2007 NGA ANNUAL MEETING July 20-23, 2007 Summary Notes from Chiefs of Staff Sessions

During the 2007 NGA Annual Meeting held July 20-23, 2007 in Traverse City, Michigan, the NGA Office of Management Consulting & Training (OMCT) held two chiefs of staff-only sessions and one special management session for governors staff entitled, Governing While Running for Reelection/Finishing Strong. The special session featured advice and recommendations from two chiefs of staff who shared their experiences on the unique challenges of a reelection year and also finishing strong at the end of the governors elected term. The two chiefs-only sessions consisted of an open roundtable discussion on Saturday, July 21 and a session on Capturing and Reallocating Scarce Resources on Sunday, July 22. This brief report provides a summary of the observations and insights shared during the chiefs sessions at the 2007 Annual Meeting.

FRIDAY, JULY 20 (Special Management Session) Governing While Running for Reelection/Finishing Strong

State Perspective #1: Governing While Running The NGA planning session that we commissioned was critical to get our staff thinking of the structure and organization of governing while running. It made them start thinking about how this year was going to be different. One key staffing decision: should the chief of staff stay in the governors office or go to the campaign? We decided upon one decision-making structure and stuck to it. The chief of staff stayed in the governors office. Decisions would be made by the governor, then the chief of staff, then the campaign manager. It is very important to define roles early on. We sent the deputy press secretary to work with the campaign while the press secretary stayed in the governors office. The deputy press secretary handled campaign media coverage and press releases, and this worked well since the deputy knew all the press corps. The press secretary was responsible for responding to attacks from our opponent since these attacks were typically focused on the governors record. We had to decide very quickly how to handle scheduling. Cabinet officials at times served as surrogates for the governor. One example is our secretary of state who is a former mayor. We established ground rules at the start for governors office staff. We provided them with a list of various situations and what they should do ethically. The list covered topics such as use of office time, office equipment, and email regulations. One thing we regret is how we handled the morale of the governors staff. It was difficult to help keep up the morale of the governors staff because while many of them wanted to get involved with the campaign, it was difficult for us to let them in light of perception issues. It would have been better for us to say from the beginning, thanks but no thanks, since this would be better for clarity and perception.

We made a conscious decision to keep the governor as governor as long as possible instead of turning him into a candidate. This worked well; we actually never formally announced his bid for reelection.

State Perspective #2: Finishing Strong After our governors reelection, our opponents started using the [lame] duck termwe decided we had to start this next term strong just as you have to finish strong. After the re-election cycle, we had already outlined a vision for the future term. We narrowed down our agenda to four key areas: education, health, economy/jobs, and environmental protection/open space. We proceeded to put everything else into these four categories Complacency is the #1 enemy. People believe that four years is a long time but it goes fast. We held a cabinet-level executive retreat to help us frame our next year. Year #5 is crucialthis is the year to get most of the governors initiatives in place. We used this time to create a sense of urgency to get things accomplished. We developed a key communications strategy centered on our main four issues. Besides that we made sure to stay on message and link these messages with agency actions. Our basic strategy: we tried to re-create a sense of campaign urgency into governing.

Overall Comments Freedom of Information Act/Right to know laws: Take care of what staff writes down and how you handle what you do. FOIA is a technical issue thats critical, so you should be sure to educate your staff (especially newer staff members). Sometimes you can get swamped with FOIA requests by your opponent. Challenges to finishing strong What do you do when cabinet officials announce they have intentions to run for office? What if they want to leave in order to run? It can be difficult to replace an official in the last year or two of the administration. Options: o You can find rising stars within the agencies that you can get on loan to the governors office; it can be fairly easy for them to get back in to the agency later on. o Go out and recruit winners (i.e., non-political successful people) who are experts and have made successful contributions in different areas and industries. Try to get them involved for a year. You can have good results by selecting people who have been successful but perhaps have lacked the limelight or media attention for their efforts. The press likely will not fault you for going outside of the political arena to find a replacement, especially if these individuals have excellent experience. The opportunity can be described as a way for them to give back to the state and also note that they are not there for the money or to stay long-term with any other agenda besides giving back and serving the governor. Another key point is to put a strong career person under these replacements; you need to have someone who knows the system.

Getting people and the media to focus on the governors legacy while they are looking ahead to whos running in the next election. Think about the skills you need in the governors office during the last yearoften these needed skills are different at the end of the term when you need/want to stay out of trouble versus initiating and starting new efforts. What about the role of the chief of staff through the end of the governors term? The perception that someone is out shopping for a new position can damage morale in the governors office and hurt the message that youre sending about the importance of the final year. Thats why I told my governor, Ill be there to turn the lights out. Its important to let everyone know (the legislature, the staff, etc.) that the governors office will have continuity. Do you have a set protocol or plan for how you will leave things? You want to leave things in the same way that you should govern: be helpful and classy. The best guideline to follow is to act in a manner that reflects how you would want to be treated as an incoming governor and staff members.

SATURDAY, JULY 21 Open Roundtable Discussion for Governors Chiefs of Staff

Topic #1: Performance Management State Perspective #1 We developed a State Stat program based on the CityStat program we used when our governor was mayor. Developing this program required heavy involvement of the chief of staff; it was also important for the governor to participate as well. The main participants at our State Stat meetings are the governor, chief of staff, deputy chiefs, legal counsel, and the IT, labor, and budget directors. One area we focused on was overtime costs for state agency employees. We found this to be a key area of concern particularly for corrections and juvenile services. We ran exception reports to determine who earns more than 15 percent of their salary on overtime. Focusing on this allowed us to determine a better way to handle staffing and reduce overtime costs. State Perspective #2 Our state developed a two-tiered system of performance management. Some key elements of our system include: developing outcome-based measures versus process-based measures; focusing on whether agency efforts are reflective of their key mission; and making sure agency priorities match with the governors priorities. With performance management, you walk a tightrope of having a target to aim for versus being target-obsessed.

Topic #2: Security in the Governors Office and State Capitol State Perspective #1 There is general angst at times with state and public employees on how to handle safety.

Make sure the governors office staffespecially those on the front lines (who are gatekeepers to the office)know how to handle difficult people and how to diffuse difficult situations. This type of training is important for junior staff that may not have the range of experiences to know how to deal with this on their own.

Topic #3: Challenges with the Media How do you deal with different media challenges at the beginning of a new administration? One problem or area of concern (at the start of the administration) is to have a good mix of people who are loyal, long-time trusted staff versus having staff members who havent known the governor for so long but who know their way around the statehouse and understand the processes and systems of how things work.

Topic #4: Natural Disaster Response and Reaction State Perspective #1 Our state found that the coordination and assistance we received from other states was very helpful in the aftermath. We realized that two key things to get ready as soon as possible are grocery stores and schoolsthese are crucial to helping people get their lives back together.

Overall Comments We have found the lessons learned at new governors school (NGA Seminar for New Governors) to be very useful in our first year in office. I came in thinking the chief of staff job would be more managerial in nature and the reality for me is that its been more of a continuation of the campaign [with the focus on the governors goals and major initiatives].

SUNDAY, JULY 22 Capturing and Reallocating Scarce Resources Make good use of the budget and finance folks available to you. Go where the money is: go for the budget and money changes that can have a bigger impact and free up more funds for the governors priorities. Find out what kind of performance information you can use to free up money and politically justify the changes you are making.

State Perspective #1 We focused on our prisoner re-entry program and had success in redirecting money from our traditional prison operations budget so that we could fund this program without requiring new funds. We also developed a targeted Jobs Today, Jobs Tomorrow program. State Perspective #2 It is possible to manage state government with tight resources. To be successful you need to have money to back up your programs.

The governor promised in her campaign a top-to-bottom review of state government. We developed a process to review state government and cut out a million dollars in wasteful spending. You can make small changes that amount to large monetary savings. For example, we made copies of the state budget available on disc and published it online to save money. We also put the state employee phone book online as well. We sold about 900 vehicles in our state fleet and contracted out to meet our needs. We eliminated positions on different boards and took some boards from five members down to three members. We were able to generate two million dollars in savings. Other ways we used the budget to drive policy: The governor wanted to attract a major cancer institute to our state so she put money in the budget to make this possible. The governor wanted to focus on school accountability and proposed having school performance audits. The governor secured private funding to accomplish the project and we contracted with Standard and Poors to conduct this initiative. Overall Comments Highway transportation funds: secured through privatization of toll roads, state lottery system; user feeds; highway trust fund/dedicated revenue stream Concerns about privatization of state infrastructure and systems: lottery, ports, water system, roads. (More conversation requested by chiefs in attendance.)

For additional information and research requests, please contact: Christie Amberman Senior Management Analyst National Governors Association Office of Management Consulting & Training Phone: 202/624-5370 | Email: camberman@nga.org Additional OMCT resources and publications are available online at: www.nga.org/governors