The Humphrey School of Public Affairs is looking for a few good ideas.

Nominations are due Friday, Feb. 11 for the fifth annual Local Government Innovation Awards, meant to spread hope that even in arduous budgetary times, creative ways can help ease the pain.

Last year's winners included the city of Minnetonka, for a public-private funding partnership to improve a Hwy. 169 interchange to benefit the Opus Business Park; White Bear Lake Area Schools, for a partnership with the White Bear Center for the Arts, to put artists in classrooms, and Hennepin County's School Mental Health Program, for improving service to students.

Simultaneously, the Humphrey School, at the University of Minnesota, has released an e-publication to share interesting and effective ideas for creating efficiencies and saving taxpayer money. It's called the Minnesota Local Government Innovation and Redesign Guide.

The guide was written by Senior Fellow Jay Kiedrowski, former Minneapolis finance director, who now teaches courses in public finance, organizational development and leadership. Over the past several months, he's gathered and vetted examples with a cadre of city, county, school and nonprofit officials.

"I know what city officials are going through," Kiedrowski said. "... They know they're going to get cut, they don't know how much, they're already in their fiscal year, and they're going to have to make changes. We want them to be able to look at alternatives other than raising property taxes or cutting services."

The times require a shift in thinking, Kiedrowski said.

"It's a human tendency to stay with that which you know, but with the cutbacks that are occurring, the alternatives are worse: reduced services or higher taxes," he said.

"They have to look to the third alternative, and the third alternative is to do it better."

For example:

• Roseville implemented a charge to cover the cost of responding to calls from mistakenly tripped security systems. Fees are tiered to how often calls occur.

• Mahnomen County partnered with a dealership to provide vehicles to public assistance recipients, to help them maintain work, as a path toward financial independence.

• Chanhassen structured utility billing so the biggest water users pay the most per gallon.

The thing is, Kiedrowski said, many great ideas go unrecognized and unshared.

City officials, he said, are "so busy trying to provide the services, they haven't taken the time to try to receive an award for it."

Nominations may be submitted at www.incommons.org/localgovernmentinnovation. The guide is available at lgi.umn.edu.

Maria Elena Baca • 612-673-4409