CA Fwd Policy Director Richard Raya has been profiled by InnovatingSMART, an organization working to share stories of people and organizations doing innovative work to create systems that improve lives.
Raya focused on the importance of restructuring state and local governments to create more transparency and accountability, which will lead to better results for all Californians. This centers on the idea of freeing up funding and allowing county and city governments to communicate and make choices on how best to use their resources.
“Because of structural issues, because of the way government funding was set up, many programs are unable to collaborate,” Raya said. “We actually have to redesign the relationship between the state and local governments. We’ve got thousands of different (siloed) jurisdictions here in the state making it difficult for people to engage.”
Raya says this will lead to a more financially sustainable government that is more accountable to the public. But, the public must get take part for it to work.
“For this new way of governing to work, the public has to be involved,” Raya said. “So if we’re measuring outcomes, the public has to be aware of those outcomes; they have to buy into those outcomes, and there has to be transparency about the strategies government is using to get to these outcomes.”
InnovatingSMART works to create dialogues and communication across generations to promote a sustainable world by telling the stories of people and organizations to create innovative systems that improve lives.
To hear the entire interview, go to InnovatingSMART.
