Hello, my name is Erik Randolph, a public policy consultant who had more than 27 years of experience in executive and legislative roles in state and federal government before becoming a consultant and working for public policy think tanks. I specialize in blending modern computational analysis with traditional scholarly research to evaluate deficiencies with public policies and find workable solutions.
Experience taught me that getting public policy right is more difficult than generally understood. Taking shortcuts too often results in subpar policies leaving much to be desired. Typically, finding the best solutions needs to come from a multidisciplinary approach and within the context of societal, political, and economic realities, and, even if everything was done according to best practice, there always seems to be room for improvement.
Solutions also need to respect individual rights—including both economic and political freedoms. Poor solutions can still help some, but not as much as they could have, or, worse, at the expense of others. Instead, the best solutions help those in need while, in the very least, not harming others. Ideally, they need to be positive-sum solutions, not zero-sum solutions, where everyone gains.
Areas where I’ve consulted include, but not limited to, safety-net assistance programs, public utility practice and policy, transportation policy, and criminal justice. My professional experience prior to consulting includes executive advisor on safety-net assistance programs, state legislative appropriations staff, economic development analyst, science and technology programs, and U.S. GAO government program evaluator. In my spare time, I also taught economic courses at two different institutions of higher learning.
Currently, I am serving as the Director of Research for the Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) and received a research award on behalf of the organization for statistically associating state job recoveries with the severity of state actions to address the COVID-19 pandemic. A major project of ours is mapping out benefit cliffs of safety-net assistance programs. Other organizations have also now mapped out cliffs, but my model was the first, and my team at GCO helped me make it—in my opinion—the most sophisticated and robust model in the nation. Furthermore, in October 2023, we began rolling out detailed solutions to benefit cliffs that, importantly, are fiscally responsible. In addition, the solutions include recommendations on how to mitigate marriage penalties. To my knowledge, we are the first organization to release fiscally responsible solutions. Our first deep-dive solution was for the Food Stamp Program. While we have solutions for other program areas that can be helpful to those looking for answers, we will continue to roll out the deep-dive solutions.
Presently, I am not actively seeking consulting work, but I might consider taking on smaller assignments or putting together a team to do the work. And I might be able to provide referrals. Click on the “contact” tab at the top of the page if you wish to send me a message.