Montgomery County Official Appointed to Results for America’s Local Government Fellowship

For Immediate Release: Monday, August 1, 2016

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett is pleased to announce that CountyStat Manager David Gottesman has been appointed to the second cohort of Results for America’s (RFA) Local Government Fellowship program. With the support and guidance of RFA, Gottesman 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.

“I’m thrilled that the County continues to be nationally recognized as a leader in using data to improve our own processes and the lives of our residents,” said Leggett. “I am also proud to congratulate Dave Gottesman on being chosen to represent our County in the second cohort of Results for America’s Local Government Fellowship Program.”

The cities and counties represented in the Fellowship collectively represent more than 28 million people and $148 billion in local government spending.

Managed by RFA, 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; and
• A partnership with an external research or academic institution to evaluate a major government-funded policy or program investment to inform policy decisions.

“Local governments are making important strides toward investing precious taxpayer dollars in what works. Through this Fellowship, Results for America seeks to accelerate this work for 15 local governments by focusing on policy wins and evaluation partnerships that will improve outcomes for residents by making data and evidence primary factors in policy decisions,” said Michele Jolin, Co-founder and CEO of Results for America. “I commend David Gottesman for his commitment to improving outcomes by investing in evidence-based solutions and welcome him to this prestigious fellowship program.”

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

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

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

RFA’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.

# # #

 

 

Release ID: 16-439
Media Contact: Ohene Gyapong 240-777-6507