Chris Morrill, the executive director and CEO of the Government Finance Officers Association was one of eight people we filmed at the GFOA’s annual conference in Chicago between June 28 and July 1. This is the first in the series that will appear on Thursdays in this space. 

Morrill focuses his comments on the ambitious agenda that the GFOA has established for itself in the coming months. With a new structure that has increased GFOA member ranks from 25,000 to about 35,000, “we ae looking at new ways to make sure that we can serve these members,” he says.

He delves into three major initiatives that the GFOA is undertaking, one of which is a particularly new venture for the association. “We have recognized through the work that we do in consulting for local governments around government technology. . . that by nature our members are “risk averse.”

To deal with that, the GFOA has created a for profit, which will be separate from, but wholly owned by GFOA called GovFi solutions. It will be able to identify ways that AI products can be helpful for local governments. Explains Morrill, “we can partner with private sector companies that are mission driven, and we can scale those products. We can make sure that they are built specifically for local government and local government needs.”

As he concludes, “We're really excited about the opportunity here to bring to our local government members technology that they can use, make sure it's built appropriately, priced appropriately, and then it's continued to keep updated, and so stay tuned for that.”