As the General Assembly puts the finishing touches on this year’s state budget, several issues in this issue of Public Policy & Practice provide a context for some of the decisions with which lawmakers are faced. Richard Young’s piece, “Fiscal Crisis: An Overview of Recent States’ Actions,” demonstrates that the budget shortfalls that have faced South Carolina in recent years are not unique to the Palmetto State. State’s across the country have faced similar budget challenges and have attempted to address them in a variety of ways, from sizable cutbacks in spending to reductions in workforce, the use of reserve funds, and increases in taxes and fees.

One method for addressing the issues arising from the state’s budget deficit is described in the article by Ed Thomas, Jon Pierce, and Bill Tomes. In this work, they outline the method of process improvement that can be used by managers to streamline how they do things. As they note, process improvement is an evolutionary approach to change that offers flexibility and improves worker satisfaction. By eliminating steps and enabling employees to get more done with less effort, process improvement provides a tool that can be used to lessen the impact of budget reductions.

In “South Carolinians’ Attitudes Toward Government: Findings from a Survey for the Commission on Management, Accountability and Performance” I report on the results of a survey of South Carolina adults that was conducted in collaboration with the efforts of Governor Sanford’s MAP Commission. These results show that, in general, South Carolinians feel positive about the quality of life in the state, and a majority believes that things in the South Carolina, all in all, are headed in the right direction. South Carolinians generally rate state services as either good or fair, with relatively small assessing these services as either excellent or very poor.

In the article by April Turner and Heather Landry, they summarize the South Carolina Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials program (SC NEMO). This program provides resources aimed at educating local decision-makers and helping them to understand the impacts of nonpoint source pollution on water quality and the link between those impacts and land use. Moreover, this project provides local decision-makers with some innovative ways to minimize the impact of non-point source pollution and works with local governments in order to develop strategies that are more likely to be successful in a particular area.

As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions on the contents of the journal. Please e-mail any comments to Young-Richard@sc.edu.