Today, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced Baltimore City Budget Director Andrew Kleine has been appointed to the second cohort of Results for America’s (RFA) Local Government Fellowship program.

With the support and guidance of RFA, Director Kleine will join 14 other senior local government officials from across the country to lead their governments toward advanced stages of data-driven and evidence-based policymaking in order to address major policy challenges in their communities. The cities and counties represented in the Fellowship collectively represent more than 28 million people and $148 billion in local government spending.

“I’m thrilled that Baltimore City is being nationally recognized as a leader in using evidence and data to transform the lives of our residents,” said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. “I am also proud to congratulate Director Kleine on being chosen to represent the City in the second cohort of Results for America’s Local Government Fellowship Program. I look forward to working with him to ensure that high quality data and evidence are informing our policy decisions and providing better results for our residents.”

Managed by Results for America, the Local Government Fellowship will help the Fellows tackle policy challenges for their cities and counties in areas such as crime, education, health, poverty and energy, through establishing and implementing:

• A 2-to 3-year policy roadmap to improve outcomes on a specific policy challenge;
• A partnership with an external research or academic institution to evaluate a major government-funded policy or program investment to inform policy decisions.

Andrew Kleine will participate in four separate two-day strategic thinking convenings that will serve as an opportunity to report on progress, learn new strategies and skills, build a network of peers and gain exposure to national experts. In addition, Fellows will participate in monthly progress calls. RFA will publish 15 case studies highlighting the progress of these local governments as well as a final paper on lessons learned through the Local Government Fellowship, to be released at a public event in 2018.

“We can measurably improve lives in our community by embracing the regular use of data and evidence in our policy and program decisions. I thank Results for America for this opportunity to help make Baltimore City even more effective,” said Andrew.

In addition to Andrew Kleine from Baltimore City, the 14 other fellows come from the local governments of Albuquerque (NM), Atlanta (GA), Cook County (IL), Dallas (TX), King County (WA), Los Angeles (CA), Louisville (KY), Montgomery County (MD) New Orleans (LA), New York (NY), Philadelphia (PA), Salt Lake County (UT), Seattle (WA) and Washington, D.C.

The 15 Local Government Fellows are:

• Anjali Chainani, Director of Policy, City of Philadelphia;
• Carrie S. Cihak, Chief of Policy, King County (WA);
• David Gottesman, CountyStat Manager, Montgomery County (MD);
• Kate Joncas, Deputy Mayor of Operations, City of Seattle;
• Matthew Klein, Executive Director, Center for Economic Opportunity and Senior Advisor for Service Innovation in the Mayor's Office of Operations, City of New York;
• Andrew Kleine, Budget Director, City of Baltimore;
• Matt Malament, Director of Budget, Innovation and Performance, City of Atlanta;
• Mark McDaniel, Assistant City Manager, City of Dallas;
• Elizabeth Mitchell, Senior Policy Advisor, Salt Lake County (UT);
• Gilbert Montano, Chief of Staff, City of Albuquerque;
• Jennifer Reed, Chief Performance Officer, Washington, D.C.;
• Theresa Reno-Weber, Chief of Performance and Technology, City of Louisville;
• Miguel Sangalang, Executive Officer, Budget & Innovation, City of Los Angeles;
• Steven E. Shaw, Deputy Chief of Staff, Cook County (IL); and
• Oliver Wise, Director of the Office of Performance and Accountability, City of New Orleans.

The Local Government Fellowship program is supported by a grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

About Results for America’s Local Government Fellowship Program:

Results for America’s Local Government Fellowship Program provides an elite group of local government leaders in diverse and influential cities and counties across the country the knowledge and  support to implement strategies that consistently use data and evidence to drive policy and budget decisions on major policy challenges. The participating cities and counties in the inaugural cohort made important progress in building and using evidence in policies and programs city-wide. The findings and results from the first cohort of the Fellowship Program can be found in this March 2016 Results for America Invest in What Works Policy Series report.

In addition to the Local Government Fellowship, RFA is the campaign manager for Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities (WWC). Launched in April 2015, What Works Cities is a national initiative to help 100 mid-sized American cities enhance their use of data and evidence to improve services, inform local decision-making and engage residents. For more information about this and other initiatives of Results for America, click here.http://www.results4america.org/