Strategic Public Management

CHAPTER 10 ________________________________Creating a Healthy Workplace Culture in Hard Times: Managing Workers through Deficits and Downturns in Austin, Texas

Toby Hammett Futrell

In less than ten years, our economy has produced two teeth-rattling recessions: the first beginning in 2002 after September 11, 2001, and then again in 2008. States, cities, counties, and school districts are trying to manage through record shortfalls while squeezed between soaring costs for health care and pensions and a growing opposition to tax increases. Though much has been written about the financial strategies for dealing with budget deficits, there has been little examination of how to manage—and, in fact, partner with—employees through the layoffs, freezes, ...