Small-town leaders say some tech practices for constituent service adopted during the pandemic are here to stay

In a recent survey, local government leaders from mostly small and midsize communities said they believe the coronavirus pandemic "will have a lasting impact on the way they deliver services to constituents. But the day-to-day work of municipal governing probably won’t change forever," Kate Queram reports for Route Fifty.

The New Normal Survey, conducted online from March 24 to April 7, asked local government officials to share their predictions about how public services will evolve because of the pandemic; 599 officials completed it. They were asked about their government's priorities and how those changed, the pandemic's impact on the local economy, adoption of new technology, and general questions about the future, Queram reports. The survey is a collaborative effort from organizations that work with local governments: The Atlas, Engaging Local Government Leaders, CivicPulse, CivicPlus and Route Fifty. It's a follow-up to a similar survey from last summer that asked about initial changes in service delivery during the early months of the pandemic.

"According to the results, priorities in local government agencies have shifted dramatically since 2020. Last July, for example, 43 percent of survey respondents said they were prioritizing 'work from home and workflow management;' by last month, that number had dropped to 28%. By contrast, 44% of respondents this year said they were focused on community engagement, a 14% jump from last year," Queram reports. "Despite those shifts, most respondents said they expected their governments to continue to prioritize pandemic-related issues up to a year from now, including community engagement (50%), small business support (38%) and public health and wellness (33%)."

Respondents said the daily changes, such as shifting from paper to digital services, won't likely remain permanent, and that local governments will probably only continue to use some of the digital platforms they've embraced during the pandemic, Queram reports.

"For example, 81% of survey participants said they conducted board meetings virtually during the pandemic, but only 54% of them expect to continue that practice indefinitely. But  . . . 90% of respondents expect forms to remain digital, while 87% predict that residents will continue to be able to pay fees and bills online. Other likely permanent adoptions include digital permitting (84%), community engagement (83%) and citizen requests (81%)," Queram reports. "Those results line up with citizen expectations, according to the survey, which found that 53% of respondents expect residents to demand faster response times moving forward, up from 38% last year. Seventy percent of governments expect to adopt more technology to meet those needs, while 33% said they would rely more on “external partners” and 29% pledged to continue to work to remove silos within their organizations."