Dr. Kurt Thurmaier
Public Budgeting and Finance, Intergovernmental Relations, Comparative Public Administration and Research Methods.
Professor Thurmaier received his B.A. and M.P.P.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his Ph.D. from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. He held assistant and associate professor positions at the University of Kansas before becoming MPA director at Iowa State University, 2002-2005. His research and teaching interests include budgetary decisionmaking at the local and state levels in the U.S. and other countries, comparative public administration (especially fiscal decentralization), intergovernmental relations, and e-government. His most recent work has focused on city-county consolidations and interlocal agreements among cities and counties, as well as financing state and local e-government. He and has served as a consultant and researcher with ICMA, HIID, and several local governments. He is a lifetime member of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), and has served as chair of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management (ABFM). He presently serves on the editorial board of Public Administration Review.
Policy and Politics in State Budgeting, Kurt Thurmaier and Katherine Willoughby; M.E. Sharpe, 2001.
"When Efficiency is Unbelievable: Normative Lessons from 30 Years of City-County Consolidations," Suzanne Leland and Kurt Thurmaier, Public Administration Review (v65) 2005.
"The Role of Budget Reform in the Accountability of Polish and Ukrainian Local Governments," International Public Management Journal (v6) 2003.
"Interlocal Agreements as Overlapping Social Networks: Picket-fence regionalism in Metropolitan Kansas City," (with Curtis Wood), Public Administration Review (v62) 2002.
"Beyond Efficiency and Economy: An Examination of Basic Needs and Fiscal Decentralization" (with Kara Lindaman), Economic Development and Cultural Change, (v50) 2002.
"Budgeting Rationality in Midwest State Budget Offices," International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior (v4) 2001.
Other publications have appeared in the Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory, Public Budgeting & Finance, Public Administration Quarterly, Administration & Society, State & Local Government Review, and The Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management.
Promises Made, Promises Kept? Examining the Performance of City-County Consolidations (working title), Suzanne Leland and Kurt Thurmaier, eds. This project is a sequel to our recent book on city-county consolidations in the US. Using the same rigorous comparative case study design, we will coordinate multiple authors and write a comparative analysis to answer the major questions that remain to be answered about city-county consolidations: [1] does the consolidation live up to its promise? [2] does the consolidation provide more efficient government than its comparison city and county? [3] does the consolidation provide more efficient government than its comparison city and county? Expected publication is 2007
Understanding Interlocal Agreements (working title), Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier. This project analyzes data from a statewide database of interlocal agreements in Iowa, a survey of ILA managers of the Iowa agreements, and several case studies of specific Iowa agreements. This is the first systematic statewide study of interlocal agreements. Data has been collected and some analysis has already been done. Expected publication is 2009