David Ammons Receives 2020 Joseph Wholey Distinguished Scholarship Award

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Last month, ASPA’s Center for Accountability and Performance (CAP) presented School of Government faculty member David Ammons with its 2020 Joseph Wholey Distinguished Scholarship Award. During the virtual ceremony, Ammons was honored with the award in recognition of his “outstanding scholarship on performance in public and nonprofit settings.”

The Joseph Wholey Award celebrates those who have made a “significant contribution to advancing knowledge in a scholarly journal about the development, implementation, use and impact of performance measurement.” Ammons’ 2019 publication, Performance Measurement for Managing Local Government: Getting It Right, and his “lifetime achievement and many contributions to the field of performance management” were both cited by the organization as major factors in his receipt of the award. This is the second time Ammons has received the Wholey Award, the first being in 2014.

CAP also presented two other awards during the ceremony, one of them to a member of the UNC MPA community. UNC MPA alumnus and North Carolina State Budget Director Charlie Perusse received the Harry Hatry Distinguished Performance Management Practice Award for “achievements in performance management practice that have advanced the profession of public administration.” The City of Asheville was awarded the Organizational Leadership Award for “outstanding applications of a systems approach to performance measurement.”

Ammons joined the School in 1996 and served as director of the MPA program from 2001 to 2006. He writes and teaches about performance measurement, benchmarking, and productivity improvement in local government. His books on local government management include Municipal Benchmarks (M.E. Sharpe, 2012), Tools for Decision Making: A Practical Guide for Local Government (CQ Press, 2009), and Leading Performance Management in Local Government (ICMA, 2008). His articles have appeared in Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, American Review of Public Administration, Public Performance and Management Review, State and Local Government Review, and other public affairs journals. He currently serves on the board of directors of the CAP. Previously, he served on the National Performance Management Advisory Commission, ASPA's National Council, and the Executive Council of the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA). He was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration in 2006. Ammons earned a PhD from the University of Oklahoma.