Mayor Ben McAdams discusses Salt Lake County’s innovative pay-for-success financing model, the first of its kind in the country.
Writes Devin Thorpe:
Salt Lake County reports having deployed the first implementation of a pay-for-success financing at the county level in the country. Mayor Ben McAdams has been actively involved and is now looking for more ways to apply the nascent financing structure, sometimes called social impact bonds.
McAdams says, “Salt Lake County used the Pay for Success model to send 600 additional low-income kids to preschool in 2013.”
“The Pay for Success model creates a huge opportunity to put taxpayer dollars towards what actually works, rather than following an out-dated recipe that we once thought or hoped would work,” McAdams adds.
McAdams explains his motivation, “Pay for Success is a new and different approach to traditional government programming geared towards addressing social needs in the community. Pay for Success is about better accountability for taxpayer dollars and funding what we know works.”
