"Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe.” ~Winston Churchill”There is no passion to be found in playing small – in settling for a life that is less than what you are capable of living” ~Nelson Mandela
As we began to discuss in a prior article, our communities have found themselves in the uncomfortable financial condition of having to "do more with less." Far from a cliche', doing more with less at the municipal and county level has become the new normal that we are faced with as administrators, elected officials, and residents.
We must become passionate like never before about elevating our communities to become model communities that attract more great residents, robust businesses, committed educators, and joyful recreators. If we fail to invest that depth of emotion in our own communities, then we will decay as our residents and businesses move on to communities that did invest.
I say our financial conditions have become "uncomfortable," but I do not necessarily believe that all discomfort is bad. As each of us knows on a personal and professional level, sometimes we don't make needed changes until we are forced into changing by external forces (i.e. watching our dietary intake AFTER the heart attack). Detached from the vitriolic political rhetoric, we can admit that our local government budgets could certainly have endured some pruning even before reduced state and federal funding externally forced us to expedite the process. Some cuts are good.
Good cuts do not imply that we should take a machete to our local budgets, but instead we should seek to surgically identify and reduce those items that have become bloated through (1) habit; (2) inattention to vendor cost increases; and (3) failure to collaborate to deliver services where prudent.
HABIT
- Simply put, did our budgets continue to include maintenance and repair line items for obsolete technologies or no longer existent facilities?
- Did we continue to use "snail mail" long after email and web site postings would have sufficed?
- Have some departments or functions become overstaffed due to technologically-driven efficiencies, while other departments/functions became understaffed due to increased interest/activity/population?
INATTENTION TO VENDOR COST INCREASES
- Do we review and comparatively analyze every municipal/county vendor contract well prior to renewal to ensure that we are not overpaying? [Even if our vendor used to be the only local provider, that doesn't necessarily mean it still remains so.]
- Have unit costs to the vendor decreased without commensurate decreases in unit costs to our governmental unit? [i.e. even as the manufacturing and distribution costs of technology hardware decreases, do our invoices continue to reflect annual cost increases?]
- Does a "well-connected" individual or organization provide services to our locale due to a "special relationship" with a current/former elected official or administrator?
FAILURE TO COLLABORATE TO DELIVER SERVICES
- Territorialism based upon municipal borders drawn on a map centuries ago need no longer prevent professional financial administrators and elected officials from actively seeking multi-jurisdictional partnership to provide services.
- Without impinging upon collective bargaining contracts, future plans can be mutually designed and negotiated in a manner that will best serve the tax-paying citizenry. [i.e. fire departments, emergency medical services, law enforcement, recreation centers, schools, etc.]
Transformational fiscal leadership will only begin to take place at the local governmental level when elected officials and administrators set aside well-worn habits and guarded egos to instead focus upon their fiduciary responsibility to administer the taxpayers' funds in the most prudent manner possible. Safe, attractive, vibrant communities will attract and retain tomorrow's young families, growing businesses, and best talent.
Will your community leadership embrace Transformational Fiscal Leadership or will your community export families and businesses to those communities that do?
"Tonight, I ask for your
prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been
shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I
pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us, spoken through
the ages in Psalm 23: 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.'” ~President George W. Bush
September 11, 2001.
"I told him (the Lieutenant) I wasn't leaving...We were still missing one guy..." ~Patrick Martin, NYFD
Where were YOU on that fateful morning of September 11, 2001?
Wherever you and I were that morning geographically, we were forevermore changed at our core individually, spiritually, and as a nation. We watched the images of selfless men and women, from everyday citizens to professional public safety personnel, struggling to save as many lives as possible in the aftermath of the airliners being overtaken by terrorists.
For a period of time, we were one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Partisanship ceased to be a defining factor as all elected officials stood side-by-side and citizenry pulled together to bury our dead with dignity...to restore normalcy...to bring justice to bear upon those responsible for the heinous act of cowardice.
As we approach and move past the tenth anniversary of that fateful morning, the bipartisan honeymoon has been over for some time as rancorous partisanship ascended again. Political lines again became more important than unemployment lines. Our courageous citizens have been buffeted by economic turmoil, financial insecurity, and future uncertainty. Our selfless police officers, firefighters and emergency medical personnel across the nation find themselves shorn of their numbers as federal, state and municipal bureaucrats seek to balance fiscal year budgets.
Communities suffering vacancies amidst the mortgage foreclosure crisis now risk being branded as underprotected as line items for public safety take precedence over actual manpower needs at firehouses and police stations across this nation. We mistakenly save a few dollars today at the expense of the safe neighborhoods and attractive communities of tomorrow.
Our elected officials will have now attempted to revive that unified feeling amidst banners, flags, and slogans to commemorate the 10th anniversary, but they must do more than window-dress the very real transformation that this nation underwent that morning and in the days that followed. Instead, genuine bipartisan problem solvers must work together in a professional and collegial fashion once again. This time their legislative efforts won't be about enacting anti-terror legislation, but in that same spirit of cooperation they must recommit to working together to ensure that firefighters, police officers, emergency personnel, school teachers and other selfless public servants are not reduced like some faceless, nameless budget line item.
Stand up, stand together, and restore our neighborhoods and communities so that we can once again be that Shining City upon the Hill that we have always been. God bless our public servants and may God Bless America!
