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Local government – the 89,000-plus governing bodies that run America’s cities, counties and schools –may not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of a hotbed of innovation. But you might be surprised. A tough economy coupled with easily available new technologies is driving a growing transformation among local governments that means the next major change agent could be your city’s mayor or school superintendent.
There is certainly no question that local governments are bearing the brunt of a tough economy. Two of their primary sources of revenue – sales tax and property taxes – have been pummeled by an economic climate that has posted the worst performance since the Great Depression. And local governments, like state governments, are not allowed to run deficits, so they have to deal with shrinking revenues by looking for parallel levels of cost cuts.
One target is technology. According to the Center for Digital Government’s annual Digital Counties Survey, 78 percent of counties are dealing with the economic downturn by consolidating data centers, servers, applications and staff – a 10 percent increase over 2009 – and 72 percent plan reductions in staffing and operating hours.
There is a silver lining to this scenario. The need to introduce significant change is proving to be a catalyst for innovation among local governments, and they are harnessing technology advances to help drive this change.
Cloud computing is a prime example. This new IT delivery model can significantly reduce government IT costs and complexities while improving workload optimization and service delivery to constituents. The savings can be substantial: according to Brookings Institution estimates, government agencies that have transitioned to cloud computing have saved between 25 and 50 percent on their IT operations. For several local governments, moving to the cloud is not just a future goal. Consider these examples:
• The New York Conference of Mayors (NYCOM) and the Michigan Municipal League (MML) are participating in a pilot for the IBM Municipal Shared Services Cloud, which will give them more cost-effective software as a service, analytics-driven dashboards for greater transparency, and cross-government collaboration
• The Dubuque 2.0 sustainability initiative recently kicked off a smart water meter project that uses cloud computing to handle near-real-time data (consumption is monitored every 15 minutes) and a portal through which city officials can see aggregate water consumption (including potential leaks) and energy management data to conserve water and reduce costs
The potential for government to reduce costs using cloud computing is significant and should not be overlooked. But because government agencies, unlike private-sector organizations, do not compete with each other, they can collaborate in the clouds and safely share data in ways that the private sector will probably never achieve.
Economic necessity may be primary reason that local governments are currently moving to the clouds, but the ultimate benefit will be innovation. So the next time you think about your local City Hall or county government office, keep an open mind – you could be looking at the next leaders of the charge in IT innovation.
Juhnyoung Lee research interests include cloud computing, e-government, service engineering and management, business and IT modeling, and model-driven business transformation.
