A DRAMATIC TURNING POINT FOR STATES AND LOCALITIES

There was a long sad stretch during which nearly everything we wrote had some kind of COVID angle in it. The pandemic had so thoroughly thrown all state and local government functions into the unknown that whether we were writing about budgeting, human resources or performance management, COVID was part of the story.

Now, in recent months, it’s dawned on us that even though COVID is no longer front-page news, it has altered state and local government management in dramatic ways that we’re living with today.

For example, in a recent conversation with Matt Chase, executive director of the National Association of Counties (NACo), he pointed out the idea that COVID gave a jump to the long-felt need for regional cooperation. COVID didn’t know any geographic barriers and unless counties and cities worked well together their residents wound up paying the price. “In many ways, cities and counties were forced to collaborate and really built new relationships around that crisis and are continuing on that momentum," he told us.

That’s just the start. Given the fast-changing nature of the pandemic, and a craving from the population to know exactly what was happening in their communities and states on a day-to-day basis, the need for real-time data became abundantly obvious. “The pandemic really showed us the power of real time data, the power of real time information to make decisions on the fly that involve saving lives, saving communities,” Rudy de Leon Dinglas, who leads academic affairs and strategic initiatives at the Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University, told us.

In fact, the awareness of the degree to which racial inequity was widespread around the country was amplified dramatically during the days of the pandemic when data made it clear that people of color were disproportionately affected by the disease. Back in 2021, we pointed out, in a paper we wrote with Don Kettl for the IBM Center for the Business of Government, this sad truth became statistically demonstratable.

One of the most obvious changes in states, cities and counties was the advent of hybrid public meetings. Prior to the pandemic, public meetings were in person events. People had to find their way to city hall or some other meeting place if they were going to participate.

But since government needed to keep holding these meetings at a time when people weren’t leaving their homes, entities took advantage of the technology available to make it possible for people to attend remotely. Now, even though people have long since left their homes, practically every governing body streams their sessions on Zoom or YouTube and allows people who want to ask questions or make comments to do so from their living rooms (or whatever room is comfiest). This has opened the world of citizen input to many people who didn’t have time or capacity to attend meetings in person.

Many interactions with the public – like getting a building permit or a fishing license – had emigrated to optional interactive online functions before the pandemic. But the pandemic required that they were accessible by tablet, computer or cell phone. And they’ve stayed there.

Notably, remote work became standard practice during the pandemic, and many employees grew accustomed to avoiding long commutes and having a little more control over their days. So, even though cities, counties and states have curtailed fully remote work, many have gone to hybrid systems in which people are able to work remotely one or two days a week.

What’s more, the pandemic pushed some cities to change zoning laws so that restaurants could serve diners in places outside their traditional seating area. This now seems like nothing out of the ordinary, and cities have accommodated this amenity (and money-maker for the restaurants) by ensuring that these spaces are safe and clean.

The way in which local health departments deliver their services was also profoundly changed by the pandemic. For generations, people in need of care from a community’s health department, were required to find their way to a central clinic. But in an effort to deliver vaccines, mobile outreach networks were created in neighborhoods, often in collaboration with nonprofit organizations. These haven’t disappeared and the idea of community-based care has remained with us.

There’s a cliché, attributed to many, that a “crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Clearly this particular crisis – which came at a terrible cost to society – wasn’t wasted when it came to the way states and localities are run.

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