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Carl Smith

Senior Staff Writer

Carl Smith is a senior staff writer for Governing and covers a broad range of issues affecting states and localities. For the past 30 years, Carl has written about education and the environment for peer-reviewed papers, magazines and online publications, with a special focus on conservation and sustainability. He has guest-edited special issues of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health focused on the Precautionary Principle and the human rights dimensions of environmental degradation. Carl attended the University of Texas and the University of Georgia. He can be reached at carl.smith@governing.com or on Twitter at @governingwriter.

A new report from the Government Accountability Office details the ways that recent changes have diminished FEMA capacity. Local officials responsible for response and recovery want to be part of the conversation about what comes next.
Turnover rates in election offices are at an all-time high. Training for these jobs has new importance.
Federal funding and streamlined community college curriculum could make it easier to get on track for steady, well-paid employment.
Seeing an absence of strong national leadership on education reform, the Fordham Institute’s Michael J. Petrilli investigated the difference between red and blue state approaches.
Floods are frequent, unpredictable and expensive. Fremont, Calif., is one of the first cities to secure flood insurance designed using AI.
State and local governments depend on federal data for everything from community planning to disaster response. What happens if it goes away?
Local government jobs weren’t a focus for career technical education at a Central Texas school district until a new human resources director came to Cedar Park.
Hurricane season begins in earnest in August. The devastating floods in Texas earlier this summer underscored the importance of state and local readiness as the federal government rethinks its role in disaster response.
Groups focused on food security are scrambling following the cancellation of federal programs supporting purchases from local farmers.
The nation’s warmest large city can’t turn down the temperature, but it is finding ways to address factors that make heat dangerous for residents.