Soon after election, every new public official faces a sharp learning curve as he or she struggles to learn the new job. Even veteran politicians and career public employees face learning curves when statutes and regulations change in major ways.
Since 1989, they have increasingly turned to Washington State University’s Program for Local Government Education for help. PLGE was established by WSU Cooperative Extension with funding from the Kellogg Foundation.
Director Nicholas Lovrich said PLGE created a partnership between extension, the Washington State Association of Counties, the Washington Association of County Officials and the Association of Washington Cities.
“The purpose of the partnership is to promote training and applied research for local government officials,” Lovrich said. The goal is to help local governments be more efficient and more effective.
Sometimes that means providing services to help other agencies understand how local governments work.
Lovrich says most elected officials run on one or two issues, rather than the whole jurisdiction. “When they get into office, they pretty much learn they can’t do anything as individuals: They have to work with other people.”
“They are most concerned about personnel management and working as a team. They need to understand their budgets and how organizations work.” Lovrich says they get good background from staff on the nuts and bolts, but staff often can’t help with broader issues, such as how to relate to other elected officials.
Most training is done at conferences conducted by one of the three partner organizations, WSAC, WACO or AWC.
PLGE also provides applied research services for local governments. PLGE conducts surveys, focus groups and evaluation studies.
Lovridge says PLGE has to be selective in what projects it undertakes, and usually bases those decisions on whether the research might have broader application in Washington than just to the entity that requests it. Examples of the program’s projects include:
- PLGE teamed with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Marine Fisheries Service to provide Okanogan County officials with citizen feedback on a planning process to determine how to protect salmon and steelhead habitat under the Endangered Species Act.
- PLGE recently finished an audit to determine how Douglas County residents feel about consolidation of planning and transportation units, which was prompted by the state’s Growth Management Act.
- PLGE is assessing county officials&Mac226; needs for training, education and certification of local employees. Lovrich says the three partner associations traditionally have funded lobbying efforts. Now they are considering putting resources into education and training.
A synergism has come out of the program for Cooperative Extension, Lovrich says. “Our goal was to accomplish a strong partnership with local government associations so they knew they had a resource in Cooperative Extension.” Through PLGE’s work, that relationship has proven a boon to Cooperative Extension. “Now, whenever the association leaders have a major issue, we almost always are called on to help think through that issue. We didn’t have that access when we started. We were pretty much locked out of that business. Now we have a leg up on new issues that confront local government,” Lovrich say.
