Pay for Success as a Policy Tool

Abstract

ing economies, year after year Salt Lake County’s budget is essentially flat. Without additional resources, using taxpayer dollars effectively and efficiently is not only ideal, it’s a necessity. However, as is often the case, state and local governments are reactive—paying for things that often go wrong, such as our prisons and homeless shelters, which provide only limited treatment for people with criminogenic risk factors or behavioral health disorders. Treatment services are inadequately funded to ensure long-term benefits, and even though we know prevention can create savings for years into the future, we rarely invest adequately in the prevention side of the equation. But whether we are paying for a safety net or prevention, the county government has a difficult time justifying the time and cost of evaluating the value of those investments for the people we serve.