Community Development Block Grant: The Role of Federal Requirements

The CDBG program provides an excellent opportunity to studywhat local governments do to carry out national policy whenit is stated in general terms and they are left to their owndevices, and what they do differently when policy is interpretedin explicit regulations which are enforced. This article reviewswhat happened with two major legislative guidelines (low incometargeting and community participation) during the first sixyears of the CDBG program, including a period during which HUDinterpretations and enforcement varied greatly. It appears thatstrong federal enforcement caused a small increment in low incometargeting overall; but rigorous HUD direction and enforcement,combined with strong citizen participation, was necessary forsome jurisdictions to emphasize targeting. The research is pertinentin the present era of attempts toward major relaxation of federalgrant conditions and enforcement programs.     

After Enactment: The Lives and Deaths of Federal Programs

While many scholars have focused on the production of legislation, we explore life after enactment. Contrary to the prevailing view that federal programs are indissoluble, we show that programmatic restructurings and terminations are commonplace. In addition, we observe significant changes in programmatic appropriations. We suggest that a sitting congress is most likely to transform, kill, or cut programs inherited from an enacting congress when its partisan composition differs substantially. To test this claim, we examine the postenactment histories of every federal domestic program established between 1971 and 2003, using a new dataset that distinguishes program death from restructuring. Consistent with our predictions, we find that changes in the partisan composition of congresses have a strong influence on program durability and size. We thus dispel the notion that federal programs are everlasting while providing a plausible coalition-based account for their evolution.     

Neighborhood Conservation: Political Choices Under the Community Development Block Grant Program

Neighborhood conservation is an objective widely espoused byAmerican cities. But movement from advocacy of conservationto allocation of funds for specific neighborhoods involves difficultpolitical choices for local officials who must respond to neighborhoodscompeting for scarce resources. The experience of Rochester,New York, the state's third largest city, closely parallelsthe national experience—shifts away from renewal and clearanceactivities to conservation and rehabilitation of marginal urbanneighborhoods. Over the first six years of the CDBG program,Rochester officials changed from a general, inclusive approachto neighborhood conservation to a more targeted approach. Thesechoices were shaped in response to local economic, demographicand political factors, including a well-organized network ofneighborhood organizations. The article concludes that the Rochesterexperience led to strengthened relationships between neighborhoodassociations and city hall, but evidence of stabilization andrevitalization in assisted city neighborhoods is inconclusive. ^*The author gratefully acknowledges the comments by Paul R.Dommel, Christopher Lindley and Richard P. Nathan on an earlierdraft of this article.     

Between Deadlock and Decentralization: Bargaining Dynamics in Federal States

A classic way to meet regionally diverse interests is to grant partial autonomy to sub-national entities, either by assigning them the right to decide upon policies (federalism), to implement policies (decentralization), or both. This article argues and formally elaborates that central governments may intentionally choose to increase decentralization in an effort to facilitate agreements that otherwise would be deadlocked. In this regard, a central government's decision to promote decentralization depends on its own relative valuation of policy change and congruence. We illustrate the empirical validity of our argument with a case study pertaining to the Swiss New Regional Policy.     

Community Development Block Grant Spending Revisited: Patterns of Benefit and Program Institutionalization

This article analyzes Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)spending by local governments between 1988–1992. We addressfour issues examining actual expenditure patterns in a smallcentral city and five satellite cities in Michigan: changesin CDBG expenditure patterns; levels of social targeting; theextent of institutionalization of expenditure patterns; andthe level of privatization of CDBG spending. We conclude thatwhile spending for housing and public works is related to thefiscal health of cities, expenditures for economic developmentand social services are related to political characteristics.Further, local governments exceed federal social targeting guidelines.Finally, while there is little privatization, the communitiesstudied evidence modest levels of program innovation in thelater years of the CDBG program.     

Ordering Stakeholder Relationships and Citizen Participation: Evidence from the Community Development Block Grant Program

Local administrative professionals typically are accountable to multiple stakeholders, including other governmental units, special interests in the business and nonprofit sectors, and citizens. How are these accountability relationships ordered? What is the position of citizens in that hierarchy, particularly the influence of citizen participation? Focusing on patterns of hearing participation and citizen impact on budgeting decisions for the Community Development Block Grant program, this statistical analysis employs ordered probit regression. The authors find that communities in which grant administrators feel most accountable to citizens for grant performance have higher degrees of citizen participation in hearings and higher levels of perceived citizen impact on budgetary processes. This relationship holds even in the presence of simultaneity between bureaucratic accountability to citizens and citizen participation. The findings point to the importance of instilling a public service ethic among government employees that places a high value on engaging as well as listening to citizens.     

Decentralization, Local Priorities, and the Community Development Block Grant Program in Milwaukee

This article analyzes the geographic distribution of CDBG fundsacross twenty-three neighborhoods in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, bycomparing federal, city, and neighborhood responses to localneed and by testing the impact of these responses on the finalfunding allocations. In Milwaukee, decentralizing decisionmakingto the city improved the program's responsiveness to local need.However, the funding decisions made by local officials did notalways direct funding exclusively to the most extreme need;nor did they distribute funding proportionately with respectto need, even though the city's targeting mechanisms were closelyrelated to the measure of need used in this analysis. We concludethat Milwaukee's program results were obtained through a mixtureof targeting rules and political competition over program decisions.     

Decentralization and Corruption: Evidence from U.S. Federal Transfer Programs

While some recent evidence suggests that more decentralizationis associated with reduced corruption, no empirical work hasexamined whether different types of decentralization havedifferential effects on corruption. The theoretical literaturehas emphasized that expenditure decentralization will only beeffective if accompanied by the devolution of revenuegeneration to local governments. In this paper we examine thishypothesis empirically, by studying the mismatch betweenrevenue generation and expenditure in U.S. states. Largerfederal transfers are associated with higher rates ofconviction for abuse of public office, supporting the theorythat soft-budget constraints created by federal transfers arepotentially problematic.     

Federal Highway Assistance Funds in the State Infrastructure Bank Programs: Mechanisms,Merits, and Modifications

In response to the declining financial resources for state transportation infrastructures, the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 (P. L. 104–159) authorized the establishment of the State Infrastructure Bank (SIB) Pilot Programs. This paper shows how the federal assistance funds deposited into the SIB equity fund can maximize state highway resources through a simulation. From 1998 to 2003, one dollar of the federal funds augmented state highway expenditures by 5.24 dollars in a specific year in contrast to the original intention of perpetuating state highway spending. This study further suggests ways to modify and improve the current SIB mechanism.     

Intergovernmental Politics in the Allocation of Block Grant Funds for Substance Abuse in Michigan

This article examines the intersection between federal programmaticgoals and state politics in the allocation of substance-abuseblock-grant money by the State of Michigan. The Alcohol andDrug Abuse and Mental Health Services (ADMS) block grant allowsstates more flexibility in allocating "Drug War" funds. TheADMS formula determines the amount of money going to Michiganbut does not determine the distribution of funds within thestate. An examination of the distribution of ADMS funding amongthe eighteen coordinating agencies in Michigan finds that neitherthe state nor the national formulas distribute funds in a mannerthat reflects substance-abuse deaths. Michigan's formula producesa result consistent with the federal formula, despite the separatestate and national formula negotiations. The process is notone of bargaining or even coercion; it may be described as mutuallyindependent decisionmaking—or parallel policies. Modelsof intergovernmental relations must be revised to include thepossibility of joint synergistic action without coordination.     

Fitting the Community Development Block Grant Program to Local Politics: Who is the Tailor?

This article examines the CDBG decentralization experiment inPhoenix, Scottsdale, and Casa Grande, Arizona through the firsteight years of the Community Development Block Grant (FY 1976–FY1983). These settings shared certain general political/legalcharacteristics, but differed greatly along important dimensions,including jurisdiction size, economic conditions, experiencein HUD programs, staff interest and experience, and form ofinteraction between HUD and local officials. CDBG resulted ina distinctive set of local community development activitiesin these three jurisdictions. Yet despite HCDA's billing asan act of decentralization, these specific local activitieswere not the result of pure local determination. Rather, CDBGoutcomes in the three communities were found to be the end productof a series of choices and responses made following substantialinteraction among federal and local staffs and local electedofficials. ^*An earlier version of this paper was presented at the AmericanPolitical Science Association Annual Meeting, New York City,September 1978. Data and support for this paper were providedby the Brookings Institution Longitudinal Field Network EvaluationStudy of the Community Development Block Grant, under the initialdirection of Richard Nathan and latter direction of Paul Dormnel.The analysis provided in this paper is, however, the sole responsibilityof the author and does not represent the analysis or views ofthe officers, trustees, or other staff members of the BrookingsInstitution.     

The Impact of Converting Categorical into Block Grants: The Lessons from the 314(d) Block Grant in the Partnership for Health Act

Section 314(d) of P. L. 89–749, (1966), the Partnershipfor Health Act, combined nine categorical health grants intoone block grant for health. The impact of section 314(d), according to data gathered forthis study, can be summarized as follows: the block grant increasedthe administrative flexibility of state health officials; statehealth planning agencies generally did not have a major influenceon the block grant; state health planning agencies located ingovernors' offices had less influence over the block grant thanthose located in state health departments; Congress did notsignificantly increase expenditures for the block grant; nationalinfluence was increased by creating health programs that couldpotentially have been made part of the block grant; and theblock grant did not generally result in a reordering of spendingpriorities. The best explanation for the unspectacular effect of combiningseveral categorical grants into one block grant was that, withoutnew resources, the substantial (and welcome) new administrativeflexibility given state officials was insufficient to producean important substantive reordering of program priorities.     

Understanding Mission Expansion in the Federal Home Loan Banks: A Return to Behavioral-Choice Theory

Congress established the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs) in 1932 to pursue the public purpose of homeownership. Recently, three views of their mission have emerged; one is that their purpose is to help small banks to remain viable. Why did their mission expand in this direction? We argue that mission expansion is a process that is better understood in terms of behavioral choice than public choice. Change began when expert attention was directed to small banks in rural areas and officials innovated within the existing rules to address their needs. Recognizing the FHLBs' usefulness, community bankers sought a more fundamental change in their practice. Responding to the general interest in preserving small banks' viability, legislative entrepreneurs advanced permissive rule changes. These were implemented to different extents in individual FHLBs in response to local needs. The case illustrates the usefulness of the behavioral‐choice paradigm for understanding change in public agencies and suggests legitimacy for mission change and the value of maintaining publicly directed administrative capacity.     

Network Governance and Public Participation in Policy‐Making: Federal Community Cabinets in Australia

The Australian Labor Party's (ALP) 2007 Policy Platform asserted ‘Labor will pursue new and innovative measures designed to foster greater participation and engagement of the Australian population in the political process’ ( Manwaring 2010 ). As such they seemed to have a clear commitment to a more participatory form of democracy. This commitment appeared to be reflected in two initiatives they introduced in power: the 2020 Summit (on this see Fawcett, Manwaring and Marsh 2011 ) and federal community cabinets. More broadly it could be argued that Labor were following a trend identified internationally as a move from government to governance, more specifically to ‘network governance’ (Rhodes 1997) in which governments encouraged greater participation in policy‐making, recognising that governments could at best steer, not row. Indeed, as Marinetto contends ( 2003 : 593), this idea has taken on a ‘semblance of orthodoxy’ in discussions of public policy.     

Differences Between State and Federal Public Forest Management: The Importance of Rules

In United States federalism, public policy responsibilitiesbelong to multiple jurisdictions. This article compares statewith federal public forest management. Data come from four cases,each comprising two forests sharing similar physical characteristicsbut under the authority of different governments. Systematiccomparisons suggest that officials in the national forest agencyface greater statutory, regulatory, and planning constraintsthan do state agency officials. These constraints require morepublic input and higher levels of environmental protection.Outcomes reflect these differences: federal officials provideless limber, at lower net profit, than do state officials, andthey transfer less revenue to local governments. Concurrently,federal officials make greater environmental protection efforts.     

Thirty Years of Changing Federal, State, and Local Relationships in Employment and Training Programs

There have been three major training programs in the UnitedStates in the past thirty years: the Manpower Development andTraining Act (MDTA)from 1962 to 1973, the Comprehensive Employmentand Training Act (CETA)from 1973 to 1982, and the Job TrainingPartnership Act (JTPA)from 1982 to the present. MDTA was a categoricalprogram, with service providers funded directly by the federalgovernment. CETA was a hybrid block grant program that gavelocal units of government substantial autonomy in administeringthe basic training component, but CETA also includedcategoricalprogramsfor specific target groups and for public service employment.Over time, CETA was increasingly regulated. JTPA is regulatedmore by the states and the private sector, and in 1992 amendmentstargeted the program more sharply and restricted activitiesthat could be undertaken. Federalism in employment and trainingprograms has followed a course similar to other areas, withcooperative federalism ending in 1978 being replaced by coercivefederalism. In recent years, stales have started a number ofinnovative programs.     

全球化与认识两个“主义”关系的科学视角

全球化的实质是世界各国经济上相互间的联系更加紧密,政治和文化上的相互影响也大大增加。在全球化条件下,资本主义的各种矛盾在进一步普遍化的同时从新的方面进一步尖锐化。从而进一步向人们展示了现阶段资本主义的历史作用和地位。社会主义应当从资本主义主导的全球化中更多地汲取资本主义为人类进步创造的成果,才能成为资本主义的超越者和代替者。     

Understanding Employee Motivation to Innovate: Evidence from Front Line Employees in United States Federal Agencies

In a period of ongoing public sector reform in the United States (US), federal government agencies have been pushed to find new ways of performing their public functions more effectively and efficiently. Frontline public sector employees are a particularly vital source of innovations in organisational function and form. This study seeks to identify factors that motivate front line employees in the US federal bureaucracy to engage in innovative behaviour. The empirical analysis is based on data from the 2006 Federal Human Capital Survey. The results show that a constellation of factors encourage bottom‐up innovation, including the expectancy of innovation being rewarded, employee training and development, employee empowerment and involvement in decision‐making, and high‐exchange dyadic relationships with supervisors.