Dr. Kurt Thurmaier
Professor and Director, Division of Public Administration
Chair, Search Committee, Director of the Center for NGO Leadership & Development
For further information see:
Position Description
Position Announcement
NGOLD Executive Summary
NGOLD Strategic Planning Report
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),and intergovernmental relations (especially interlocal collaboration). 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.
Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier, “Interlocal Agreements as Collaborations: An Empirical Investigation of Impetuses, Norms, and Success,” American Review of Public Administration 39(5) 2009: 536-552.
"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.
Kurt Thurmaier and Yu-Che Chen, Managing for Less: The Fiscal Attributes of Collaboration, presented at the 2009 meeting of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management, Washington, DC, September 24-26.
Michael Peddle and Kurt Thurmaier, “Reformulating and Refocusing a Fiscal Administration Curriculum,” under review at Journal of Public Administration Education (JPAE).
Shannon Sohl, Curt Wood, Michael Peddle, Gregory Kuhn, and Kurt Thurmaier, “An Evaluation of Bond Ratings to Financial Reporting Structures,” under review at Municipal Finance Journal.
Shannon Sohl and Kurt Thurmaier, Advancing the Study of Public Budgeting,” invited article in Public Administration Review for the Public Administration Foundations Series.
Kurt Thurmaier, Hellmut Wollmann, “Local government institutions and the New Public Management,” invited chapter for the Oxford Handbook Of Urban Politics, edited by Karen Mossberger, Susan E. Clarke, and Peter John.
Kurt Thurmaier, “Commentaries” on papers presented at the “State and Local Tax Policy—Out of the Box” forthcoming at Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.