A Message from the President & Chairman of the Board
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession that rocked the nation’s economy officially ended in June, 2009. Its impact, however, is more severe now in the states, cities, and towns across the nation than it was two years ago. A significant reason is that the funds infused into these levels of government from the American Revitalization and Recovery Act (a.k.a. “the stimulus”) to cushion them against the recession have all been spent. Since state
and local tax revenues have not rebounded as anticipated, these governments must now address the large deficits they would have encountered three years ago at the beginning of the recession. How governments respond to this crisis will determine whether the core services of municipal government can be maintained at a level that taxpayers have come to expect.
This stark reality makes the work of The Research Bureau more important than ever. For many years, the Bureau has been analyzing the delivery of municipal services and identifying unsustainable cost structures. In the pages that follow, we identify some of those issues and the public policies we advocated to address them. We have been able to do this work, which in some cases, has been groundbreaking research, because of two critical factors:
- We have a very small but extremely capable staff that conducts thorough research, writes readable and informative reports, and organizes provocative forums on appealing topics.
- We have had the strong and consistent financial and volunteer support from the local business community, local foundations, and individuals.
