Understanding Public Policy

• Policies are sets of rules or guidelines used when making decisions and carrying out actions.
• Organizations like schools, businesses, and governments all have policies.
• Businesses have policies about hiring, promoting, and firing employees.
• Public policy involves government decisions and actions to address issues and problems affecting the entire community.
• Public policy can address specific issues like deciding whether to build a road.
• Public policy deals with broader issues like health care and the environment.
• Public policy doesn't have to be a law or even written down.
• Sources of public policy can come from the government, political parties, interest groups, or the media.
• Private citizens are also an important source of policy ideas, especially at the local level.
• After her 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunk driver in 1980, Candy Lightner, a California woman, started a campaign to change government policy on drunk driving.
• Lightner founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), which became a nationwide organization.
• MADD helped bring about the passage of more than 1,000 new laws against drunk driving.
• Local governments use planning commissions to oversee community growth.
• Community leaders must consider many factors when considering ideas for public policy.
• Many who formulate public policy look at what is likely to happen in the future when planning for it.
• A planning commission is an advisory group that includes government leaders, businesspeople, local residents, and professionals.
• Local governments and their planning commissions create both short-term and long-term plans.

Short-Term Plan

• A short-term plan is a policy meant to be carried out over the next few years.
• Granting a builder a permit to construct apartments is an example of a short-term plan.

Long-Term Plan

• A long-term plan is a broader policy meant to serve as a guide over the next 10, 20, or even 50 years.
• Planning commissions make educated guesses about a community’s future needs to make long-term plans.
• If a community's population is growing with forecasts showing continued growth, this situation raises questions for local government.
• These questions include:
• Will heavier traffic overload roads?
• Should the town build new highways or promote public transportation?
• What other demands will the growing population place on the town’s infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, water, and sewers?
• How will the town pay for needed improvements?
• Priorities are the goals a community considers most important or most urgent.
• Community planning depends on priorities and resources.
• When setting priorities, a community must decide what it values most.
• Is it more important to have a thriving commerce center or a peaceful place to live?
• A community must determine its specific goals and rank them in order of importance.
• A community might decide its top goal is to attract new businesses and lesser goals might include improving services, preserving open spaces, and upgrading schools.
• Resources are the money, people, and materials available to accomplish the community’s goals.
• After a community sets its priorities, it must determine what resources it has and how to use them.
• If a community has decided to improve its public transportation system, it must determine if there is enough money to build and maintain a new fleet of buses for busy routes.
• A master plan states a set of goals and explains how the government will carry them out to meet changing needs over time.
• After setting priorities and calculating resources, a planning commission makes concrete decisions about the community’s future.
• These decisions are usually spelled out in a master plan which becomes public policy, and the government is responsible for carrying it out.