While municipalities recognize immediate short-term revenue impacts from the pandemic, long-term forecasts and the path to recovery are far less clear. Municipal managers and governing bodies will need to continually assess trends, make operational adjustments, and preserve fiscal sustainability, all while remaining nimble to adapt approaches to the continually evolving state of the pandemic.
Though specific financial impacts of the pandemic are unpredictable, local governments can customize their assessment processes used for recovery in prior challenging economic times. Raftelis’ roadmap to recovery uses four markers to help navigate your organization toward fiscal resiliency.
Your financial baseline defines the framework beneath the operational structure of your organization. We help you analyze historical revenue, expenditure trends, impacts on revenue sources, and known future financial impacts. When the assessment is complete, you will have the information necessary to develop multiple projections to inform operational decisions.
We will assist your organization to develop a core services inventory for every department. This helps you triage core programs versus discretionary programs and develop specific cost-reduction alternatives based on financial impacts, service level changes, and associated implementation considerations.
While difficult decisions will be required, we help you use the gathered information to minimize service level disruptions and limit the negative impacts on your employees.
It is critical to be deliberate in creating a communications and implementation plan for each cost reduction initiative identified as a result of the previous steps. Implementation is dependent on key steps, target completion dates, and staff assignments. Transparent, constructive, and people-focused communication is essential to keep employees and the community informed and assured of the organization’s efforts.
To learn more, view our insight entitled Road to Recovery or see our case study on surviving shocks and managing recovery.
