  We study the optimization version of the set partition problem (where the
difference between the partition sums are minimized), which has numerous
applications in decision theory literature. While the set partitioning problem
is NP-hard and requires exponential complexity to solve (i.e., intractable); we
formulate a weaker version of this NP-hard problem, where the goal is to find a
locally optimal solution. We show that our proposed algorithms can find a
locally optimal solution in near linear time. Our algorithms require neither
positive nor integer elements in the input set, hence, they are more widely
applicable.
