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Ground Level Blog
Dave Peters

Government innovation: Vote for a favorite idea

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The cities of Milaca and Ogilvie share clerk services to save money.

Crow Wing County is collecting gas generated by a landfill to use as fuel.

Anoka County changed the way it handles child protection cases, cutting the number of children it had to place outside the family and saving more than $1 million in the process.

Every year, the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota shines a light on ways local governments in the state are coming up with innovative ways to provide services efficiently. These three are among those in the running in this year's Local Government Innovation Awards program.

You can weigh in on what ideas you like best by going to the InCommons website. There are about 30 entries you can scroll through and if one or more catch your fancy, select it and click the "like" button. Organizers suggest you pick one school project, one city project and one county project.

The "voting," which ends Sunday, will count for 20 percent of the score judges give to each entry. Winners will be announced March 4.

The institute's Public and Nonprofit Leadership Center is holding the program in collaboration with the Association of Minnesota Counties, the League of Minnesota Cities, and the Minnesota School Boards Association. The InCommons site, established by the Bush Foundation, is being used to let people weigh in.

Humphrey fellow Jay Kiedrowski recently released a report, "Navigating the New Normal," urging local governments to find ways to innovate in the face of budget and economic pressure.