Our Services with Local Governments and State Agencies

Every government agency has a strategic plan. However, all too often those plans end up filling up bookcases and collecting dust - as they’re generally written too broadly to act on, yet too narrowly to drive public value.
Whether you’re looking for a partner to help develop a process that staff can carry out, or you’re in need of an experienced practitioner to facilitate meaningful conversations and help drive towards consensus, we help clients develop strategic plans that can be put into action today and for the long-term.
Every day governments across the country come to the conclusion that the old annual incremental budget process is broken. And they’re right.
How could a budget that was built to solve yesterday’s problems possibly be a good starting point for the challenges of tomorrow?
Whether you’re looking to implement outcome-based budgeting, priority-based budgeting, performance-informed budgeting, participatory budgeting, or any combination thereof, we will help you establish the right process to help raise clear choices in how best to deploy limited resources to accomplish your agency’s goals.
The way we’re organized has a direct impact on the results we deliver. This is true whether we realize it or not, and whether we were intentional about that organization or not.
We help clients reimagine the structures of their government, and set them up in a way to deliver successful outcomes for employees and the public alike.

User fees are an important part of the financial mix of a government agency. They help minimize the burden on general revenues when a service provided most directly benefits a subset of the population.
We work with clients to help ensure that user fees are set in a fair, reasonable, and equitable manner. And we put procedures in place to ensure that fees are revisited and updated as needed on an ongoing basis.
The business of government is challenging. Charge too little, and internal customers don’t receive the level of service they need or deserve. Charge too much, and governments may artificially deplete funds generating the payments.

We work with internal service providing departments, as well as central finance departments, to establish fair and reasonable business plans and establish rates commensurate with those plans. This helps to prevent against the problem of excess retained earnings while balancing the needs of those providing the service. And ultimately we maximize public value by ensuring that balance is struck.
The development of sound policy is as much art as it is science, as every situation will require a different balance of the two sometimes conflicting - yet often complementary - spheres of chaos and order.
We work with clients to develop and review financial policies on an ongoing basis. Our goal is and will always be to safeguard public funds and trust while also maintaining flexibility of resources to help support the changing needs of communities.

Professional athletes. Fortune 100 Executives. Everyone stands to benefit from coaching.
Even public officials.
Our clients benefit by meeting every-other-week over a six-month period with someone who can not only talk the talk, but has also walked the walk. We will work to untangle knots, put words to thoughts and instincts previously rendered inaccessible, and continually peek around corners to minimize the risk of being caught off-guard by our next moves.
No one should have to go it alone.
We serve as independent expert advisor to government executives in a less formal capacity than individual coach. As emergent challenges arise, clients have anytime access to GovStrategist to serve as a sounding board and partner in charting the right course on pressing issues.