Multiple objectives in environmental protection programs

This research demonstrates the need for and the usefulness of a multi-dimensional approach to the management of environmental programs. While the thrust of the paper is toward environmental quality programs the conceptual development is appropriate for many public sector programs. The paper describes an experiment in the determination of multi-dimensional objectives within three programs in a state environmental quality program. In addition, measures of effectiveness, based on the multi-dimensional objectives, are proposed as relevant measures of program effectiveness.This research was sponsored in part by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources under contract SPC 412070 and in part by the Center for the Study of Environmental Policy, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania.     

CASH TRANSFERS BY THE QUEENSLAND STATE GOVERNMENT TO NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS

Abstract: This is the first in a series of studies into cash transfers from the State government to non-government organizations in Queensland. It focuses particularly on transfers from the Departments of Welfare Services and Children's Services. Information has been obtained from public government documents, departmental files and records, and from interviews with representatives of eight non-government organizations in receipt of cash transfers. The study documents the pattern and process of transfers and explores existing means of achieving accountability, accessibility, effectiveness, efficiency and equity. While transfers to the non-government sector in Queensland are a well established practice, the proportion of government funds going to the non-government sector is small. The larger, well-established organizations receive the most and are best satisfied with their relationship to government. It would appear that much could be done to improve accessibility to government transfers in Queensland, where program accountability has not been emphasized. The final section of the paper questions the advisability of jumping on the program evaluation bandwagon. The need for more research into the impact of government funding on program development, efficient use of resources, social cohesion, political position and meeting the most pressing needs in the community is emphasized. Glennerster's "pluralist planning model" is suggested as a possible guide for improving the process of allocation of transfers in Queensland.     

Actuarial status of the OASI (old age survivors insurance) and DI (disability insurance) Trust Funds

This article summarizes the current financial condition and actuarial status of the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program, as shown in the 1987 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees. The Trustees note that the assets of the OASI and DI Trust Funds, on a combined basis, will be sufficient to permit the timely payment of OASDI benefits for many years into the future, on the basis of all four sets of assumptions shown in the report. For the next 75 years, the estimates show that the OASDI program, overall, is in close actuarial balance, based on the two intermediate sets of assumptions. The DI program by itself, however, is not in close actuarial balance for the next 75 years. The actuarial deficit for the DI program could be remedied by a small reallocation of the contribution rate from OASI to DI, in such a way that the OASI program would remain in close actuarial balance and OASDI benefits would not be affected. Although the Trustees are not recommending such a reallocation, they note that the financial condition of the DI program will need to be carefully monitored.     

The Problem with Programs: Multiple Perspectives on Program Structures in Program‐Based Performance‐Oriented Budgets

Often the transition to performance‐based budgeting requires the initial development of a program structure. While a substantial body of literature is available to assist governments in developing performance measures, program development has received little recent attention in the scholarly literature. This research draws on a case study of the State of Georgia's effort to develop a program structure. The problems encountered by Georgia provide the foundation for an analysis that explains how programs interact with competing budgetary purposes and agendas. The analysis in turn suggests ways that budget structures might be adjusted to better balance competing purposes.     

Workers' compensation: 1980-84 benchmark revisions

The first workers' compensation program was introduced 80 years ago. Its purpose was to compensate occupationally injured workers and their families for lost wages and medical expenses from job-related injury, regardless of fault. Today, each of the State and Federal programs that provides coverage to more than 86 percent of the work force uses a combination of private insurance, State or Federal funds, and self-insurance to meet its benefit obligations. The workers' compensation program is of continuing interest to the Social Security Administration (SSA) for several reasons. Since 1965, Social Security Disability Insurance benefits have been subject to reduction if such benefits, when combined with those provided under workers' compensation laws, exceed 80 percent of the worker's earnings. Because the two programs have gaps in protection as well as duplication in coverage, a periodic review of the workers' compensation program is necessary. In addition, SSA administers Part B of the Black Lung program--established to provide income-maintenance protection to coal miners disabled by pneumoconiosis--to about 1 million beneficiaries whose claims were filed before July 1973. This article provides revised benchmark data on the workers' compensation programs and presents a review of program operations during the early 1980's.     

Actuarial status of the OASI and DI Trust Funds

This article summarizes the current financial condition and actuarial status of the old-age, survivors, and disability insurance (OASDI) program, as shown in the 1986 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees. The Trustees note that the assets of the OASI and DI Trust Funds will be sufficient to permit the timely payment of OASDI benefits for many years into the future, on the basis of all four sets of assumptions shown in the report. For the next 75 years, the estimates show that the OASDI program, overall, is in close actuarial balance, based on the two intermediate sets of assumptions. The DI program by itself, however, is not in close actuarial balance for the next 75 years. The actuarial deficit for the DI program could be remedied by a small reallocation of the contribution rate from OASI to DI, in such a way that the OASI program would remain in close actuarial balance and OASDI benefits would not be affected. Although the Trustees do not at this time recommend such a reallocation, they note that the financial condition of the DI program will need to be carefully monitored for the next several years.     

Effect of rehabilitation on employment and earnings of the disabled: sociodemographic factors.

This report analyzes the importance of sociodemographic factors in the effect of rehabilitation services on the employment and earnings of disabled persons after their cases were closed by State vocational rehabilitation agencies in fiscal year 1971. The analysis is based on information about personal characteristics and on 1972 employment and earnings data for all such cases in the linked records of the Social Security Administration and the Rehabilitation Services Administration. It identifies sociodemographic factors that facilitate or hamper the effects of rehabilitation as measured primarily by employment differences between clients who completed and failed to complete a program of rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation appears to provide aid, especially to groups frequently disadvantaged in the labor market because of sex, age, ethnicity, or education. Impact was greater for men--but not for women--who were married and had larger families. These results differe significantly from conclusions based on previous studies of the disabled. Earlier studies often concluded that vocational rehabilitation was less successful for women, older persons, ethnic minorities, and persons with low socioeconomic status. Because those studies lacked information on rehabilitation status or focused only on persons who had received rehabilitation services and because they did not compare those who had completed a rehabilitation program with those who had not, they were unable to examine the effects of vocational rehabilitation completely.     

State‐Funded College Scholarships: General Definitions and Characteristics

State‐funded scholarship programs are transforming the way citizens and policymakers think about higher education. Advocates see these programs as a remedy to problems facing the state workforce such as “brain drain” and “unequal opportunity” for a sound education. Opponents see low retention rates and the number of already‐privileged students receiving benefits as signs that these programs are not reaching their maximum potential. This article traces the development of state‐funded college scholarships from earlier need‐based programs to current merit‐based programs and outlines current debates on policy effectiveness. Currently, 14 states have a state‐funded scholarship program. Differences between programs revolve around the political and economic circumstances of each state.     

Use of State Police Services for Local Policing: The Case of New Jersey

All states in the New England and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States provide State Police services without charge to municipalities without full-time local police departments. Efficiency and equity issues have resulted from this tradition and the development of local police departments or shared departments across neighboring municipalities in rural and exurban areas has been discouraged. These problems will diminish in scope as municipalities receiving the State Police subsidy opt out of the program and adopt local policing. We examine this potential by estimating models of the municipal decision to use the State Police for local policing among New Jersey municipalities with less than 15,000 population. We find that the elasticities of the decision to use the State Police for local policing with respect to population and median family income to be −1.1 and −2.3, respectively. If recent income and population trends in New Jersey municipalities using the State Police continue, our upper range estimate is that about 20 of the 90 municipalities using the State Police will opt out of the program in the next decade.     

FIFTY YEARS OF THE COMMONWEALTH GRANTS COMMISSION*

Abstract: The Commonwealth Grants Commission was established in 1933 to inquire into the payment of special grants to the States. It has retained this function to the present day, and has also conducted inquiries into grants to local government, the distribution of general revenue assistance to the States, and the financial position of the Territories. Although special grants had been paid for over twenty years before the establishment of the Commission, the principle upon which grants should be based had not been determined. The first members of the Commission, after debating the merits of grants based on financial need and grants based on disabilities due to federation, adopted in their third report the principle of fiscal equalization which the Commission still follows. Under this principle grants are assessed that enable each State to provide a standard level of service to its residents so long as it levies taxes at standard rates. The Commission operates as a semi-judicial body, receiving written submissions and conducting public hearings at which witnesses from the States and the Commonwealth Treasury are examined on oath. It also conducts an extensive analysis of State government finances and other information in arriving at its conclusions. Over the years many distinguished Australians have served on the Commission, and their work has contributed to the high reputation enjoyed by the Commission in carrying out its task of maintaining a balance in the fiscal position of the States.     

COORDINATION IN STATE ADMINISTRATION: A CASE STUDY

Abstract: "Coordination is one of the perennial concerns of public administration, and has been a particular problem of State-level policy-making in Australia. This paper describes a policy initiative under the Dunstan government in South Australia which was necessarily an exercise in State administrative coordination. The story illustrates the complexity of a multi-Departmental program aimed at producing an innovative, flexible and decentralized policy. While it shows the awkwardness of conventional administrative and policy-making procedures in such a situation, it also provides examples of constructive cooperation among and readjustment within departments. The general policy "parameters" inspired by the Dunstan government are regarded as a significant influence on the outcome of the program.     

How the Clinton Administration Can Make Foreign Aid Work

The changes taking place in the world today are exposing the inadequacies of the U.S. foreign assistance program. Beyond external changes such as the fall of communism, internal changes have occurred in the policy decisions and purposes governing the program, management and operations of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), level of public attention on scandal, and aggressiveness of congressional oversight. After describing the purposes of the foreign assistance program, this article assesses the evolving role of the agencies involved in foreign assistance planning, budgeting and implementation processes; the processes themselves; the changes affecting the program; and the decision-making structure. Three reforms are needed to make the U.S. foreign aid program more responsive to U.S. foreign policy interests and more effective in accomplishing its development mandate. First, a strong policy focus is needed to direct the program toward realistic objectives and the best mechanisms for achieving those objectives. Second, the foreign aid program must move away from implementing projects with limited objectives and toward programs that promote broad-based economic growth, pluralism and democracy. Finally, AID should be merged into the State Department, and its field structure reorganized and reduced to better integrate development and foreign policy considerations.     

The regulatory state and the UK Labour Government's re‐regulation of provision in the English National Health Service

Following its election in 1997, the UK Labour Government embarked upon a 10 year program of reform of the National Health Service (NHS). By 2005, Labour had doubled the NHS budget and dramatically transformed the shape of the Service. In England, a basic characteristic of the NHS is the organizational split between provider and commissioning agencies. In this article I argue that Labour's re‐regulation of NHS provision is a coherent representation of the influence of the “regulatory state” in restructuring arrangements between government, market, and society. The article offers an account of the regulatory state based on a discussion of five key theses: The Audit Society, Regulation Inside Government, The New Regulatory State, The British Regulatory State, and Regulatory Capitalism. The article unfolds Labour's program of reform across themes common to these accounts: the division of labor between state and society, the division of labor within the state, the formalization of previously informal controls, and the development of meta‐regulatory techniques of enforced self‐regulation. It concludes that the key themes of the regulatory state are at work in Labour's transformation of NHS provision and it offers a discussion of the implications for both scholars of regulation and the UK and European health policy literature.     

Nonpoor children in head start: Explanations and implications

According to the Head Start Act (1998), children are income‐eligible for the program if their “families' incomes are below the poverty line.” There are a number of statutory exceptions to this general rule and, according to the Head Start Bureau, the result is that about 6 percent of the children in the program are not poor. But the major national surveys of Head Start families report that 30 percent or more of Head Start children are not “poor.” This paper confirms and explains the high proportion of nonpoor children in Head Start: at enrollment, at least 28 percent are not poor; at midyear, at least 32 percent are not poor; and by the end of the program year, at least 34 percent and perhaps more than 50 percent are not poor. Although the presence of some of these nonpoor children seems to be an appropriate or at least understandable aspect of running a national program with Head Start's current organizational structure, the presence of others seems much less warranted and raises substantial questions of horizontal equity. Moreover, taken together, the large number of nonpoor children suggests that the program is not well targeted to fulfill its mission of providing compensatory services to developmentally disadvantaged children—and reveals the essential ambiguity of Head Start's role in the wider world of early care and education. The income and program dynamics that have led to so many nonpoor children being in Head Start are also at work in many other programs, and, thus, our findings demonstrate the need to understand better how income eligibility is determined across various means‐tested programs.     

The Use of Administrative Discretion in Implementing the State Children's Health Insurance Program

States have exercised administrative discretion in at leastsix different ways during the intergovernmental implementationof the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provisionof the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. States have used this flexibilityto determine when to submit their plans and when to put theCHIP program into effect. After describing the problem of uninsuredchildren in America and the politics of program adoption, multivariateanalysis is used to attempt to answer the following question:Why have some states moved more quickly than others to get plansfor introducing CHIP submitted, approved, and implemented? Thenature and extent of a relationship between a state's economic,political, and health-need characteristics, on the one hand,and the timing of submission and implementation, on the other,are examined.     

Applicant Perceptions of State Priorities in the Illinois Small Cities CDBG Program: Implications for Local Targeting

The State of Illinois has targeted economic development as amajor priority in the Small Cities Community Development BlockGrant program, although the state still accepts applicationsfor public facilities and housing rehabilitation. This articleexamines the impact of this state priority on the applicationbehavior of small cities. We find that grant applicants perceivethat the state's economic development emphasis decreases theirability to be successful in obtaining housing rehabilitationgrants. This perception has had an impact on subsequent applicationbehavior. Cities no longer apply for grants that are most likelyto benefit directly those with low and moderate incomes.     

Reducing child support debt and its consequences: Can forgiveness benefit all?

As child support debt owed nationally persists at enormous levels, both noncustodial parents and the custodial families who are not receiving support suffer significant hardships, and states are forced to expend greater resources on collection and enforcement efforts. This paper presents findings from an evaluation of a demonstration program developed to help noncustodial parents with large child support debts reduce their debt while simultaneously increasing child support paid to families, through gradual forgiveness of arrears conditional on payment of current child support obligations. The evaluation employs a randomized experimental design, nonexperimental analyses using propensity score matching and multilevel modeling techniques, and focus groups and follow‐up interviews. Results show a pattern of effects that suggests individuals responded to the program as intended. State‐ and family‐owed child support debt balances decreased for program participants, and participants paid more toward their child support obligations and arrears and made more frequent child support payments. The study findings suggest promise for the effectiveness of this program model in reducing child support debt burdens and in increasing families' receipt of child support, and they also point to ways in which the implementation of the program might be improved. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Postsecondary preparation and remediation: Examining the effect of the early assessment program at California State University

In this paper we investigate how participation in the Early Assessment Program, which provides California high school juniors with information about their academic readiness for college‐level work at California State University campuses, affects their college‐going behavior and need for remediation in college. Using administrative records from California State University,–Sacramento and the California Department of Education, we find that participation in the Early Assessment Program reduces the average student's probability of needing remediation at California State University by 6.1 percentage points in English and 4.1 percentage points in mathematics. Rather than discouraging poorly prepared students from applying to Sacramento State, EAP appears to lead students to increase their academic preparation while still in high school. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Ineligible spouses of SSI beneficiaries, December 1976.

A study based on program records showd that about 200,000 persons receiving supplemental security income (SSI) payments in December 1976 were living with a spouse who was not eligible for payments. In most cases, the beneficiaries were disabled and the spouses were too young to be eligible. Some spouses were receiving help indirectly from the program through the essential-person increment, State supplementary payments, or the deeming-of-income provision. Fewer than half the spouses had income of their own, however, and even when the income of both partners was combined, 55,000 households had no income other than the SSI payment. A sizable number of families included dependent children and thus may have been eligible for aid to families with dependent children.     

Intergovernmental relations in Nigeria: Local government and the 1979 Nigerian Constitution

This paper examines the intergovernmental relations prescribed by the Nigerian Constitution of 1979. In particular it discusses the elevated constitutional status of local government, tracing the origins of this to the 1976 local government reform. The question of how to interpret the provisions of the Constitution on the restructuring of local government and whether this is solely a State responsibility or a joint State/Federal responsibility is analysed. The article argues that the States have political and administrative responsibility for local government whereas the Federal responsibility concerns the regulation of the amount of money to be distributed to local government from the Federal Account. The Lagos State High Court judgement which supports the view that States have political and administrative responsibility for local government, but nullified the State's legislation, is extensively reported and analysed. Also discussed is the Allocation of Revenue (Federation Account, etc.) Act 1981 which both reflects and supports the view that the federal relationship to local government is defined by finance. The paper also probes the intention of the Constituent Assembly by analysing its report. The paper complements that by Smith and Owojaiye in the previous number.