scholarly journals Facilities Management; There is Hope for a Better Tomorrow.

10.28945/3866 ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 217-231
Author(s):  
Rebecca J Smith

Based on both historic and current study, the industry of facilities management faces an ever growing challenge that puts our public assets at risk. The outcry for additional funding has become universal. Unfortunately, the federal and state governments delegate responsibility for funding solutions down to the local governments. The result; our public facilities are suffering chronic deferred maintenance which leads to the increased cost of ownership, the increased exposure to liability and the decreased expected useful life of the facility. Additionally, there are further negative impacts due chronic deferred maintenance that affect those who occupy the buildings. It has been reported that occupants of the facilities have an overall drop in their performance as a result of poorly maintained surroundings. This affects all levels of education as well as employee performance within public government. Included in this paper are the results of a study that focuses on the current practices of public facilities management programs. The intent is to identify elements that either support or detract from efficiently operated effective facilities departments. Given the nature of this industry, both objective and subjective elements were addressed. Objectively, the organizational hierarchy and the associated communications pathways were identified. Subjectively, the lifecycle of the facilities mission was dissected and discussed through an interview process. Fifteen specific data points were addressed which included related to accountability, effective communication, data driven program development, allocation of resources, documentation of work performed, continuous training and education, and the use of technology. This study also served as a measurement against the historical performance of public facilities management practice. There have been decades of growth in public assets. During that time, innovation within operational practice along with technology offer new opportunity to organizations to address issues of efficiency that translate directly into a measure of effectiveness. Given the continued outcry for additional funding, it seems that there are challenges that continue to exist despite the innovations offered. This study focuses on what those challenges are. Further analysis based on successful models of public facilities management provides insights as to what practices, if adopted, may drive the lesser achieving programs toward greater effectiveness.

10.28945/3867 ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 171-188
Author(s):  
Rebecca J Smith

Facilities management has become increasingly challenging over the years as facilities expand and the cost of construction increases, all while available funds continues to remain volatile. Deferred maintenance is a mounting problem that is insurmountable in some cases. Why is this the case and how did we get here?


2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory B. Lewis ◽  
Rahul Pathak ◽  
Chester S. Galloway

Have state and local governments (SLGs) achieved pay parity with the private sector? The answer depends on how one defines parity. Using a standard labor economics model on U.S. Census data from 1990 to 2014, we find different patterns if we focus on pay, on pay plus benefits, or on total compensation within an occupation. All approaches indicate that pay is higher in local than in state governments and that Blacks, Hispanics, and employees without college diplomas earn higher pay in SLGs than in the private sector. In contrast, Whites, Asians, and college graduates are less likely to enjoy higher pay working in SLGs than in the private sector. Unsurprisingly, states with more liberal and Democratic legislatures pay public employees better, relative to workers in the private sector.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
MSc. Albana Gazija

In every business, independently of the activity, human resources are the most precious capital. In terms of global competition and rapid change, personnel training are essential. Every manager should be able to attract qualified and capable personnel, in order to use their skills in achieving organizational objectives. In a market economy where uncertainty is rather widespread, obtaining knowledge and information is becoming a source for creating competing advantages.One of the most important aspects in contemporary hotel industry is getting to know the new methods and techniques through training. Staff training is an important part in Human Resource Management, in order to improve employee performance, respectively it helps putting their skills to better use and specialization in their work. Application of an efficient training process has an important impact in increasing employee performance.     The aim of this study is to understand the importance of personnel training in hotel industry. The study includes the theoretical part for staff training, importance and benefits. The empirical part is composed by a qualitative method research of Hotel Dukagjini in Peja. The paper’s results have shown that management has a relatively good understan-ding of the importance of personnel training; the hotel may be in a favorable situation if the employees keep taking continuous training. 


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geiguen Shin

Abstract Contemporary U.S. federalism particularly since the late1960s has evolved over the course of pluralism alternating exercisable governmental powers between the federal and state governments. The complexity of the power relationship has been observed in a variety of policies during the past quarter-century as has the discussion of whether or not contemporary U.S. federalism has developed in a way that increase effective public policy performance. Focusing mainly on the period of the past 50 years of U.S. federalism history, this article suggests that federalism dynamics have not exercised either constant liberal or conservative influence on public policy performance. Instead, this article suggests that the clear functional responsibility between the federal government and state and local governments have characterized contemporary U.S. federalism-more federal responsibility for redistribution and more state and local responsibility for development, which in turn increased public policy performance. This feature has been quite substantial since 1970s. As a result, this article suggests that despite the increased complexity of the U.S. federal system, it has evolved in such an appropriate way that would increase the efficiency of federal system by dividing a clear intergovernmental responsibility on major policy platforms.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Sutton

The earlier book, 51 Imperfect Solutions, told stories about specific state and federal individual constitutional rights, and explained two benefits of American federalism: how two sources of constitutional protection for liberty and property rights could be valuable to individual freedom and how the state courts could be useful laboratories of innovation when it comes to the development of national constitutional rights. This book tells the other half of the story. Instead of focusing on state constitutional individual rights, it focuses on state constitutional structure. Everything in law and politics, including individual rights, eventually comes back to divisions of power and the evergreen question: Who decides? The goal of this book is to tell the structure side of the story and to identify the shifting balances of power revealed when one accounts for American constitutional law as opposed to just federal constitutional law. Who Decides? contains three main parts—one each on the judicial, executive, and legislative branches—as well as stand-alone chapters on home-rule issues raised by local governments and the benefits and burdens raised by the ease of amending state constitutions. A theme in the book is the increasingly stark divide between the ever-more-democratic nature of state governments and the ever-less-democratic nature of the federal government over time.


Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Hochschild ◽  
Nathan Scovronick

AMERICANS CONTINUE TO FOLLOW the advice of Benjamin Franklin in making “the proper education of youth” the most important American social policy. Public education uses more resources and involves more people than any other government program for social welfare. It is the main activity of local governments and the largest single expenditure of almost all state governments. Education is the American answer to the European welfare state, to massive waves of immigration, and to demands for the abolition of subordination based on race, class, or gender. Although public schools in the United States are expected to accomplish a lot for their students, underlying all of these tasks is the goal of creating the conditions needed for people to believe in and pursue the ideology of the American dream. Our understanding of the American dream is the common one, described by President Clinton this way: “The American dream that we were all raised on is a simple but powerful one—if you work hard and play by the rules you should be given a chance to go as far as your God-given ability will take you.” The dream is the unwritten promise that all residents of the United States have a reasonable chance to achieve success through their own efforts, talents, and hard work. Success is most often defined in material terms, but everyone gets to decide what it is for himself or herself. The first man to walk across Antarctica talks about this idea in the same way as people who make their first million: “The only limit to achievement,” he said, “is the limit you place on your own dreams. Let your vision be guided by hope, your path be adventurous, and the power of your thoughts be directed toward the betterment of tomorrow.” The American dream is a brilliant ideological invention, although, as we shall see, in practice it leaves much to be desired. Its power depends partly on the way it balances individual and collective responsibilities. The role of the government is to make the pursuit of success possible for everyone. This implies strict and complete nondiscrimination, universal education to provide the means for pursuing success, and protection for virtually all views of success, regardless of how many people endorse them.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-86
Author(s):  
Bhola Bhattarai ◽  
Dipak Bishwokarma ◽  
Mathilde Legras

Chure forests, which is one of the youngest and most fragile landscapes of Nepal, continue to be degraded due to resource exploitation and conflict over its management. This region is considered to be the lifeline to down-stream communities - mainly for water - while inhabiting millions of poor and rural people that depend on natural resources - especially forests commons. Government initiatives to manage Chure have escalated contestations in the recent years. Its decision to declare Chure landscape as ‘Environmental Protection Area’ manifests a protection-centric management approach. This research scrutinises the genesis of contestation on Chure management utilising three–elements of conflicts described by Brown et al. (2017). It analyses power–relation to demonstrate potential implications on Chure landscape management as well as conflict resolution options, in the changed political context of federal Nepal. Our research reveals that all stakeholders are well aware of the continuous degradation of Chure landscape and have agreed on discovering the common locus of sustainable management. However, the state-community contestation still persists due to divergent understandings of degradation. Despite multiple strands of management options, contextualised community-based approach still appears to be an appropriate option to solve this persistent contestation, building on the practices of community forestry and historic failures of top-down, protection-centric management practice. The newly elected provincial and local governments could further facilitate a more effective management of Chure landscape through resolving the contentious state-community conflict.


Author(s):  
John Joseph Wallis

Over the last 225 years, government finances in the United States have gone through three distinct stages. In the first stage, 1790–1850, state governments actively pursued policies to promote economic development and financed them from revenues from state investments. In the second, 1850–1930, local governments became the most important level of government, as measured by revenues and expenditures, and revenues shifted toward the property tax. In the third period, 1930 to the present, the national government became the most active and largest level of government, financed through income and payroll taxes, and developed an extensive network of grants to state and local governments. The chapter tracks the changes in sources of revenues and purpose of expenditures, with specific attention paid to military spending over the entire period.


Author(s):  
Tsung-Yi Lin ◽  
Hsin-Yi Shih ◽  
Jia-Chang Huang ◽  
Yu-Lien Hou ◽  
Yun Yin Chiu ◽  
...  

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