Teodoro J. Benavides - Böcker

In a recent paradigm shift, local governments find themselves shouldering more responsibility for day-to-day governance and crisis management, thanks to regulations and federal spending cuts. While 20 years ago a book on local government administration might have been considered complete with chapters on budgeting, public personnel management, productivity and responsivity, and community engagement, any discussion of local government must now also include resilience, emergency management, climate change, smart cities, social media, and infrastructure funding. Bringing together key voices from the academic and public sectors, Local Government Management offers techniques and insight into how local government can most effectively lead and manage their resources in an evolving political—and environmental—landscape.Featuring examples from expert contributors’ own decades of public service and research, this forward-thinking book explores the rapid speed of change in local communities and the need for local government to not only adapt but also proactively plan for the future. Local Government Management is essential reading for local government officials, public stakeholders, practitioners, and students of public administration and management.

Packed with case studies and ripped-from-the-headlines examples, Non-Profit Organizations: Real Issues for Public Administrators introduces critical issues commonly encountered when managing non-profit organizations and gives you the tools to develop policies and procedures to meet the challenges that arise when these issues occur. The authors use the case study methodology to explore decision-making issues and provide potential solutions. It provides an applied framework to use when managing a non-profit organization.The book provides case studies that range from unethical behavior to poor operational decisions to illegal activities in non-profit organizations. The authors discuss the events in phases and then identify what issues should concern the administrator and potential solutions to each phase of a case study. In addition, many of the case studies address more than one issue that threatened an organization’s finances and its credibility to its stakeholders and the public.Using the information in this book, you can create a checklist of issues that will help you and your organization avoid scandals or alleged criminal activity, and better defuse fallout if an incident occurs. It gives you a "safe" environment in which to "live" through a case study without suffering the consequences of lost resources, assets, or worse, public trust, for your organization in reality.

Why should public administrators care about city planning? Is city planning not a field ruled by architects and public works personnel? Much of city planning in fact requires expertise in areas other than buildings and infrastructure, and with city planning expertise, urban administrators are empowered to make more informed decisions on matters that involve budgeting, economic development, tax revenues, public relations, and ordinances and policies that will benefit the community. City Planning for the Public Manager is designed to fill a gap in the urban administration literature, offering students and practitioners hands-on, practical advice from experts with diverse city administration experience, and demonstrating where theory and practice intersect. Divided into three sections, the book provides an overview of the life cycle of a municipality and its services, explores city planning applications for planners on a strict budget, and walks the reader through a real-life planning research project, demonstrating how it was formulated, implemented, and analyzed to produce usable results. Topics explored include justifications for specific city services, internal and external benchmarking used for city planning, common technical tools (e.g., GIS), legal aspects of planning and zoning, environmental concerns, transportation, residential planning, business district planning, and infrastructure. City Planning for the Public Manager is required reading for students of urban administration and practicing city administrators interested in improving their careers and their communities.

This volume provides an introduction to Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) for those in the public administration field. At the intersection between human resource management and information technology, HRIS is often the key to having and maintaining the personnel data that is essential for hiring and recruitment, strategic planning and analysis, and legal requirements in most public organizations. Revised and updated for the second edition, this book describes what an HRIS system is, what the functionality of such a system should be, and outlines the practical aspects of an HRIS. It also compares the different aspects of human resources in public organizations, non-profit organizations, and private corporations, and how differences across organizations may influence the functionality requirements of the HRIS. Finally, the volume contains both an organizational theory component, which frames how an HRIS interacts with an organization both from a functional standpoint and a reporting standpoint. The book includes a practical component, which includes real-world case studies that illustrate the advantages and pitfalls to implementing an HRIS enterprise system. Providing a thorough introduction to HRIS for both academics and practitioners, this volume is appropriate for researchers, graduate students, and practitioners in the fields of public administration, higher education administration, information systems, computer science, and human resources.