Grading the States 2008

Today, the Pew Research Center released the Grading the States 2008, which is the new report of the Government Performance Project in assessing the quality of management in the 50 states. The report’s findings are generated from extensive interviews and surveys of state-level managers and opinion leaders. The performance scores are based on four categories of criteria:

• managing fiscal resources from budgeting to procurement ("money"),
  
• recruiting and retaining highly qualified, productive public employees ("people"),
• maintaining and improving transportation facilities ("infrastructure"), and
  
• using information and technology to measure performance and communicate more effectively with the public ("information").

Overall state performance in 2008 ranged from A- (Utah, Virginia, and Washington) to D+ (New Hampshire). The national average among the 50 states was B-, which is also the score for Minnesota.

Among four criteria, the only one that Minnesota gets below average is infrastructure (C+). This is not surprising at all with the collapse of I-35 Interstate Bridge. Although the tragedy is now believed to be caused by a design flaw common for all bridges built around 1960s, it has raised a big public profile and has led to closer scrutiny of the state's efforts in capital budgeting, asset management, and infrastructure maintenance and renewal.

For more about the state's performance report card, see here.