This second edition of Contracting for Services in State and Local Government Agencies provides state-of-the-art tools for best practice in the procurement of services at state and local levels, from initial stages through to completion. Including lively case studies and research conducted with state and local agencies across the United States, this book provides management advice and tips on compliance to reduce costs, select the best-qualified contractors, manage contractors’ performance, and prevent corruption and waste. Utilizing the results of new research in all fifty states, author William Sims Curry offers updated best-practice documents, methodologies, and templates including: a Request for Proposal (RFP), a scorecard for proposals to select the best-qualified contractor, a toolkit for meeting socioeconomic contracting goals without compromising price, quality, or on-time delivery, and a Model Services Contract (MSC). Special consideration is given to obtaining services and products in states of emergency. Several additional resources for practitioners are available online, including sample contracts and a straightforward, inexpensive tool for tracking contractors’ progress and cost management. The roadmap and templates contained in this book and available online to readers will prove essential to state and local government agency contracting professionals and other officials and employees called upon to participate in the drafting of solicitations, writing sole source justifications, writing scopes of work, serving on advance contract planning and source selection teams, recommending award of contracts, or assisting in the management of those contracts.

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together