Bureaucracy, Service Delivery and Intergovernmental Relations

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Bureaucracy, Service Delivery and
Intergovernmental Relations

• Dr. Joseph Stefko
• Department of Political Science
• University at Buffalo, SUNY
• Spring 2007

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Review

• Forms of city government
• Interactions among elected officials
• Now, we turn to the bureaucracy
• Tonights agenda
• Forms of service delivery
• City vis-à-vis State and Natl Govt
• City dependence on other levels of govt

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Machine Era and Reformers

• Nature of the Machine Era bureaucracy
• Result of loyalty patronage-based jobs
• Goals of the reform movement regarding urban
  bureaucracy

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Bureaucratic Reforms

• New composition of city agencies
• Professionalization efficiency concerns result
  in alienation of some groups
• Agency-client relationship is changed

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Basics of Bureaucracy

• What is a bureaucracy?
• Three major principals of organization
• What do bureaucracies do?
• National level
• State level
• Local level

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Basics of Bureaucracy

• Implementation
• Webers conceptualization of ways to organize
  action and activity
• Hierarchy
• Competence-based
• Rules and regulations
• Jurisdictions
• Career systems
• Impersonality

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Basics of Bureaucracy

• Discretion
• Role of bureaucrat in implementing policy
• Street-level bureaucracy

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Public Service Delivery

• Major issues
• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Equity (forms)
• Might different cities have different objectives?

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Public Service Delivery

• Who gets what?
• Underclass hypothesis
• Administrative decision rules
• Ecological hypothesis

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Examples of Services

• Schools
• Infrastructure
• Housing
• Public Assistance
• Trash removal
• Police
• Licensing

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Methods of Service Provision

• Sole-source
• Inflation and cutbacks force the development of
  new methods
• Coproduction
• Neighborhood-based delivery
• Contracting and privatization
• Providing vs. Delivering services

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Contracting for Services

• Legal relationship between municipality and
  private sector firm
• Trash collection, janitorial, emergency svcs,
  payroll, infrastructure
• Privatizing urban schools
• Local examples

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Contracting for Services

• Advantages
• (Potential) Disadvantages
• Examples in urban school provision
• Miami, Baltimore, Bridgeport, e.g.

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Assessing Service Quality

• Urban service indicators
• 1 Input Measures
• 2 Workload Indicators
• 3 Svc Quality or Outcome Measures

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Intergovernmental Relations (IGRs)

• Relationship among levels of government
• Dillons Rule as basic theory of IGRs between
  cities and states
• Implications for local governments
• Constitutional issues

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IGRs

• State-city relationship
• Federal-city relationship
• Growth of urban power, importance
• Key historical periods
• City assumption of administrative powers for
  Federal aid programs

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IGRs

• States and cities
• Growth in aid to cities
• Fiscal federalism
• Grant-in-Aid
• Formula Grant
• Project Grant
• Categorical Grant
• Block Grant