Resiliency in an Essential Services Environment

First, I hope this message finds you and your loved ones well. This is a frightening and highly stressful time for all of us and on behalf of CSMFO, thank you for all that you do. As essential service workers, local government employees are tasked with continuing to move the vital public service missions of our agencies forward during this worldwide public health crisis.

You may also have the hardship of illness within your friends and family circle, or perhaps even being ill yourself. If so, best wishes for a speedy and full recovery. Unemployment, underemployment and the sudden heightened uncertainty of financial security are also touching a number of us in very personal ways. Our thoughts are with everyone who is in crisis at this difficult time.

From a social distancing perspective, for some of you and your work teams, out of necessity, this may mean “business as usual,” that is, as usual as usual can be under the circumstances. You may still be going into the office, if not every day, perhaps for a good portion of your work week. For others, maybe you’re mostly or exclusively working remotely. A good many of you may also be balancing all of this with the, albeit temporary, new normal of now having school aged children at home, or a spouse or other loved ones working from home too, or maybe all of the above.

As to our remote social and work interactions, we Zoom, we work in Microsoft Teams, we Go To Meeting, we Skype, we FaceTime or Facebook Live, we email, text or call, and so on and so forth. On the work front, we’re finding creative paths forward to meet the needs of our residents and others who depend on us. We move forward. We must. Our roles as public servants demand that of us.

For many of us, this budget season is a most unusual one on so many fronts. With the sudden economic hard stop throughout the state and the nation, the immediate fiscal impacts and beyond to our local governments may be unprecedented and perhaps difficult if not nearly impossible to reasonably predict at this time. Our daily operations have been stressed and stretched, and our physical and financial resources have been challenged.

I would be remiss if I did not also acknowledge the plight of our commercial member partners who are also greatly impacted by this economic hard stop. I can only hope that this economic slowdown results in a great backlog of work for you all when we come out of this on the other side. We value your support and your partnership and look forward to working with you on the path forward for our respective agencies in the coming months.

On an optimistic note, somehow through all of this there seems to a renewed sense of community. At a time when we’re being told that we need to keep our physical distance, there’s an emotional coming together of people bonded by care and concern for the human condition. For CSMFO’s part, we hear you. We see you and we’re here for you. Now more than ever, we need each other, and I encourage you to rely on your fellow CSMFO friends and colleagues for advice, perspective and comradery.

Together, we will get through this.