UNCERTAINTY IS THE ONLY CERTAINTY

Much of the coverage about the concerns that beset states and localities tends to focus on specific areas like budgetary shortfalls, the need for better technology and a shortage of people to fill many vital positions (where have all the accountants gone?)

But, increasingly, in conversations we’re having about all these topics and more, the problem that seem to keep our sources awake at night can be expressed in a single word: “Uncertainty.”

“Uncertainty is not generally welcome when you have to maintain ongoing services to members of your community or have projects that need to be built,” Emily Brock, director of the Federal Liaison Center at the Government Finance Officers Association, told Governing. “Our membership is thirsty and needs as much information as they can get. Unfortunately, it's not always readily available.”

While a certain amount of uncertainty is always in the air in the world of states, cities and counties, “state and local leaders are struggling now with more uncertainty than they've faced since the housing collapse of 2009,” Don Kettl, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, told us. “What's different this time is that there is an avalanche of policy changes falling on top of what might--or might not--be an economic slowdown.”

The biggest source of this malady is being delivered to state capitals and city halls directly from Washington D.C. What will happen to the Department of Education? What will happen to grants? Will there be more health policy changes coming?  

Even the fast-growing area of artificial intelligence, which many places are trying to harness, so that the rewards outweigh the risks, can fall prey to questions of how much control the states have over their own governance.

A White House Action Plan published a few months ago said, “The federal government should not allow AI related federal funding to be directed towards states with burdensome AI regulations that waste these funds but should also not interfere with the state's rights to pass prudent laws that are not unduly restricted to innovation.”

But what exactly does burdensome mean? The definition has been left (peculiarly, we think) in the hands of the Federal Communications Commission. And though we can’t think of a state that would truly want to slow down its progress in using AI, all are concerned that they protect themselves from the attendant risks. And if their protective actions are considered burdensome, then it’s back to the drawing board.

Although the federal government may be a major source of difficulty for people who work in planning departments, there are plenty of other reasons to leave state and local leaders unsure about the future.

For one thing, uncertainty about the national economy makes the task of budgetary planning exceedingly difficult.

Economists have never gotten everything right. But it feels to us like their predictions of interest rates, housing markets, and job growth have been in an extreme state of flux. Every other month we hear that the nation is heading for a recession and then we hear that we’re pulling back from the brink.

Perhaps the most unpredictable source of anxiety has been the unnerving increase in the number of natural disasters. Between 1980 and 2024 there were an average of nine billion-dollar disasters a year. But between 2020 and 2024 that has catapulted to 23 of them a year.

The National Academy of Public Administration has taken note of this phenomenon and has launched a major effort to help governments “take steps to reduce or prevent the impacts of disaster events on housing and infrastructure by enhancing resilience,” according to a November 2024 paper.

The NAPA effort points to one of the few ways states or localities have any chance to deal with unpredictable events of any kind: Planning.

As John Bartle, the president, of the American Society for Public Administration said: “When you have a difficult task ahead of you, you can apply your organization’s strategy and do your best to prepare and act. If you do not know the nature of the challenge, it becomes more difficult. You have to prepare for a wider range of changes that go outside the bounds of your plans into ‘terra incognita.’ If the organization does not have a clear plan for uncertain times, the manager is more likely to be hung out to dry by elected officials.”

The moral of this story was well expressed by John Allen Paulos, a professor of mathematics at Temple University, who said “Uncertainty is the only certainty there is and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.”

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