Solve for tomorrow’s future
Most governments inherit a paradigm instead of choosing one. We help you build one on purpose, pointed at the outcomes that matter most to your community.
THE PROBLEM
The paradigm you inherited
No one sat down and designed the way your government works today. It accumulated. Decades of individually reasonable decisions, each one sensible on the day it was made, stacked into a system nobody would choose on purpose. Add chronic under-resourcing, in dollars and in people, and you get an organization that spends its energy perpetuating yesterday instead of building tomorrow.
The people aren't the problem. Public servants are working hard inside a structure that works against them. The structure is the problem, and a structure can be redesigned.
THE SHIFT
From servant to steward
A servant government reacts. It answers whoever is loudest in the room, whoever filed the request, whoever showed up to the meeting. It stays busy and never quite gets ahead.
A steward government works from its priorities. It starts with a clear picture of what it provides and at what standard, decides where it wants to go, funds the path honestly, and delivers against it. That is the difference between staying busy and creating value residents can actually feel.
That shift is the whole job. Everything below is how we get you there.
THE METHOD
A method for the whole journey
Every government can tell you where it wants to go. Ask where it's standing right now, and the room goes quiet.
That first question is the one almost nobody starts with, and it's the one everything else depends on. Every strategic plan comes down to three of them. We work all three in order, because the order is what turns a plan into results.
Assess
An honest inventory of every service you provide and the level you actually hold it to. Not what the budget line says you fund, what residents actually receive.
Plan
Planning that targets outcomes, not outputs. Filling potholes is an output. Roads people can rely on is the outcome. We plan for the second.
Fund
Long-term financial planning that tests one thing: can you sustain the service levels you've committed to, over years, not just next budget cycle?
Deliver
The plan becomes the work. Clear owners, tracked follow-through, and a line of sight from a council priority down to the task that moves it.
PROOF
Where this has worked
Moving from reactive crisis management to intentional leadership and public administration.
In Lincoln, the Parks and Recreation Department built a service-level inventory to reveal common pain points and boulders in their path. We designed a strategic plan to mitigate the pain and re-route the river.
Brining intentionality and clarity to the City's ability to pay for the services residents value most.
The City of Boulder launched a public engagement series to help residents understand budget complexity and to help staff understand resident sentiment around service-level tradeoffs. They then developed a five-year comprehensive financial plan and governance process to drive alignment and bring visibility into how they'll match resources to desired service levels.
WHO YOU ARE WORKING WITH
You want someone who has sat in the chair
GovStrategist is led by Micah Intermill. Before consulting, he ran the work from the inside: budget director for the City of Minneapolis, CFO for the Minnesota Department of Administration, Minnesota Enterprise Director for Federal Funds and Statewide Compensation Manager, and the solutions lead who connected more than a hundred governments to modern budgeting software at OpenGov.
He has been the person on the other side of the recommendation, which means the advice accounts for how government actually works, not how it looks on a slide.
- Budget Director, City of Minneapolis, MN
- CFO, MN Dept. of Administration
- Minnesota Enterprise Director for Federal Funds
- Minnesota Statewide Compensation Manager
- Dir. of Solutions Engineering, OpenGov
What do you want tomorrow to look like?
Most governments never get asked. They inherit an answer instead. If you’re ready to build toward one on purpose, let’s talk.
info@govstrategist.com ・(612) 206-0430