WASHINGTON - Utah, Virginia and Washington state have the most effective state governments in the country, according to a scorecard released Monday by The Pew Center on the States.

North Dakota achieved an overall grade of B- for performance.

"You might almost forgive a state for feeling a little complacent at a time when an oil and gas price boom and an increasingly diversified economy have combined to provide a biennial budget 24 percent larger that the previous one," the group said about North Dakota in its report. "But complacency isn't really part of North Dakota's governmental culture. The state has lived through enough boom-and-bust energy cycles to recognize that balloons are made to be burst."

The center ranked the states based on how well they manage their budgets, staffs, infrastructure and information.

The states with the highest scores have made accountability and innovation a priority, the report said.

Washington, for example, holds public meetings led by the governor to monitor how its programs are working, while Utah has a sophisticated financial tracking system that provides up-to-the-minute data. Virginia offers its employees incentives for meeting goals and improving service.

"Effective state government really matters," said Neal Johnson, director of Pew's Government Performance Project, citing infrastructure as evidence. "The Minnesota bridge collapse and the failure of the levees in New Orleans prove that few functions of state government have more direct impact on the daily lives of Americans."

The rankings are based on reviews by a panel of state government experts.

States were graded on their recruitment and retention of qualified employees, their use of information and technology, management of budgets and purchasing systems, and planning for improvements to roads, bridges and other core infrastructure.

Susan Urahn, managing director of The Pew Center on the States, said the rankings are intended to give states objective information about how they can improve their performance.

At a panel discussion on the rankings in Washington, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue said management practices may not be the sexiest of political issues, but they can significantly impact how efficiently tax dollars are used and how well a government delivers services.

The "Grading the States" report card was the fourth in a series of assessments issued by Pew's Government Performance Project and Governing Magazine. The last was released in 2005.