This year our team spent a lot of time on the road at conferences and trade shows across Georgia. We came to listen, and local leaders were generous with what they shared.
Some of it we expected. Budgets are tight and the work keeps growing. But one theme came up more often, and more honestly, than in years past. A lot of the people running Georgia’s cities and counties are tired. Many are counting the days until retirement. And almost all of them are still worried about the residents and staff they’ll leave behind.
Here’s what we learned, and what we think it means for the year ahead.
Doing more with less was the top concern we heard, and it’s not new. What’s different this year is the uncertainty. With property tax reform on the table, many managers told us they’re planning budgets without knowing what next year’s revenue will look like.
That makes every hire and every new tool a harder call. When you can’t predict the money, the safest move often feels like standing still.
The Georgia City-County Management Association (GCCMA) brings together 130 to 150 city and county managers every fall and spring. It’s one of the most candid rooms in the state, and this fall the mood was noticeably heavier than last year.
More than a dozen managers told us they’re counting down to retirement. Some said the only reason they haven’t left yet is loyalty to their staff or their residents. They aren’t checked out. They care so much that the workload is wearing them down.
Burnout isn’t limited to the top. Managers described staff stretched across too many roles, picking up work from positions that never got refilled and answering the same questions over and over. When the people who keep a city running are running on empty, residents feel it too.
What stuck with us most was what comes after. Retirement brings relief, but the managers we talked to don’t expect to stop thinking about the job. They’ll still wonder whether the team they left can keep up, and whether there was something more they could have done before they walked out the door.
That’s a heavy thing to carry. And it’s not something any one leader should have to solve alone.
When we asked leaders what makes a new project finally happen, timing came up first. Need and budget matter, but timing is what turns “someday” into “now.” And for a lot of communities, the timing never quite feels right.
That’s understandable. Budget cycles can open months out, and nobody wants to start something new in the middle of a crisis. Waiting isn’t a failure, and being later than the town next door isn’t the real risk.
The real risk is what waiting costs the people you serve. Every month the backlog stays the same, residents keep sitting on hold. They keep waiting on permits and waiting for answers to questions your staff has already answered a hundred times. The inefficiency doesn’t pause while the decision does.
It costs your team, too. The changes a leader makes now are part of what they hand off. Put them off, and the next manager inherits the same backlog and the same burned-out staff, with even less room to fix it.
Data centers and Flock cameras drew some of the biggest crowds and strongest opinions we saw all year. Where communities land varies a lot from one corner of Georgia to the next, but nearly everyone is talking about it. If you’re working out how to lead that conversation locally, our CEO Parth Shah shared his thoughts in Navigating the AI Conversation with the Public and Elected.
Every leader we met wants the same thing. They want to hand off a city or county that’s in better shape than when they arrived. Right now, too many are trying to do that while running on fumes.
The communities making progress aren’t chasing the newest thing. They’re starting small, in the places where the strain shows most. That might mean freeing staff from answering the same phone calls all day, or making sure a resident who speaks Spanish or Vietnamese can get an answer at 9 PM without waiting for the office to open.
Those wins add up. They give the people who stay a little more room to breathe, and they give the people who leave one less thing to wonder about.
If any of this sounds familiar, we’d love to hear what you’re seeing in your community. Let’s talk.
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