Public Administration/Policy Brief

Public Administration/Policy Brief (See Below) 

Professor Instructions: Policy Brief Choose a policy topic related to your chosen MPA Certificate. You will be required to develop a policy brief related to the topic. Assume as if you are a government administrator in charge of an agency. You should write the policy brief to an elected policymaker in state or local government in Florida with regard to the initiation of a NEW, but politically and policy realistic course of action for the government agency. For example, a hot topic in public finance and human resources is the future of the traditional defined benefit pension system. Assume you are Florida’s Senior Defined Contribution Programs Officer (Links to an external site.) (yes, this is a real position). You could then write a piece titled “What form of pensions should public agencies adopt?” You could define the problems facing public pensions and give the pros and cons of adopting the form of pension that is typically given. Another example is from the emergency management realm. A major question for an emergency manager/ resiliency officer/ chief planner in a coastal city in Florida could be: “What should the city do to combat sea level rise?” You might outline the pros and cons of various methods and speculate on how we could do it better. Ideally, you should use some form of weighing between the alternatives (e.g. cost-benefit analysis, SWOT analysis) to arrive at your recommendation. (Yes, you might do well to revisit the materials from the Policy Analysis course.) Your policy brief should: lay out the nature of the problem provide extensive background analysis drawing from real data and actual policy information from relevant agencies present policy alternatives (more than one) to address the problem being discussed (including those individuals or groups likely to support or oppose each of the policy options) evaluate the alternatives on certain independent criteria advocate what appears to you to be the best possible solution to the problem. The analysis should include the political implications of the course of action that you propose. This paper will have a one or two page executive summary at the beginning. The major focus of this assignment is a complete and comprehensive review of the nature of the problem and evaluation of the policy alternatives.