Deleting the Silos: Maximizing Regional Services By Anna Gruber I accepted the position of city administrator for Pierz, MN in 2009. I was 22 years old and only had one year of professional working experience under my belt. During this time, we were seeing and feeling the impact of the 2008 financial crisis. The local government aid (LGA) from the state, which cities had relied on, was now being frozen or decreased. Resources for city staff were limited. Taxpayers were hurting and couldn’t bear any increase in property taxes or municipal rates or fees. With the help of my Council and department heads, we began working to offer the same amount of services with no increase in LGA or the local levy. In the five years that I served as the city administrator, we never once increased the levy. We were able to continue providing services, maintain all employees, and ensure that public safety was never sacrificed. Art of collaboration How was this possible? I learned a valuable lesson early in my professional career; we did more with less—by working together. We perfected the art of collaboration.
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We were able to do this by: j Partnering with neighboring communities on grant programs to lower administration costs. j Collaborating with the school district. j Teaming up with regional partners and agencies. We knocked down walls, relied on each other, and deleted the silos that seemed to separate us from others. There was no other way to survive in hard economic times like we were experiencing. Countywide collaborative A large silo that needed deleting was our dependence on ourselves. By breaking down the walls, we could build up the collaboration among other cities within Morrison County. With the help of the other administrators and mayors in neighboring communities, we began the Morrison County Community Collaborative group. It began as a monthly meeting to simply get to know each other better. It grew into collaborative efforts on grant administration, staff time, equipment, and overall sharing of services. Awareness about our monthly meetings grew, and we saw an increase in attendance.
SOUTH DAKOTA MUNICIPALITIES
