Steve Wrigley, Director

Whether a local government is serving a large or small community or whether its leaders have been in their positions for 10 years or 10 months, change is going to happen in some manner and at a greater speed than ever before. At the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, we are committed to bringing our experience and our link to the resources of the University of Georgia to help Georgia's leaders better prepare for and respond to the changes they confront each day.

In 2005, that outreach was evidenced in several educational initiatives. The first Legislative Leadership Institute provided a select group of rising senators and representatives with focused training in what it takes to succeed in today's legislative environment. The new Executive Leadership Program for top-level state agency heads and senior managers plays a role in carrying out Gov. Sonny Perdue's mandate that Georgia be the best-administered state government in the country now and in the future. Another new program in cooperation with a university in Mexico provided local officials with an opportunity to enhance their ability to govern Georgia's increasingly diverse communities.

The ever-present need for governments to change and improve their service delivery activities and other operations led to many requests for technical assistance in 2005. The success and media coverage of the Sandy Springs incorporation led other community task forces to consider their own changes through consolidation, incorporation, or annexation. Other local and state government entities realized the value of moving from paper to digital documents with the assistance of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialists. In a collaborative project regarding child and family policy, Institute faculty joined with other academic units and state agencies to help court officials better understand a significant new law affecting the child legitimation process in the state.

Providing officials with objective, systematic research that can help them make informed policy decisions is another outreach goal of the Institute. The year 2005 saw the expansion of the Institute's research program in the areas of public health and economics. Survey research assistance to various state and local government units enabled them to make appropriate policy changes, and tools like the Georgia Economic Modeling System assisted communities in exploring the economic impact of changes in such areas as tax policies, development, and tourism.

Outside state borders, the work program of the National Center for the Study of Counties continues to evolve and provide research that is of value to local policymakers everywhere. The international outreach division of the Vinson Institute is sharing public administration expertise abroad in many emerging democracies and brings scholars and practitioners here, thereby enriching the global perspective of our client groups.

Georgia's government officials and leaders are to be applauded in their daily efforts to work for a better quality of life in our state. This report provides an overview of how we helped them improve their governance and administration in 2005.

Steve W. Wrigley, Director