Navigating the Fiscal Crisis Wiki
Tested Strategies for Local Leaders
Within the pages of this wiki, Alliance for Innovation local government experts are exploring the nature of today’s fiscal crisis and what specific steps can be taken to pursue economic recovery for our communities. The pdf link to right contains the summary report. Links in the left navigation detail each section and provide direct links to all original research done by the contributing authors. While navigating within the wiki, click on the author's name and be directly linked to their paper.
Link to our How-To Fiscal Crisis Wiki video (3 minutes) to learn how to make contributions to the wiki. Anyone with a Knowledge Center username and password can make comments to the wiki, and select inidividuals may write to the live wiki boxes using their designated username and password.
This is a working document broken into sections that explore the following questions. Link to the Overview, Executive Summary and the Conclusion from the left navigation.
What are the dimensions of the current crisis? What defines it?
What has worked in previous fiscal cutback efforts?
What characterizes organizations that cope better with fiscal stress?
Why is innovation in hard times so critical but how can positive actions be taken?
How can local government action contribute to the economic recovery?
Below you will find the "Message Center" for the Fiscal Crisis White Paper Wiki. The Message Center will feature daily entries with a variety of information. Some messages will help you see where the discussion is happening, others will feature video interviews with professors or local government managers. Check back daily for more information on this Fiscal Crisis White Paper.
Gerald J. Miller and James H. Svara
The developing fiscal crisis facing city and county governments calls for extraordinary actions by local officials. Fortunately, research on organizations’ responses to previous downturns and other adversities provides important lessons for today’s managers. A cadre of researchers in the Academic Network of the Alliance for Innovation prepared this white paper for the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). It is intended to help local government managers understand the nature of this fiscal crisis and the steps they can take to support economic recovery. The paper answers five questions:
· What are the dimensions of the current crisis? What defines it?
· What has worked in previous fiscal cutback efforts?
· What characterizes organizations that cope better with fiscal stress than others?
· Why is innovation in hard times so critical yet how can positive actions be taken?
· How can local government actions contribute to the economic recovery?
This introduction to Navigating the Fiscal Crisis concludes with guiding principles for local government action.
As of January 2009, estimates indicate that no state, much less the nation, has reached the bottom of the economic cycle. However, events have already reached crisis levels in some cities and counties. For example, one Arizona city manager who has dealt with declining revenues for nearly two years tells his community that the measures taken so far are simply “the end of the beginning.” Local governments in other parts of the country are just starting to see how the crisis will affect their communities. All signals point to challenges getting worse in many more communities before the nation’s fiscal health improves. Navigating the Fiscal Crisis is meant less as a history lesson of how cities survived the 2007-2008 recession and more as a set of suggestions for coping with the recession as it continues in 2009 and beyond.