community activities for “families.”

Civic participation and employment

❏ A range of fl exible options for older

volunteers is available, with training,

recognition, guidance and compensation for

personal costs.

❏ Training in post-retirement options is

provided for older workers.

Communication and information

❏ Printed information—including offi cial

forms, television captions and text on visual

displays—has large lettering and the main

ideas are shown by clear headings and bold-

face type.

❏ People at risk of social isolation get one-to-

one information from trusted individuals.

Community and health services

❏ Home-care services include health and

personal care and housekeeping.

❏ Community emergency planning takes into

account the vulnerabilities and capacities of

older people.

See the rest at governing.com/generations

e- Friendly?

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A bout a year ago, the Center for Colorado’s Economic Future at the University of Denver sent a small shudder through the state Capitol. The center’s analysts, who’d been asked by the Legisla-ture to delve into the fi scal sustainability of state government, declared that Colorado was speeding toward a brick wall.

“Twelve years from now,” they wrote, “Colorado will generate only enough sales, income and other general-purpose tax revenue to pay for the three largest programs in the General Fund—public schools, health care and prisons.” In other words, if nothing changes, taxpayers’ money will be eaten up by the young, old and poor, as well as by hous-ing for criminals. Everything else—public higher education, courts, child welfare, roads, bridges and other basic state services—will have to go begging.

generatıons

RocktheVote

They hold tremendous infl uence—more than half the nation’s voting-age population is

now over 45—but baby boomers and their role at the polls are a bit hard to pin down.

By Rob Gurwitt

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Not surprisingly, the report set off a spirited debate about how the state should fund itself over the next decade. But it also set off a quieter, equally interesting exchange about an even touchier subject: how to avoid an intergenerational war over tight budget-ary resources. It didn’t take much imagination to see a pitched battle shaping up between older residents and the state’s school-children. “We hear politicians talk a lot about how the most important thing government can be doing is to help educate kids,” says Rich Mauro, senior policy analyst at the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG). That’s still true, he says, but policymakers and elected offi cials are more aware than ever of the challenges ahead for older populations and what they will mean for public policy and budgets.

This new political awareness is being driven partly by sim-ple demographics. According to data compiled by demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution, Colorado is one of a group of states that is seeing rapid growth at both ends of the age spectrum. Between 2000 and 2010, Nevada and Utah led the nation in the growth of their under-15 populations, at 27 and 25 percent, respectively. Colorado was seventh, at 12 percent growth. The national average was 1.6 percent. Meanwhile, the soon-to-be-senior population of those ages 55 to 64—in other words, the lead-ing half of the baby boom—grew 76 percent in Colorado, faster than in any other state except Alaska. Other Western states saw numbers that were only slightly lower: 69 percent in Utah, 68 percent in Idaho, and 66 percent in Nevada and Washington.

It’s not that “pre-seniors” are moving in unusual numbers to these states. Rather, they moved there in their 30s and 40s and are now aging in place, as are most people in the over-65 cohort. In fact, in every corner of the country, in fast-growing and slow-growing states alike, those older than 65 and those approaching it are coming to represent a larger share of the population simply by staying put. “The migration aspect of population change in the elderly is relatively small,” says Frey. “The bigger issue is where soon-to-be-old people are ready to age in place—and that’s everywhere.”

This plain demographic fact has an obvi-ous political result. More than half the nation’s voting-age population is now over 45—the fi rst time that’s ever happened. As the immense bulge of the baby boom ages, politics in every state, county, city and town will refl ect its infl u-ence. Yet what’s most interesting about this is that no one really knows how.

Given how thoroughly scrutinized, ana-lyzed, dissected and judged the baby boom has been since 3.4 million of its members were born in 1946—compared to the 2.8 million babies of 1945—one would think it would be easy to predict how they’ll behave politically as they age. But it’s never been an easy generation to pigeonhole. Its leading edge started coming of political age around the time of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and its tail around Ronald Reagan’s inauguration. In the 1960s and ’70s, as the Pew Research Center

noted last year in a report profi ling the politics of diff erent genera-tions, boomers as a whole wanted little to do with the Republican Party, but by the 1980s that changed signifi cantly. To make things even more complicated, there is a political diff erence between the fi rst half of the baby boom and the second. “Older boomers, who cast their fi rst ballots in the Nixon elections of 1968 and 1972, have voted more Democratic than have younger boomers who came of age under Ford, Carter and Reagan,” the report commented.

And it’s not just that the coming wave of older Americans is all over the map in partisan terms. “Really, the senior vote is some-thing of a myth,” says Frederick Lynch, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and author of One Nation Under AARP: The Fight Over Medicare, Social Security, And America’s Future. “It breaks apart by education, class, ethnicity and fam-ily structure. And among pre-seniors, you’ve got elite boomers who got good degrees, bought into globalization and were able to adjust to a changing economy, versus the white working class, which is mostly boomers who have been completely dislocated by cheap immigrant labor and their jobs sent overseas. In numbers, the senior and pre-senior bloc is a sleeping giant, but the question is will it awaken and mobilize?”

It is crucial, says demographer Neil Howe [see “Talkin’ ’bout My Generation,” page 26], not to assume that aging boomers will act like the generations before them. “People assume that age-bracketed behavior doesn’t change,” he says. “They remember the effi cacy of the senior lobby back in its glory days—the ‘greedy geezer’ days—and project it onto the boomers’ numbers and what they get is that the boomers will suck all the resources out of our system.” But that assumes, he argues, that aging boomers will know what they want and go after it eff ectively. “What have they ever done in an organized fashion, collectively, on behalf of their own generation?” he asks. “Boomers are excellent at rhetorical wars over values, but I’ve never seen them eff ectively organize.”

There is no shortage of potential fl ash points that could see state and local voters polarize along age-related lines. Taxation,

It’s assumed baby boomers will be politically active like the seniors

before them. Not necessarily, say some demographers.

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schools, long-term care, Medicaid, urban design, transportation—all carry the potential for confl ict. Even ethnicity could be a sen-sitive topic. Pew’s research suggests that boomers are generally less tolerant of the increasingly diverse, multi-ethnic character of the U.S. than the cohorts that follow them—though they are more accepting than their elders. Likewise, as controversy grows in states like California over pensions for public workers, it’s hard not to notice that the Golden State boomers who are now retir-ing are majority white, while the younger taxpayers called on to support them are not.

But there is another possible scenario. Aging in place means that people are growing old in communities they’re familiar with and that are familiar with them. Moreover, says Howe, “We know that boomers are more engaged with their families than their parents were, and they work cross-generationally with their fami-lies.” The same may well be true of their larger communities. Nina Glasgow and David Brown, sociologists at Cornell University, have found that older adults who migrate to new rural communities for retirement often plunge into community life, starting libraries, rejuvenating YMCAs and raising funds for nonprofi ts and hospi-tals. A plethora of civic organizations from Habitat for Human-ity to the Experience Corps, which uses volunteers older than 55 to tutor and mentor public school students, often in inner-city schools, have found a rich source of help among aging Americans of every class, race and ethnicity.

“Much more is made of the potential for intergenerational warfare than there is evi-dence for,” says Laura Carstensen, a psychology professor who directs the Center on Longevity at Stanford University. “We can surely avoid it, if we provide roles for people to remain engaged not just with their own families, but with their communities.”

That is precisely the thinking taking place in Colorado, says DRCOG’s Mauro. Advocates both for seniors and for kids and edu-cation have been meeting regularly to talk about ways of avoiding confl ict. “We want to make sure that we can be on the same page on these things,” he says. “I go to meetings with senior advocates where they say, ‘We need to be sure money won’t be taken away from kids, because I’ve got grandkids and their education matters.’”

At the same time, advocates for older Coloradans have stepped up their argument for shifting the state’s spending priorities toward in-home and community services—services that will allow seniors to avoid expensive hospitals and institutions, side-step having to spend themselves into poverty in order to qualify for Medicaid, and remain in their communities. “We’re trying to argue that putting money into these community and in-home ser-vices would provide savings for other areas of the budget, with the added benefi t that you’d be helping people grow old where they want to be,” Mauro says. G


generatıons

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Sarvar Ispahi, his

son Uzeir and their

family moved to

Dayton from Russia

in 2005.

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Photography by Jim Witmer

By Dylan Scott

WITH OPEN ARMS

FORGET ARIZONA. SOME CITIES ARE ACTIVELY WORKING TO ATTRACT IMMIGRANTS AND LET THEM KNOW THEY’RE WELCOME TO STAY.

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In the heart of Dayton, Ohio, three rivers come together to form the Great Miami River. That’s the image that 62-year-old Sarvar Ispahi, an Ahiska Turk who moved here with his family in 2005, conjures to illustrate the sense of community that has developed in Dayton, this unexpected home for immigrants in the middle

of the country. “If you’re neighbors, you come to know all people. You can make one culture,” says Ispahi, his broken English aided by his son Fergano. “If you are together, this is good. If you are separate, this is not good. But this is a good community.”

Ispahi, his wife and their children are among the several thou-sand Ahiska Turks who have settled in Dayton after escaping per-secution in Russia. The Ahiskans have a long history of oppression, which Ispahi vividly recounts on a blistery summer day in the cool comfort of his New York Pizzeria on East Fifth Street, wearing a shirt that reads: “Dayton, Ohio: My Kind of Town.” In 1944, more than 90,000 Ahiska Turks were deported from Georgia into the

Soviet satellites of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where Ispahi was born. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, his family moved to Russia, where they were granted safe harbor but no citizenship.

“Those were terrible years,” Ispahi recalls. “We couldn’t do anything.” A new governor of the Russian state where they resided had launched a public relations campaign that painted Ahiska Turks as criminals and drug dealers. Given their lack of offi cial status, the situation became untenable for Ispahi and his people. In 2004, the United States granted refugee status to Ahiska Turks. When Ispahi and his family decided to come to America in June 2005, they chose Dayton because an uncle had settled there and found the transition to be easy. Today, Ispahi owns his own busi-ness and employs four people, two of whom are his sons.

City offi cials estimate that 10 percent of the Ahiska Turks in the United States have established themselves here in Dayton. But they aren’t alone. There are also immigrants from Mexico, Vietnam, Samoa and elsewhere.

Watching some of these residents’ diffi culty in adjusting to their new surroundings—some encountering language barriers

and others struggling to secure housing—convinced city offi -cials they needed to do more to help. Dayton’s Human Relations Council, a city department that investigates discrimination com-plaints, started in 2010 by initiating a study into allegations from Hispanic residents regarding housing discrimination. Around the same time, City Manager Tim Riordan and City Commissioner Matt Joseph resolved to make public services more accessible for those who spoke English as a second language.

It didn’t take long for Dayton’s leaders to fi gure out that incre-mental steps wouldn’t do, that the immigration issue needed a comprehensive solution and the involvement of the entire com-munity. “It requires a huge partnership. There are only so many things we can do as the city,” Joseph says. “And the big thing is an attitude change. We have to make sure we’re encouraging people to be more welcoming and that the incentives are running the right way. That’s our role.”

For every government that’s taking a tough line against immi-grants, there are others that are embracing immigration-friendly policies. Though much attention has been paid to states like Ala-bama and Arizona, where laws viewed as anti-immigrant have sparked a political fi restorm, a quieter undercurrent of immigrant-friendly policies is in motion. Major cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit and Houston—longstanding immigrant destinations—have begun to revisit their policies in an eff ort to become more welcoming. But the idea is also taking hold in Middle America, in places like Dayton and Boise, Idaho. It’s not simply out of a sense of goodwill; many leaders see these policy changes as economic development tools. Dayton’s approach has been hailed by pro-immigration groups as an important example of redefi ning public policy for those seeking better opportunities in this country.

To forge the partnership imagined by Dayton’s leaders, a work-group of more than 125 stakeholders convened regularly for fi ve months and developed what became the Welcome Dayton Plan. The city commission approved it in October 2011 as its framework for making the city immigrant-friendly.


W I T H O P E N A R M S

“WE HAVE TO MAKE SURE WE’RE ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO BE MORE WELCOMING AND THAT THE INCENTIVESARE RUNNING THE RIGHT WAY. THAT’S OUR ROLE.” —DAYTON COMMISSIONER MATT JOSEPH

Spanish-language signs line Dayton’s East Third Street,

where immigrant businesses have set up shop.

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Marta Guzman, the daughter

of an undocumented Mexican

immigrant, and her son Francisco

have opened an authentic

Mexican restaurant in Dayton.

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The plan’s goals are expansive, covering everything from health care to public safety. To encourage economic development, Dayton is setting aside one section of its downtown as an inter-national marketplace for immigrant entrepreneurs. City offi cials plan to authorize new grants to help business owners set up shop and to coordinate with local realtors to market the area so that companies will see the advantage of locating there.

The city itself has pledged to improve government services in particular ways that will make them more accessible for newly migrated residents, such as revamping public notices and adding staff members who speak foreign languages.

Welcome Dayton is also about changing the city’s culture. One of the plan’s fi rst successes was the sale in April of a former city building to the Ahiska Turk community, which is turning it into its own community center. Events like a Global Dayton Soccer Day are intended to bring disparate groups within the community together. The city is organizing a “cultural brokers” training pro-gram to assist volunteer groups outside the government’s purview in working with diff erent ethnicities. The initiative urges private businesses and citizens to embrace the city’s goals and fi nd their

own ways to advance them. “If you don’t assist them to gain a foothold or to have a positive and constructive experience, you marginalize them and it could stay that way for generations,” says Tom Wahlrab of the Human Relations Council. “So you’ve got to quickly get them in the stream of things and help these folks get into play.”

Dayton offi cials seized on a growing academic consensus that embracing immigrants is benefi cial to the country as a whole and specifi cally the economy. A June 2011 Brookings Institution report concluded: “U.S. global competitiveness rests on the ability of immigrants and their children to thrive eco-nomically and to contribute to the nation’s productivity.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote last year that research shows “immigrants signifi cantly benefi t the U.S. economy.” The Obama administration estimated in May 2011 that immigrant business owners generate more than 10 percent of business income.

And they continue to come. Some 13.1 million immigrants (legal and illegal) arrived in the United States between 2000 and 2010, according to the Census Bureau, trumping the record migration levels seen during the 1990s. While migration has slowed during



Guzman’s restaurant

has thrived here.

“We always wanted

to own a restaurant.

That was the dream,”

she says through her

son. “This city has

been good to us.”

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the fi nancial downturn, many analysts expect it will rebound as the national economy improves. That’s one reason more localities are looking at the Welcome Dayton model and beginning to think about how they can become welcoming communities.

“We talk about how Alabama was trying out ‘unwelcome Arizona,’ whereas we’re interested in a dynamic where cities are actually competing to be seen as the most welcoming,” says David Lubell, founder and executive director of Welcoming America, a grassroots organization on immigration. “Dayton is a model that’s held up, and the fact that they came out and said it’s in their best interest to be welcoming is a huge step in a diff erent direction.”

But there are skeptics. Welcome Dayton was opposed by vari-ous groups who warned of a detrimental eff ect on the city’s job market and social services. Some drove across the state to speak out against an initiative that they viewed as placing outsiders ahead of those who already live here. Generally, though, city offi -cials say the public has embraced the plan. While the political discourse about immigration sometimes descends into posturing and hyperbole, cities like Dayton have resolved to welcome new-comers and integrate them into their new communities.

The Welcome Dayton Plan has given the city a long-term vision for what it means to be accommodating to immi-grants. While it’s too soon to gauge what the ultimate impact of the initiative will be on migration patterns or population, early signs suggest it’s been eff ective. Since

January 2011, more than 1,000 individuals from 113 countries took an oath to become U.S. citizens. City Manager Riordan says he’s received emails from individuals in China and South Africa who have heard of the plan and are interested in what it would take to come to Dayton.

The plan could also provide population gains for a city that lost nearly 15 percent of its residents from 2000 to 2010. In that respect, Dayton shares many similarities with Detroit. Both are former manufacturing centers that have been hit hard by the shifting economic landscape, and both have been losing popu-lation (Detroit’s dropped by 25 percent over the last decade). A group of business and government leaders in 2010 began devel-oping what would become the Global Detroit plan; after they heard about the work being done in Dayton, they asked Wahl-rab to come and share his city’s experience. The Global Detroit initiative has so far secured more than $4 million in private money to fund various eff orts, including retaining international students and providing resources for immigrant business own-ers to establish themselves.

“I believe there is a certain elegance and opportunity in the plan that Dayton has put together,” Steve Tobocman, a former state legislator and director of Global Detroit, said in an inter-view with WBEZ Chicago. “They’ve done certain things so profoundly right that I think we have a lot to learn from it.”

Many major cities, including Chicago, Houston, New York and Philadelphia, have been integrating immigrants into their communities for most of their existence. But that hasn’t stopped their public offi cials from taking proactive steps to be more wel-coming. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter both have pledged to make their cities the most immigrant-friendly in the country.

A recent Rice University study concluded that Houston is the most diverse city in the United States, and city offi cials have developed a plan to connect with these new residents. Mayor Annise Parker established the Offi ce of International Communi-ties in November 2011 to lead these eff orts. “We’re trying to brand Houston as a welcoming city,” says Terence O’Neill, whom Parker pegged to head the offi ce. “We want the one thing you remem-ber about Houston to be that it’s welcoming to all people. Texas friendliness transcends any barriers.”

As in Dayton, Houston offi cials believe a holistic approach is the best way to handle the immigrant issue. O’Neill’s offi ce serves as a clearinghouse of information for other agencies, such as health and public safety. The offi ce has conducted needs assess-ments, consulting immigrants on what would improve their experience in Houston. One of the early successes of the eff ort is the New Americans Employment Initiative, which off ers inter-view training to incoming immigrants and connects them with jobs. A Citizenship Week provided informational sessions, with up to 30 people in attendance, explaining the process for gaining American citizenship.



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Despite being seated in a deeply red state that is often perceived as having a political culture not unlike Arizona and Alabama, O’Neill says Houston has seen great buy-in from its native citizens during his offi ce’s early work. Businesses and community groups have become active participants, taking the lead in projects like the employment initiative. The key, he explains, is demonstrating to residents that integrating new people into the city is benefi cial to the community as a whole.

“Success is when every single person in Houston says it’s great to have all these people from all over the world,” O’Neill says. “Success is when the average person will realize that this is a really good thing for us.”

Projecting the long-term momentum of immigration-friendly policies is diffi cult. But recent national events suggest such a shift might be under way. President Obama announced this summer that his administration would cease the deportation of some undocumented

immigrants, such as the young and educated. It has been a contro-versial move but one seen by many as an olive branch to a substan-tial portion of the U.S. population (estimates place their number at 10 million or more) that has otherwise felt unwelcome. Iterations of the DREAM Act, which would aid children of undocumented immigrants in obtaining a college education, continue to resur-face in Congress and statehouses nationwide.

With these forces in motion, cities like Dayton may be well ahead of the curve.



“Those that are the most forward-looking, that have the most pragmatic view on immigrants, are the ones that are reaching out and creating environments that immigrants can not only survive in but thrive in,” says Audrey Singer, a senior fellow at the Brook-ings Institution who studies demography and migration. “I think that is defi nitely the future of this country.”

It seems to be the future for Dayton. A drive down East Third Street, slotted as the future international business corridor, already reveals advertisements written in Spanish. A Mexican family that runs one of the city’s authentic ethnic restaurants is buying up storefronts along the street, planning to open an organic foods market and clothing store for other members of the community. A Vietnamese woman owns an international foods market up the road, replete with Buddha statues and for-eign foods branded in diff erent languages, and converses with her customers in their native tongue. Like the three rivers that Ispahi, the Ahiska Turk, describes, people from across the globe meet and mingle in downtown Dayton.

The welcoming atmosphere that Dayton has tried to foster is already having a trickle-down eff ect.

Ispahi and his sons have founded a nonprofi t organization called International Ahiska Human Rights, which they hope will be instrumental in bringing more of their people to the United States—and Dayton. “We found a way out of [our oppression], and we want to give this way to other people,” Ispahi says. “Now we can try to help them.” G


People from many different

ethnic backgrounds, including

the Vietnamese owners of an

international foods market, have

come to call Dayton home.

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Questions of sustainability affect many areas of governance — from land use and urban planning to economic

development and job creation, energy planning, transportation, waste management and infrastructure. Over the summer, state

and local government leaders convened at the “Smart, Livable, Sustainable” conference in Santa Monica, Calif., to learn about

innovative ideas that help align policy, governance and program management to achieve a sustainable future. Speakers at

the event highlighted the experiences of different communities, focusing on lessons learned and best practices — as well as

new approaches to achieve energy effi ciency with smart solutions, and the latest trends in energy planning and recycling. A

snapshot of conference presentations are highlighted in the pages that follow — be sure to download the complete guide at

www.governing.com/papers/sustainability-guide.

SMART LIVABLE SUSTAINABLE

A G

UID

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PHOTOS BY JESSICA MULHOLLAND

Sustainability_Sept.indd S1 9/4/12 1:25 PM

SUSTAINABILITY | A Guide for Public Off icialsS-2

A G U I D E F O R P U B L I C O F F I C I A L S Governing for a Sustainable World

In 1969, legendary newsman Walter Cronkite labeled Chattanooga, Tenn., “the dirtiest city in America” on national television. Today, the city is working to shed its old industrial

image and become a leader in sustainable,progressive living. At the Summit, Mayor Ron Littlefi eld presented “America’s Cleanest City.” In the following inter-view excerpt, Littlefi eld talks about Chattanooga’s polluted past, its exciting future and how a recent focus on fi ber-optics is helping it all happen.

Chattanooga was “the dirtiest city in America” in 1969. What has changed?Being characterized as “the dirtiest city in America” by no less than Walter Cronkite was about as dramatic a wake-up call as any community could ever receive. In an odd sense, it made it possible for Chattanooga to change dramatically. We moved very quickly to clean up the air.

Why make fi ber-optics such a central part of Chattanooga’s sustainability push?We know that there is a new kind of infrastructure that can serve the communities of the future. As best as I can determine, that infrastructure is not asphalt or steel or concrete. It’s glass, and that’s fi ber-optics. Fiber-optics provide the groundwork for a network that can support the computerized enterprises that will become a much bigger part of our economy.

Get more insights from Mayor Littlefi eld at www.governing.com/papers/sustainability-guide.

St. Petersburg College Preaches – and Practices – Sustainability

Revamping the “Dirtiest City in America”

With its leading focus on sustainable living practices, St. Petersburg College

(SPC) in Florida is positioned to help drive the sustainability movement for years to come.

Deborah Cerminaro Eldridge, J.D., presented “Sustainability as a Profession” at the Summit,

highlighting the future of sustainability careers and the skillsets students will need to excel in

those professions. SPC students can choose from a variety of majors, and the college works to

ensure all fi elds of study incorporate lessons on sustainability into curricula. SPC’s College of

Technology Management offers a bachelor’s degree in Sustainability Management, and graduate

students can earn a master’s degree in Global Sustainability — one of the fi rst degrees of its

kind. “St. Petersburg College is helping to power the world — in a socially conscious way,” says

Cerminaro Eldridge.

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Infrastructure must be built to last. What we

build today will be around in 2050, maybe

longer. Engineers, architects, planners and

government leaders need to consider the

design and construction elements that make

sense now and in the future. Keith A. Reester,

Jr., director of Public Works for the city of

Loveland, Colo., unveiled a new, sustainable

infrastructure rating tool at the Summit that

helps leaders do just that. The tool has been a

collaborative project of the American Society

of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the American Public

Works Association (APWA) and the American

Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC).

HOW TO KNOW: Are you doing the right project? Are you doing the project right?

Check it out at: www.sustainableinfrastructure.org

California’s Integrated Policy Framework Bonnie Reiss, former senior advisor and current member of the University of California Board of Regents, opened the Summit with her fi rsthand account of how California enacted an array of landmark legislation, including AB

32 and SB 375, that created a policy and regula-tory structure for land use master planning, trans-portation and greenhouse gas emissions. Reiss emphasized that

the resulting integrated policy frame-work was key in aligning all levels of government in the state toward the common goal of a low carbon economy. This state-level policy also creates a stable operating climate for business, allowing California to simultaneously grow its economy while preserving the environment.

Bonnie Reiss, Former Senior Advisor and Current Member of the University of California Board of Regents

Ron Littlefi eld, Mayor, Chattanooga, Tenn.

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S-3Fall 2012 | GOVERNING

Th e U.S. Department of Energy projects a 40 percent increase in electric demand over the next 20 years. When consid-ering electricity, there are two important topics; energy use and energy demand. Jack McGowan, CEM, CEO of

Energy Control Inc., presented “Net Zero, High Performance Buildings: Big Impact, Fast Returns” at the Summit. As half of all energy use comes from buildings, McGowan discussed the need to increase effi ciency and optimize

energy consumption to reduce operating costs. Th e solution? Th e smart grid, which is the lynchpin to balancing energy demand and consumption. Smart grids allow buildings to be revenue streams by becoming virtual power plants

and energy profi t centers. Th is transforms the electricity busi-ness model to unlock capital and operating cost benefi ts. Why should a smart building marry a smart grid? It makes better use of public funds.

Think of the perfect cup of

coffee, and your mind typically

latches onto the smell of a

creamy latte, or that desperately

needed jolt of morning energy.

But what about the actual cup?

For sustainability advocates,

the perfect cup of coffee is one

that’s recycled 100 percent of

the time. Scott DeFife, execu-

tive vice president of Policy

& Government Affairs at the

National Restaurant Associa-

tion, presented at the Summit

on Conserve, the Association’s

environmental initiative that

delivers sustainability educa-

tion, tools, tips and resources

to restaurant members. One of

those members, Starbucks

Coffee, is working to

make sure that by 2015,

every single one of its

paper cups ends up in a

recycling bin.

Starbucks’ sustainability

initiative earned it a 2012

Operator Innovations Award

nomination from the National

Restaurant Association in the

sustainability category.

Wanted: The Perfect Cup of Coffee

Yellowstone National Park generates nearly 4,000 tons of trash every year. Yet, over

the course of the last decade and due to extraordinary leadership, the park is now the

gold standard for innovation in environmental stewardship.

In the mid-1990s, park leaders were determined to fulfi ll the mission of preserving

and protecting park resources and began fervent sustainability efforts. Today, Yellow-

stone boasts some of the most progressive sustainability programs in the world. Jim

Evanoff, environmental protection specialist at Yellowstone, presented at the Summit

on Yellowstone’s journey and key wins in its sustainability efforts. Highlighted below

are just some of the park’s achievements:

• In 1995, Yellowstone became the fi rst national park to use a renewable

alternative fuel.

• The park has reduced the number of cleaning products it uses from 139 toxic

products to 6 environmentally safe products.

• A compost facility for food waste processes 40% of the park’s garbage.

• The world’s fi rst propane bottle recovery unit was invented and deployed

in Yellowstone.

Read more about Yellowstone at www.governing.com/papers/sustainability-guide.

Read more at www.governing.com/papers/sustainability-guide.

Conserve, the Association s

vironmental initiative that

ivers sustainability educa-

n, tools, tips and resources

restaurant members. One of

ose members, Starbucks

ffee, is working to

ake sure that by 2015,

ery single one of its

per cups ends up in a

cycling bin.

Starbucks’ sustainability

tiative earned it a 2012

erator Innovations Award

mination from the National

staurant Association in the

stainability category.

Yellowstone’s Sustainability Journey

Read the

complete

story by visiting

www.governing.

com/papers/

sustainability-

guide.

Th e Perfect Marriage: Smart Buildings + Smart Grid

Jim Evanoff, Environmental Protection Specialist at Yellowstone

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SUSTAINABILITY | A Guide for Public Off icialsS-4


What You Told UsSustainability insights, facts and fi gures

of state government jurisdictions and 54% of local government jurisdictions have an appointed position for sustainability planning and/or coordination.

of states and localities are considering or are in the middle of implementing energy dashboards.

of state and local governments are planning to implement or expand upon green building technologies for public sector buildings.

57%31%Over 60%

“Th e biggest piece of a sustainable future is readying the workforce and doing it equitably.” — Gary A. Cornell, FAICP, Interim Director of Planning and Sustainability Department, DeKalb County, Ga.

To transition to a clean economy, we

must bring trillions of dollars in capital

(in addition to the over $260 billion

invested annually) into clean energy

investments, and create a paradigm

shift to give millions of Americans a

real stake in a clean energy future,

says Andy Mannle, a clean energy

communications consultant who

presented at the Summit on “Under-

standing the Future of Clean Energy

Investment Strategies.” According

to Mannle, this will require several

things: We must level the playing

fi eld so renewable energy

solutions can compete

fairly with fossil fuels,

create market conditions

that attract investment,

and adopt new fi nancing

tools and strategies to

signifi cantly increase the

pool of available investors

in renewable energy.

This paradigm shift will

create an energy system

that is as localized, diverse

and networked as the Web;

where hundreds of millions of people

can produce, store, share and sell

energy the way we currently do with

information on the Internet.

The Future of Clean Energy Investment

Necessity is the mother of invention. Th e city of Chicago needed to upgrade its infrastructure to become greener and more sustainable, but the traditional fi nancing of public works projects — bonds and federal grants — were non-starters. Years of economic crisis had depleted citizen and government coff ers. So the city invented an entirely new source: the Chicago Infrastructure Trust.

Aaron Joseph, Chicago’s deputy sustain-ability offi cer, presented at the Summit on the Trust, which is a breakthrough in local public works funding. It uses funds granted by private investors to fi nance initiatives that could make Chicago a leader in sustainable living.

“Th e Chicago Infrastructure Trust is being created to fund transformative infrastruc-ture projects,” says Joseph. “Taken together,

the Trust will invest around $225 million in increasing energy effi ciency in city assets. Th is will have a tremendous impact on Chicago’s sustainability, reducing our energy costs by more than $20 million annually, creating more than 1,000 jobs and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by the equiva-lent of taking over 30,000 cars off the road.”

Joseph says the Trust gives Chicago an “expanded pool” of resources, increasing its fl exibility to pursue ambitious sustain-ability initiatives in times of fi nancial crisis. By freeing itself from dependency on scarce public funds, the city can continue to inno-vate when traditional funding sources dry up. Th e Trust provides “increased fl exibility in the available funding for infrastructure, allowing us to reach a greater and more effi -cient scale in our sustainability investments,” says Joseph.

Chicago leverages private investment to go green

Banking on Sustainability


Read Andy

Mannle’s full

list of “To Do”

items in support

of clean energy

investment in

the full version of

the Sustainability

Guide at

www.governing.

com/papers/

sustainability-

guide.

Aaron Joseph, Deputy Sustainability Offi cer, Chicago

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Data from a GOVERNING Institute research survey. Quotes from the 2012 GOVERNING Sustainability Summit.



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S-5Fall 2012 | GOVERNING

“Chattanooga has captured sustainability’s triple bottom line — environment, economy and people.” — Ron Littlefi eld, Mayor, Chattanooga, Tenn.

Programs like Sustainable Action Zones help cities divert more than 90% of restaurant waste awayfrom landfi lls. Read more at http://conserve.restaurant.org.

“There are a number of studies that show that saving the environment doesn’t negatively impact the economy. Sustainability is a smart way to save money and do business.”

Bonnie Reiss, Former Senior Advisor and Current Member,University of California Board of Regents

State Energy Plans

In May 2012, Nevada’s Department of Motor Vehicles granted the fi rst license — to Google — to operate driverless cars on its roads. Heather Hawkins-Fancher, from the Nevada DMV, presented at the Summit on the state’s novel technology. Driverless cars are more than a gimmick — they’re practical and even improve safety by reducing accidents because the technology interprets traffi c information faster than humans can. Human error can be a large factor in motor vehicle accidents; autonomous vehicles enhance safety, reducing the risk of automobile-related injuries. It would also free up people’s time, and provide transportation for individuals who are unable to drive.

As part of the strategy to

address critical levels of

unemployment, DeKalb

County, Ga., has embarked

on an ambitious plan that

leverages public spending

to provide opportunities for

residents to secure gainful

employment and grow small businesses. Gary A.

Cornell, FAICP, the interim director of the county’s

Planning and Sustainability Department, presented

on the ONE DeKalb Works program. The program

is a jobs initiative that will utilize the completion of

$1.35 billion worth of water and sewer infrastructure

improvements to cultivate a skilled workforce and

promote local business contracting with government

to put DeKalb County citizens back to work.

Learn more at www.onedekalb.com.

Every state needs an energy plan — so says the National Association of State Energy Offi cials (NASEO), an organization that’s helped many states implement sustainability initiatives. At the Summit, Kate Marks, managing director of NASEO, discussed how a strong energy plan identifi es emerging energy challenges and opportunities

— and also provides a strategic, long-term approach to energy policy.

NASEO recently analyzed energy plans from 39 states. Th e plans show that states are working toward cleaner energy, better energy effi ciency, job creation, reduction of energy demand and numerous other goals. Many states are seeking

to improve energy security. Some are promoting in-state resources. Some see the energy sector as a catalyst for economic growth. And many states are striving to take a leadership role. Th e study shows that states are plan-ning and implementing a variety of programs to improve energy production and use.


Read more at

www.governing.

com/papers/

sustainability-

guide.

N d ’ D f M V hi l d h fi

Getting Back to Work

Autonomous Vehicles Hit the Road

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RON LITTLEFIELD



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© 2012 e.Republic All rights reserved.

S P O N S O R S

POLICY/LEGISLATION

National Caucus of Environmental Legislatorswww.ncel.net

Rating System for Sustainable Infrastructurewww.sustainableinfrastructure.org/rating

LEADERSHIP

City of Houston (case study)www.siemens.com/sustainability/pool/en/current-reporting/sr2010_houston.pdf

Great Sustainability Debate www.halcrow.com/newsletters/sustainability_debate/

Learn about the latest in sustainability programs:www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Services/additional-services/sustainability-climate-change/index.htm

Los Angeles Convention Center (case study)www.industry.usa.siemens.com/topics/us/en/cse/engineeringadvan-tage/Documents/los-angeles-convention-center-leed.pdf

Performance Contracting: Achieving energy, sustainability, and infrastructure improvement goals while leaving capital funds intact (white paper)http://w3.usa.siemens.com/buildingtechnologies/us/en/cities/Documents/PCWhitepaper.pdf

Smarter Neighborhoods Smarter City (brochure)www.usa.siemens.com/sustainable-cities/pdf/smarter-neighborhoods-smarter-city.pdf

WATER/WASTEWATER

How to fi nance the energy portion of the ‘water/energy nexus’http://pwmag.com/industry-news.asp?sectionID=760&articleID=1892121

IBM Smarter Water Websitewww.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/water_management/ideas/index.html

“Leveraging Private Partners for Sustainable Solutions”http://forms.erepublic.com/gov-paper-step1-default?r=gov-paper-step2-default&contentID=146334645

Sustainability & Climate Changewww.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Services/additional-services/sustainability-climate-change/index.htm

Sustainable Water in a Changing Climatehttp://livebettermagazine.com/eng/magazine/article_detail.lasso?id=277

WASTE

“A Bellyful of Trash,” GOVERNING Articlewww.governing.com/idea-center/A-Bellyful-of-Trash.html

National Restaurant Association’s Conserve: Solutions for Sustainabilityhttp://conserve.restaurant.org/index.cfm

“Waste Carts Know If You’re Not Recycling,” GOVERNING Articlewww.governing.com/idea-center/Clevelands-chip-embedded-waste-carts.html

ENERGY/ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Alternative and Renewable Energy for Citieshttp://w3.usa.siemens.com/buildingtechnologies/us/en/sustainability/alternative-and-renewable-energy/Documents/AltRenewable%20brochure_12.19_FINAL.pdf

Energy and Sustainable Solutions for Local Government (brochure)http://w3.usa.siemens.com/buildingtechnologies/us/en/cities/Documents/citiesbrochure.pdf

IBM Smart Grid Websitewww.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smart_grid/ideas/index.html

National Restaurant Association’s Conserve: Solutions for Sustainabilityhttp://conserve.restaurant.org/index.cfm

National Association of State Energy Offi cialswww.naseo.org/

Smart Grid Handbookwww2.alcatel-lucent.com/blogs/gridtalk/blog_posts/creating-your-smart-grid-a-how-to-guide/

TRANSPORTATION

Nevada’s Autonomous Vehicleswww.dmvnv.com/news/12005-autonomous-vehicle-licensed.htm

“Utah Envisions a Sustainable Future,” GOVERNING Articlewww.governing.com/topics/energy-env/gov-utah-envisions-sustainable-future.html

What Makes a Roadway Green?http://livebettermagazine.com/eng/magazine/article_detail.lasso?id=192


Resources Worth Checking Out:



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ks

ARE THE FINANCIAL REPORTS CITIES

AND COUNTIES ISSUE ONCE A

YEAR USELESS?BY JONATHAN WALTERS

HEY’RE DENSE. Only the hardiest of souls would dig into a city or county comprehensive annual fi nancial report (CAFR), called “kafers” by those hip to the inner workings of public fi nance and auditing.

Characterized by a mind-numbing array of charts, graphs and number columns, CAFRs include such heart-palpitating headings as, “Expenditures and Changes in Fund Balances of Governmental Funds” and “Statement of Activities For the Year Ended September 30, 2006.”

That latter and particularly mundane title can be found on page 10 of the Jef-ferson County, Ala., CAFR. Sept. 30, 2006, however, is anything but an ordinary

date in the history of Jefferson County’s fi nances. By that date, the county was well on its way toward experiencing the largest local government fi scal meltdown in U.S. history.

Yet even a trained auditor reading the 2006 CAFR would conclude that the county’s fi nances were OK. That, of course, is more than a little surprising inasmuch as the fi nancial misconduct that eventually led to the county’s defaulting on billions of dollars in sewer upgrade bonds had been in full swing for a decade.


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That’s the key point worth making, say those who want to improve government fi nancial reports. They want the informa-tion to off er earlier warnings of fi scal trouble ahead. What might push a local government into deep fi scal despair probably won’t be a scandal like Jeff erson County’s or Bell, Calif.’s.

What actually sinks city and county fi nances is that slow, steady accretion of bad—and hidden—fi scal news that either nobody is getting or no one wants to hear. That news invariably takes the form of commitments to future spending, like bond and pension obligations, as well as other liabilities, such as deteriorat-

ing or outdated infrastructure versus the jurisdiction’s revenues to cover those commitments and liabilities.

What really cripples municipal fi nances comes on relatively slowly—then avalanches. By the time anyone fi gures out some-thing’s wrong, it’s often too late for any moderate corrective action; only bankruptcy, state oversight or emergency fi scal managers will do.

W hat do I do with a CAFR?” asks Cameron Smith, who, as policy director for the Alabama Policy Institute, has spent a considerable amount of time sifting through the wreckage of the Jeff erson

County crash. Even if there was truly damning information con-tained in a CAFR, it would be hard to fi nd, says Smith. He sees CAFRs as a potentially insidious exercise in “fl ood[ing] the mar-ket with data that no one knows what to do with.”

Some of the best auditors in the country fi nd even their own jurisdiction’s CAFRs daunting. Mike Eglinski, performance audi-tor for Lawrence, Kan., says he remembers the day four years ago when the Lawrence CAFR landed on his desk for the fi rst time. “What am I going to with this?” Eglinski remembers asking him-self. “It’s half an inch thick, 121 pages long and there could easily be something fascinating and important on page 79 right in the middle of the page,” which, he hastens to add, even the most astute and conscientious auditor might miss for the sheer density of the sur-rounding 120 pages. “And some of the things you’ll read, you can’t tell whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Is it up or is it down?”

The questions about CAFRs now being debated in the public-sector fi nance and auditing community are very much along the lines of Smith’s and Eglinski’s: What, in the larger sense, should we make of CAFRs? What should we do with them? Can they be made more useful?

The focus of the debate on these questions currently revolves around a proposal fl oated earlier this year by the Governmental


L O O K I N G A T T H E B O O K S

In other words, the scandal that would sweep a host of pub-lic offi cials into jail and the county into a fi nancial sinkhole had been whirlpooling along for nearly a dozen years. Those years had been covered by as many CAFRs, apparently without a hint of what was actually going down with the county’s fi nances.

Indeed, the only concern expressed by the 2006 CAFR related to the county sewer system was on the fourth-to-last page of the 128-page report: a short note indicating that the county might not be properly billing every customer who was tapped into the county’s gold-plated new sewer system.

“You look at the Harrisburgs and the Scrantons and the Jeff erson Counties and you naturally ask, ‘How did we not know this was coming fi ve or 10 years in advance?’” says Joe Stefco, who follows public fi nance for the Rochester, N.Y.-based Cen-ter for Governmental Research. And for that matter, one might question where the red fl ags were on Stockton, Compton or San Bernardino, Calif., or even Central Falls, R.I.?

The question of how offi cials failed to foresee such colossal fi s-cal calamities is naturally linked with the question of who ought to be blamed for such blindness. In Jeff erson County’s case, look-ing beyond the actual perpetrators, it would be natural to blame the person who signed off on the CAFRs, including the very last one released before the scandal splashed across the national news, the Sept. 30, 2006 report. In that case, the seeming cul-prit would be Ronald L. Jones, chief examiner for the Alabama Department of Public Accounts, who expressed no concern what-soever about the contents of the county’s CAFR. Blaming Jones, however, wouldn’t really be fair.

“Comprehensive” may have the ring of authority to it, suggest-ing that CAFRs are some sort of exhaustive and accurate look at a government’s true fi nancial health. Certainly trying to lift one off a desk would suggest that there’s nothing the report could possibly have missed by way of fi nancial accounting and investigation. But all CAFRs really are is a snapshot of a government’s fi nances at a given point in time; at best, they’re a look backward for a year. “It’s a thorough documentation of fi nancial actions over the course of a fi scal year,” says Sam Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau. “But it’s a year after the fact.”

For all their charts and graphs, CAFRs don’t tell public offi -cials—or the public—anything about fi scal sustainability or whether a locality’s fi nances might be trending south. That’s just as true for those localities teetering toward insolvency for mundane reasons—like lousy fi scal management or just unhappy circumstances—as it is for those that have been fl eeced by a crowd of bad actors (or as in the recent case of Dixon, Ill., merely one bad actress).

“Some of the things you’ll read [in a CAFR], you can’t tell whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Is it up or is it down?” —PERFORMANCE AUDITOR MIKE EGLINSKI OF LAWRENCE, KAN.

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Accounting Standards Board (GASB) to include more “forward-looking” information in CAFRs based on current policy and known facts. It is a very preliminary proposal for how CAFRs might be made more useful in recognizing potential fi nan-cial trouble. Details for how that might be done have yet to be worked out, but would involve some sort of out-years projections model that would take into consideration signifi cant projected spending obligations in relation to projected revenues.

The proposal already is taking a lot of fl ak from the public-sector fi nance community. This is not an unfamiliar position for a GASB proposal. Finance offi cers often complain that the board is overly meddlesome when it comes to telling governments what they ought to reveal about their long-range fi scal prospects.

“Unless someone has a crystal ball and is smarter than any-one born today, no one can predict with certainty in fi ve years what the fi scal condition of a state or locality is going to be,” says Jeff Esser, executive director of the Government Finance Offi cers Association, which has come out against the new GASB standard. “The Federal Reserve can’t do it with the U.S. or the global economy, and I don’t know of anyone who can do it for state or local economies.”

Esser has a lot of company in his skepticism around GASB’s idea for a more meaningful CAFR. Utah Deputy State Auditor

Joe Christensen, in a Feb. 13, 2012, comment letter, argues that any such projections would be way too subjective to be mean-ingful, and that any benefi t derived from such attempts would not be worth the cost. “It really comes down to the fact that auditors and fi nancial people are used to dealing with infor-matioun that comes from the past,” says Christensen, who has been a public-sector auditor for 26 years. “Shifting from historic fi nancial statement to projections is something that auditors aren’t comfortable with.”

Tyler at the Boston Municipal Research Board sees this as myopia. He, like Stefco in Rochester, notes the number of cit-ies nationally that are now in or very near bankruptcy. “There’s plenty of evidence out there that a number of cities could have used this information to see that they were headed in the wrong direction,” Tyler says.

Furthermore, Tyler notes, some jurisdictions are already doing projections, including Boston, where the budget offi ce does an annual, internal three-year-out budget. “If a state or a city is well managed, they’re already doing it,” Tyler says. “We just wish that the information was more public. But CAFR doesn’t require that, and it would be helpful if there was a requirement.”

W hile the debate over CAFR and budget projections continues, some in the public sector aren’t waiting around for the fi nancial world to fi gure out how to make CAFRs more useful. They’re doing it them-

selves. One of those people is Lawrence’s Eglinski.Rather than succumb to the brain numbness delivered by the

Lawrence CAFR, Eglinski decided he needed some context, so he started doing two things: Looking at past Lawrence CAFRs and collecting CAFRs from cities with similar characteristics to Lawrence. “It takes comparison and looking at CAFRs over time,” Eglinski says, for them to begin to reveal important trends.

By going through several years’ worth of Lawrence CAFRs, for example, Eglinski noticed that revenues for municipal trash collection previously had covered the city’s costs of collection and disposal, but were no longer doing so. Eglinski put this in the “risk” category and alerted city offi cials to focus on turning it around. Changes in staffi ng and equipment have moved the pro-gram back into the black. Eglinski also noticed a troubling trend around Lawrence’s own sewer and water system: More and more revenues from sewer and water fees were being diverted to the general fund, which he worried might threaten system upkeep.

By comparing Lawrence’s CAFR to other cities, Eglinski says he’s helped elected offi cials ask much better questions about

the cost of longer-term obligations, like the potential cost of the city’s promises for pensions and other post-employment benefi ts (OPEB). “You’ll see cities that have 10 or 20 times larger OPEB obligations, so the question is whether that city’s governing body knows that, but you only learn that through comparison.”

That’s pretty much where the Alabama Policy Institute has arrived. Policy director Smith says the institute has spent “a tre-mendous amount of resources trying to chew through the infor-mation in a couple of Jeff erson County CAFRs pre-meltdown.” So far, he says, there haven’t been any striking revelations that would have suggested disaster. The institute is also doing a multi-jurisdictional CAFR analysis to see whether such comparisons might yield valuable intelligence about whether one jurisdiction might be in a more precarious fi scal position than another.

But absent some more predictive, digestible reporting model, it’s clear that slogging away in the trenches is the only way to make CAFRs more meaningful. “It’s information that on its own certainly isn’t going to identify problems,” says Eglinski. “The CAFR is a document that people understand is signifi cant. It’s just hard to fi gure out what in it is critical.” G


L O O K I N G A T T H E B O O K S

“CAFRs are a thorough documentation of fi nancial actions over the course of a fi scal year. But it’s a year after the fact.” —SAM TYLER OF THE BOSTON MUNICIPAL RESEARCH BUREAU

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Two years ago, Rob Guy couldn’t take his brand-new baby girl home from the hospital. His drug use had become a barrier

between him and his newborn. “Child Protective Services (CPS) showed up on the sixth day and refused to let us [leave with her],” Guy recalls.

Although Guy had been in and out of rehab for more than 20 years, it was not his drug use that separated him from his little girl that day. The baby’s mother also used drugs, including dur-ing the third trimester of her pregnancy, which got the attention of CPS. When the mother and child were ready to go home, CPS stood in the doorway.

This was not the day Guy and his girl-friend lost their child, however. This was the day they were introduced to Arizona Families FIRST (Families in Recovery Succeeding Together). Instead of taking away the little girl, CPS sent the family home together.

Often, drug use and Child Protective Services are uttered in the same breath. But Families FIRST seeks to change

Raising Drug-Free FamiliesDrug abuse is a common problem in child neglect cases. An Arizona program treats parents in an effort to reunite families.

Problem SolverReal-world solutions and ideas for government managers.


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THE TAKEAWAY:

• In Arizona, the number of children in foster care has increased 75 percent since 2009. Of those children, an estimated three-fourths have parents who struggle with drug or alcohol abuse.

• A statewide program offers free, immediate substance abuse treatment to parents who risk losing their kids.

• About one-fourth of the children involved in the program left foster care to return home in fi scal 2011.

that dynamic. The program, which was created with $10 million in federal welfare funds in 2000, focuses on treating adults for substance abuse in an eff ort to rehabilitate families and reunite children and parents.

The program is free, regardless of income, and designed to begin within days of a child’s removal from the home. Policy dictates that outreach occur within 24 hours and an assessment for treatment within fi ve days of a parent agreeing to get help.

For Guy’s family, his girlfriend had to agree to undergo treatment, and in order for all of them to go home together that

day, they also had to agree to let a “safety monitor” accompany them home with their newborn child. Since Guy had his own issues with substance abuse, his girl-friend’s ex-husband was put in charge of making sure the home environment was safe for the baby.

The goal of the program is perma-nent reunifi cation of children and their families. Within the past year, about one-quarter of children involved in Families FIRST left foster care to return home.

But one of the biggest challenges is getting parents to accept treatment in the

By Lauren Henry

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fi rst place. About half of those referred don’t enter treatment, and of those who do, less than 40 percent successfully completed a Families FIRST treatment program last year.

Guy wanted his little girl back, so he signed paternity documents rather than submitting to a paternity test, accepted full responsibility for the child and entered treatment. “I wasted a lot of my life in drug use. It was time for me to step up and be a father,” Guy says.

Guy was clean when he entered treat-ment, so he received relapse prevention treatment instead, followed by after care. Part of his treatment involved regular drug testing, a policy integral to assessing the eff ectiveness of treatment and holding clients accountable. The average length of treatment is 90 days and costs taxpayers an average of $3,000.

In addition to prescriptions, psycho-logical evaluations and counseling, par-ents can receive child-care, housing and utility assistance, and case management. “[The program] provides transportation, if necessary, child care, uniforms for a job—anything that will help them,” says Cathy Hasenberg, a substance abuse spe-cialist with the state Division of Children, Youth and Families.

Since its start in 2000, Families FIRST has successfully treated thousands of par-ents. In that same period, states in general have begun to see the importance of sal-vaging the family and home life. Agencies across the country are off ering more parenting classes and substance abuse treatment services than ever before, according to a 2009 study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Ser-vices (HHS). And Families FIRST is recognized as a model program. It was cited by HHS as a best practice in its 2010 study. “I fi nd when I talk to people in other states that our program is quite progressive regarding best practices,” Hasenberg adds.

And this was all before the recession. Hasenberg says that a smaller budget and new, restricted qualifi cations for federal

funding has left the program operating on a skeleton budget. In June, Families FIRST stopped off ering treatment to parents not at risk of having their kids removed. Previously, CPS would refer people they believed could benefi t from treatment, even if the children weren’t in immediate danger.

While funding falls, the number of clients is on the rise. According to a 2011 program report, Families FIRST saw an increase of 15 percent in referred clients since 2010, and even more referrals are now accepting treatment. This leaves an ever widening gap between funding and services.

Right now, Families FIRST is relying heavily on alternative sources of aid. Some clients that have become Medic-aid ineligible may receive federal money through the Substance Abuse Prevention

and Treatment block grant, which helps priority groups such as pregnant users, mothers and intravenous users. And the program is trying to be “more effi cient because that will reduce costs,” Hasen-berg says.

It has been two years since Guy and his family were introduced to Families FIRST. Today he is clean, and his daugh-ter is a thriving toddler. Guy, who is also a veteran, now works as a recovery coach at the very treatment facility he got help from. He’s found purpose helping others break free from substance abuse and creat-ing new programs to help veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“My fi rm belief is that you’ve got to get out what’s inside or you’re never going to be free from it,” he says. G



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By Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene

60

Problem Solver | SMART MANAGEMENT


Taking LeavePoorly managed sick pay is becoming a fi scal headache.

Much of the concern about sick days, however, centers on the other side of the equation. When people are allowed to bank unused sick days, governments can wind up with large unfunded lia-bilities, particularly when accumulated sick days are added to accrued vacation days. “No matter what the economic climate, these numbers are staggering,” says Pilar Turner, mayor of Vero Beach, Fla. Over the past fi ve years, her city has paid out $2 million for unused vacation and sick days. The most recent compre-hensive annual fi nancial report lists the liability for these items as $2.8 million, with a sizeable piece of that likely due in three to fi ve years as baby boomers retire—a heady amount for a city with an ad valorem tax base of $4 million a year. Turner argues that these numbers are not sustainable and that vacation and sick pay were never intended to be a retirement bonus. She wants the accrual practice ended for new hires and management.

It isn’t just smaller cities that are accumulating this kind of debt. As of the end of

is requiring a doctor’s note in order to take a day off . The number of sick days that require a note varies from place to place. The concern here is that this requirement can damage employee morale by suggesting to employees that they are not trusted.

One solution: Gather the appropri-ate data and only target employees who have demonstrated that they might be abusing the use of their sick leave. To do this, a government would need to have an automated system to track leave and attendance. Virginia is working toward that kind of technology, and Sara Wilson,director of the state’s Department of Human Resource Management, argues that this kind of data can be used to create an even more effi cient sick leave process. For instance, it can be used to ferret out employees who call in sick on an unusually high number of Mon-days and Fridays or some very specifi c events during the year, like opening day of the local baseball team or the fi rst day of hunting season (which Virginia has identifi ed as a particularly big day for sick leave).

Sick leave would seem to be a trivial issue for city, county and state governments. What could be simpler than giving employ-

ees a set number of days off for illness over the course of the year, and making sure that number isn’t exceeded? But like almost everything in government, seem-ing simplicity can easily hide complexity, expense and concerns about fairness.

The issues concerning sick leave come down to, for the most part, two big questions: • What controls should an entity have

in place to make sure that sick leave is not being abused? No employer wants people staying home when they’re only sick of working, especially when that means that someone else in the organization has to put in overtime.

• And how do you manage the process that permits state or local employees to accrue sick days from year to year and then turn them in for cash value when nearing retirement? In terms of the abuse of sick days,

entities have tried several diff erent mechanisms. One of the most common V

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fi scal 2010, Massachusetts had accu-mulated a long-term sick leave liability of some $225 million, a number that’s rising steadily.

There’s a further fi scal complication. In a number of places, when an employee cashes in accumulated sick days in the last year of employment, that amount is added to ordinary compensation for the calculation of pensions. The practice can “pad out retirement benefi ts,” says pro-fessor Thom Reilly, director of the San Diego State University School of Social Work and author of Rethinking Public Sector Compensation.

The problem is worse in the public sector than the private sector. The aver-age accrual of sick days is about eight days in the private sector compared to about 11 days in the public sector, accord-ing to Reilly. Moreover, public-sector employees may carry over sick leave time until they leave the job and then cash it out, whereas most private-sector employees don’t have that opportunity.

As strained budgets expose here-tofore hidden costs, these issues are beginning to gain attention. They aren’t necessarily the kind of fi ght government leaders want to start with unions and employee organizations.

Of course, there are some relatively straightforward remedies that can be explored by states, cities and counties. Reilly off ers a few:• Do not allow unused hours to be cal-

culated for retirement. States could basically say, “in times of reduced revenues and for the sake of fairness in public pay, that is not allowed.”

• Limit the amount of hours employees accrue per year and have a set number they can carry over.

• Maintain payouts but structure them with a nominal amount paid annually instead of accumulating it all until retirement.

• Work with employees to adopt more sustainable sick leave policies—ones that ultimately help the employees and the organization. G


By Brian Peteritas

‘Roadbots’ Hit the Highway Highway repairs often expose workers to dangerous conditions—mainly in the

form of speeding vehicles—and can take a long time to complete. To tackle these

problems, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) is taking workers

out of the equation. Well, almost. GDOT has partnered with the Georgia Tech

Research Institute to develop robotic technology that automatically detects and

then seals cracks in the road. When prototype testing is completed, the resulting

“roadbot” will be fully automated and require only a single operator. Using LED

lights and an advanced set of algorithms, the cameras locate the cracks. Once

identifi ed, the human operator uses the images collected to direct the robot to

apply sealant via an onboard nozzle system. The technology could save highway

departments money since they are sealing smaller cracks before they become

large-scale repaving projects. Before the roadbot is fully deployed, however,

additional testing will need to be completed to improve detection accuracy—

which is currently at 83 percent.

| IDEA CENTER

Rewarding Good Ideas It is often diffi cult in government for good ideas to make their way up the chain of

command. Sometimes, it’s even harder to put good ideas into practice, where they

can save money, increase effi ciency and improve services. That’s why Arizona is

reviving its employee suggestion program. Signed into law earlier this spring, the

program establishes a fi ve-member board appointed by the governor to hear any

money-saving ideas proposed by any of the state’s 39,000 employees. The panel

will evaluate ideas from individuals or teams of employees on a rolling basis and

decide which ones merit implementation. If the idea is used, then the employee

or team of employees will be paid 10 percent of the savings after execution costs.

Ideas will only qualify if they are not a part of the employee’s job description and

produce results within a single fi scal year. A similar program has been in place

in Phoenix since 2003, saving the city $15.3

million and paying out more than $163,000

to employees.

Find more ideas forcreative programs atgoverning.com/ideas

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By Steve Towns

Score One for the Bad GuysFailure of the Cyber Security Act leaves critical infrastructure vulnerable to attack.

Problem Solver | TECH TALK

privacy advocates, who feared “big brother” surveillance of online activities. The act couldn’t muster the necessary 60 votes in the U.S. Senate before lawmakers left Washington, D.C., in early August, meaning federal cybersecurity rules prob-ably won’t be addressed until next year.

Lohrmann, who now oversees all cyber and physical security for Michi-gan state government, won’t take political sides on the latest measure. But he’s adamant—as are most other security professionals—that more must be done to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure from attack.

A generation ago, dams, water systems, power plants and other vital facilities were operated manually. Today they’re controlled by computer networks that could be targets for increasingly sophis-ticated cybercriminals or terrorists. And of course much of the nation’s commerce relies on the Internet and related systems. Until cybersecurity standards are in place, security professionals worry that terrorists could shut down large swaths of the U.S. economy with the click of a mouse.

As an operator of critical systems, Lohrmann says Michigan is concerned about unfunded security mandates. But he

Dan Lohrmann has been in the information security business for the bulk of the past decade, and he’s scratching his head over the

continued inability of Congress to enact nationwide cybersecurity protections.

“Honestly, it’s disconcerting that the bad guys are ahead of the good guys,” says Lohrmann, who became one of the nation’s fi rst state chief information secu-rity offi cers in 2002, when he was tapped for that job in Michigan. “It seems like the bad guys are more organized and united in their goal, which is to take advantage of our lack of unity and coordination.”

The latest lack of unity occurred over the Cyber Security Act of 2012, which would have created cybersecurity standards for the companies that run critical infrastructure like the power grid, gas pipelines, and water and trans-portation systems. The measure, backed by Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins, sought to improve sharing of cyberthreat information between gov-ernment and private industry. But even a highly watered-down fi nal version of the bill couldn’t overcome opposition from business groups, which protested the expense of new regulations, and

equates reasonable cybersecurity standards with safety rules enforced on highways and other pieces of traditional infrastructure. “We need to have legislation; we need clear guidance in this area,” he says.

Another issue begging for clarity is how governments and private industry should share information about cybersecurity threats. Most security pros say that in order to strengthen cybersecurity, compa-nies and government organizations need to inform one another about the types of threats they’re seeing.

Right now, the rules for doing that are muddy, at best, Lohrmann says. “What can be shared before, during and after a cyber event? What level of trust is in place? What information is subject to the Freedom of Information Act? We need common rules on this stuff .”

In the absence of clear guidelines, orga-nizations tend to share less information rather than more—and the sharing that does occur tends to be driven by personal relationships. In other words, you talk to the people you know and trust, and shut out those you don’t. Where that really hurts is in critical exchanges between various sec-tors of the economy. For instance, energy companies or transportation companies do rather well at sharing threat information among others in their industry. But formal rules are necessary if cyberthreat informa-tion is going to fl ow between industries.

“Stovepipes are sharing with stove-pipes,” Lohrmann says. “The problem is cutting across those.”

Despite the latest setback, he remains optimistic that a bipartisan cybersecurity bill eventually will become law. And ulti-mately, you get the feeling that this issue is quickly becoming too big to ignore. Let’s just hope Congress fi gures it out while the lights are still on. G



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A proposed Settlement has been reached with JPMorgan Chase & Co., J.P. Morgan Securities, Inc. (n/k/a J.P. Morgan Securities LLC) and Bear Stearns & Co. (n/k/a J.P. Morgan Securities LLC) (collectively, “JPMorgan”), defendants in a class action lawsuit that alleges price-fixing in the sale of municipal derivatives transactions by JPMorgan and other companies. The case, In re Municipal Derivatives Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 1950, No. 08-02516, is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Who Is Included in the Settlement?This Settlement includes all state, local and municipal government entities, independent government agencies, quasi-government, non-profit and private entities that purchased:(1) Municipal derivative transactions through negotiation,

competitive bidding or auction, from any Alleged Provider Defendant or Co-Conspirator or brokered by any Alleged Broker Defendant or Co-Conspirator,

(2) Any time from January 1, 1992 through August 18, 2011 in the United States and its territories or for delivery in the United States and its territories.

The Defendants and Co-Conspirators are listed in the detailed notice available on the Settlement website.

What Does the Settlement Provide?JPMorgan agreed to a settlement amount of $44.575 million to be paid as follows: $24 million has already been paid into an escrow account and up to $20.575 million will be paid later. This Settlement is only a partial settlement of the lawsuit because it only affects the claims against JPMorgan. The lawsuit is continuing against other Defendants. Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo have already settled. JPMorgan will provide reasonable cooperation, including discovery cooperation, to Class Plaintiffs’ Counsel in the litigation that will continue against the other Defendants.

What Do I Do Now?Remain in the Settlement. To remain in the Settlement Class and participate in the Settlement, you do not have to do anything now. If the Court approves the Settlement, you give up the right to sue JPMorgan for the claims and issues in this case. The Settlement Agreement, specifically Paragraph 1(ee), which is available at www.MunicipalDerivativesSettlement.com, describes in more detail the legal claims that you give up if you stay in the Class. Claim forms are not available now. Register

For more information: 1-877-310-0512 www.MunicipalDerivativesSettlement.com

If You Purchased Municipal Derivative Transactions from January 1, 1992 to August 18, 2011

You Could Get a Payment for a Class Action Settlement.

on the Settlement website to receive a claim form when it becomes available. If you remain in the Settlement Class, you still have the right to exclude yourself from any other settlements with other defendants reached in this lawsuit.Exclude yourself from the Settlement. If you do not want to remain in the Settlement Class, you must exclude yourself. You must send a written request for exclusion by first-class mail, postmarked no later than October 19, 2012 to the Settlement Administrator. The detailed notice available on the Settlement website describes the information you are required to include in your request for exclusion. If you exclude yourself, you cannot participate in the Settlement, but you retain your right to sue JPMorgan on your own for the claims in this lawsuit. Object or Comment on the Settlement. If you remain in the Settlement Class and want to object to or comment on the JPMorgan Settlement or any part of it, you must file an objection with the Court and deliver a copy to Class Counsel and JPMorgan no later than October 9, 2012.

When Will the Court Decide Whether to Approve the Settlement?

The Court has scheduled a hearing on December 14, 2012, at 2:00 p.m. at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, United States Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, New York, NY 10007, to consider whether to finally approve the JPMorgan Settlement as fair, reasonable and adequate, whether to approve Class Counsel’s request for reimbursement of litigation expenses, and to consider any objections. The Court has appointed the law firms of Hausfeld LLP; Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP; and Susman Godfrey L.L.P. to serve as Class Counsel and represent all Class Members. If you want to be represented by your own lawyer, you may hire one at your own expense. You or your lawyer may ask to appear and speak at the hearing but are not required to. If you want to be heard by the Court, you must file a written notice of your intention to appear with the Court and deliver a copy to the Class Counsel and JPMorgan no later than October 9, 2012. The Court may change the time and date of the hearing. Any change will be posted on the Settlement website.

Get More InformationFor more information on this lawsuit, your rights, or to obtain a list of defendants, call or visit the Settlement website listed below or write to Municipal Derivatives Settlement, c/o Rust Consulting, Inc., PO Box 2500, Faribault, MN 55021-9500.

Legal Notice


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By Mark Funkhouser

Gene Dodaro, the comptroller general of the United States, fi red off 56 PowerPoint slides at state, local and federal audi-

tors attending the recent biennial meeting of the National Intergovernmental Audit Forum. As you can imagine, Dodaro’s mes-sage was grim: The United States is now farther along an unsustainable fi scal path. This may strike you as old news, but to me this was diff erent. After all, as comptrol-ler general, Dodaro is the head of the U.S. Government Accountability Offi ce (GAO), the credible source of much of the data that feeds the information market inside and outside the Beltway.

Every slide showed another aspect of the trouble ahead. In one, the histori-cal high for debt held by the public—109 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) following World War II in 1946—would be exceeded around 2026, quickly rising to 200 percent of GDP by 2040. Clearly, policymakers can’t let that happen.

But another slide really caught my attention. It had a long list of program areas that receive limited or no evalua-tion of their eff ectiveness. Dodaro’s point was that GAO and others in the govern-ment audit and accountability communitymust focus on program eff ectiveness so they can use that information to inform policymakers and the public as they make diffi cult choices.

As important as that job of auditing and evaluation is, it’s getting harder. GAO is at its lowest staffi ng levels since 1935. Richard Chambers, president and CEO of the Institute of Internal Auditors, told meeting attendees that state and local government audit organizations were undergoing severe cuts in staffi ng and funding and, in some cases, were being eliminated altogether. My conversations with individual audit directors bore this out. For example, Jerome Heer, director

of audits for Milwaukee County, Wis., says he now has a staff of 14 auditors, down from 28 a few years ago. Kansas City, Mo., Auditor Gary White says he has nine audi-tors, down from 17 in 2003.

When it came time for questions, I asked Dodaro how he was going to pro-vide more eff ective auditing, given GAO’s low staffi ng levels. His answer could be summarized with two keywords: target-ing and technology. GAO wants to work better with Congress in choosing which of the thousand or so requests it gets annu-ally from lawmakers ought to result in an audit. It also is trying to get out from under some of the routine audit work that it has been required by statute to do but that provides less bang for the buck. And it is trying, like nearly everyone else in gov-ernment, to use technology to increase the productivity of its staff .

So what’s the takeaway for state and local government? That brings us to slide 50, which showed that since at least 1977 the largest single source of a state’s gen-eral revenue—more than income, sales and corporate taxes—has been federal

grants. When the people who supply your largest source of revenue run up against tough choices, you can bet a great deal of that money is going away—and quickly. Tough choices tend to cascade downhill.

State and local governments have a huge stake in how this all turns out. Policy-makers at every level of government ought to limit further cuts in audit and evaluation. Cutting back in those areas to save money is like trying to lose weight by shrinking your brain. Like GAO, state and local gov-ernment auditors ought to target audits as wisely as they can, focus more of their eff ort on determining whether programs actually achieve the objectives they were created to meet and more aggressively communicate the results of their audits.

This is not going to be pleasant. Stud-ies of audit and evaluation organizations have shown that eff ectiveness audits are the likeliest to bring political heat on audi-tors, but that’s their highest-value work. Things will get dicey, but this is no time to be squeamish. G


What We Need Our Auditors to DoIt’s more crucial than ever to know whether government programs are effective.

Problem Solver | PUBLIC MONEY


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Gain greater insight into employee spending, increase your control and streamline your procure-to-pay process.

All at the same time.

For more information, visit visa.com/gov

Welcome to Visa Commercial Solutions

Gain greater visibility into your organization’s purchasing while improving

operational efficiency. With our purchasing, payables, travel and fleet solutions,

enhanced data, reporting and our analytical and compliance tools, we can help

you streamline your procure-to-pay process and enhance your spending

controls at the same time.


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Last Look

At 85, Wisconsin state Sen. Fred Risser is the longest-serving state lawmaker in the country. Born in the state capital of Madison, Risser was fi rst elected to the Assembly in 1956; he moved to the Senate in 1962. Risser, whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather also served as Wisconsin legislators, was elected Senate president this July. In 2009, he told Governing that he thought the increasing political polarization at the federal level had infl uenced attitudes in his state. “I blame Washington,” he said. “The extreme partisanship in Washington, D.C., has trickled down to the states.” —Zach Patton

DAVID KIDD

governing.com/lastlook

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BECAUSE I DON’T JUST WEAR THE SHIRT, I LIVE IT.GIVE. ADVOCATE. VOLUNTEER. LIVE UNITED®

Ruth Rusie is part of United Way’s ongoing work to improve the education, income, and health of our communities. To find out how you can help create opportunities for a better life for all, visit LIVEUNITED.ORG.

BY GIVING JUST A FEW HOURS OF MY DAYI HELP CHILDREN PREPARE FORA LIFETIME OF LEARNING


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When municipalities issue bonds that are insured by Assured Guaranty, they increase thecost effectiveness and marketability of their financings. Investors have confidence in ourunconditional guaranty of principal and interest when due, and value the careful analysis,ongoing surveillance and market liquidity our guaranty delivers. That’s why we’ve insured morethan 8,000 municipal offerings since the financial crisis began. For rock-solid reliability, rely on theleader in municipal bond insurance, Assured Guaranty. Learn more at assuredguaranty.com

ASSURED GUARANTY CORP.

ASSURED GUARANTY MUNICIPAL

WHAT WE GUARANTEE IS AMERICA’SABILITY TO MAKE PROGRESS.


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