The 2020 Steven D. Gold Award recipient is Dr. Robert Costrell, whose career spans decades and success both in academia and state government. Dr. Costrell is the rare breed of scholar and public servant. His academic work as professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he authored a set of articles now seen as seminal in the economics of education, as well as his time as Endowded Chair in Education Accountability at the University of Arkansas, where he has focused his impactful scholarship primarily on public employee pensions is only matched by his work in state government.
Working his way up from director of research and development all the way to special advisor to the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Bob Costrell was, among others, an architect of the commonwealth's charter school funding formula, and an implementer of MA's educational reforms, generally and specifically on funding, that led to Massachusetts being held up as a model for equity in education spending. Dr. Costrell will be recognized at the 2020 Virtual Fall Research Conference during the Awards and Opening Plenary.
The Steve Gold Award recognizes a person who has made a significant contribution to public financial management in the field of intergovernmental relations and state and local finance. The award is given annually by APPAM, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the National Tax Association, in memory of Steve Gold, an active member of all three organizations whose career and life tragically were shortened by illness.