Charlotte Knight shares insights from her exchange in the USA

Contributed by Charlotte Knight, recipient of the 2024 Civic Financial Services Overseas Manager Exchange, who travelled to the United States to attend the ICMA Conference in Pittsburgh, and spent time with her exchange partner in LA and Maryland. 

As part of my exchange, I spent three days in the City of Arcadia in Los Angeles, three days in the City of Annapolis in Maryland, and went to ICMA five-day conference in Pittsburgh. Each of these cities provided a different landscape to experience the world of American local government. Whilst what I learnt and experienced only scratches the surface of their world it has provided a lot of food for thought, new “fun facts” for conversations with my colleagues, and a renewed enthusiasm for working in local government – despite being in a permacrisis since 2020.

There are so many experiences and learnings I could share, I’ve focused on five.

1. Appreciate and celebrate what we do really well

Part of seeing how other places work reinforces that we are pretty good at a lot of things here in Aotearoa. Sometimes we really lean into that psyche of the grass is greener on the other side, and everything could be better than what it is. We do a lot of mahi, with not a lot, in a challenging operating environment that I think we should really acknowledge and celebrate more often. Celebrating the good stuff with my team is going to be a focus for the next 12 months to cement it in as a new habit.

2. Different operating environment and influences, similar challenges

Despite having different operating environments, funding models, drivers and influences, the councils I went to and heard about at the conference had a lot of similar challenges. Recruitment and retention, homelessness, climate change, tight budgets, energy sovereignty, water supply, natural disaster recovery, and waste minimisation are some of the challenges I heard about that we also face here in Aotearoa.

One thing that was a little different sometimes was the scale. For example, homelessness. This is something that I saw on a much larger scale, particularly in Los Angeles. Driving through Skid Row in Los Angeles is something I will not forget – there was one particular street near a shelter that was basically a makeshift neighbourhood of tents, temporary housing structures, and you very much could not drive or park on that block of the street (and some other blocks surrounding that one).

3. Some things in the system won’t serve us into the future and we need to “rip the band aid” on progressing solutions now

There were plenty of groans and gripes about local, state and federal systems and approaches that are getting in the way of achieving good outcomes because “that’s the system” and “how we have always done it”. I’m sure that resonates with a lot of colleagues across the local government sector regardless of their professional disciplines!

What I took from this is we need to “rip the band aid” to get the change we want to see because change won’t happen if we don’t. The possibilities in this space are endless and a bit overwhelming – starting with one thing I have control over in 2025 is going to be my first step.

4. AI is here to stay

One of my favourite speakers at the conference was Shawn Kanungo. Some of the resounding points were – AI doesn’t care about your status, how long you’ve worked in an organisation, or that you’ve spent decades building a particular process. It just finds the most efficient way to get work done and that’s a blow to our identity.

He challenged people to consider the following questions when approaching working with AI:

• How do I experiment today?
• How do I try those new tools?
• How do I work with the machines in the best way possible?
• How do I take a small step today that will change my trajectory and the organisation’s trajectory?

His closing point was if you are truly up for disrupting yourself and challenging yourself around using AI, ask yourself this question: ‘How do I try to get myself fired?’.

5. Americans are just as curious about us and what we are up to

I spent a lot of time answering questions about what it’s like for us whilst I was visiting councils. They ranged from some super specific detailed ones to broader high level and covered national and local politics. All the “fun facts” rattling around my head were really useful as a bit of a knowledge koha to people who took time to talk to me about their world. I wasn’t expecting this in all honesty, as someone who likes to be helpful it did make my exchange richer though. Sharing good ideas and practice that we have outside of Aotearoa would be welcomed by a lot of people I met.

To sum up my experience, the real lesson for me was to keep looking beyond Aotearoa to see what is happening in other local governments across the world. American local government has not been a place I’ve considered when researching approaches before – it will be now! Looking beyond our borders can provide inspiration for approaches to issues and problem-solving, or validate ideas and what we do here. It doesn’t need to overseas trips, it can look like taking some time reading through the many reliable resources that are available.

Thank you to my wonderful hosts Dominic at City of Arcadia, and Michael and Vickie at City of Annapolis! Finally, a massive thanks to Taituarā and Civic Financial Services Ltd for creating this opportunity which has been a truly enriching learning experience that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible.