Making government work better

In the shifting sands of partisan discord, Carolina’s School of Government is a refreshing oasis – “a safe harbor, a neutral court,” according to its dean. And because of that impartiality, the school earns respect across the political spectrum.

Dean Michael Smith emphasizes the School of Government’s core values: to be nonpartisan, policy-neutral and responsive. “We’re not here to tell you what to do,” he told a room full of county officials during a recent training session in Winston-Salem. “We’re here to help you think through your options.”

Cary police Chief Pat Bazemore leads a training class at the School of Government

One of the officials in the room was Surry County Commissioner Larry Phillips, who expressed his gratitude for the services of the school. As a latecomer to the commission, where some of his colleagues had already served decades, Phillips said he had a “steep learning curve” after his election.

“And what I found out was that the School of Government prepared me to be able to hit the ground running with those guys,” Phillips said. “I knew how to research what a statute said. I had the contacts to pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, guys, is this right? Can we do this?’ That to me is an invaluable resource for a new commissioner in North Carolina.”

The School of Government exemplifies former UNC President Edward Kidder Graham’s vision of making the “boundaries of the campus coextensive with those of the state” through its diverse teaching, publishing and advising efforts. Here are some impressive annual numbers:

• 12,000 public officials trained;
• 175-plus courses, conferences and webinars;
• 50-plus books, manuals, reports and other items published; and
• 20,000-plus queries fielded via phone and email.

In January alone, the school hosted an orientation session for newly elected state legislators, trained more than 100 local elected officials in Winston-Salem and Chapel Hill, held a week-long training for municipal and county government staff, and conducted a webinar on how to administer employee performance evaluations.

Participant Chelsea Laws, with the Town of Chapel Hill, asks a question during a training class at the School of Government

Each day that the N.C. General Assembly is in session, the school produces Daily Bulletin Online, which reports on the day’s activities for those who need to follow the course of legislation. And several faculty members are also sharing information with the public via one or more of the school’s seven active blogs.

Setting the bar high

One indication of local governments’ appreciation of all that the school offers is their payment of membership dues – all voluntarily – which account for about 8 percent of the school’s budget. Participation rates are consistently 100 percent for counties and greater than 92 percent for municipalities.

People in government trust the school and its faculty to provide good nonpartisan guidance on how to govern. “Our mission is to make government as effective and efficient as possible,” Smith said. “We hold ourselves to a high standard and try to set the bar for the government as high as possible.”

That mission hasn’t changed since the school was founded as the Institute of Government in 1931 by Albert Coates, its first director. “I honestly think if Albert were alive and walked in today, he’d be freaked out by smart phones and computers and all that stuff, like anyone would be,” Smith said. “But I think he would recognize the mission as exactly the same.”

What has changed is how the work is done to accomplish that mission. The school now has a center for public technology, a development finance initiative and an online option for its master’s of public administration program that makes it easier for far-flung public officials to further their education.

The Institute of Government became the School of Government in 2001 and now is the largest university-based local government training, advisory and research organization in the nation. But it’s not just size that sets the school apart.

“There are lots of universities that have centers and institutes that do parts of what we do,” Smith said. “I think what’s distinctive about our work is the extent to which we have a university that supported us in having tenure-track faculty doing it as their full-time work.”

With 53 full-time faculty members, the school can boast many who have, literally, written the book on the topic of their expertise – in a way that can be applied very practically by governments.

“Dave Owens’ planning book, and people refer to it this way, is the Bible in this field,” Smith said. Indeed, the University and the Town of Chapel Hill relied on Owens’ expertise when discussing the Carolina North satellite campus. They invited Owens to come to several meetings to answer questions about the “development agreement,” a fairly new concept being used by other municipalities to manage long-term growth – a concept both town and gown endorsed in 2009.

Expanding resources, training

Faculty members often confer with legislators on both sides of the aisle, bound by statute to confidentiality. “Our faculty members are treated as an extension of the legislative staff,” Smith said. “That’s how they think of us.”

In the past, almost all the school’s faculty members were lawyers. Today’s faculty still has 33 licensed attorneys, but these lawyers also have master’s degrees in planning, policy or public health, and the faculty has expanded in the areas of leadership, budget, human resources and public administration.

In classes and training sessions, the school’s faculty and staff guide politicians through the transition to governing and teach them about ethics and how to manage conflict and finances. Even superior court judges attend classes to make sure they are up to speed on the latest rulings.

Another important role of the school is to provide the up-to-date training necessary for government staff members to be re-certified in their respective fields.

Carolyn Barger has been a clerk or deputy clerk for 20 years, but she still comes to any training session for clerks that the School of Government offers. She also calls whenever she has a question. “There are not enough adjectives to adequately describe how much the services they provide mean to the clerks,” she said.

All across the state, nearly every day of the year, the School of Government is helping to smooth the way for public officials to do their jobs as efficiently as possible.

“We are blessed in North Carolina to have them. If you had to learn this on your own, you’d never live long enough to do it,” Phillips said. “They enable you to say, ‘I want to run to make a difference.’

“And the School of Government comes alongside of you and says, ‘Let’s equip you with the skills to make you sharper and make you better.’ And you can’t beat that.”