As the pandemic eases, the ‘Silver Tsunami’ is local government’s next big challenge | Opinion

The American Rescue Plan will help offset financial losses and surging costs from COVID-19, but as local governments gain a more-solid financial foothold, a second crisis looms. Known as the “silver tsunami” by local government executives, the impending brain drain from baby-boomer retirements threatens to undermine the recovery. Bridging the leadership gap is the shot in the arm that our country may need the most.

According to a recent Zogby survey of employees from cities and counties, 71 percent of respondents were over the age of 50, and more than half had worked in government for more than 15 years. Industry experts project that up to half of our nation’s government executives will retire in the next five years. These leaders and administrators will take with them decades of institutional knowledge and leave behind a sector in need of a reboot.

Help is not on the way. The next generation, millennials, are idealistic but they don’t want to shuffle papers amid dusty filing cabinets. Why would they? Thirty-year-old old greenscreens, on which many governments are run, don’t mesh with the mobile-first 5G generation.

Local governments have not innovated apace with the private sector, as anyone who has recently applied for a permit to renovate their bathroom can attest. Inspections are backlogged as they still have to take place in person. Checks are still printed and mailed. Contracts require blue or black ink and a notary public. Budgets are planned in 400,000-row spreadsheets with 90 tabs.

By virtue of public meetings, long-term planning and consensus decision-making, governments are designed to run about a decade behind private-sector innovation. Yet, given the pace of change and possibilities, they may lag 20 years at this point.

What can be done?

A rising generation of public servants must be recruited, trained and retained to foster excellence in state and local governments. This new crop of talent will need to renew their local government’s strategic focus, question everything and make critical tradeoffs. They will need investments in getting better data and sharing it with the public to attract attention and participation.

Innovation will help, but some solutions require political muscle, fortitude and compromise. For instance, unfunded pensions and other post-employment benefits — healthcare — for retired workers; deferred maintenance on public infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and buildings; and battered budgets from Main Street pandemic closures. Any solutions will be unsavory, including as government spending is zero sum — more guns or butter as the economists say, but not both.

Never has good leadership been more important. From the Capitol insurrection to the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, our communities need participation and direction. Social disaffection has reduced government operations to a spectator sport.

There is also good news. While polls show trust is near an all-time low for the public sector in general, state and local governments maintain the highest levels of trust and interpersonal interaction.

Armed with better data and renewed public participation, new leaders can confidently meet the challenges governments face, bring their communities along and bridge the gaps they face.

It’s not just the federal government that needs leadership. Cities, counties and state agencies do, too. We must tap it, train it, encourage it, pay it and monitor its performance. And the responsibility falls on us. As Teddy Roosevelt once wrote, “We are the government.”

Let’s get to work.

Zachary Bookman is co-founder and CEO of OpenGov Inc.